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The face that greets Atsushi when the door in front of him opens makes him freeze.
The Armed Detective Agency’s current investigation involves a local shop that was robbed at knifepoint. While normally such a case would be delegated to the standard city's police force, there are rumors that the perpetrator was gifted.
The owner of the store was left in a catatonic state and taken to the hospital, where he remains unresponsive. The rest of the witnesses have reportedly experienced varying levels of distress, but none as severe as the owner.
With an unknown ability at play, the ADA took on the case and assigned a diverse team to account for any possible ability they may encounter during the investigation. They were split up into two groups, both focusing on a well-rounded mix of abilities.
The first team, consisting of Atsushi, Kyoka, and Kunikida, was assigned the task of interviewing witnesses. The second — Kenji, Junichirou, and Dazai — were set to investigate suspects and leads.
This leaves Atsushi quite literally staring at his past in the eyes of their next witness.
Suzuki Himari came to the orphanage when Atsushi was twelve and she was ten. She was not much younger than he and, when they became some of the eldest in the orphanage, they both took on the duties of caring for the younger children.
The children at the orphanage were taught from the beginning of their time there to ignore or outright avoid Atsushi, often rendering him the backside of things such as washing their laundry. As such, Suzuki was often delegated to the more hands-on interaction with them.
They barely spent their time together, and Suzuki most definitely did not enjoy their exchanged whispers about the children, but it was the most positive dynamic Atsushi had at the orphanage.
This is the first time he has seen someone from the orphanage since leaving, and he’s suddenly so, so cold. It’s not cold outside — why is he cold?
Atsushi wants to run. He wants to barge in and ask her about the children, how they’re doing and where they are now. He wants to do everything but stare her in the face after moving on from this.
He has everything now; he doesn’t have the right to feel the dread that is currently flooding his gut.
Atsushi sees recognition flash in her eyes and, before she can say anything, he jumps to interrupt her and explain their reason for being here. Kyouka is a reassuring presence behind him as he speaks.
“Atsushi. I’m Atsushi Nakajima. We are with the Armed Detective Agency,” he gestures to the others behind him. He’s sure Kunikida is scolding him in his head at his abrupt and ill-mannered introduction. “We would like to ask you about the incident that occurred at Mr. Sanada’s store yesterday afternoon.”
She looks frustrated at his interruption, and Atsushi bows slightly in apology. After a moment, she nods and turns into the house to let them in.
It’s a small apartment riddled with stained carpet and crowded furniture, but Atsushi is impressed by how put-together she is. Not many kids who age out of the system can find food to eat or a place to eat, never mind a roof over their head. God knows he never had that until it was directly handed to him.
His mind is still scattered, and every nerve in his body is on alert as they settle on her couch.
She starts a pot of tea on the stove, and Atsushi can only focus on the rising pressure of the kettle. His binder tightens with the short breaths he’s taking, and he feels entirely too exposed right now. Once the tea is ready, she passes each of them a cup and takes her own seat across from them.
“I don’t know much,” Suzuki begins.
“That’s okay,” Kunikida reassures. “You can start with why you were there.”
“I was there to buy groceries. I was walking to the line when I heard a crash. It- uh. It startled me. I don’t really know what happened after that.”
“Do you know where the crash came from?” Atsushi asks.
At his voice, she looks away from him. It takes a moment before they realize she isn’t going to say anything. Kunikida tries a different line of thought, but Atsushi, all too familiar with the coldness facing him, knows it wasn’t the question she was avoiding. It was him.
He feels sick.
“Were you with anyone?”
She shakes her head at Kunikida's question. “I was alone. I hid behind one of the aisle shelves, I think. I stayed there for a long time, even after the ringing went away.”
Ringing? Atsushi thinks. Her ears could've been ringing from the noise of the crash, but she makes it sound prolonged. “What was ringing?” He asks.
Suzuki hesitates to reply to him. “I don’t know, something loud. I- It made my head hurt, and I couldn’t focus. I think the others heard it too. I saw someone covering their ears.”
“Interesting.” Kunikida mumbles. “When you left, did you see Mr. Sanada at all?”
“Yes. He didn’t look… present. He was at the counter and staring at nothing. I didn’t stay. I know I should have but I- I wanted to go home.”
“Was anyone else in the store as you left?”
“No, it was just me and him. It was dark out by the time I left. I don’t know how long it had been, but I figured they had left before me. I scare easily, and it takes me a long time to calm down.”
It hurts that Atsushi knows why she does. That she had to experience the same harsh environments he did. That she hasn’t been able to escape the memories of the orphanage, either. He looks at the scar under her chin — a relic of being pushed to the floor and clashing her jaw on the concrete so hard she broke a tooth.
After a brief moment, Kunikida nods and stands. “This was very insightful, thank you, Ms. Suzuki.” The other two move to follow, but before Atsushi can fully stand, Suzuki calls out a name that he has been dreading hearing the entire time they’ve been here.
He wonders what his chances of escaping would be if he pretended not to know that name or who it belongs to. If he could feign ignorance. ‘I’m sorry, Miss. I’m not sure who that is. Are you looking for someone?’ he imagines himself saying.
When he turns around and sees her cold, determined stare digging into every piece of soft flesh left on his body, he knows he’s not getting out of this.
He had started to dress more masculine and cut his hair short at the orphanage, though most were too busy avoiding him to notice.
Still, the fact that he’s alive is probably more of a surprise than his appearance.
A conflicted smile crosses his face as he fully stands and looks down at her. “I’m Atsushi, now.”
She grimaces, a torn look on her face. She’s clearly trying not to say something, but he’s not prepared for it to mirror the words the caretaker had instilled in him. “You’re nothing.”
She’s not a bad person. She’s not, he has to remind himself. This phrase was one directed at him and ingrained in them all during his time at the orphanage. That child is nothing. It’s pathetic. It needs to be reminded of its place. Subsequently, if someone did try to speak to him in front of the elders, they would be punished.
They may not be at the orphanage anymore, but they both carry its teachings within them.
His breath catches. He can’t focus on anything except her scalding blue eyes and the way his legs feel like they’re going to fall from under him. It takes a great effort not to shut down then and there.
His mind is telling him to run, but his body is telling him to stay, to fight. He clenches his fist as his vision narrows — unsure of how to break out of this stalemate between mind and body.
A hand lands on his shoulder and shatters the tension within him in a second.
He knows who it is from the way the hand is stretched to reach his shoulder alone, but still looks over to find Kyouka staring at Suzuki.
Kyouka speaks, tense and unsure of what exactly is happening, but knowing it's not good. “We’re done here.”
Kunikida turns back around to face them with a similar terse expression on his own face before looking to Suzuki with a nod. “Thank you for your compliance. You’ve given us some very valuable information regarding the events. We will be on our way now.”
Atsushi’s hands go limp. Kyouka grabs one and he follows her and Kunikida to the care in a haze. It's not until they get in that Kyouka lets go of his hand and he’s able to process his surroundings. Vaguely, he thinks about the other two witnesses they have left to interview and the paperwork waiting for him on his desk.
He picks at his fingers and imagines their reactions once they fully process what Suzuki was getting at. He knows Kyouka is transgender, that she has been a girl since she was young enough that her parents were still alive. If she doesn’t already know that he’s transgender as well from watching him so closely, Atsushi’s sure she will soon enough.
Kunikida, on the other hand, is a wild card. While Atsushi likes to think that he would be open to the concept, he also knows that Kunikida is strict on the way he believes life should be lived. He doesn’t know if a ‘girl becoming a boy’ is a part of those ideals.
Not to mention the way Suzuki reacted upon seeing him. If Atsushi didn’t already feel like a monster, he most definitely did now. He can’t even imagine what images they’ve created of him in their minds to provoke such hesitancy and fear from her — worse, what images she holds of him.
He tries to speak — to clear up whatever impressions they made about the history between him and Suzuki — but he can’t. His words are stuck at the base of his throat, so he simply lowers his head to stare at his lap and ignore the tears pressing behind his eyes.
Kunikida notices this and glances at him in the rearview mirror.
“Atsushi,” he starts. “The information revealed during the interview that is not relevant to the crime is not relevant to us. If you wish to speak about it later, you may, but there is no need if you do not. For now, we will focus on apprehending the perpetrator.”
He relaxes at Kunikida’s redirection back to their mission. Kyouka glances at him with concern, and he takes a breath before nodding.
He can keep doing this; he can move forward.
It’s not until he’s assigned to write up the witness reports that Atsushi remembers what happened. The other two witness statements went smoothly and, at Kyouyka’s request, they stop at a crepe stand before heading back. Atsushi tries to pay for everyone’s treat, but Kunikida hands his card to the stand owner too quickly for him to do anything but stand there and splutter.
When they return to the agency, Atsushi offers to write up the reports. It’s not his favorite part of the job, but he has gotten pretty used to it and knows that Kunikida has more important obligations to get to. Kunikda thanks him with a nod and hands over the files, mumbling under his breath about how ‘Dazai needs to learn from his own damn protege.’
He takes a seat at the desk and begins flipping through the information already in the files and typing up reports to add to the folders regarding today’s interviews.
When Atsushi reaches for the next file in the stack and opens it, Suzuki’s face greets him.
He drops the file and jerks back with the reminder of the cold ground, the sharp pain in his foot, the hunger of the tiger within him begging to be let out, hitting him all at once. He has to catch himself from falling out of his chair as his breathing stops. Fuck, fuck. He needs to pull himself together.
He pushes down the tears threatening to fall from his eyes and forces himself to breathe. He didn’t react this badly at her house, so why does his body feel as though it’s going to collapse at his next breath now? He ignores the fact that he’s alone in the office and that the only light on is his desk lamp. The way that there's a chill running through the air, running across his skin and causing every nerve end to rise on instinct. His hand shakes as he reaches again for Suzuki’s file and tries to refocus his attention on the task at hand.
Suzuki is smiling in her ID photo, and it is so strangely incongruent to the way Atsushi knows her to look at him that he has to blink and take a moment to confirm that it is indeed her. He’s never seen her this way — this happy. He’s seen her laugh with the children or smile softly, but whenever she looked at him, her smile would drop.
It's one thing to know that the way someone has treated him is different from how they normally are, but it’s another thing to see their smile and know that he is the one who has caused such a cold look on her face all these years. It was him. It’s his fault she ever had to dim her smile because of his existence.
He stares for a moment longer before slamming the file shut and typing up her report, detached from himself and the emotions stirring within him.
When Atsushi returns to their apartment, Kyouka is sitting on the couch.
A wave of despair hits him, knowing she was there today. She heard it all.
He feels overexposed in her presence now, and he hates feeling uncomfortable around Kyouka. She did nothing to warrant that. He places his bag by the door and walks in slowly, even though he knows she’s already well aware of his presence.
“Did you have dinner yet?” He asks awkwardly.
He’s so tired, too tired to figure out what she has gathered and what she hasn’t. His choice to come out feels torn away from him, even if Suzuki didn’t actively out him. She just said a name. A pathetic, small name that happens to belong to a large fragment of his past.
She shakes her head, "I was waiting for you.”
“You don’t have to do that, you know.”
She nods. He’s told her probably a thousand times, but she still refuses to eat without him.
He wonders if it’s because she likes the company — if it reminds her of her family.
Kyouka gets up and starts taking the small amount of ingredients they have to try and throw something together, like she’s always able to.
Atsushi is constantly in awe of her and all she can do. An ashamed feeling twists inside him with that awe, knowing that she only learned what she knows out of survival. She’s too young, she shouldn’t have to know how to cook or clean or hide a goddamn body.
As something in the pan sizzles, she turns around and looks at him. She stares for so long that Atsushi has started picking at his fingers in anticipation under her stare.
Finally, she speaks up. “You always ask me if I want to talk about it. It makes me feel better.”
He laughs softly. "I'm glad it does.”
She goes silent again and turns her attention back to their dinner. Oil on the pan sparks as she flips something over, and he jumps, just a little. He’s learned not to check on her while she’s cooking, even if there are a million things she could hurt herself with.
It’s her time to settle down, and she has proven over and over again through his constant worrying that she knows how to be safe in the kitchen. Still, she’s so small, and the instinct to make sure shes okay remains within him regardless.
Kyouka grabs two plates and, after cutting up some vegetables, she plates their food and walks over to him.
They don’t eat at the table, usually. Their days are tiring, and by the end of it, they just want to relax in their own space without worrying about formalities. Sometimes, they go their separate ways to eat and get ready for bed.
This time, she passes the plate to Atsushi — still sitting on the couch — and takes her seat next to him. He manages to get a few bites in before she looks at him and asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
He freezes once again.
This has happened too many times in one day for his liking. He turns to look at her. She has a stoic expression on her face, but he can see a hint of concern laced behind it. Her eyes are intense, harsh, but also soft at the same time.
He shifts in discomfort. He’s not used to being asked this. Asked if he’s okay, if he wants to talk about it. Never mind someone acknowledging that something is wrong.
His first instinct is to smile, to laugh it off, and say he’s fine. When he starts to do just that, however, a broken sob forces it’s way out of him. Atsushi’s eyes widen, and so do Kyoukya’s. Dread rises in his body, and before he knows what's happening, he’s crying.
It’s not a full-on cascade of tears, just a few tears streaming down his face, but enough for Kyouka to grab some tissues and hand them to him. “Please don’t cry,” she says softly.
It’s an attempt at comfort, one that she never received and as such does not know how to enact. He giggles, a sorrowful thing. She doesn’t know what to do in situations like this, but she tries anyway.
“Thank you, Kyouka.” He wipes his tears. They sit for a few minutes in a silence that is oddly reassuring and comforting. Atsushi doesn’t feel rushed to say anything and neither does Kyouka. Instead, with his appetite lost for the time being, he watches her continue to eat her own dinner. It’s when she’s finished eating and places her plate back on the coffee table that he speaks up again.
“I knew her.” He looks down to avoid Kyouka’s intense, listening stare. “Suzuki. She was at the orphanage. Seeing her brought back a lot of memories. I haven’t seen anyone since I left.”
She nods, “I know that feeling.” He tenses at the reminder and scolds himself. He isn’t special. They all have faced this; he should be able to deal with it himself. Still… “I was also scared, I think. I didn’t want her to recognize me. I’ve changed a lot since then.” More than Kyouka knows.
“But she did,” Kyouyka continues for him. “She called you a different name, right?”
Suddenly, he doesn’t feel like talking anymore. He wants to let the tiger overtake him and run until neither he nor she can feel anything anymore. He wants to feel the cold burn of the night air on the fur skin of his body until it goes numb. Until he can’t feel or face anything but the night sky, as his tiger protects him from himself.
It’s not something he’s ever truly said aloud. He never said anything to anyone at the orphanage, and he joined the agency soon after, so he’s never had the chance to. The only one he’s told was the president, and even then, it was out of necessity — not trust. Not like this.
He nods, pushing down the sick feeling threatening to rise in his stomach. “She did. That… was the first name I was given.” He’s been given many more since then. Useless, pathetic, demon child, thing, it. Atsushi Nakajima is the first name he chose for himself. The first act of creation he enacted in his newfound free will. “It doesn’t fit me anymore. I’m not sure it ever really did.”
“So you changed it?”
“I did, sort of like you. I’m a boy now, and I feel more like myself than I did before.”
Kyouka frowns at his wording, confused but not dismissive. While they’re both transgender, he knows they see their transitions in different ways. To Kyouka, she has always been a girl — even when those around her didn’t perceive her as such. Atsushi, on the other hand, sees his transition as an act of self-growth. He’s a boy now, but he wasn’t before.
“Think of it like our abilities. My tiger is a part of me, similar to the way I used to be a girl. I see both in a way of expansion, building on myself. Your ability, however, is separate from you. You’ve always been a girl, and the way you were born doesn’t reflect that. Just as Demon Snow hasn’t always reflected your own will.”
Kyouka nods, “I see…”
She stares at her hands before seeming to recall something and suddenly looking up. “You are something, Atsushi. You always will be.”
He can’t stop the tears this time, and if, when he hugs her, she cries just a bit with him — either out of relief or worry or something else entirely — no one is the wiser.
They find the perpetrator a few days later. He’s a young man whose ability releases high-pitched noises that fill his targets' minds until they can’t think anymore. It was a simple robbery for money, and the details of the case wrap up smoothly.
Even so, Atsushi can’t ignore the way he feels whenever he thinks of the case — of her. Suzuki wasn’t directly involved, but to him, she is the focal point of the case. The police take care of informing the witnesses of the man’s apprehension, and for all intents and purposes, he should never have to see her again.
Still, he has the overwhelming urge to see her again and explain everything. Even if he wanted to, he never had the chance to make amends with the headmaster — but maybe he could with her.
This is how he finds himself knocking on Suzuki’s door a few days later. Opening it, she immediately looks behind him, expecting the other agency members to be with him and stiffening when she doesn’t find them.
“I was already informed of the outcome, thank you.” She says and goes to close the door, but before she can, Atsushi speaks.
“I’m here for a personal matter.”
“Oh?”
“Can we talk?”
She bites her lip in thought for a while. Atsushi debates leaving and letting her be, but she comes to a decision soon after and nods, hesitantly opening the door. “What kind of tea do you like?”
When he returns to the agency the next day, he feels relieved.
They talked for a while, and Suzuki, while hesitant, eventually caught him up on the happenings of the orphanage. Although she aged out, she still buys groceries and cooks meals for the children. She has a job now and while it’s not as… interesting as Atsushi’s, as she says, she is content in it.
Suzuki also tells them that she had already had a feeling at the orphanage that there was more to him than the director was telling them. Of course she didn’t know he turned into a man-eating tiger at night, but that’s besides the point.
They spoke vaguely about the headmaster — more about his death than anything else. He felt a tinge of disappointment when she told him she didn’t know why he was going to see Atsushi. He confided in her about the things that happened behind closed doors — not much, not anything really, but enough for her to get the idea.
They didn’t chat for long and she most definitely still didn’t trust him by any means, but by the end Atsushi felt as though they were speaking as equals, and that was more than he had expected. Honestly, he wouldn’t have blamed her if she had slammed the door in his face.
Regardless, when Atsushi enters the room and sits at his desk, he sees Suzuki’s face on one of the papers and realizes he’s no longer intimidated by it. Kyouka notices this and steps next to him.
“You look better today,” she says softly.
He hums in thought and smiles at her. “Yeah, I guess so. I feel better, too.”
Atsushi pulls Kunikida aside the following day. Kunikida clearly is about to yell at him for disrupting their schedule, but whatever look Atsushi has on his face softens his own. “Yes, Atsushi?”
He bites his lip and not for the first time, curses the way his teeth are sharper now. Licking away blood from the skin he lightly broke, he looks up at Kunikida. “Mr. Sanada’s case.”
A look of recognition dawns on his face but his tone is confused all the same. “I’m familiar?”
“Do you remember what happened when we went to interview Suzuki Himari, one of the witnesses?” Atsushi asks him.
“She was cooperative and the information she gave us about the perpetrator’s ability was valuable. It was a smooth and productive interview, except…”
“Except she recognized me.” Atsushi finishes.
Kunikida nods and allows him to continue without interruption.
“I’m sure you could gather that I knew her, and probably even that I knew her from the orphanage. Still, she also knew something that you didn’t.”
“It seems that way, yes.”
“I’m transgender,” he says.
Typically, he is less direct when coming out. Most aren’t familiar with the terminology, so it’s easier to spell it out from the get-go than trying to explain that and then the fact that there are enough people like him for there to be a term.
However, he’s sure that Kunikida, while not up to date on much of today’s vernacular, would know the term. He’s right.
“Thank you for telling me,” he says, and, yeah. That’s pretty much what Atsushi expected.
Kunikida, with all his ideals and manners, has definitely looked up what to say when someone comes out to him — regardless of what he actually thinks about the topic. Atsushi can’t help but smile. Still…
“Do you… have any questions? Like. What my records say or what I have or haven’t done to be recognized as a man?”
Kunikida, to his surprise, looks a bit offended at this. “The agency is not a place that will ever question you or your identity.” He asserts, then realizes something and quickly clarifies: “Unless you were a spy for another organization or had malicious intent towards the rest of the members. But, your gender? Your past? Anything that is not relevant to now is not significant to your status as an agency member, and therefore, I have no reason to question who you are.”
Atsushi, for all the warmth flooding his body and the tears pricking at his eyes, bends over laughing at Kunikida’s live retcon. Kunikida sighs and walks back into the office, leaving Atsushi to gather himself before returning to work.
Yeah, he thinks as he straightens up, it’ll be okay.