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Ryuunosuke Akutagawa was used to threats.
He was used to whispers, rumours, shadows that moved where they shouldn’t.
He was even used to the smell of blood.
But this—
this was different.
1. It Starts With a Bird
The first dead animal appeared in early autumn.
A small sparrow, limp and cold, placed neatly at the centre of his apartment doorstep. No note, no message, nothing but its twisted little neck and the faintest warmth left in its body.
Akutagawa barely spared it a glance at first.
Another enemy with nothing better to do.
Another coward unable to meet his eyes.
He kicked the corpse into the gutter and went on with his day.
2. Then Came the Cat
Two weeks later, he opened his door and froze.
A cat this time. A young one. Its fur still soft, its body curled unnaturally around itself. Its eyes were open—staring right at him, glassy and wide, as if waiting for him to do something.
He felt a flicker of annoyance. Not fear.
“Persistent,” he muttered under his breath.
He disposed of it with Rashomon and didn’t think about it again.
3. The Pattern Grows
By winter, it became routine.
A mouse.
A pigeon.
Another bird, its wings torn as if by claws.
A rabbit—big enough that he had to pause, just for a moment.
Always placed with intention.
Not thrown.
Not scattered.
Arranged.
As if someone had chosen each one carefully.
As if someone were sending a message.
Akutagawa catalogued possibilities.
Enemies?
Always possible. But too sloppy. Too sentimental. Anyone targeting him through theatrics wouldn’t last long.
Dazai?
He entertained the thought only a second.
No—Dazai preferred psychological torture that used words, not carcasses.
Some new sniper trying to provoke him?
Unlikely. They’d be dead before their third attempt.
So why?
So who?
4. The Sleepless Nights
It crept under his skin more than he expected.
He wasn’t scared. Fear was something he’d forgotten how to feel properly.
No—what bothered him was the intimacy of it.
The animal always left perfectly centred at his door.
Always freshly dead.
Always just cold enough that it must’ve been placed within the hour before dawn when he usually woke.
Who was getting that close?
Who dared?
Rashomon twitched at the slightest sound those nights.
He slept with one eye half open.
He snapped at subordinates more harshly than usual.
When Akutagawa told none of this to anyone, even Gin, it wasn’t because he didn’t trust her.
It was because he didn’t want anyone thinking he was…
bothered.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t.
5. The Night He Sets A Trap
Eventually, annoyance turned into resolve.
He stayed awake. Sat in the dark, wrapped in Rashomon like a second shadow. Silent. Waiting.
Hours passed.
The city slept.
His heartbeat steady, his breath slow.
Then—
Soft footsteps. Very soft. Too soft.
Right outside his door.
Akutagawa tensed.
Someone small? No—someone light. Someone careful.
He moved soundlessly toward the entrance, Rashomon ready to strike.
A faint scraping sound.
Something being placed on the floor.
He threw open the door, shadows rising like fangs—
—and froze.
6. The Overwhelming Answer
A figure stood there.
Small.
Trembling.
Bundled in a coat too big for their thin frame.
Eyes wide and silver-grey in the moonlight.
Atsushi.
The White Tiger.
Holding in his shaking hands a dead baby rabbit.
Akutagawa’s breath hitched—almost imperceptibly, but enough to betray him.
Atsushi flinched.
“I—I’m sorry,” he whispered instantly, as if expecting a blow. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Akutagawa stared.
Of all the answers he’d considered, this was the one he hadn’t even let himself imagine.
“Why,” Akutagawa said, voice tight, “have you been leaving dead animals at my door?”
Atsushi only looked down, shoulders curling inward.
“I didn’t want you to know it was me.”
The explanation made no sense.
The scene made no sense.
Nothing about this matched any scenario Akutagawa had prepared.
“Explain,” he demanded.
Atsushi swallowed hard.
“I… I can’t control it sometimes.”
The words came out barely audible.
“My hunger. The tiger instinct. When it’s too strong, I— I go hunting without remembering. And when I wake up, I don’t know what I’ve done. But I always find… something dead near me.”
His voice wavered.
“And then I think of you.”
Akutagawa stiffened.
“Me?”
Atsushi nodded rapidly—fearfully.
“Be—because you’re strong. And angry. And sharp. And Rashomon always listens to you. I thought…” He twisted the hem of his coat. “If I left them with you… maybe you’d know what to do. Maybe you’d understand it better than I do.”
Akutagawa could only stare.
Not blackmail.
Not taunting.
Not intimidation.
But—
A plea.
A terrified, clumsy, desperate way of saying:
Help me.
I don’t know what I am.
I think you might.
The overwhelming truth crashed into him, rearranging everything in his chest.
Atsushi wasn’t mocking him.
He wasn’t threatening him.
He was trusting him.
Instinctively.
Unconsciously.
Like a wounded creature placing its broken body at the feet of someone it hoped would not hurt it.
Akutagawa’s throat tightened.
“You should have told me,” he said, voice softer than he intended.
“I thought you’d yell,” Atsushi whispered. “Or hit me. Or laugh. Or— or tell me I was disgusting.”
Akutagawa’s jaw clenched.
“I would not.”
Atsushi blinked, surprised.
Their eyes met.
A strange, frail understanding passed between them—one made of two broken things recognising each other’s cracks.
Akutagawa slowly reached out, lifting the dead rabbit from Atsushi’s trembling hands.
“Next time,” he said quietly, “knock.”
Atsushi’s eyes widened.
Hope flickered in them—tiny, bright, unbearably earnest.
“R—really?” he whispered.
Akutagawa looked away, cheeks burning faintly in the cold air.
“Yes. Idiot.”
Atsushi’s lips curved into the smallest, most fragile smile.
“Okay.”
For the first time in months, Akutagawa closed his door not on a corpse—
but on the beginning of something that felt dangerously close to understanding.