Work Text:
To Ichiyou Higuchi, survival was synonymous with coping.
This extended deep into childhood. Despite the fact that memories retained at young ages are often few and far between, her avid participation in journaling highlighted many years of her life. Fond days were spent between her and her treasured diary. Her family struggled with money, but the lack of toys and technology never bothered Ichiyou.
You cannot miss what you’ve never had.
Besides writing, she had her younger sister, Kuniko. They spent many hours entertaining themselves with paper dolls and hushed giggles. The understated innocence of that time was preserved in the pages she penned so adamantly.
At seventeen, their father died of illness, leaving the remaining three women in the house to inherit debt that sank them even lower than before.
Money. They needed money. They always had needed money, but not quite like this. Now, no one in the house had a source of income. Ichiyou watched as her mother grew more and more agitated by the day as the yen dwindled, as did the pantry.
Soon after, her fiancé, her beloved Saboro Shibuya, broke off the engagement. If it was due to her poverty… Ichiyou didn't want to think about that.
In search of a stable salary, the Higuchi women moved to Yokohama.
At their new location, they hunched over cloth, tending to sewing and laundry. Even after the move, Ichiyou kept to her diary. She wrote of heartbreak, of financial destitution, of slow days in the shop, the occasional handsome customer she tried and failed to flirt with, and so forth.
Perhaps it was fate. Perhaps it was intentional.
A man with a scarlet scarf entered the tailor one day, a foreign-looking child at his heels.
“My darling Elise, I promise you, this is the final stop before the bakery… please don't pout like that, my dearest, it shall be quick.”
“Liar! You always say it’ll be quick, Rintarou!” The younger girl huffs indignantly, arms crossed across her chest.
The elder man, likely her father, laughed weakly. “Oh, precious, it’s just one more dress. I’ve requested this one a month ago just for our birthday.”
She grimaced. “Gross…”
Ichiyou didn't know what to make of this odd conversation between the two patrons, but meekly glanced up from her needle and thread in thinly veiled curiosity. They were a strange duo, undoubtedly, and unabashed in their banter.
After another minute or so of their back and forth, she finally mustered the courage to approach the pair. “Excuse me, may I help you?”
“Ah, yes. Splendid.” The man glanced up, his gaze sharpening ever so subtly. His eyes raked down Ichiyou’s figure in a clinically disgusting manner. She resisted the instinct to step back. “You see, I commissioned a dress for my beloved Elise here, and I was informed it was complete. Might I pick it up at this time?”
Ichiyou composed herself with a thick swallow. “Of course, sir. Who was the order under?”
“Ougai Mori, I believe.”
Didn't his daughter call him something different? She couldn't recall. “I’ll be back momentarily,” she replied briskly, wasting no time in ducking into the back room. His gaze still bore holes into her back.
She could still hear their shameless conversation from the other side of the wall.
“She’s blonde.”
“Ugh, you’re revolting, Rintarou.”
“Seemingly young as well…”
“I knew you were gonna say that.”
Ichiyou’s fingers fumbled as she slid hangers down the rack until she found the gown tagged with the provided name, Mori Ougai. The ensemble was an elegant European-inspired dress made with a fabric she couldn't name and couldn't afford.
With hasty steps, she returned to the front of the store, the extravagant garment carefully folded in her arms. “This should be your request, sir.”
“Lovely,” the man exclaimed, a razor-thin smile sliding across his lips, revealing a row of startlingly white teeth. “How much will that be?”
“It’s… it’s fifty thousand yen, sir,” she answered, feeling like a specimen under a microscope when faced with the attention of this particular customer.
Mori lifted it by the shoulders, raising it to be aligned with how it would fit on the child’s body. His expression temporarily transformed into something resembling delight, but it swiftly morphed into bitter dissatisfaction.
Those obsidian irises shot up to stare daggers into Ichiyou.
“What a terrible mistake... It seems the collar isn't the correct style I desired…” The man straightened up to his full height. “I’m sure this is nothing more than a common blunder, but as we’re both aware, altering the design will be expensive…”
Ice-cold fear flooded her veins. The collar was the portion she had worked on while her mother sewed the majority of the main frock. “I-I’m so sorry, sir, I... We…”
“I do not believe it could fit within my budget… Oh, whatever shall I do…” He fretted with concern that Ichiyou would later recognize as faux. “How old are you, miss?”
“Seventeen…?”
A moment of apparent deliberation passed. “Hmm… very well. That shall do. And your name is…?”
Ichiyou didn't catch the red flags at the time, but they were embarrassingly obvious in retrospect. “I’m Ichiyou Higuchi, sir,” she stoutly supplied, fueled by his visible approval.
“Miss Higuchi, would you mind doing a favor for me? In return for this… ah, oversight.”
“What is it you ask of me?”
“It’s a mere trivial task. And if you find the job manageable, I may even offer you payment and full-time employment at my business.”
A blessing, it seemed. Within one week, Ichiyou knew it was hell.
It wasn't a business. It was the Port Mafia. But, desperate for money, she kept showing up with a newly acquired firearm and the most solemn expression she could. She never told her sister or mother of the true nature of her occupation.
A month in, it was too late to escape.
While at the bottom of the rankings, nothing more than a disposable bodyguard, no one could flee the iron grip of Yokohama’s underworld.
Surviving was synonymous with coping.
In this world of death and crime, where she was trained under a man who would sooner kick her to the floor than praise her, where she was a replaceable young face among a sea of other equally desperate and impoverished adolescents... She craved companionship.
First it was the loss of her father, and then her fiancé, and now the distance between her and her remaining family… Ichiyou had nothing but her diary, where she began to log deaths instead of breakfast. Most nights, she was too exhausted to lift a pencil.
Weeks ticked by. There was a boy, likely her age, whom she saw often. Everyone, especially the lowest in the hierarchy, feared the Mad Dog Akutagawa. Despite his youth and slim figure, he carved a reputation for his ruthlessness and as the apprentice of the now-gone Osamu Dazai, a legend for his intellect and unique ability.
His fair complexion, slender build, delicate hands, silky ebony locks… oh, he was just Ichiyou’s type.
She knew it was silly—no, utterly stupid. But the diary fell out of habit and the craving for another thing to inhabit her thoughts began to emerge.
For half a year, her gaze followed him in silence.
He returned from missions, clothes blotted the same shade of scarlet that everyone here was eternally stained with. Perhaps he was lonely like her. Perhaps he did it out of necessity like her. Perhaps he was soft on the inside like her.
Sometime after she had turned eighteen, she had been assigned under his command. Not in many grueling months had anything brought her such a pleasant thrill. Paychecks were nice, a morning sleeping in was a luxury, but the ability to fight alongside him?
Priceless.
Surviving was coping.
Ichiyou became like a leech. She prepared his tea, polished his knives, read aloud reports, and arrived an hour early to meetings. She couldn't screw this up.
Romance was unthinkable in the mafia. She was aware of this. Everyone was. But her mind ran away with its own intentions, painting fantasies of a peaceful alternative where she could be with him. Where everything was okay.
Reality was much harsher.
“Shut up and don't get in my way.”
“Understood, senpai.”
Even two years later, somewhere hidden beneath layers of disillusionment and longing, Ichiyou knew she meant less than dirt to Akutagawa. She didn't have the talents or abilities that the Black Lizard, a unit he led, possessed and utilized excellently. She was only twenty, fighting by the skin of her teeth just to he recognized.
You cannot miss what you’ve never had.
But she wanted and wanted and wanted… For now, this would have to be enough. It would have to be.
If she could not profess her affection, then perhaps devotion was the only form her adoration could take. Even if it never came to be, even if she died, even if he died, she knew that she would forever dote on the notion, on the perfect, polished, and ideal vision of Ryuunosuke Akutagawa that filled her diary.
She was infatuated with the concept of companionship.
To survive was to cope.
And Ichiyou was thriving.