Work Text:
Akutagawa did not do domesticity.
He tolerated silence. He endured hunger. He accepted pain as a language the world spoke fluently. But domesticity—the soft, unarmed moments that crept in when no one was watching—those made him restless, like an exposed nerve.
Which was precisely why Gin found it amusing.
It started, as most things between them did, quietly.
Akutagawa noticed it when he returned to the apartment long after midnight, coat heavy with rain and blood, Rashōmon still humming faintly under his skin. He slipped off his shoes with practiced care, movements precise, economical. The lights were dim. The city outside the window breathed neon and sirens.
And there, curled on the couch with a book balanced against her knees, was Gin.
She looked up at him, eyes calm, observant—and wearing his pajamas.
Well.
Matching pajamas.
Black cotton, soft to the point of betrayal. Long sleeves. Pale grey trim at the cuffs. Subtle, almost unnoticeable, except Akutagawa noticed everything. The fabric looked… wrong on her, not because it didn’t suit her, but because it mirrored his own too closely.
He looked down.
Same set. Same colour. Same trim.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
“…Gin,” Akutagawa said at last, voice hoarse from disuse and the night air.
She tilted her head, a small, unreadable smile tugging at her mouth. “You’re late.”
“That isn’t—” He stopped. Restarted. “…Why.”
Gin glanced down at herself, then back up at him. “The laundromat mixed them up.”
Akutagawa stared.
“That is statistically unlikely,” he said flatly.
“Yes.”
“You are lying.”
“Yes.”
Silence stretched. The kind that had always existed comfortably between them, woven from years of shared understanding, shared survival. Gin closed her book and set it aside, standing with unhurried grace.
“They were on sale,” she added, as if that explained everything.
Akutagawa pinched the bridge of his nose.
He had faced down gifted enemies, execution orders, the suffocating weight of Dazai’s gaze—but this unsettled him in a way he could not articulate. Something about seeing his sister wearing the same soft armour he reserved for the rare moments he allowed himself to be human felt… exposed.
“They are impractical,” he muttered.
“They’re warm.”
“They are unnecessary.”
“You shiver when you sleep,” Gin replied simply.
That stopped him.
Akutagawa stiffened, shoulders drawing tight. “You shouldn’t watch me sleep.”
Gin blinked once. “You collapse on the couch half the time.”
“…That is different.”
She stepped closer, close enough that he could see the faint crease at the corner of her eye, the one that appeared only when she was tired. The same crease he had, mirrored. Always mirrored.
“I thought,” she said quietly, “it might help. Having something the same.”
Akutagawa said nothing.
Memories stirred unbidden—nights far colder than this, fabric too thin, bodies too close for warmth, sharing breath because that was all there was to share. Back when matching anything had meant survival.
He turned away abruptly. “Do as you wish.”
Gin smiled. A real one, this time.
Later, when the apartment had settled into sleep, Akutagawa lay rigid in bed, staring at the ceiling. The pajamas were too soft. The fabric clung in a way that felt almost indecent, almost gentle. He hated it.
He rolled onto his side.
From the hallway, faint footsteps padded closer. A pause. Then Gin’s voice, low and careful.
“They suit you.”
“…Go to sleep,” he replied.
A beat.
“You too.”
The door clicked softly as she retreated.
Akutagawa exhaled, slow and controlled.
In the quiet, wrapped in identical fabric, he allowed himself something dangerous—comfort.
Just for tonight.