Chapter Text
by becoming tainted by sorrow
you never hope nor wish for anything
by becoming tainted by sorrow
you languidly linger on dreams of death
nakahara chuuya
Akutagawa is thirteen when he learns what terminal means.
Gin stands silent on the opposite end of the room, hair covering half her face, lips pursed. As soon as Akutagawa’s eyes find hers, her gaze drops to the ground. Her arms are crossed firmly over her chest, and he cannot read her expression. He’s never been especially good at reading things like that—figuring out how a person is feeling. Emotions are foreign to him, regardless of whether they are his own or they belong to another.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor tells him. “We can treat the symptoms, but we can’t cure the illness.”
This news should be devastating. It should upend Akutagawa’s entire life, leave him reeling and desperate and angry. Or…he thinks it should do all of those things.
But it falls straight through the empty cavity of his chest that does not hold a heart. He’s been prepared to die for as long as he can remember. His only worry is for his sister.
She still won’t look at him.
She’s only here because of him, because his caveat to joining the mafia was that Gin got to come too. He doesn’t think he loves Gin the same way she loves him, but he cares about her too much to leave her out in the cold, starving in the slums. He cares about her too much to leave her behind. So they’re here, together, being examined by mafia doctors upon Dazai’s insistence after Akutagawa passed out during preliminary training.
Gin was deemed as healthy as she could be, given the circumstances. Underweight and malnourished, of course—Akutagawa does not remember the last full meal they ate before joining the mafia, and even now that they have access to sustainable nutrients, they’ve discovered eating too much too quickly only results in all of it coming back up. But Gin’s lungs must have been stronger than Akutagawa’s at the point of their creation. While she has traces of temporary damage and was prescribed her own inhaler for the duration of the healing process, she was not labeled terminal.
That curse was reserved exclusively for Akutagawa.
“Will it affect my ability to fight?” Akutagawa asks. It’s the first thing he’s said since this examination started, apart from answering the nurses’ initial questions about personal information for both himself and Gin.
The doctor hesitates. That’s enough of an answer, but Akutagawa vows to prove her wrong. He will do whatever it takes to find the reason he’s alive, and if that means pushing his terminal body as far as it will go, so be it.
“You’ll have to be careful,” is the response the doctor finally settles on. “You aren’t the first child to join the mafia in a state of illness like this. If you survive your first few weeks, your condition will likely improve. That doesn’t mean you’re cured—you’ll know what your body’s limits are, and you shouldn’t push them if at all possible.”
Akutagawa nods. It’s an acknowledgment that he heard what she said; not assurance that he will obey her suggestions.
Gin does not meet his eyes for the rest of the appointment, and she does not say a word.
— —
That night, holed up in the new apartment where Dazai arranged for them to stay, Gin finally asks him, “Are you having second thoughts about joining?”
“No,” Akutagawa answers without thinking. “Are you?”
Gin shakes her head. She draws her knees close to her chest. “But…can we pretend again?”
Akutagawa tilts his head.
“When the others thought I was a boy,” Gin explains, “and we didn’t correct them, because they didn’t allow girls into the group. I want to pretend like that.”
Akutagawa frowns. He doesn’t understand why Gin would want to do that now—there are no rules in the mafia saying girls can’t join. Pretending requires she stay silent around everyone except Akutagawa because her voice will give her away. It means being careful when and where she goes to the bathroom. It means finding baggy clothing that hides the shape of her body. It’s a considerable amount of effort they only bothered with because Akutagawa refused to be separated from her, and there is strength in numbers.
“Are you sure? You don’t have to anymore.”
Gin nods. “I feel…safer. When I pretend.”
Akutagawa still doesn’t understand. But maybe that’s because it’s safer to be a boy than it is to be a girl, so of course he wouldn’t feel safer pretending to be the opposite gender.
“Okay,” he agrees. There’s still the issue that Dazai knows the truth, and so do the nurses and the doctor they talked to today. But if Akutagawa is insistent enough, maybe he can convince everyone that Gin has always been a boy.
He can make it work. He will honor Gin’s request, because that is what you do when you care about someone.
— —
It takes one swift kick to the stomach for Akutagawa to have the breath stolen from his lungs. He doubles over, heaving and hacking. Vaguely, he can register words being exchanged around him, but he’s too focused on forcing himself to breathe to listen in. He scrambles for the inhaler the doctor gave him, except he didn’t bring it today because he didn’t want to use it while training with Dazai.
Gin should have hers.
He lifts his gaze in time to see Dazai slam Gin back against the wall. Fear flashes through her eyes, but the hesitation only lasts a moment before she brings her knee up, nailing him right in the stomach.
Dazai stumbles backwards, and white-hot jealousy flares through Akutagawa. She makes it look so easy. She dodges his next jab like it’s nothing, rolling out of reach, grabs her own inhaler from her pocket, and slides it across the floor to Akutagawa.
It hits his knee softly, and he just stares at it. He hears a thump.
A hand rests on his shoulder, and it takes him several seconds too long to place it as Chuuya’s. “Shit, dude,” he’s saying. “Are you trying to kill these kids?”
Chuuya picks up the inhaler and places it in Akutagawa’s hands. Muscle memory alone allows him to take it, inhaling as deeply as his lungs will allow as he puffs the medicine into his mouth. Wait five seconds, then do it again.
When his vision clears, he finds Gin facedown on the ground, Dazai seated on her back. She looks more annoyed than hurt, which is good.
Chuuya’s hand is still on his shoulder.
“You failed,” Dazai announces. Akutagawa’s face must fall at that, because Dazai adds, “Not you; Gin-chan.”
Akutagawa opens his mouth to correct Dazai, but his voice fails him. His tongue is dry. The bitter aftertaste left by the inhaler lingers like a ghost.
Gin makes a vague noise of confusion.
“Personal attachments have no place in the mafia.” Dazai stands to his feet. He offers Gin a hand, but she refuses, pushing herself up on her own. She glares at him the entire time, but stays dutifully silent. Akutagawa wishes he were strong enough to rise to his feet without aid after being knocked down like that. He wishes he were strong.
Dazai rescinds his hand and shoves it into his pocket. “It is for your own benefit that I suggest you do not let anyone else know the two of you are siblings,” he says. “Chuuya, take Gin-chan away. I want her training elsewhere.”
Chuuya huffs. Akutagwa watches as he stands, brushing his hands off. He readjusts his hat.
“And Akutagawa-kun, return Gin-chan’s inhaler.”
“No.” Gin’s voice rings out light and airy, but firm. Even the mask obscuring the bottom half of her face does not muffle her determination. Before Dazai can throw her to the ground again, she adds, “That one isn’t mine.”
Akutagawa looks down at the inhaler in his hands. On the side, scrawled in black marker, is the first character of his given name. He looks back up to find Gin has dug her own inhaler from her pocket, holding it up so Dazai can see she’s telling the truth.
Dazai clicks his tongue. “Even worse.” Venom drips from his words. “Fix that, Gin-chan, or you won’t last another week.”
Anger burns bright in Gin’s expression. But she makes the smart move, bowing her head in compliance. “I understand.”
Chuuya leads her out of the training room, and she keeps her head held high. Akutagawa doesn’t know what they’re going to do to her. He knows better than to ask.
— —
After Dazai dismisses her, Nakahara leads Gin from the training room with one hand on her back. She wants to ask where she’s being taken—a holding cell, maybe, for talking back to an executive? A torture chamber? She’ll face whatever it is so long as she can prevent Ryuu from suffering the same fate, or something even worse. She wants to ask what will happen to Ryuu as well, but she isn’t sure if speaking will worsen her punishment. Nakahara isn’t an executive, but his rank is high enough that he can probably do whatever he pleases with her.
She isn’t supposed to speak regardless, if she intends to hide her birth gender from the rest of the mafia.
“Kid,” Nakahara says, yanking Gin from her thoughts. “I thought your brother said you were a boy?”
Gin bites her lip. She isn’t sure how she’s supposed to respond to that. It might be a trap, to get her to admit they’ve both lied. She isn’t sure what the reprimand for that would be. Maybe nothing more than a slap on the wrist, or maybe a bullet to the head.
Nakahara huffs. “I just need to know how you want me to refer to you.”
He seems to be telling the truth, but Gin hasn’t spent enough time around him to be certain. Then again, staying silent may be seen as a sign of disrespect. And if Nakahara doesn’t get a straight answer, he’ll likely just resort to referring to her how Dazai refers to her—as a girl.
“I’m not a boy,” Gin whispers, “but I would like to be seen as one while I’m here.”
Nakahara stops walking. Gin follows suit.
“You…only want to be a boy while you’re here?” Nakahara raises an eyebrow. “Not all the time?”
“It’s just pretend,” Gin explains.
“It wouldn’t have to be.”
Gin tilts her head. That doesn’t make sense—she’s a girl, and she always has been, even if she’s spent half her life pretending otherwise.
“You can change your gender, if you want,” Nakahara explains. “There are surgeries and hormones and shit, but you don’t need any of those if you don’t want ‘em. We can update your medical records—change your gender and maybe your name—and you can just be a boy all the time.”
Gin’s frown deepens. That sounds fake. And she’s not a boy anyway.
She shakes her head. “No thank you. I just want to be seen as a boy while with the mafia, not elsewhere. And…my voice gives me away, so I won’t be speaking while I’m here.” Maybe she should have phrased it as a request, but if she learned one thing while living on the streets, it’s that confidence will get you a lot farther than hesitation. If she lets Nakahara know she’s already made up her mind, he’ll be less likely to try to talk her out of it.
Nakahara shrugs, then continues walking. “Whatever you want. Just wanted to make sure you knew you had the option.”
— —
“Hirotsu-san!” Nakahara calls out, waving to grab the attention of an old man leaning against the wall, a cigarette between his lips.
Hirotsu turns. He removes the cigarette, holding it between two fingers. “Chuuya-kun,” he greets politely, with a slight nod of his head. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Nakahara grins. “I’ve got someone I want you to meet.” He gestures to Gin. “This is Gin-kun, one of Dazai’s new recruits. He wants him training with the Black Lizard—said he’s got a lot of potential. And Gin-kun,” Nakahara turns to look at Gin. “This is Hirotsu-san, commander of the mafia’s assassination squad, the Black Lizard.”
Gin bows.
“He doesn’t talk,” Nakahara explains. “Shouldn’t be a problem, though. He managed to get a good kick in on Dazai this morning. Anyone who can touch that bastard deserves a trophy in my book.”
Hirotsu looks Gin over once, then nods. “Very well. We have a few new recruits who just recently started training; I’ll have him join them.” He looks at Gin. “Does that sound okay?”
Gin blinks, not having expected to be addressed directly. When she refused to speak to the others in the slums, Ryuu became her voice. As such, the others would direct all questions for Gin to Ryuu, even if it was something she could have answered without words.
Gin nods sharply.
“Good.” There’s a new glint in Hirotsu’s eyes now—something akin to excitement. He puts out his cigarette. “Your training begins immediately.”
— —
The first thing Ryuu asks when Gin returns home that night is, “What did they do to you?”
Gin shakes her head as she unhooks her mask from her ears. “Nothing. Nakahara-san introduced me to the leader of the Black Lizard, and I started training with them.” She shrugs off her coat and tosses it onto the counter, because they still don’t have a coat rack. Or any other furniture, really—just a futon large enough for them to share, a battered chair, and the counters and appliances that came with the apartment.
“Oh.” Ryuu looks her over, as if he doesn’t quite believe that could be possible. Gin has a couple bruises from training, but Ryuu surely suffered worse. “I’m…sorry?”
He says it like a question, like he isn’t sure if he should be apologizing or not. Gin has grown accustomed to this sort of behavior from her brother—he often seems unsure which emotion he should be expressing in response to certain situations, so he just guesses.
Gin waves off his concern. “It’s not your fault.” It’s Dazai’s fault for being a ruthless, heartless, monster, but he wouldn’t be a mafia executive if he weren’t. But she doesn’t think her brother would appreciate her distaste towards his newfound mentor, so she bites back the insult. Instead, she tells him, “Nakahara-san agreed to refer to me as a boy.”
She almost adds the other information she learned today—that she could change her gender and become a boy permanently, if she wanted—but something stops her. She can’t exactly place what it is. Maybe she’s worried Ryuu will laugh at such a silly notion, or maybe it just seems like that information is a little too personal to speak aloud. She can always tell him later, if she deems it necessary, but for now…
For now, she likes it being her own little secret.
Ryuu nods slowly. “Will you be able to get by without speaking when we aren’t together?”
“Yes. Nakahara-san told the leader of the Black Lizard that I don’t talk, and he seemed okay with it.” She brushes past him, moving to sit on their shared futon so Ryuu will take the chair. “I can take care of myself, you know.”
“I know.” Ryuu furrows his eyebrows. He looks like he’s about to say something else, but snaps his mouth shut instead. He prowls over to the chair and sits down, hands folded in his lap. “I’m worried about you,” he says, like it’s a brand-new discovery he’s just made.
Gin giggles. “Yeah, dummy. I know. I’m worried for you too; that’s how having a sibling works.” She sighs, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “But we’ll be okay. We’ve got each other, and we’ve survived this long with just that.”
“We have,” Ryuu agrees. His eyes have a faraway look to them. Gin takes a moment to study him, while he’s out of it—he’s still wearing the coat Dazai gave him, and it works wonders to hide his frail form, giving the illusion that he’s healthier than he is. Gin’s own jacket is nothing more than tattered scraps which she keeps buttoned up as best as she can, because her chest has started to grow in ways she isn’t particularly fond of. Ways that expose which gender she was born as.
Ryuu will never have to worry about something like that.
Gin finds herself slightly envious. It would be much easier to pretend if she didn’t have to worry about her body changing, growing to look more and more like a woman’s with each passing day. It would be so much easier if her body were like Ryuu’s. Flat chest, angular jaw, straight hips.
She isn’t doubting what she told Nakahara earlier—she doesn’t want to be a boy, really.
She just wishes she looked like one.
— —
The first winter with the Port Mafia is the worst.
Compared to their years spent on the streets, it’s heaven. But Akutagawa spends most of the cold months sick, dragging himself into work against Gin’s pleading. He can’t let himself show weakness. Especially not in front of Dazai. Especially not when Gin is in perfect health.
So, he takes his inhaler in the bathroom and he grits his teeth and forces himself to breathe through the training. He hones his ability, desperate to compensate for his physical weaknesses. If no one can touch him, there is no need to run. There is no need to exert energy he doesn’t have.
But Rashomon only works as long as Dazai does not make contact with it.
It’s late when Gin finds him lying on his back in one of the training rooms. Akutagawa doesn’t know how long it’s been since Dazai dismissed him and left. He still hasn’t quite managed to catch his breath. There’s blood on his chin.
“Chuuya-san said I would find you here,” she tells him. He doesn’t have the energy to respond.
Gin huffs. She helps him to his feet—always stronger despite being smaller than him. She supports his weight like it’s nothing. They’re training her to be an assassin, apparently. Quick, silent, deadly. Akutagawa used to be heralded as the silent killer, but now…
Now, he needs help standing up.
“You can take a sick day, you know,” Gin tells him.
“You aren’t supposed to help me,” he responds.
Gin scoffs. She doesn’t say anything else. Akutagawa wants to pull away, but he’s afraid he’ll fall over again if he does. So he lets Gin walk him out of the Port Mafia headquarters, and he doesn’t complain when she makes one of the older Black Lizard members drive them home.
— —
Akutagawa wakes in the night gasping for breath.
It’s startling, but he’s dealt with this feeling before—his lungs squeezing themselves, his throat dry and desperate, his brain muddled from lack of oxygen. He throws his blankets off and ignores his vision blurring as he stands to his feet. His inhaler is in the kitchen. He just has to make it there.
But he only manages a few wobbly steps before a wave of dizziness rockets through his body and he goes down. The floor comes at him fast, and it’s all he can do to brace himself with his arms before his face smacks into it. He’d rather deal with bruised wrists than a broken nose.
Belatedly, he realizes he can’t breathe.
He tries to force air into his body only to choke on it, and he is imminently made aware of the burning sensation in his lungs. He doesn’t know what’s wrong—it isn’t typically this bad unless he’s been physically exerting himself. It shouldn’t be this bad in the middle of the night.
Akutagawa continues gasping for air, trying to coax his lungs into accepting anything. His vision is fading by the time Gin enters his line of sight. She kneels beside him, placing one hand under his chin to lift his head. Then, she places his inhaler in his mouth.
“On three,” she instructs.
She waits until Akutagawa’s eyes focus on her, and then begins counting. On three, she pushes down on the canister and Akutagawa forces himself to breathe in. His chest clenches, but he holds the next cough until the inhaler is no longer positioned between his lips. Gin shifts, moving to rub his back.
Akutagawa doesn’t know how long he spends heaving on his bedroom floor. Gin stays by his side the entire time, silent but soothing. He hates to disturb her, but as always, she is the only one who will save him. Even when warned against it, even when Dazai was insistent on smothering any attachment between them, for their own safety.
Gin still cares.
Akutagawa thinks he might, too. But Gin cares without shame while Akutagawa hates his own heart.
“Sorry,” he whispers once he can convince his voice to work.
“There is no reason to apologize.”
Akutagawa would beg to differ, but his lungs still ache and speaking is more effort than it’s worth right now. So he simply leans into Gin’s touch as he chokes on yet another cough.
The taste of copper spills onto his tongue. He swallows it.
“You should stay home today,” Gin says softly.
Akutagawa shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
His entire body aches, and he’s still short of breath, and his cough has been flaring up since the weather turned, but he can’t stay home. He can’t be weak. He can’t give Dazai a reason to discard him, can’t be the reason Gin has to return to the slums. He can’t be the reason she dies.
“You’re not.”
“Gin—”
“One day,” she pleads. She pushes herself to her feet. “I will shoulder the blame. I will tell Dazai-san I forbade you from showing up today because I was paranoid about your illness.”
It won’t matter if Gin blames it on herself or not; at the end of the day, Akutagawa’s body still failed him. Regardless of the true severity of his illness, if he stays home—even solely on Gin’s orders—it will have been enough to bring concern.
“Just for today,” Gin pushes. “Take one day off, and I will stop pestering you. I promise.”
Akutagawa wants to argue, but he doesn’t have the energy. He doesn’t have the energy to push himself to his feet. His face hurts and his chest hurts and he’s dizzy just sitting on the ground. If he attempts to train with Dazai today, he can’t imagine it will be more than a few seconds before he passes out.
“Okay,” he relents. One day of rest, one day to recover his strength, and then he will return. Dazai may walk a step above humanity—he may dance with demons and never fear the ailments of mortals—but Akutagawa cannot reach that level of divinity. That chance was stolen from him back when his body was first created.
He will sacrifice one day now so he is not forced to sacrifice more later.
— —
One day turns into two turns into an entire week that Akutagawa is out of commission. What started out as a simple cold quickly took a turn for the worst, even after having spent an entire day resting. When Gin finally convinced him to talk to the mafia doctors, they offered him a pneumonia diagnosis, prescribing a bottle of pills and more bedrest.
Akutagawa spends his sick time alone, mostly. Gin returns as often as she can. She makes him tea and soup, because food has never agreed much with him and it only gets worse the sicker he becomes. During the height of the illness, Gin takes a day off herself to stay beside him.
He told her not to, but Gin rarely listens to anyone.
She brings back well wishes from Dazai and Chuuya, though Akutagawa has reason to believe she’s butchering their messages. She delivers the words kindly, running her fingers through his sweat-slicked hair before pressing the back of her hand against his forehead. The fearsome executives Akutagawa knows would not be so nice. Certainly not to him.
The days blur into weeks as Akutagawa’s body fights against itself. The fever muddles his thoughts and the medicine makes him drowsy and he loses track of time. Rather than being split into day and night, his time is split between when Gin is home and when she is not. The wind howls outside and Akutagawa shivers beneath his blankets despite his high temperature.
He wonders if it would be easier for Gin if this sickness took him out.
But it does not.
Eventually, Akutagawa’s fever breaks. The heavy snow clouds disperse and sunlight makes the entire world sparkle. The pills run out and Akutagawa returns to work despite his lingering cough and the perpetual ache in his chest. Gin glares daggers of disapproval at him, but she still helps him dress and winds a scarf around his neck before they leave the apartment.
Instead of immediately resuming their training, Dazai drops a stack of papers and files into Akutagawa’s arms, then directs him to the Black Lizard office. Once he’s situated at a desk that is not his, Dazai prances away, promising to check in later.
Akutagawa sighs. But he obediently makes his way through the mountain of paperwork. Most of it appears to be overdue, and there are several things Akutagawa is simply not capable of doing. Like writing a report on one of Dazai’s missions, which took place while he was rotting away in his bed. Still, he tries his best and hopes it might be enough for even a backhanded compliment.
(It’s not. It never is.)
By the end of the day, Akutagawa is winded. He scarcely moved from his seat, but even walking the short distance to meet up with Gin before leaving exhausts him. They go home, Akutagawa eats half a bowl of soup, and then he crashes.
— —
The rest of winter is spent much like this. The temperature dips low and Akutagawa’s body protests with aching bones and wet coughs and stuffy noses. Snow coats Yokohama and Akutagawa finds himself sent to the mafia doctors far more often than he would like. Far more often than anyone should need to be. And to make matters worse, Gin is not the only one concerned for his health.
Chuuya finds him half-asleep and miserable at his desk and practically carries him to the infirmary. He has an asthma attack during training and Dazai cuts him off for the day, ordering him to report to the doctors instead. He takes Elise shopping and when he drops her back off in Mori’s office, arms laden with too much candy for any one child, the boss himself suggests, in no uncertain terms, that Akutagawa take the rest of the day off and ask for cold medicine from the doctors on his way out.
Sickness is a liability, he’d said.
Fix yourself, is what Akutagawa heard.
He spends all winter trying to force away his illness, but nothing works. He forgets what healthy even is for him until after late March melts the last of the snow and he can breathe again.
Throughout the long winter months, Gin did not get sick once.
On the first warm day of the season, Gin drags Akutagawa outside, citing that the fresh air will be good for him. Akutagawa doubts it will have any substantial effect one way or the other, but he lets Gin do as she pleases. They have a picnic in the park and Gin wears a long floral-patterned skirt. Akutagawa doesn’t eat as much as he should, but he never does. Things are almost normal.
A tiny dog shoots past them, its leash dragging behind it uselessly. It’s followed shortly by a shout of, “Hey! No! Come back!”
Akutagawa and Gin both look up to find a young woman chasing after the dog, out of breath.
Gin, quicker than Akutagawa can blink, darts after the dog herself. She corners it easily, grabbing the leash by where it’s attached to the collar, then allows the dog to sniff her hand before scooping it up into her arms.
She returns it to the woman without so much as breaking a sweat. Even her hair has not been misplaced by the sudden action.
Akutagawa watches in envy as she bows to the woman, then pats the dog’s head. His own chest is tight just thinking about having to run. He raises his fist to his mouth, stifling a cough.
Gin returns to their picnic blanket, graceful as she sits down. No matter what she’s doing, she moves with the poise of a dancer. Like it’s ingrained into her very being, like she was built for it. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then smiles at Akutagawa as if she didn’t just perform a task that would have snatched all the oxygen from his lungs and left him heaving on the ground.
She takes her skills for granted, Akutagawa thinks. She may not have an ability like he does, but she certainly is gifted. Dazai and Chuuya both saw her potential straight away, insisting she train with the best assassins the Port Mafia has to offer. She quickly blew past all the new Black Lizard recruits and graduated to lessons with the executive in charge of one-on-one training. The executive whom Akutagawa thought was a myth until Gin disclosed that she would be training under him.
Akutagawa may have an ability, but he will never possess the physical skills Gin does. His body simply will not allow it.
He’s been sick all winter.
He is never going to get better.
— —
It should have been a simple mission.
Akutagawa was sent as backup for Chuuya—he shouldn’t have had to do anything, really. Chuuya can take down entire gangs on his own. He is easily the Port Mafia’s strongest ability user. Akutagawa should have only needed to stand back and watch.
But their information was wrong, and now Akutagawa has been separated from Chuuya, running through back allies, dodging chunks of concrete being flung in his direction. What sort of ability is concrete manipulation?! And how was this guy able to tear back control of the sidewalk from Chuuya’s gravity? Akutagawa has some serious bones to pick with the universe right now.
But he can’t focus on that because his lungs are burning and screaming, and he does have his inhaler in his pocket for once, but he can’t very well stop to take it without getting killed. He needs to get back to Chuuya—loop around and regroup—but he isn’t sure his body will hold up that long.
The tendrils of Rashoumon shoot back towards his enemy again, only to be immediately crushed. So much for cutting through any material. What good is this stupid ability if some random nobody with too big an ego can crumple it like an aluminum can? And why did Chuuya insist he lure this enemy away via running while they took care of the other one?
Life is a joke, Akutagawa decides. And he has never been particularly apt at understanding humor.
The pavement opens up below him, and in a fit of desperation, Akutagawa digs Rashoumon into the side of the nearest building, pulling himself to safety just before his enemy can trap his feet in the ground. He swings himself onto a fire escape and then, finally, takes a moment to breathe.
He realizes very quickly that a break was a bad idea.
Instead of intaking a few quick gulps of oxygen before continuing on his way, Akutagawa’s chest and throat close in on themselves. He stumbles, slamming against the railing, and a painful cough is ripped from his throat. He doubles over, spitting blood from his mouth, wincing at the sight.
Gin is not going to be happy.
(But Gin never has to deal with situations like this.)
Fighting through his lightheadedness, Akutagawa lunges towards the stairs. He clambers to the roof hastily, vision blurring at the edges. He can’t tell if the ability user is still following him or not. He’s surprised he isn’t dead.
He makes it to the roof, and then he immediately collapses. The world goes dark before his body has even hit the floor.
— —
Akutagawa wakes to the incessant beeping of a heart monitor. His head is pounding and there is an oxygen mask over his face. He pries his eyes open to find Gin seated in a chair beside his bed, her face blank. The room is otherwise empty.
His chest rattles when he inhales. Gin starts, then reaches forward and brushes his hair out of his eyes.
“You’re an idiot,” she whispers, voice muffled by the mask still hiding the bottom half of her face. “You shouldn’t push yourself like that.”
“I had no choice.” Akutagawa’s voice is rough when it comes out. It hurts to speak, but that is nothing unusual. “Would you have rather I perished?”
Gin flinches. “Don’t…” she looks away. “Don’t say things like that.”
Akutagawa does not understand. He only had two options, and he selected the one that might allow him a chance at surviving the mission. His opponents do not care about his terminal condition; they will only see it as a weakness to exploit. Dazai and Chuuya and Mori do not care about his illness; they see it as merely an obstacle to overcome. Gin could not possibly understand, because Gin’s body does not hate her. Gin’s body was not created with its fate already written in her veins.
“I wish you would take better care of yourself,” she whispers.
Why? Akutagawa wants to ask. What is the point? He will die sooner rather than later, and he has come to accept this. He will devote whatever time he has left to proving himself worthy of being Dazai’s pupil. There is no reason to concern himself with anything beyond that. Taking care of his body will not make it last. The rot will consume him regardless.
But something in Gin’s expression convinces him to hold his tongue. His eyes slip shut, and instead of arguing, he relents.
“I will try,” he says. It’s what Gin wants to hear, and lying bears no weight on Akutagawa’s already-bloodstained soul.
“Thank you.”
He supposes, perhaps, he could at least try eating more. He could take the medicine he is prescribed until it runs out rather than just until his symptoms begin to fade. It may only provide temporary strength, but…he needs to become stronger if he wants to please Dazai. So he will try.
He will likely die in a handful of years, but until then, he will at least acknowledge that his body is the vessel through which he connects with the world around him. It does not deserve his love, but it requires more sustenance than Akutagawa has been offering.
Gin reaches out and takes his hand in hers. She should not be offering him affection—certainly not here, where anyone could walk in and see.
But he doesn’t pull away. He lets her hold his hand as he drifts back to sleep, granting himself the rest he knows he needs.