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It was night in the Port Mafia and Akutagawa had been caught up in paperwork that he had forgotten to do. There were piles upon piles of files and binders, all with things that needed to be looked over or signed a signature. The mafioso was quite overwhelmed and stumped in the midst of it all (like anyone would be). His desk was placed right beside the window, allowing the moonlight to shine upon him from the outside.
Exhausted, he spaced off and gazed into the planets beauty, admiring the craters he could see; he'd make things out of it, a horse, a tiger, heck even Dazai seemed probable, anything was possible.
Playing this game made the mafioso feel... fuzzy? It was a fuzzy and warm feeling he could feel from the bottom of his heart down to his stomach. He felt like he was swimming in syrup and it suddenly was put to a boil. His thoughts began to haze, his muscles loosened, and his worries faded away.
'No. This cannot be happening right now' he thought. This couldn't be happening in the midst of his duties; his work and less so on Port Mafia territory.
He shook off the feeling and forced his attention back to the paperwork he had to do. The words swirled themselves, they didn't make sense; he was unable to comprehend what he was reading, the words looked blurry and mushed into each other. Paragraph after paragraph overlapped, one after one, making it harder to read by the second. Words lifted themselves off of the page and flew in the air, surrounding his entire prescence. The words were winning, and he was nothing more than a bad dream. He wished just for one second that he could feel the warmth of love.
In a pathetic attempt to combat this, the black haired man started doodling on his paper, hoping that giving himself a little time to destress would be able to get himself back on track. It backfired, like how most of his plans did.
Akutagawa skimmed and looked through every paper in front of him, hoping that one would make sense, maybe the words would return back to their papers. But to his demise, none of them did; the words tilted and tranced, they sung and grew. The fonts changed, from comic sans to times new roman, from bold to ultra thin, from size eleven to size sixty-two.
He slouched on his chair and tears began to fill up his eyes. Everything became blurrier as the words teased him and his entire reason of being and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
His body slumped itself to the ground and he found himself under his desk, sobbing and sniffling so quietly like a lost puppy that got hit by a car. Even though there was a low chance that anyone was even in the building right now, he did not wanna risk it; for the sake of his reputation, his desires, his ego.
Akutagawa put his knees against his chest and started rocking back and forth in an attempt to soothe himself. His chest heaving up and down, sometimes, it felt like it was swaying side to side. And when none of those soothing tactics worked, his thumb slowly made its way to his mouth and he sucked and nibbled on it.
'I'm pathetic, I'm fucking pathetic. My life is shit because I deserve it, right? I must've done something really bad..."
His thoughts consumed him, negative and intrusive thoughts scattered across his mind and sunk themselves into each individual crevice of his brain. He started to scratch himself as none of his coping strategies were working. He was a failure, he was worthless. He was put on this earth to be another person's pawn until they discarded him as nothing more than empty bottles of rum.
Suddenly, someone walked in into the room he was in.
He panicked. What will he do if it was one of the Port Executives? Surely he'd be ridiculed and thrown out like he always was. Will rumours spread and will he be forced to flee again?
All these thoughts made him want to sob, he wanted to sob so loud so that the whole world could hear it. But it was nearly impossible for him to cry now... The scratching of his arm fastened, he could feel the burning sensation and the tearing of his skin. Each skin follicle coming off his body, releasing itself from his treacherous persona. No one, nothing, should ever be attached to the Diablo.
These thoughts, this sense of panic caused his lungs to make him cough.
'Nonononono' the regressed mafioso thought as another cough escaped his throat. Another sharp burst of panic waved throughout his body, causing him to yet again, fasten the pace of his arm scratching.
"I know someone's in here" the voice said. It appeared to be a male, but amidst his sobs, Akutagawa could not decipher who it was.
Akutagawa coughed again and he heard footsteps head in his direction.
He was panicking, everything felt so big and he felt so small, so inferior and weak; vulnerable.
The man made his way to Akutagawa's desk. The shoes, he recognized the shoes and the pants; it was Chuuya. Great, one of the Port Executives had found him.
Chuuya looked under the desk, and with a confused look he said "Akutagawa? What are you doin' under here?"
Akutagawa kept scratching his arm and sucking his thumb, moving his knees closer to his chest, facing his head down. He kept quiet, hoping that the red haired man would go away.
The Port Executive noticed the scratching Akutagawa was inflicting on himself. "Hey, hey, Akutagawa," he paused, sounding concerned, "Stop doin' that"
Akutagawa didn't reply, nor did he stop. If he repeated to himself that he'd leave, he would.
"Akutagawa Ryunosuke."
The mafioso was too busy hearing his own tears to comprehend that Chuuya was talking to him, his mind continued to tell him horrible things.
Worried, Chuuya grabbed Akutagawa's hand and pulled it away. "What is goin' on?"
This action startled Akutagawa and he bursted out wailing and sobbing all of what he was trying to contain.
"Hey, hey, hey. I'm sorry, just," the red haired man was stumped. He didn't know what to do or how to help his friend. "You're bleeding, Aku. I have bandages in my office, can we walk there to clean your arm up?" Chuuya spoke in a gentle tone.
Akutagawa attempted to compose himself; ultimately failing again. He stumbled and tripped over his words until he managed to say, "M'tay..."
Through his sobs, Akutagawa stood up with the help of Chuuya and grabbed onto his pinky. Chuuya noticed how his voice sounded... high pitched and babyish? Along with the excessive crying, he wanted to figure out why Akutagawa was acting like this.
They walked through the hallways of the Port Mafia, as it was 2:00AM, no one was there. They made it to Chuuya's office and Chuuya instructed Akutagawa to sit on the sofa while he went to go get the bandages.
Akutagawa hiccuped and sniffled repeatedly. Chuuya came back with the bandages and tended to Akutagawa's wounds.
"T-Tamks chu," Akutagawa mumbled out.
"You're welcome, do ya mind explaining to me what's going on? If not, I got a good guess"
"I- uhm, I don-" Akutagawa was embarrassed and struggled finding the words to describe his current dilemma. "I don't know.. " he struggled to find the other words.
"Small?" Chuuya asked and Akutagawa slowly nodded yes and put his thumb back in his mouth.
"Hey, hey, we don't do that, it's bad for your teeth," Chuuya paused, thinking about how he should word what he was about to say. "How about we go to ya apartment and we can deal with this there?"
Akutagawa nodded in agreement.
Chuuya led Akutagawa out of the Port Mafia, but instead of grabbing onto his pinky, he grabbed onto Chuuya's sleeve. Akutagawa's legs felt wobbly and his eyelids felt heavy. Remaining shut for longer periods of time.
They got to Chuuya's car and Akutagawa sat in the passenger seat, struggling to put on his seatbelt.
"Do you need help with that?" Akutagawa nodded in response.
Chuuya safely buckled in Akutagawa and drove to his apartment.
Once they got there, Akutagawa was sleeping ever so peacefully, his dark circles made him look especially tired on top of all that crying.
Chuuya quietly got out of his car and went to go get Akutagawa out of his seat. He picked him up and carried him to the door, there was a spare key under the mat so he used that to get in.
He laid the sleeping mafioso on the couch in the living room as he took off their shoes. He got a blanket from a nearby closet and draped it over Akutagawa.
After a while, he woke up from his slumber with Chuuya sleeping beside him. Out of nowhere, Akutagawa starts bawling and pulling his hair, awaking Chuuya immediately.
"Hey, hey, hey, shhhh. It's okay. Aku, I'm here"
His words didn't reach the wailing mafioso. Chuuya gently rubs circles on Akutagawa's back, "Sweetheart, baby, I'm right here"
Those words reached Akutagawa. He wasn't used to being called such sweet names, much less pet names. He stopped pulling on his hair, his wails reduced to sniffles and occasional gulps.
"There you go, you're doin' a great job"
Was he really doing a great job, though? All he's done is cry, and complain, and show Chuuya how much of a mess; how pathetic Akutagawa Ryuunosuke really is. Chuuya was just fooling himself into believing a lie to deal with something he had no control over.
"D'you wanna change?" The red haired man broke the silence.
Akutagawa nodded as he was regressed really young, at most he was two years old right now.
Chuuya carried the crying mafioso into his room and Akutagawa hesitantly showed him where his clothes are. The mafioso rummaged through his closet and pulled out a dark purple box. He grabbed it and held it tight whilst Chuuya sat them both on the floor. He opened the box and revealed a bunch of gear. However, he normally didn't have anyone looking after him. Most of the time, he was alone.
He pulled out an oversized hoodie that had dinosaur spikes on the back.
The mafioso attempted to take off his clothes by himself but the task seemed so difficult, he was unable to undo any buttons or unzip any zippers. He was on the verge of crying, with his lip poking out and tears on his eyes.
"I'll help you, kiddo," Chuuya helped undress the little and helped him put on shorts and the oversized dinosaur hoodie.
Akutagawa looked up at Chuuya, his eyes asking to be picked up and coddled, to really seal the deal, he even did the grabby hands motion, further getting his point across.
"Alright, alright," Chuuya complied and picked up the almost happy little. He noticed that he was rather light for his height, lighter than Chuuya for that matter. This concerned him but he knew not to mention it until Akutagawa was in his adult headspace again.
Chuuya walked over to the living room and placed Akutagawa on the couch while he went to go retrieve the dark purple box from the littles bedroom. He placed it near the table and looked through it, with Akutagawa looking at him.
He grabbed this fluffy black cat stuffed animal that immediately lit a light in Akutagawa's eyes.
"You want it?" he asked.
"M'yes p-pwease!" Akutagawa blurted out, his speaking was getting incomprehensible and less understandable which meant that he was dropping down further into the regression.
Chuuya took note of that and kept looking through the box. He pulled out a coloring book, a black pacifier that was covered in cat stickers, a blanket, a few toys (rattle, building blocks, and a light-up talking toy), a sippy cup, a bottle, and a few diapers.
All of this signified to him that Akutagawa was aware of his own regression.
Chuuya pulled out his phone and checked the time, it was 6:00AM. Meaning that Akutagawa hadn't slept long at all. The Port Executive wondered if the regressed mafioso had eaten at all.
"Sunshine, psst, Aku" he cooed, "When was the last time you ate? Do ya remember?"
Akutagawa held up two fingers.
"Two days...?" Chuuya guessed.
"M'tms!" The regressed mafioso replied.
"Oh no, that's not good, sweets. I can make you some pancakes if ya want"
Akutagawa rapidly nodded his head yes.
"M'tilks?"
"Hmm? You want milk?"
He nodded his head again.
Chuuya handed the little some building blocks and watched as he put them in his mouth, everything he could get ahold of was covered in saliva.
To distract him, Chuuya put on Odasaku man on the TV, hoping it'd keep him content enough until he was done making the pancakes.
Chuuya grabbed the bottle and washed it. He then poured milk into it and heated it up in the microwave.
'If he's this regressed, does that mean he will have an accident if I...?' The red haired man thought. He figured it'd be best to go ask Akutagawa.
"Aku~ I have a bottle for you but I don't want you havin' any accidents"
Akutagawa stared at him with not a thought in his mind.
'Shit, he's probably too regressed to even understand me right now' "Imma put a diaper on you, alright? Just for safety measures"
Chuuya grabbed a diaper from the table that was in the living room and changed Akutagawa. Luckily, he had no accidents.
"There you go!" 'Let's hope I never have to do that again' "Here's your bottle."
Akutagawa smiled and attempted to hold the bottle up with his hands, it failed. So, Chuuya propped it up for him so he could drink it while lying down, watching Odasaku man.
Chuuya went back to the kitchen and made the pancakes, which took around thirty minutes. He cut Akutagawa's portion into really tiny pieces and drizzled a bit of syrup on them.
He brought the plates to the living room, Akutagawa still hadn't finished his bottle. Which panned out just fine in the end.
Akutagawa completely ignored the fork that was given to him and used his hands to stuff his face with food, Chuuya hadn't forgotten about Akutagawa's meds, he snuck them into one of the pancake pieces that Akutagawa had gobbled up. He looked happy like this. In the Port Mafia, he's always so cold and stoic, hardly showing any emotion. But regressed, he was the complete opposite; this side of him made him seem human.
As Chuuya finished his plate, he noticed Akutagawa's eyes start to get droopy. He scooted over to his side and let him lay on his lap. Chuuya put the black pacifier in the littles mouth and watched him drift into a deep slumber. Hopefully, he'd sleep longer this time.