Chapter Text
Gin, Tachihara, and Hirotsu are sitting in an empty classroom, with Gin nursing a bruise on her temple and Hirotsu disinfecting Tachihara’s wound. Neither of the students acknowledged the other.
“What happened?” Hirotsu asked, breaking the silence and immediately regretting it.
“He started it,” Gin said at the same time as Tachihara replied, “She started it.”
Hirotsu sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. This isn’t the first time they’ve had to sit here, tending to wounds and getting a lecture. These two couldn’t go a week without hitting each other. As Tachihara’s homeroom teacher, he has tried to instil discipline in the boy, yet if it’s Gin who’s initiating the fight, he doubts Tachihara has enough self-restraint to let her go. He’ll have to ask Verlaine again if he’s been correcting Gin’s behaviour.
“Akutagawa, tell me what happened.”
“He bumped into me and broke my phone.”
“It was an accident,” Tachihara interrupted, extremely annoyed by this recount. “You’re the one who wanted to pick a fight.”
“So the other times you bumped into me were also ‘accidents’?”
“This time it was.”
The two continued their bickering while Hirotsu ran a hand down his face. He was too sober to deal with this. Not even Dazai and Chuuya were as bad as this. “Enough, both of you!”
The two immediately stopped their argument and sat upright in attention. The fear was evident in their eyes. The first time they both got into a fight, Hirotsu had made them rewrite their history notes until their wrists could no longer handle it. The second time, he had them translate ancient text to modern Japanese, which took hours. Suffice to say, even after all those punishments, they still fought weekly.
“Just leave,” he said, which earned him confused looks from both students. Keeping them here would just waste both his and their time. When they didn’t move, he repeated himself, adding the threat of doing another tedious task, which got them to scram. Good riddance.
Taking out a cigarette and a lighter, he settled himself comfortably on the chair and took a long whiff. Only half a year left, and then some other teacher can deal with them. Hirotsu just prayed he would have a peaceful year next year.
As Gin made her way down the hall, she heard Tachihara’s footsteps fall behind her. It wouldn’t be fair to assume he was following her, especially since there was only one exit down this corridor. However, even past it, she still heard his footsteps. She still felt his presence behind her.
They both got off lucky this time, and she wasn’t going to waste that, so she turned around and asked in the nicest way possible, “Isn’t practice that way?”
Tachihara is part of the school’s basketball team, and considering they have a tournament in Tokyo next week, she would assume the coach would want to practice as much as possible.
“Yeah,” he replied without offering more.
Gin waited a bit to see if he’d leave, but when he didn’t, she asked, “So why are you following me?”
Tachihara was averting his gaze. He looked visibly uneasy from the way he held himself and the way he swallowed hard. “I’m sorry about your phone. I’ll pay for the repairs.”
Gin just stood there, standing at him, stunned. Out of everything he could have said, this was not what she had expected. For as long as she’s known Tachihara, she would never believe in a million years that he was capable of being a decent human being.
She should take the offer, but she also doesn’t want his help. “No, thank you.” Without anything else left to be said, she headed in the direction of the exit while Tachihara went towards the gym.
The damage to her phone couldn’t have been that bad. It just fell from her hands and maybe got kicked slightly, but it should be fine. At least, that’s what Gin hoped because she wasn’t sure she had enough money to pay for the repairs, and she didn’t want to bother her brother about it either.
She took out her phone, and okay, maybe it was a little bad. The screen looked like it'd been smashed, and she knew there was no chance it would turn on, but she tried anyway. Just as she expected, it didn’t turn on. There was a repair shop she could go to that does its services for a reasonable price, but it was all the way on the other side of Yokohama. She probably should have taken Tachihara’s offer.
Sulking over to the library, Gin settled in an empty seat and got to her homework. Kouyou had given them an essay due by the end of the week. Hirotsu wants them to finish the remainder of Chapter 4 in their history workbook. There was also a lab report to give to Randou for tomorrow. Surprisingly, Ace hadn’t given them anything.
Considering she’s pretty much done with the report, she decided to tackle the workbook first. She only had twenty questions to do, which weren’t even that hard. Hirotsu had covered all the answers in his presentation. She pitied the people who fell asleep during them, though, since some of the answers aren’t covered well in the textbook.
She then finished up tidying her lab report, making sure it all made sense before starting on the essay. Fifteen minutes before the school’s library closed, she saved her work and headed over to the printer to print the lab report. Overall, despite the setback with sitting in Hirotsu’s class for detention, she’s made some good progress. She can check off her chemistry and history work, and she has finished the introduction and two body paragraphs of her essay.
As she left the school building, she spotted her brother and Dazai talking. As she approached, she heard Dazai talking to Ryuunosuke about the designer he’ll meet and how he should at least look approachable. Gin was planning on telling him that already, but since Dazai already did, she decided she didn’t need to anymore.
Once Dazai spotted Gin, he held up a hand in greeting and waved her over. “Hey, Gin-chan. Stealthy as always.”
“Hi,” Gin said, but before anyone could say anything more, someone yelled, though in Gin’s honest opinion, she’d say it sounded more like a battle cry.
“DAZAIIIIII,” Chuuya’s voice rang through the quiet dusk. “I FOUND YOU, YOU BASTARD.”
“Greetings to you too, Chuuya,” Dazai said as Chuuya came closer and swung his fist. Before he could land the punch, Dazai grabbed his fist, although it must have hurt at least a little. “Predictable as always.”
“You put that stag beetle in my pencil case.”
“It was dead. It wasn’t going to harm you.”
“It scared the living shit out of me.”
“And how I would have loved to have seen your reaction.”
This is Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya, both third years at Port Academy. It is known to all that they are dating, yet sometimes it feels like they’re not. Dazai likes to pull pranks on Chuuya more often than Tachihara and Gin get into fights, and Chuuya doesn’t hold back as he sometimes successfully punches the lights out of Dazai. From Gin’s perspective, it was an incredibly dysfunctional relationship.
Gin turned to look at her brother, who seemed unfazed as Dazai and Chuuya looked to be trying to kill each other. Chuuya had successfully started choking Dazai, who did not look in the slightest bit worried. In fact, it looked like he was enjoying it. To each their own. But before Dazai fainted, Chuuya released his grip and left Dazai sprawled on the ground.
This. This was the most feared duo in the school.
“Chuuya, you traumatised our underclassmen,” Dazai laughed as he got up.
It was only then that Chuuya turned to acknowledge both the Akutagawas. “Ah shit.” He sounded surprised that he had an audience. “I’m sorry for that. Forget you saw anything.”
Gin would need dementia to forget something like that, and even then, she doubts it will be truly forgotten. This memory would probably haunt her for the following weeks, and whenever she sees either Dazai or Chuuya, high chance she will think back to this day. As for her brother, she doesn’t know whether to think he’s unfazed or traumatised. Maybe a bit of both.
“We’ll be heading back to the dorms,” Gin announced, grabbing Ryuunosuke’s arm and dragging him away. He is definitely shocked by the way he’s rigid.
“Let us join you,” Dazai said, keeping pace with her, and Chuuya fell next to him quickly.
It’s not like she could turn him down. Besides, Dazai kind of saved both her and Ryuunosuke from poverty. Their parents died when they were very young, so they’ve been bouncing from foster home to foster home since. One foster home didn’t want Ryuunosuke, so that night, he broke into the house and ran away with Gin to the slums. Life wasn’t easy, but their parents ran a tailor shop, so both Ryuunosuke and Gin put their skills to work to make a few coins to survive. Dazai had heard rumours about two seamstresses in the slums and went to have a look. Ryuunosuke’s stitches were much nicer than Gin’s, and when Dazai had asked him to make something from scratch, he made this beautiful beige coat that he gifted to Gin.
Dazai was impressed that he presented both siblings to Mori, who helped catch them up. Gin struggled at the beginning, while Ryuunosuke was motivated to succeed. When Ryuunosuke got into Port Academy, Mori had Gin finish her middle school publicly. She didn’t make any friends there, knowing she probably won’t see them again since she aimed to go to Port Academy. She was worried about passing the entrance exam, but she did better than she expected. Now, she gets to attend Port Academy, which she enjoys, but there’s this one individual who keeps testing her limits.