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Yokohama is once again anxious.The tension is palpable, like a miasma of electricity and sour lemons. An invisible enemy has taken the stage for the last fifteen agonizing days. All of the news reports linger on the unknowns, the worry, and the terror. The headlines are all the same story. The gossip never strays from the topic for long.
Wars have been started over far less than this, but a few hundred deaths to an insurmountable enemy is a war not so simply waged. Fear of the unknown leaves a city as dark and ruthless as this at a razor-thin edge. The smallest change now could cause the end of the world.
The sun is setting, regardless.
Today, crowds full of masked faces begin to quiet as the chief inspector waits. Silence begets silence despite the dozens of microphones attached to the podium. The hastily-assembled press conference has attracted officers, civilians, and all other manner of passersby. Their masses press tightly behind rows of identical television and newspaper cameras. Shadows fall over Yokohama's top leadership as they stand before the doors of the quarantined emergency clinic. Tension only escalates as more and more people realize that every single one of them stands tall at the chief's back, confident and shockingly maskless.
The sun continues to set diligently behind the clinic. An errant cloud dulls the fading orange light, but only slightly.
And then the announcement resounds throughout the city:
There's no need for concern. The terrifying blood poison case afflicting the city with terror and woe is no longer a threat to the good people of Yokohama.
For the wise doctors have determined that only those with gifted abilities are susceptible to the illness. All fair and lawful citizens are not at any risk.
Please allow the scourge to run its natural course.
A sigh of relief. A quickly-drawn gasp muffled by compounded terror.
Us and Them, so starkly drawn with so few words.
A second war that has been stewing quietly in the backdrop, finally coming to light.
Atsushi is no stranger to adversity. Luck has evaded him for most of his life, and he doesn’t resent it for doing so.
As a child, it was always easier to be ignored. Safer. The shadows of the forest near the chain-link fence surrounding the orphanage were shifting smatterings of refuge. Isolation was kinder than piercing gazes, than time-worn hands wrapped around his malnourished arm. In the yard, away from the nuns, he could lick his cuts and prod his bruises in peace. He could take inventory of the black and blue without the adults assuming he was asking for more to add to his skin.
An upbringing like that does not lend itself well to asking for help until it's far too late. It's one of those quirks of his that should be ironed out and pleated properly, so that the well-worn creases of habit can mend into a more reasonable shape. Atsushi has been crumpled for most of his life. Unfolding the dangerous actions he hoards, undoing his compulsions to quietly harm himself in thousands of tiny ways, will take another lifetime, it seems.
It's hard work. Atsushi knows this. And he wants to get better, because the family he has formed at the Agency has shown him a glimpse of the light at the end of this long road. His friends (a wonder that he has friends!) keep him honest. It hasn't been four years since he arrived in Yokohama, but already he feels like a new person. He has saved countless lives and watched many end. He has fought to the bone for a place to call home. He can contribute to the greater good without killing himself in trying. He can laugh without consequence. He smiles genuinely, and often.
And while very little of that could have been granted by luck, Atsushi does feel Lucky to be where he is now, by the grace of his found-family and the care they selflessly give him.
But now, he guesses, that little glimmer of Luck is gone.
On the day of the announcement, the Agency President ordered the conversion of the Armed Detective Agency to an Ability User Triage with Dr. Yosano at the helm. They wouldn't be trusted with many more cases, Fukuzawa had reasoned, as their new reality swiftly became clear. As the only publicly-known business composed of ability users, they would have to be at the forefront in the fight against the scourge after the rest of their community abandoned them.
Atsushi saw the office transformed into a clinic over only a few days. Within the week, half of their makeshift beds were full.
Before the next, word had spread that there was a cure floating somewhere near the shore.
It all happened so fast, and all Atsushi could dream of was the quiet solitude of dappled sunlight while a younger version of himself sat against the cold metal of the chain-link fence that surrounded the orphanage that he was raised in. Tortured in.
Like a crumpled sheet of loose paper, discarded in the wind.
He doesn't realize that he has collapsed until his hair is pulled harshly, gripped in an unrelenting hand to force his gaze upward at the ceiling. His vision is dotted with horrible starbursts that threaten to blind him. It hurts to see, so he forces his eyelids closed. The roaring vertigo only grows. It soon drowns out the seagulls and crashing waves. The slight sway of the docks upon the water is nothing compared to the violence inside his own head.
“ Weretiger .”
The nickname is like a punch to the gut. Atsushi would crumble to the frozen concrete with shock if the hand in his hair hadn't pulled so horribly against his scalp. The pain keeps him tethered to consciousness. It pulls a yelp from his throat instead of a gasp of complete defeat.
“A-Akuta… gawa…” he grits through sharpening canines.
His hair is pulled to the left as his captor adjusts to loom more fully over Atsushi's prone form. Atsushi tries his best not to wince, but he's not sure that he succeeds. He's unmoored from the earth, and the only thing keeping him awake is his rival's threatening aura.
“Why are you in mafia territory, you fool?”
Chasing ghosts in desperation, Atsushi supposes.
He had followed a trail of rumors deep into mafia territory after Kyouka got sick. The rumors of a cure ran rampant at the makeshift clinic, false hopes of elusive miracles kept behind the gates of hell itself. It hadn't taken much for Atsushi to feel their desperation, to sympathize with their torment. He’d spent hours playing nurse to their deteriorating conditions, losing sleep to colorful nightmares filled with their startling screams for help.
But seeing Kyouka in one of the beds, sweat dotting her forehead as she fitfully slept through the pain, insisting that Atsushi need not worry about her in that way she always did…
He had to try his luck that a miracle really did exist in Yokohama's darkest corners.
But now, with his breaths growing more shallow and the first signs of delirious fever setting in, his fortune has run out.
“I had… to try,” Atsushi slowly answers.
Then, darkness.
Being startled awake from a deep sleep isn't Atsushi's favorite sensation. There's a fading pressure buzzing just beneath his skin that keeps him anchored to the bed beneath him. Antiseptic clouds his nose, but it only takes a few short breaths to fade. His other senses return slower, each one a bit more disorienting than the last.
The hand on his upper arm is cool. The grip is strong despite thin, calloused fingers.
Strange, wasn’t that the same hand that had held him by the hair against the last swells of unconsciousness?
… Wait.
“He's awake,” Akutagawa murmurs. The tone is still dark and dangerous, but in a completely different way than it had been at the docks. Atsushi’s thoughts swim slightly trying to understand it.
“And the fever?” he hears Kyouka's voice from the other side of the bed. She's a few steps further away, and despite her usual quiet monotone, Atsushi can hear how tired she is, underneath. Her monotone is breathier. Her breaths are more deliberate. But she sounds like her normal self. There’s no hint of even a flinch of pain. There’s no adjusting for sharp aches or nausea.
He wants to open his eyes, but the daylight filling the room is too bright. He groans and covers his face with the arm that isn’t being held still. His throat is so dry, he feels like he hasn’t moved in weeks, and he can’t quite get a handle on his uneven breathing.
“It’s fading,” Akutagawa answers, ignoring Atsushi’s obvious distress in returning to the waking world. “His pulse is strong. There is no need to worry; fools don’t catch colds, after all.”
Atsushi feels the air shift as Akutagawa stands.
His confusion and fear instantly melt away. The bright light and sore muscles can’t stop him, after a comment like that. Before Akutagawa can release his hold on Atsushi, Atsushi harshly grabs his wrist. He glares harshly at the haggard man who stands at his bedside, even as Akutagawa does not resist Atsushi’s hold on him.
They stare at each other in the quiet, sun-dappled infirmary of the Armed Detective Agency. It’s the same as it was before the entire floor was changed to a clinic. The same three beds instead of fifteen, the same polished hardwood floors and meticulously clean equipment. No one but the three of them are in this room, but there’s the hint of keys typing and dress shoes walking around leisurely in the office next door.
A bird chirps from a branch in the trees outside the window. When was the last time Atsushi took notice of birdsong? He can’t remember.
“... Atsushi?” Kyouka calls from behind him. His sigh shudders with something like relief and turns to look over his shoulder at her.
“Kyouka? What happened? Where’s…”
Before he can finish his questions, Akutagawa harshly rips his hand free. Atsushi sways dangerously close to the edge of the bed, but keeps his balance at the last second.
“Hey!” he shouts, more instinctive than anything.
“I’ll be taking my leave,” Akutagawa announces, like he’s some sort of hot-shot mafioso with much more pressing matters to attend to—
“Wait!” Atsushi says before Akutagawa can take another step away.
This doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. Did he dream up the last few months? The virus that only affected Ability users, was that merely a figment of his imagination? The patients, the pain, the aching work, the heartbreak, the people who died and the people they were desperately trying to save—
If meeting Akutagawa at Yokohama Port wasn’t real, then why is Akutagawa here right now ?
To his surprise, Akutagawa stops and turns back to look at him. There’s a storm of something in Akutagawa’s gaze, and like with that tone of voice before, Atsushi can’t quite place the emotions there. It’s still a dark look, like he wants to kill Atsushi for daring to speak, but it’s deeper than before. There’s something else there, something just as dangerous and heavy as hatred, but somehow different. Those dark gray eyes still burn with a horrible heat, but instead of the roar of an indifferent inferno, this feels more like a slow-churning lava: just as hot, just as destructive, but much heavier than rage.
“Kunikida-san said that you might not remember,” Kyouka says, her tone decisive despite the tension between the other two in the room. “You found a reference book while we were investigating. When I found you, I couldn’t wake you up. Ranpo-san said you were trapped.”
Atsushi’s eyes don’t leave Akutagawa’s face, but he blinks to consider Kyouka’s words.
“An Ability?” he asks, because it does sound similar to Abilities he has faced—
“Not quite,” Akutagawa interrupts, drawing Atsushi’s focus once again. “The investigation is ongoing, but the priority was to return you.”
Atsushi hesitates. His next question fades like a sugarcube on his tongue. He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t hope…
Akutagawa must see something on Atsushi’s face. It’s subtle, the way the roaring storm of heavy emotion that had settled across Akutagawa’s expression lifts. If Atsushi hadn’t been watching the crease of his brow and the reflection of sunlight in his eyes, he might have missed it.
Recognition. Empathy, somehow.
“Yes, weretiger. You were the undisputed priority.”
But that would mean…?
Akutagawa was at the Agency… to help bring Atsushi back.
“Why…?” Atsushi whispers.
But Akutagawa ignores the question. He addresses Kyouka in that strange way that they tend to regard each other, both of them declared enemies despite being so similar and knowing it. They agree, right over Atsushi’s head, to discuss the case further in two days’ time. The business of two professional ex-assassins who share the same goal of protecting what is theirs…
And Atsushi can only stare after him as he leaves.
…
For about thirty seconds, before the rest of the Agency rushes into the Infirmary to make sure that he really is okay. At that point, Atsushi can barely breathe through the bright, bubbling warmth in his own heart.