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“You’re weak.”
Akutagawa is getting used to that remark. He’s heard it enough times for it to have a lessened meaning. Sure, it hurt at first, but at this point he accepts it as a part of his life. He’s weak, yes, he has plenty of room to improve and he has to work harder, always a tad harder than before. Dazai never tells him he’s gotten better at something and Akutagawa likes to believe that it’s for his own good, so he doesn’t become so full of himself not to have an objective judgment in battle.
He’s weak both in his ability usage and by nature; he struggles with standing up again, but his legs keep trembling and he feels like the tendons in his knees might tear. His teacher is leaving, the training is over. He’s walking out the door, casting a long shadow by standing in front of the light that emanates from outside. Akutagawa wants to follow him but the ache is too much, and now that he notices, there’s also an unusual amount of blood. It stained his shirt and it’s seeping from a wound on his forehead, dripping right into his eye. He wipes it off at least from his face.
*
The thought occurs to him that Dazai might be disappointed in him. He probably picked Akutagawa up for his ability, but he hadn’t expected such an illness-ridden body. Now Akutagawa has to make up for it and try to train his immune system as well; something which usually results in him getting even sicker. He often ends up at the medical department, unable to breathe. When they shake him back to life, Dazai comes to check on him every once in a while, but he rarely says anything encouraging.
“You’re taking two days off again” comes the disappointed sigh from him as he sits by the bed, arms crossed in disapproval.
“It’s not my fault… I try…” Akutagawa tries to explain.
“It’s never your fault, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re wasting time.”
He’s always so softspoken, even in his reprimands. He looks like someone who doesn’t want to hurt his pupil, even though he unintentionally does. Akutagawa has never seen him seriously lose his cool. Dazai seems to have adopted a personality fitting to his ability; in the same way he nullifies abilities, he also likes to shut down conflicts and cut them short. Akutagawa knows at this point that he doesn’t like bickering; yet another reason they don’t get along with his partner, Chuuya, who goes picking fights with him. It’s also why they’re still able to cooperate, one of them chilling off the other when he gets too heated.
Dazai and Chuuya seem like a functional couple, no, they are one, judging by the good name soukoku has earned itself. Akutagawa, on the other hand can’t even imagine what kind of partner he could possibly get along with. He doesn’t like to interact with anyone from the Port Mafia besides his teacher, and there’s no way he’ll ever get close to anything like teaming up with Dazai. Way out of his league.
“Try to do some preventive treatment next time.”
“Yessir” Akutagawa answers quietly.
*
He knows he’s getting better, at a certain point. There are noticeable results. He can draw out Rashomon in two seconds instead of four and the demon can now devour objects bigger than Akutagawa’s body size. Sometimes Dazai cracks an absentminded smile, but he never says anything about his pupil’s improvement, leaving the other to wonder whether he’s really pleased with Rashomon or had just remembered something funny.
But those smiles mean a lot to Akutagawa. They are the reason he keeps living, in fact. Due to his background, he’s always had a simplistic worldview, made of blacks and whites with no inbetweens. There are three categories for everything in Akutagawa’s viewpoint: the things he approves of, the things he disapproves of, and those he doesn’t care about. He’s been like this ever since he was born.
His entrance into the Mafia has made him reevaluate a few things, but the basic premises remained. The only thing that puzzled him was Dazai’s apparent altruism towards him and the calm, easygoing manner in which he treated others; he would’ve mistaken these as a sign of weakness, and weakness is something he disapproves of. There’s no doubt, however, that Dazai is strong. At that point, Akutagawa ceased to understand him and started seeing him as a sample of perfection beyond his cognitive abilities.
*
Kouyou sometimes teases him about not having feelings. That’s not far from the truth; there are currently two Akutagawa can keep track of, specifically anger and respect for his mentor.
“Have you ever tried opening up to people?” Kouyou gives him another verbal poke. It’s the two of them at the base, sitting around the small coffee table from which the woman picks up her sake cup a moment later. She takes a sip, not really expecting an answer from Akutagawa.
“I don’t need them.”
“Oh? But what will you do if Dazai dies off?” The provocation isn’t working and it’s only met with silence, thus she continues. “It could happen any day, you know. He does try.”
“Why does he keep attempting suicide?” Akutagawa asks, swaying the topic from his mockery towards something he’s actually curious about.
“Beats me” Kouyou shrugs. “Why don’t you go ask him?”
*
It takes Akutagawa a lot of courage to walk up to Dazai with the question, but he does it the next day, because he doesn’t approve of cowardice. The older man is lying on the usual couch, reading the same book over and over again. An unchanging and iconic presence.
“Why do you want to kill yourself?”
Dazai looks up, making the other suddenly much more uncomfortable than how he had imagined in the scenario in his head.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Even doing pointless things is better than ceasing to do anything” Akutagawa retorts, quickly following up with “At least, that’s what I think” out of politeness.
“My attempts have so far been pointless too, to be fair” Dazai smirks.
His pupil never stops staring; he’s waiting for the answer and he has to be persistent and not let the other man wiggle out with a joke.
“There’s nothing for me to keep going, really. I think I discovered that I have no purpose and the most I can do in this world is amuse myself to the best of my ability. Was this a satisfying explanation?” He clearly wants to go back to reading, but Akutagawa decides not to let him yet.
“Isn’t there a person worth living for?” He doesn’t know whether he’s talking about strange human bonds he knows nothing about like love and friendship. That phrase is just something that slips out.
“Haven’t found anyone yet” Dazai sighs “Even if I did, a double suicide with them would be the most appealing activity to me. I’ve never met a woman willing to do it, though.”
“Dazai-san” Akutagawa says in a meaningful voice that sounds ridicoulous to him after it comes out. “You are the reason I live.”
“Oh, am I now?” His mentor chuckles.
*
It’s hard to get used to such a luxurious world after one has suffered through almost starving to death and being in mortal danger every day. The privileges he has attained since joining the Port Mafia are almost too much for Akutagawa. He doesn’t go overboard with anything; never eats too much, never wears expensive clothes, never spends his money on any kind of entertainment. The only exception are books.
This makes him unable to understand how others act, even when it’s just his fellow mafia members. They seem to enjoy the rush way too much, and there are even some of them who come from poverty like Akutagawa. They joke around, they chat, they display a wide range of emotions. Even Gin seems more integrated than him, because being silent and mysterious somehow attracts people. The siblings’ personalities aren’t too far from each other, only Akutagawa is too scary for anyone to approach him like they do with his sister.
Now everyone’s sat around the coffee table, gossipping about something. The frightening mafia members regress back to teenage schoolgirls in their free time…
“...I don’t think I believe you, Chuuya-san.” Tachihara comments, visibly upsetting the man he’s referring to.
“Oh, look at your influence, you asshole” the hat fanatic turns towards Dazai (who is, once again, reading his book about suicide techniques) “Now these shitty brats have an incentive to insult me at every turn.”
“I wasn’t going to insult you, Chuuya-san. Just wondering how you managed to find a woman who’s shorter than you.”
That’s the last straw and Tachihara is sent flying up against the ceiling. Akutagawa watches their petty conflict from a few meters farther. No one seems to notice that he’s there, fortunately. Otherwise they’d cease to offer a little laboratory for him to explore human interactions.
So, the topic is the fact that Nakahara Chuuya has gotten a girlfriend? How utterly stupid. Akutagawa can’t help but instantly think how there can’t possibly be anything substantial in that relationship, and that they’ll break up after a few weeks. Although he has no experience with issues like these, he has seen enough of them unfold to know what usually happens. He hates couples with a passion; all their emotions seem fake and superficial. The only feelings Akutagawa can take seriously are the ones he, himself feels.
This doesn’t stop him from being intrigued by the whole love-issue, though. He heard all sorts of things about it; that it hurts, that it’s towards someone from the opposite sex, or more rarely someone from the same one, that it’s the strongest possible bond and yadda yadda. He’s also seen couples kiss, hold hands, fight and he’s aware of the existence of sex, obviously.
Akutagawa stands there, in the shadowy corner. He’s imagining Chuuya holding hands with some sweet, young girl, being kind and considerate for once, kissing her and touching her body. It’s a little ridiculous in his head; Chuuya is short and behaves in an insufferable, moody manner, as if he was a woman himself. Akutagawa has never liked him and cannot concieve how he’s considered worthy of being Dazai-san’s partner.
*
The mafia members leave one by one, resorting to their usual nighttime practices. Some of them like to go out drinking, others prefer to go to sleep immediately. Akutagawa usually drinks tea at this time; he’s an insomniac anyway. He takes walks by himself, silently, alone in the city. But he has other plans now. Fact is, the main meeting room isn’t completely empty as usual, even without counting Akutagawa. Mori and Kouyou are still on the couch, conversating about something. Their voices are quiet and indistinguishable from where the man is standing.
Then Kouyou stretches out a hand, her pale, manicured fingers coming into contact with Mori’s chin. Akutagawa’s eyes widen, his pupils twitch the way they do when he’s angry or shocked. Though, he’s not sure which one it is this time. Mori, in the meanwhile, grabs the woman’s wrist, but it’s an act of hesitation and playfulness. He doesn’t let himself be caressed, but he doesn’t push her away either. Kouyou chuckles and adjusts his necktie and shirt collar as if it were the natural thing to do. She then pulls Mori by his clothing, forcefully and demandingly. Akutagawa subconsciously raises a trembling hand to touch his own cravat.
No, it looks like no one is holding it but himself. The two of them, on the other hand, are kissing. Well, this is the Port Mafia, after all, isn’t it? Nothing is scandalous. Anyone could hook up with anyone. Maybe they already do, it’s just Akutagawa being uninformed or unaware.
*
Was this love? He wonders. It looked more like a whim, some physical craving. Akutagawa is sitting in his room, panting. The fierce mafioso, the Silent Rabid Dog just got traumatized by a kiss. Oh god, he hates emotions. He hates them so much. Even his hatred towards emotions is an emotion, that’s what he hates the most.
There’s one thing he doesn’t hate feeling, and that is respect, namely for Dazai. Does Dazai know about what the rest of the mafia is doing? That they participate in such petty and disheartening activities? Could it be that he does the same things himself? Somehow, the thought terrifies Akutagawa.
He nervously undresses and resorts to gulping down the cold leftover tea from yesterday instead of making some new. He deposits Rashomon on a chair and looks into the full body mirror which remained in his room since he bought the flat, being that he doesn’t need it for anything. It’s coincidentally useful now.
Nothing unusual; he just looks a bit more unsettled than normally. Akutagawa reaches up to his neck again. He’s holding the notorious cravat. He yanks tentatively. Is that it? Maybe, if another person did it, it would be exciting. Or endearing. He doesn’t know and feels like he never will, since he doesn’t like anyone. Well, except one person he doesn’t even want to involve in thoughts like these.
*
“You think you can fool around in the meeting room and go unnoticed?”
Kouyou raises an eyebrow. She seems very puzzled, but not as intimidated as Akutagawa thought she would be.
“So now you’re sticking your filthy little hound-nose in my private matters, huh?”
“You didn’t make enough of an effort to keep them private.”
“Look, Aku-chan” Kouyou sighs, sat in the same place where he made out with Mori last night “No one cares. Even if you get the rumour going, I could undo all the damage to my reputation in the course of five minutes. If they even believed you, that is.”
Akutagawa doesn’t talk. He’d respond something witty, but he soon realizes that silence will produce the most comical results right now. She’s rambling on for too long, and even a rookie like him can read people this much. Kouyou is on the defensive, and according to his calculations, now is the time for her offense.
“How would you know? You don’t talk to people. You think you’re some big rarity, a wicked criminal, just because you managed to get into the Port Mafia. Well, let me tell you, you’ll never succeed with poor social skills like those. You’ll never even get a woman, that’s how pathetic you are, how adults see you from the outside.”
Kouyou is losing this battle. So emotional, so annoying. Akutagawa is just about to laugh at her internally, when all of the sudden, with her last breath, she strikes a nerve.
“Or could it be that you have no interest in women at all ? Is that why you cling to Dazai-san so much?” She enjoys saying that name thoroughly, bringing a lump into the young man’s throat. “Oh, look at your face. Do you like it when Dazai-san sends you flying against a wall?”
It’s a surprise attack and Akutagawa forgets to even react. The woman stands up, pats him on the shoulder with all of the world’s evil concentrated in her expression, and leaves the room.
*
Chuuya and Dazai are fighting again. It’s a late afternoon and there’s no big business to be involved in at the moment, so everyone is somewhere around the headquarters, waiting for orders. Dazai does his usual joke of stealing his partner’s hat and holding it too high for him to reach it. It’s childish, but Akutagawa’s mind has a double standard for his mentor. Mori walks by and compares them to an old couple.
There it is again, something bothering Akutagawa for no reason at all. He hates Chuuya, that must be it. It’s also hypocritical of Mori to imply there’s a relationship between two mafia members when it’s exactly what he does, and it’s not even a joke in his case.
Something tugs at Rashomon . Akutagawa looks down; it’s Elise. He feels embarrassed and irritated at the same time. How does one treat children?
“What are you standing here alone for?” She asks, and there’s a hint of teasing in her voice.
“I’m relaxing” the mafioso answers a little stupidly.
“Shouldn’t you sit down then?”
It’s easier for Akutagawa to walk over to the couch than to pull out an answer.
“Oh, look, it’s your rookie” Chuuya exclaims, finally snatching his hat away. Dazai abuses of his momentary distraction to appropriate the accessory once again. His partner seems bored of the game and decides to direct his attention to Akutagawa, who’s now looking at the ground, somehow proud to be associated with Dazai right away.
“So you do appear in human society sometimes…”
The ‘rookie’ doesn’t know how to respond. Chuuya is now sat next to him and Dazai next to Chuuya, wearing his hat. Akutagawa accidentally looks him in the eye, quickly diverting his gaze.
“How about you come drinking with us tonight, kid? We’re heading out at nine, just be here.”
And the younger man nods uncontrollably.
*
Akutagawa’s place isn’t too far from the mafia headquarters, thus he has the privilege of going home before the planned meeting. At times like this, he hates the fact that he’s an inexperienced kid on some issues. For instance, he’s never been on a drinking bout; never really has consumed alcohol in considerable quantities, in fact.
He’s never been as nervous as the moment when he has to decide whether to wear his usual outfit or a different one. He decides to go with the former and makes tea instead, accidentally pouring the pot completely full. Two liters of theine-ridden, burning hot beverage, three hours left and four reasons for Akutagawa to tear his hair out in frustration. Firstly, Kouyou’s comments left him irritated. Secondly, he really wants to keep loathing Chuuya, but the man has been unexpectedly kind to him today. Thirdly, he forced himself into a situation where he has to participate in a rather squalid societal event. Fourthly, maybe Dazai-san will be there too .
Akutagawa knows he appears on these meetings rarely. Dazai would rather read at home from what he knows. Still, he might come . The possibility alone makes everything worse by hundredfold. Then, he thinks back to the situation with Kouyou. What if she’s right?
Akutagawa looks into a mirror. Oh, how pathetic he is. Yes, she must have been right, about every single thing, that’s what he’s been so afraid of. He can’t handle connecting with other people, that’s why he can’t connect with Dazai the way he would want to, and that’s why Chuuya can… The way he would want to?
He reaches up to his face, hands trembling, grabbing his skin as if to tear it. A monster and nothing else, that’s what he sees in front of him. Feeling something so impure and mundane towards someone like Dazai… Someone who, to Akutagawa, transcends the human limits of charity and kindness.
He punches.
He wants to go back to being what he was before, a mere, devoted pupil. Deep down, he knows he shouldn’t listen to someone like Kouyou, who was in an unreasonable and angry state, moreover. The only problem is, she could be right .
It takes Akutagawa a few minutes to calm down. He drinks a cup of tea, placing the rest in his fridge. He makes a mental note to throw out the mirror. Right, he hasn’t had dinner yet. There’s some cold udon from yesterday and he eats all of it, the trembling of his hands lessening as time passes.
He has to be rational. Yes, that damned woman was trying to get under his skin, but it’s unlikely for her to have said anything accurate. Love is what she did with Mori, and that disgusts Akutagawa beyond reason. He doesn’t ever want to make another person his plaything, take bonds so lightly, indulge in whatever urge he gets in the heat of the moment. No, he’s pretty sure he’ll never understand nor experience anything like that.
*
It was wise to prepare for the worst case scenario, because Dazai is actually there. He’s wearing a dark shirt his pupil has never seen before. Nearly the entire Port Mafia is present, except Elise, maybe. Chuuya seems happy about him being there and Akutagawa has let go of his grudge at this point.
The bar is already full and hazy, even more so after a few cups of sake . Things go better than expected: people attempt to talk to the newcomer. It doesn’t even feel real.
“Chuuya-san always tags along and swears not to drink, but that’s not what happens” Tachihara explains to him. Chuuya overhears and responds to the offense.
“I never drink as much as you pigs, so shut up!”
“It’s because one cup is enough for you to get drunk” Dazai interjects.
He’s right; Chuuya already looks way too affected. At the same time, Akutagawa’s head spins and his senses are slowed down. He’s never had alcoholic drinks before, after all; no wonder they would kick in so soon.
“Speaking of which, this bastard isn’t usually here.” Chuuya leans across the table to Akutagawa, pointing at Dazai. “Maybe he came to watch over you.”
Despite being inebriated, the hat enthusiast seems to understand something. The remark feels so good that the younger man’s face flushes, a sudden warmth spreading inside him.
“You think so?” Akutagawa quickly covers his mouth after the question, realizing just how desperate he sounds.
Chuuya smiles and winks at him.
*
A few hour pass and most mafia members are so drunk they cannot move. Akutagawa feels sick and wants to go home immediately, though he doesn’t trust this own ability to do so. He has no idea what he’s doing, his self-control has abandoned him entirely. It’s dark and they’re the only ones left in the bar. He acts on his instincts, standing up with almost the same difficulty as after a hard training. All around are sleeping or fainted drunks.
Then there’s Dazai, who either handles alcohol very well or hasn’t drank as much as the others. He’s rambling about something to Chuuya, who’s lying on the table with a half-dead look to him. It looks like he’s talking to a wall.
Akutagawa flounders to the two of them and Dazai looks up in surprise.
“Dazai-san, you know…” He talks loudly; his teacher gesticulates him to be quiet. The rest of the phrase is finished in a slightly lower volume.
“I would die with you.”
Dazai stares for a second, huffs, but then the huff turns gradually into a chuckle. He’s laughing. Akutagawa is too drunk to interpret the reaction and maybe overanalyze it, like he does with everything.
“Now now,” the older man finally says “That won’t do. I wouldn’t have picked you up in the first place if I didn’t want you to live.”
“I’m not that valuable anyway” comes the response, followed by a tired, self-deprecating snicker “And I really want to.”
“Let all that training and effort go to waste?”
“What about letting you go to waste, isn’t that much worse?”
Dazai sighs heavily. He does this when he’s more severe than usual.
“Akutagawa, let go of this subject. Seriously.”
*
Sometimes Akutagawa goes out on his days off; usually, he does. He likes walking under cherry blossoms, sitting on rooftops or in abandoned parks, or just wandering off. Not today. He doesn’t feel like doing anything. He has barely eaten in the past two days and at this point, he can’t even pinpoint the reason.
Two days earlier, he went through the first hangover of his life, and he didn’t enjoy it, to say the least. One would think he’s more resistant to physical suffering, but in reality, his constitution interacting with alcohol only made him go through an absolute hell. The memories of talking to Dazai didn’t help either.
Akutagawa vomited several times; he lost count after a while. He also started coughing up blood, but he wasn’t even surprised anymore. His condition was so terrible that he took off two days again, and naturally he wasn’t too enthusiastic about it.
Paradoxically, Dazai’s opinion ceased to matter, because for one thing, Akutagawa can’t even gather the courage to look at him, and for another, he has ruined their connection forever with his drunken idiocy, and he knows it. The young man feels as if even thinking of what his mentor’s opinion of him is right now would be an offense to him.
Only now, calmer and also more apathetic, is he able to remember and to take guesses as to what’s next. He’ll probably go back to training with him and everything will be normal again. This was an incident, a one-time occurrence. Akutagawa finishes the tea he frantically made before the entire disaster ensued. He still has to walk around with several layers of clothing for his fever.
He lies down on his bed. Still, dying with him would be nice . He rolls around, feeling an irritation creep up in his insides, his skin, his eyes. Am I not even worthy of death? He feels it coming. He can’t stop this anymore. He rubs his eyes in advance, as if it could help anything, but it’s useless.
His fingers lock around the sheets, trying to relieve tension. And the contraction in his chest just won’t go away, no matter how hard he clutches at it, and he must look so pitiful, and the mirror is still there, and Kouyou was right, and there’s a thousand reasons why he’s miserable, and-
Akutagawa cries bitter and abundant tears. His eyes might have gotten watery once or twice in his life, but it never got as far as sobbing, and now it feels liberating and disgusting at the same time. The streams on his face have no intention to stop, despite him trying his hardest to shut his eyes and get himself together. Strangely enough, in the hour he spends crying, some of the anxiety looming over him washes away in the same way rain cleans city streets. Although the source of his suffering is filthy and immoral, an indecency, one of the things he disapproves of and is revolted by, this pain seems pure to him.
He doesn’t know what to call this emotion, but one thing he knows for sure is that he feels it way too much.