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Akutagawa felt his lungs tightening, each breath shallow and sharp. He coughed, the sound harsh and ugly, and tasted iron. His body, honed through years of battle, finally betrayed him.
So this is it, then.
He refused to accept it. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa did not die so easily. And yet—his vision dimmed, the world tilting out of place.
“Akutagawa?!”
That voice cut through the ringing in his ears. Nakajima Atsushi’s voice—too loud, too frantic. Annoying.
…And yet.
If he had to hear anyone at the end, he supposed it was acceptable.
He tried to straighten himself, pride screaming at him not to fall apart like this. His lungs seized again, forcing another cough from his throat. He felt hands grab onto him, unsteady and desperate.
“Don’t move,” Atsushi said, panic leaking into every word. “Just—just stay with me. We’ll get you help.”
Fool.
Akutagawa’s fingers twitched, brushing Atsushi’s sleeve by accident—or perhaps on purpose. He couldn’t tell anymore. He wanted to speak, to say something sharp, something final. But his body refused him even that dignity.
His grip loosened. The pain dulled. The world went quiet.
˙◠˙
There was no dramatic end.
No final insult. No declaration of superiority.
Just silence.
Atsushi kept calling his name, over and over, as if repetition might force Akutagawa to answer. When the medics pulled him away, Atsushi didn’t resist—he simply went numb.
They told him Akutagawa died quickly.
That didn’t help.
After that, Atsushi functioned on autopilot. Missions were completed. Reports were filed. People spoke to him, and he responded. But every empty hallway, every rustle of fabric, every cough made his chest tighten painfully.
Two weeks passed.
Akutagawa Ryūnosuke did not return.
˙◠˙
The funeral was small. Quiet. Controlled—just as Akutagawa would have preferred.
Some people wore their usual clothes, unchanged, as if refusing to acknowledge the weight of the occasion. Atsushi wore black. A veil obscured his face, and draped over his shoulders was Akutagawa’s coat. It swallowed him, the fabric far too heavy, the presence unmistakable.
He hadn’t asked permission.
He doubted Akutagawa would have cared.
“…Atsushi-kun?” Dazai said lightly when they were finally alone, though his eyes were sharp with concern. “What’s with the outfit?”
“He’s gone,” Atsushi said. Flat. Stated like a fact he hadn’t fully processed yet.
Dazai hummed. “Yes. That does tend to happen when people die.”
Atsushi’s hands clenched in the sleeves of the coat. “He was right there,” he whispered. “And I still couldn’t save him.”
Dazai’s expression softened. “You’re allowed to grieve, you know.”
“…He’s really gone,” Atsushi repeated, voice cracking this time. The realization finally sank in, sharp and merciless. He stepped forward suddenly, burying his face into Dazai’s chest, shoulders shaking.
Dazai hesitated only a moment before resting a hand on Atsushi’s head.
From a distance, Fukuzawa observed in silence. Loss was not new to the Agency—but that didn’t make it any easier to watch another young man carry it alone.
˙◠˙
Grief did not arrive all at once.
It seeped in slowly—between missions, between breaths. Atsushi stopped sleeping through the night. When he did sleep, he dreamed of blood on concrete, of black fabric slipping through his fingers, of a voice that never finished its sentence.
At first, the drinking was accidental.
A glass offered after a mission. A bottle left open in the office kitchen. Something warm and burning to quiet the tremor in his hands. Dazai joked about it once—called it “adult coping mechanisms.” Atsushi smiled, because that was easier than explaining.
One glass became two.
Two became necessary.
Alcohol dulled the sharp edges. It made the memories fuzzy, the guilt distant—manageable. It helped him forget the weight of the coat hanging in his room, still faintly carrying Akutagawa’s scent.
He stopped wearing it eventually.
Not because it stopped hurting—but because it hurt too much.
Atsushi started missing meals. He laughed a second too late in conversations. Sometimes he answered questions that hadn’t been asked. Kunikida noticed. So did Fukuzawa.
No one said anything.
They all pretended not to see the way Atsushi’s hands shook before missions, or how his eyes lingered on every shadow like he was expecting someone to step out of it.
Late at night, he drank alone.
He told himself it was temporary. That once things settled, once the ache faded, he’d stop. He told himself Akutagawa would sneer at him if he saw this—would call him weak, pathetic.
That thought hurt more than any hangover.
“I’m sorry,” Atsushi murmured one night to an empty room, bottle half-finished beside him. “I really tried.”
The silence did not answer.
Weeks passed.
Atsushi kept moving. Kept fighting. Kept surviving.
But something inside him stayed buried alongside Akutagawa Ryūnosuke—heavy, unresolved, and aching to be noticed.
˙◠˙
Atsushi didn’t remember deciding to go there.
He only remembered the bottle—emptying, refilling, emptying again. The way the room felt too small. Too quiet. The way his chest ached like something was trying to claw its way out.
He stumbled through the cemetery long after midnight, boots sinking into damp earth. The air was cold. Good. Cold was good.
Akutagawa hated the cold.
The thought made Atsushi laugh—and then choke on the sound.
“I just want to see you,” he slurred, staring down at the grave. “That’s all. I deserve that much.”
The shovel felt too heavy. The ground fought him every inch of the way. His hands blistered. His arms screamed. He didn’t stop.
By the time the coffin lid came into view, Atsushi was sobbing openly—tears cutting hot tracks down his face as his hands shook.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t save you. I’m sorry I let them put you here.”
The lid creaked open.
Akutagawa lay perfectly still.
Too still.
His skin was pale, unmarred by time. No smell. No decay. It was as if death itself had been stalled—paused, waiting.
Atsushi exhaled a broken sound and collapsed to his knees.
“You’re not gone,” he said desperately. “See? I knew it. You’re just—cold. You always hated that.”
He reached out, fingers trembling, brushing fabric, sleeve, hair. Everything where it should be. Everything wrong.
Atsushi dragged the body free with clumsy care, cradling it like something precious, something fragile. He ignored the mud soaking into his clothes, the way his hands shook violently.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he promised. “I won’t let you rot. I won’t let you disappear.”
Later—no one ever knew how—Atsushi found a place. Underground. Cold. Always cold. He brought ice. Monitored the temperature obsessively. Panicked whenever it rose even slightly.
He cleaned Akutagawa’s face every day.
Talked to him. Argued with him. Apologized.
Sometimes he swore he saw Akutagawa’s chest rise.
Sometimes he drank just enough to believe it.
˙◠˙
At first, Atsushi only stayed until dawn.
He’d sit on the edge of the narrow cot he’d dragged down there, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, listening to the hum of the cooling units. Watching for movement. Waiting for breath.
Then one night, exhaustion won.
He woke with his forehead pressed against Akutagawa’s shoulder.
Panic hit him all at once—heart slamming, breath tearing out of his chest—but when he realized where he was, who he was touching, the fear twisted into something softer. Something unbearable.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, barely audible. “I didn’t mean to—”
He didn’t move away.
The cold seeped into his bones. He welcomed it. Pulled the thin blanket higher, careful, so careful, like Akutagawa might shatter if he shifted too fast. Atsushi lay stiff beside him, staring at the concrete ceiling, counting breaths that never came.
The next night, he turned toward him.
By the third, his arm rested loosely across Akutagawa’s chest, fingers curled in fabric, as if claiming proof that he was still there. Still real.
Atsushi started bringing music down with him—old records, distorted through cheap speakers. Waltzes. Things with too much echo. He told himself it was for the silence. The silence was the worst part.
Sometimes, when the alcohol sat just right in his bloodstream and the lights were low, he’d take Akutagawa’s hands.
They were always cold. Always stiff.
“That’s fine,” Atsushi whispered, guiding him upright. “You were never good at leading anyway.”
He’d sway alone, doing all the work—stepping, turning, compensating for dead weight and locked joints. His forehead would rest against Akutagawa’s, breath fogging faintly in the chill.
To anyone else, it would’ve looked obscene.
To Atsushi, it felt like devotion.
“You see?” he’d murmur, eyes glassy. “We still fit. You can’t tell me we don’t.”
Sometimes he laughed. Sometimes he cried so hard he had to sit down on the floor, clutching Akutagawa’s coat like it might anchor him to the world.
Above ground, everything was unraveling.
At the Agency, Atsushi was never sober.
He reeked of alcohol by noon. His hands shook during briefings. He laughed at the wrong things, stared too long at nothing. Dazai watched him with sharp, quiet eyes. Kunikida snapped at him more than usual. No one mentioned the bruises on his knuckles. No one asked why he never went home.
He slept at his desk. Missed missions. Showed up bleeding and shrugged it off.
“Just tired,” he said, every time.
At night, he went back underground.
Back to the cold. Back to the quiet. Back to the only place where Akutagawa hadn’t left him.
He crawled into bed beside the corpse and pressed his face into a shoulder that would never warm.
“I’m still here,” he whispered, over and over, like a prayer. Like a threat. “So you have to be too.”
And somewhere between the drinking and the dancing and the endless apologies, Atsushi stopped remembering what it felt like to sleep alone.
˙◠˙
˙◠˙
The underground room was quiet.
Too quiet.
The cooling units hummed their steady, artificial heartbeat. Atsushi sat
on the floor beside the cot, back against the metal frame, fingers
loosely tangled in the fabric of Akutagawa’s sleeve. His eyes were
unfocused, glassy—not drunk enough to forget, not sober enough to feel properly.
He’d stopped going above ground days ago. Maybe longer.
Time felt irrelevant here, where nothing changed, where
Akutagawa never decayed, never answered, never left.
“I tried,” Atsushi whispered, voice hoarse. “I really did.”
The words felt old. Worn thin. Meaningless.
He thought of Dazai’s hand on his head at the funeral. Of Kunikida’s
frown. Of the way the city kept moving as if nothing had been lost. He
thought of how Akutagawa had died in his arms, how he had begged him to stay, how the world had not listened.
Atsushi shifted closer, pressing his forehead to Akutagawa’s temple. The cold no longer startled him.
It felt natural. Familiar. Honest.
“I don’t know how to exist without you,” he admitted quietly. “You were supposed to be there. Even if you hated me. Even if you looked down on me. At least you were there.”
His hand trembled as he brushed Akutagawa’s hair back, just like he did every night.
“I think… I’m tired of pretending you are.”
The lights flickered once. The hum continued.
Atsushi lay down beside him, curling inward, his arm draped over Akutagawa’s chest like always.
But this time, his grip was slack. His breathing slow. Heavy. Like every breath took effort he no longer wanted to spend.
“I’ll stay,” he murmured. “So you won’t be alone.”
The room did not answer.
Atsushi’s eyes drifted closed. His fingers loosened their hold.
The cold no longer felt cold.
The weight in his chest finally, mercifully, began to lift.
He breathed out—
and for the first time in weeks, he didn’t breathe back in.
˙◠˙