#sipping it out of my dazai teacup

[great-master-airplane]

You know it's gonna be a day when you skip the coffee and go right to the energy drink

[yayll]

Could you maybe write smth up. About literally spoiling Dazai. Because i want to sit him down on the couch and kiss his pretty fucking face and buy him everything he even glances at.!! Hold his hand on walks, take him to like roooftops to stargaze and stuff and just stare at his PRETTY AHH FACE instead. Kiss his forehead goodnight!!! Cook him stuff and cuddle him and kiss him (again)!!!!....

Im lonely and past the point of no return sorry shdkhdkfjf

HIIII there, angel! i'm so sorry this took me a bit, but umm... i kind of went insane with this concept i read your ask and i immediately just blacked out because oh do i feel the same way about this god forsaken man.. and HEAVY on the spoiling. ahh, i hope it's to your liking, and i hope it makes u feel less lonely :') it was such a pleasure to write my first request xx

~ a little something about cherishing Dazai on days he needs it the most ~

Spoiling Dazai. Now there's something you can proudly admit to being happily guilty of. You couldn't count the times you've held him for hours after a terrible day at work, or made sure he had more than just canned crab and a few bottles of Sake. You'd do anything for him to be comfortable in his own skin, and you want to make sure he knows how much you adore him... that he knows he's allowed to take up space in the world too. You're also aware that he would rather die than to ever elaborate on the vague and dismissive little comments he makes about the debilitating weight of all of his past mistakes, the ones that make him resentful and tired when it really gets to him, but that never deters you.

You've put the pieces together long enough to understand that it's not easy being Osamu Dazai, no matter what silly mask he puts on for the world. He hasn't always been a good person, an exemplary man, and you're more than well aware of that. Still, he doesn't have to be the jester who's always entertaining the masses at his own expense.

You remind him that he isn't cursed forever, that he IS worthy of flesh and blood, and when you kiss him it's like you're absolving him of all sins... you make him new again. He is utterly bewitched by you and you feel it in the way he comes up behind you and rests his chin on your shoulder, squeezing your waist just enough to let you know your warmth is the reason his own blood circulates. Or when he whispers the most silliest and unhinged things in your ear late at night so you'll curl up those precious lips into a smile... Just for him. He gets off on the happiness he gives you, simple as that. He already feels he doesn't deserve to hold on to such a good life, but he's nothing if not defiant, and he'll squeeze out every little bit of love within that void of a heart for as long as you'll have him.

But... Today is your turn to love him so much it actually hurts, It's what he gets for being a menace 24/7! That is why you chose to make sure he has an extra special day today, by bringing him out of his comfort zone with a... mystery date!

"Oh? And to what do I owe the pleasure of being courted by such a beautiful creature such as yourself on this fine day?"

Dazai sips on his tea, eyes narrowing as they peer at you from the teacup curiously. You flash him a cheeky grin, already plotting your mission to make him so flustered he can't even look at you later.

"I thought we could go out somewhere and spend some time outside... Since we've both been so busy lately. Wouldn't that be nice?"

He raises a brow, and gives you a knowing smile back. Dazai's freakishly omnipotent in that way, and it's one of the many reasons you can never truly know if your surprises land or not.

"Mmm, it could be. Where to, my love?"

"... It's a secret."

He then pretends something has hit his chest, and he grips it, dramatically throwing himself back onto the chair causing his tea to flop about in the teacup.

"Oh my, is today the day you finally take me out and end it all?! I don't know if I can take the deceit, the absolute betrayal... What an occasion-"

You cut him off with your index finger as you place it right on his lips, zipped tight and his eyes burn into you, waiting for your next words. He eats this shit up.

"Shush! Let's go."

And with that, you grab your coats and zoom out and into the day. It's one of those days where It's cloudy, but the sun still peaks out just enough to send down warm rays of light. As you walk hand in hand, you see the way those very rays hit Dazai's side profile in the most devastating way.

You want to take a photo but you don't want to ruin the moment, so you quickly tip toe and peck him on the cheek, causing him to abruptly stop in his tracks. He blinks for a few seconds, still facing forward, and you swear you can see the highs of his cheeks turn red. You end up tugging him to follow you to the park, smiling to yourself in triumph as he recovers.

You walk to a quiet part, and plop yourselves down next to each other on the soft grass. Still holding hands, you rub your thumb in circles over his bandaged fingers, silently looking up at the cloudy sky. Finally, Dazai is the one to break the silence.

"Love used to always be an empty four letter word to me, but you..."

He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard as he tries to feign composure.

"... You are, by far, my greatest love, and my most beloved weakness altogether."

You were supposed to be the one to sweep him off his feet today, now your vision is blurry and you can hear your heartbeat in your ears. You slowly sit up, and look down at him, noticing that his eyes are closed. He looks like a sleeping beauty. Your chest aches, and you wonder if this is the same type of ache he lives with on the daily. You murmur, studying the way his messy bangs frame his face, and his expression unreadable.

"That's not fair, Osamu..."

"You sound so pretty when you say it like that... Osamu."

You swallow hard, and curse him in your mind for being the man that he is. For being all you've ever yearned for. You look down at your watch, and check the time, heart beating wildly.

Thump, Thump, Thump.

"... It's fifteen till 5."

"Mm, why does that matter?" Dazai purrs as he squeezes your hand, eyes still closed.

"It always matters. Any time with you matters. You matter, Osamu."

You spend the rest of the evening nuzzled into one another, whispering secrets and trying to name constellations and giggling when you can't figure them out. He lets you kiss him silly, his eyes closed the entire time while you also toy with his hair and the nape of his neck; where you smooth over the soft fabric of his bandages and his skin, giving him goosebumps. Your touch is a sensory heaven. He's dreaming of you while awake. You'll always wake him up from the nightmares, from what cannot be undone.

When it gets too cold to stay out, you head back home and cook him whatever he asks for as he rests his chin on his palm, gazing at you with those unreadable dark eyes... always thinking too much. Always somewhere else. This time, however, you could tell he was present. He would eat sewage if you poured it for him with that loving manner of yours. You finally crawl into bed together, and Dazai cradles your face in between his hands, facing you. He mumbles, so soft.. so tender. It's a tone only you get to hear.

"It really is selfish of me to think I can have this and more."

"Desire isn't bad, Osamu."

"Mm, no, I suppose not. But it's not always wise to have desire, not for someone like me. I can't afford that."

You hear the genuine ache in his voice, and you lean in to kiss his forehead, a gentle kiss that stays planted for a few seconds before you pull back.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing, love?~" He whispers, his voice a little strained as he looks at you with those eyes, those beautiful and endless orbs of cosmic proportions that are going to consume you one day. Hopefully.

"I think so. I'm being selfish."

You smile faintly, and you proceed to make sure that you end the night the way he deserves, the way you wanted to spoil him.

[prttykittes]

I LOVE YOUR WORK MWAH(〃^ω^〃) can I request female!reader with rei ayanami's personality with beast!dazai and fyodor? (Both sfw and nswf) anyways I hope you have a wonderful day(*´ω`*)!

୧⁠(⁠＾⁠ ⁠〰⁠ ⁠＾⁠)⁠୨ yeah ofc!!! I love rei sm, thankk you sm!!(⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡ mwah

ෆ beast!Dazai, Fyodor X Fem!Reader [you/you/she/her]

— Synopsis:: you were hanging around with your lover, doing romantic stuff like comforting words and sweet stuff but things go more further.

CW. N/SFW, Praise, Thigh fucking(Fyodor), Fyodor & Dazai's dick doesn't enter ur cunt, soft sex, fingering(Dazai)

A/N :: Rei is so pretty and I love the anime even though I forgot how it goes but I can only remember the Mc letting out his white stuff at the hospital — written by a minor

[MASTERLIST] — ୧⁠(⁠＾⁠ ⁠〰⁠ ⁠＾⁠)⁠୨ all works in there!!

BEAST!DAZAI — (⁠⊃⁠｡⁠•́⁠‿⁠•̀⁠｡⁠)⁠⊃

Your head was on his chest, you were taking a break after a meeting. It was nice and quiet, just you and him. You were still silent, you close your eyes and let out sighs. It was nice, it was different than before. Loud and now peaceful, his hands rub your back softly. His hands went lower to your area and he stops. His hand near your area, you nod your head as he smiles and touches your clothed pussy. You can feel his long coat touching your butt, you can feel his scarf on your back. You turn your head to face him, you can only see half of your face. His fingers pull down your lower clothing and his fingers move your panties to the side. He smiles as he kisses you, his fingers slowly enter your pussy. "You feel so good around my fingers" he says to you, you bite your lower lip as his fingers go deeper inside of you. Your head is in his neck as your hips slightly go against his hand, his fingers continue to pump inside of you. After some moments, you finally left loose as your juices go over his fingers. He brings his fingers to his mouth, he sucks on his fingers. "You taste so good" he says, he has more ideas for you.

FYODOR — ෆ⁠╹⁠ ⁠.̮⁠ ⁠╹⁠ෆ 

You were both sitting across from each other, teacups in both of your hands. Sipping peacefully, the tea was warm but still hot enough. You both finished the tea and you both got up and went to your shared bedroom, hand in hand. You both sat on the bed, you were in robes. The bed felt nice and comfortable, his ushanka is on the table. It rests on the night stand, you were fixing the bed but you knew that something was going to happen. "{Yourname}" his voice calls out to you, you stop and walk over to him. He stares at you, his glaze never leaving you. "Sit down" he says, you nod your head and sit down on the bed. He pushes you more over to the bed, your legs are wrapped around his. "Show me" he says, you lift up your lower robe and he pulls down his pants. His dick springs out, it hits his stomach and he places his dick between your thighs. You watch his actions, his dick between your thighs as it goes up and down. He moves more closer as his dick rubs up and down your pussy, he moves faster but not to fast. His forehead is in yours and you feel yourself clench around nothing, you wanted his dick inside of you but he wanted to wait til marriage. He grabs your hips and moves you faster, after sometime he cums. His cum going all over your stomach and thighs, covered in his white sticky liquid.

[zukkaoru]

14, 16, and/or 22 for the excerpt asks! <3

14. that was out of my comfort zone

Dazai swallows just as Fyodor takes a bite. They go back and forth, moving chess pieces across an invisible board and sharing a bagel. Somehow, it’s the most erotic thing Dazai has ever experienced, and she and Fyodor aren’t even touching each other. But his voice is velvety and cool to the touch, just like his fingers, and it traces swirling patterns along Dazai’s spine. Dazai swipes her finger through the cream cheese and licks it off slowly, drawing Fyodor’s gaze to her lips. Fyodor captures her rook with one of his own and she can imagine his deft fingers effortlessly swapping the pieces as he slips right into her opening. She wants him so bad.

sigh.. take the fyozai chess sex. (this isn't even close to all of it)

22. that is so blissfully self-indulgent

There’s no use arguing with Elise. She always gets what she wants. She sits him down at the tea party table, between the Akutagawa siblings, and wraps a feather boa around his neck. “You’re still my pet worm,” she says, because despite the fact that Chuuya has known her for seven years and has never once been particularly awful towards her, she has an incessant need to force him to be the worst character she can think up. Gin snickers. Chuuya shoots them a nasty glare, and they turn it into a cough, averting their gaze. On Chuuya’s other side, Akutagawa takes a slow sip from his teacup, which holds water instead of real tea. A plastic tiara sits lopsided on his head.

from my chuuya wip. forcing the port mafia characters to participate in tea parties is one of my favorite pastimes. and chuuya always has to be the worm

16. from a recent piece i want to brag about

from alive & free (look at me) aka my nikolai & kenji fic

He grabs Kenji by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. “Don’t you get it? I wanted this. This is exactly what I wanted! For so long! To be completely free from all earthly tethers! Nathaniel is gone and Fedya is dead and Sigma hates me and I killed my parents when I was sixteen and then I burned down our house and then I burned down the church and then I ran and I never looked back. I’m free and I’m alive and I’m the only one left and Kenji-kun, oh my fucking God it’s the worst fucking thing that could ever have possibly happened to me! And I asked for all of it!” He dissolves into a fit of maniacal giggles, his fingers pressing harder into Kenji’s arms, like he’s trying to use Kenji to keep himself upright. Fear seizes Kenji’s heart for a moment, because Nikolai is shaking so badly Kenji is worried there’s something wrong with him. He doesn’t really know what to do, except— He’s only eaten a couple cherry tomatoes, so he still has plenty of strength to pry Nikolai’s hands off of him, and then lean forward, bringing him into a tight hug. Nikolai continues giggling and shaking and he doesn’t really hug back, but he doesn’t try to get away either. And after a moment, the laughter quiets but the shaking continues and Nikolai finally reciprocates the hug and Kenji realizes— He’s crying.

[animeyanderelover]

"Umm, Fyodor? They was a bandaged man who claimed I was his reason to live.. do you happen to know him?"

What if Dazai was actually serious? 👀

I think I’ll open my inbox in my holidays again since currently I have way too much exams going on.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, manipulation, mind break, gaslighting, isolation, sadism

“Umm, Fyodor? There was a bandaged man who claimed I was his reason to live…do you happen to know him?”

It was a brief moment where your news settled within the man, a brief moment where the small porcelain cup with tea halted only a millimeter away from his pale lips, a brief moment where a dark glimmer appeared in his purple eyes. But just like a short-lived flash during a storm, everything disappeared from his face before your senses could fully grasp it.

You wondered if it all had perhaps just been an illusion as you could track no sign of anything on Fyodor’s face as he was sipping in a placid manner the hot liquid before he slowly put the teacup down, a silent clangor ringing through the dimly lit room as he placed it on the saucer.

You watched with a weirdly high suspense, his rather unreadable reaction and the delay of his answer confusing you. You kept quiet though, hoping that he’d give you his answer.

When his dark purple eyes met yours as he rested his chin on his folded hands, you knew you had his attention.

“Oh? That sounds strange. Care to tell me a bit more about your encounter, my little mouse?”

His voice didn’t give any sort of emotions away, sounding as calm and soft as a breeze in spring, something that made your heart flutter in a tingling motion.

You nodded obediently, quickly starting to explain in more details about the young man you had met earlier today all whilst Fyodor was listening intently.

Figuring his own feelings out at the moment were hard for himself, he knew that the man you had met today meant trouble, without a doubt he was aware of too much already. Watching you trying to recall as much as you could do you could tell him everything had him realize how precious you really were to him. Dazai’s sudden intrusion weren’t news that had him necessarily satisfied.

At the same time he felt tantalized by this sudden challenge, Dazai had most likely approached you to get under his skin and it was working. It would be fascinating to find out if the man had meant what he had said or not as well because if Dazai had told the truth, Fyodor could very well imagine what he wanted and the same thought intrigued Fyodor himself just as much.

A game between the two men, with you as the reward. He wondered whether he should agree to this proposal or not, bet his own darling that he had gained full ownership over since quite a while now as a prize. He’d love to see you suffering a bit just as much as he would love to win against Dazai, but to his own irritation he found himself hesitating.

[fantastic-rambles]

Black Beast, Silver Blade [3]

Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs

Characters: Akutagawa Gin, Ozaki Kouyou, Dazai Osamu, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, Nakahara Chuuya (briefly)

Warnings: Violence/homicide, mild gore, some angst, idk.

Word Count: 3.4k

"If you're his mentor, then isn't it your responsibility to look out for him?" Ozaki's voice was lightly venomous. Gin had never heard her speak in such a tone before, so instead of walking past the older woman's sitting room, she cautiously peered inside. A pot of tea had been set out on the table, but neither Ozaki nor the young man sitting across from her seemed to be touching their cups. Gin's heart skipped a beat as she recognized the heavily bandaged man swathed in black. If Dazai was here, was it somehow related to Ryuu?

"You know I have to stay with Chuuya-kun this time," Dazai retorted, leaning back on the couch. His eyes flicked to the doorway, widening fractionally as he noticed the girl watching them, and then he smiled as if he'd been expecting it all along. "Why don't we let Gin-chan decide, since she'd be the one in danger? Come in, come in."

He flapped his hand at her, but she hesitated on the threshold, looking toward her teacher. Ozaki was frowning slightly as she also turned her head to look at Gin, but she eventually nodded reluctantly, and Gin stepped lightly into the room, stopping when she stood at Ozaki's shoulder. She waited quietly, suppressing her presence as she had been taught, as she fixed her eyes on the youngest Executive of the Port Mafia.

He hadn't changed much since the last time she'd seen him, and she found herself wondering about his bandages once more. He didn't seem like someone who could be injured so badly, given that he'd apparently single-handedly taken down a small gang without lifting a finger, and yet, she never saw him without them.

"Yah, Gin-chan, you're as cute as always!" Dazai exclaimed cheerfully, though the steadiness of his gaze didn't falter. Even so, Gin could feel herself coloring, and she inclined her head slightly in silent thanks.

"Anyways, I was just talking with Kouyou-san about how I need someone to hold A-kun's leash for a little while," Dazai continued. "She thinks--and I agree--that you're not ready for a mission of this level yet, but there's also nobody else who could handle it without losing an arm, at the very least. We're planning a raid on one of our best suppliers because they've been skimming enough off the top that they think they have a chance at taking us on. To teach them the error of their ways and make sure that none of them slip through the cracks, I want to have a team go in from each side and trap them in a pincer attack. Based purely on strength, the vanguards would be Chuuya-kun and A-kun, but I'm worried about both of them losing control during the fight. I'm the only one who can stop Chuuya-kun if that happens, but your brother will probably listen to you, right?"

Gin frowned slightly beneath the mask that she'd taken to wearing. Ryuu had never been particularly inclined to obey anyone else, and these days, the only person whose words he seemed to hang onto were Dazai's. But before she could respond, Ozaki interrupted, jabbing in his direction accusingly.

"Tell her the truth, Dazai. It's not that you think she can control him, but that if he savages her, there's a chance he'll come to his senses. I thought that we all agreed to keep their relationship a secret so they can't be used against each other: if you do this, who knows what rumors will start? Unless you're hoping that Akutagawa-kun will kill Gin to remove that weakness."

"Aiya, aiya, you're too suspicious, Kouyou-san!" Dazai reprimanded the other executive. "Okay, yes, you're right: I think A-kun would recognize Gin-chan and hesitate to raise a hand against her, which means she can push him in the right direction during our raid. But I really don't want her to die! If A-kun actually killed her, or even if she died because of a situation that he got her involved in, he'd probably be of no more use to the Port Mafia!"

Although he spoke jokingly, Gin had to repress a shudder. It wasn't that she was afraid of Ryuu, or of death. But the way Dazai had said he would be "of no more use" so carelessly, as if her brother was simply a tool that would be discarded if it broke, was an icy blade in her heart. Both of them knew that Ryuu's mentor was just this sort of cold and logical man, but it still scared her to think what would happen if the only man her brother respected, the one who had given Ryuu a reason to live, abandoned him. And on top of that, if she was no longer there…

But if she wasn't there and Ryuu turned his fangs on his allies, he would either be killed by the Mafia or blacklisted if he somehow managed to survive.

"I'll do it," she said softly. She couldn't see Ozaki's expression from where she was standing, but she could read her mentor's feelings anyways in the way the older woman tensed. She was happy to know that Ozaki cared for her, but this was something that she couldn't back down from, and she was relieved when Ozaki didn't try to dissuade her. Instead, the executive addressed her next words to her counterpart.

"It has to be tonight?"

"Yup! I've already sent out the call to muster, so we're committed now!" Dazai stood up, brushing off his pants and clearly indicating that the meeting was over. As he passed Gin, he pulled a twist of paper from the pocket of his coat and offered it to her. Knowing that it was probably information regarding where she had to rendezvous, she accepted it silently.

"Tonight, then!" he reminded her brightly before he left. Afterwards, the room was filled with a tense silence, and Gin wondered if she should just leave. But then Ozaki sighed, taking another cup from the tray and filling it with tea before placing it beside her own.

"Sit down, Gin."

Quietly, she obeyed, taking a seat beside the older woman and turning her head to look at Ozaki. She was startled when her mentor suddenly reached out and placed a hand on her cheek, and she could feel the warmth even through the thin cloth.

"Poor child," Ozaki murmured, her expression soft and a little sad. "I wish that I could come with you, but I have a meeting with an important partner tonight. Which Dazai must have known."

Her eyes flashed with momentary irritation, and again, Gin felt a deep appreciation and sympathy for the woman who had been taking care of her. She herself would feel more confident if Ozaki were beside her tonight, but Dazai was always quite deliberate in his actions, despite how frivolous he seemed. If the situation really was as dangerous as he had suggested, then perhaps this was a test for Ryuu, to determine whether he would be able to expend his powers to the fullest without losing control: if Ozaki were there, even just as backup, he could afford to hold back.

But then Ozaki turned away to pick up the teacup, offering it to Gin with steady hands. Hesitantly, Gin unhooked her mask, smoothing it flat in her lap, before accepting the offering, the delicate porcelain rattling slightly on its saucer. She waited for the other woman to raise her own cup, then took a sip of the lukewarm tea. They drank in silence, and when Gin had finished, she reached out to place the cup back on the table and rose to her feet. After she had resettled her mask on her face, she bowed deeply to Ozaki.

"Thank you for your guidance."

"Come back." Ozaki's voice was low and fierce. "Whatever happens, stay alive: you and your brother. And come back to me. I'm not done with you yet."

"Thank you," Gin repeated softly, hoping that she would be able to obey the command. When her mentor said nothing else, she retreated, unfolding the paper that Dazai had given her and memorizing its contents before tearing it to pieces and disposing of it.

She had hoped that she would have the opportunity to speak to her brother before the raid, but he hadn't come home for dinner. So now she was elbowing her way through the foot soldiers--drawing more than one curious glance--and making her way to the front of the lines. One man tried to waylay her, but he immediately let go of her arm when she slashed her knife at him, leaving the faintest trail of blood across his throat. After that, she was given enough of a berth to let her slide through the crowd, preceded by a low murmur. Thus, when she finally emerged, both Dazai and Ryuu were waiting for her, and Ryuu's eyes widened with shock and recognition.

"You--" he took a step forward, but his movement was arrested by Dazai's arm across his chest.

"Akutagawa, this is Gin, one of Kouyou's subordinates. I've borrowed him to reinforce this side since I need to be with Chuuya-kun. Gin, I'm sure that you've heard of Akutagawa? I hope that the two of you can get along," Dazai introduced Gin blandly. Gin inclined her head slightly in silent greeting while Ryuu just continued to stare at her. Finally, he turned away.

"I don't need his support. He'll just get in the way," Ryuu retorted, sliding his hands into his pockets. Grinning, Dazai slapped him on the shoulder.

"Well, if he does, I'd rather you don't kill him. Kouyou would be upset with me." Apparently satisfied that Ryuu wasn't going to make a scene, Dazai sauntered away while Gin advanced until she was standing just behind her brother.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed. Glancing over her shoulder at the assembled men and women, Gin was satisfied that they were keeping enough of a respectful distance that the siblings could speak quietly together without being overheard.

"Dazai-san asked me to come. I agreed," she replied calmly. "He thought that it would be a good test of my progress without putting me in serious danger since you'd be here. And I think that he's concerned that I won't be able to kill actual people."

She lied smoothly, having rehearsed it in her head for hours as she'd waited for Ryuu. She hated having to lie to him, but she had quickly come to the conclusion that it was better than the alternative. The truth would only hurt him, knowing that the man who he respected so dearly doubted his ability, and her story was plausible enough. It might even be true: Dazai was someone who always saw several moves ahead and rarely did anything for simply one reason.

"It's fine if you can't."

"This is my choice."

Before Ryuu could continue to argue, his walkie-talkie squawked, and he turned to face the assembled forces, raising a hand.

"Five minutes."

As he turned back around, he caught sight of Gin's raised eyebrow and explained, "They'd get in my way."

Then his cloak warped, darting forward in dark blades to slice apart the heavy steel doors and send them crashing to the ground in pieces. Before the dust had settled, he sprang forward, and Gin followed at his heels. As the sound of gunfire echoed in her ears, she sprang off to the side, her eyes picking out features in the gritty haze: piles of shipping containers, a narrow walkway, frequent muzzle flashes. Then the crash of metal, screams, the bitter copper tang of blood.

Leaving Ryuu to his work, she ran silently along the wall of the warehouse, scanning her surroundings for a way up. He could handle the forces on the floor, but anyone on the walkway would be out of his reach, so she couldn't leave them be. If his men were five minutes behind him, there wouldn't be a need for her to be by his side until they caught up, so until then, she could act on her own to keep him safe.

When a flimsy aluminum ladder materialized in front of her, she quickly climbed up, peering over the top. But none of the men were looking at her, as they were focused on the carnage below them, so she crawled over the edge, staying low as she snuck up on the closest of them. Truthfully, though, she needn't have bothered: the man was screaming curses as his machine gun chattered away, and he only became aware of her presence in the moment that her left hand wrapped over his mouth and her right hand drew her knife across his throat. Instantly, she released him, and he fell to his knees, his hands reaching up to try to staunch the flow of his blood as she silently cursed herself for not cutting deeply enough to make a clean kill.

But he would die soon enough. Leaving him where he was, she ghosted up to the next shooter, her left hand gripping her right wrist tightly to try to stop its tremors. Something must have alerted her target, though, because he suddenly spun toward her, and she had a brief, terrifying moment of staring down the barrel of his gun before she ducked and rolled forward, slamming into his legs and knocking him into his companion, sending both of them sprawling to the ground. Gin, on the other hand, had risen to her knees and lunged forward, planting her weapon squarely in the man's throat and ripping it sideways, releasing a fountain of blood that drenched her and made her shudder. Her other assailant was struggling to untangle his own gun, giving her precious few seconds to reach up and slam the heel of her hand into his nose, driving the nasal bone into the brain.

And then a concussive force slammed against her left shoulder. Gasping, she retreated as a trail of bullets followed her, clinking against the metal with more than a few burning through her flesh. And then a louder roar echoed from behind her, making her flinch and drop to the ground as feet pounded by her.

"Are you alright, sir?" A hand landed on her injured shoulder, and she jerked away from the touch as the reinforcements rushed down the walkway to clean up the rest of the smugglers. Glancing over the edge, she saw the troops that Ryuu had held back surging up the warehouse in a black wave toward a figure of wild and concentrated violence. The other side of the warehouse was apparently in the process of being flattened, with dented and distorted shipping containers flying through the air. Waving off the man's concern, she stood on shaky legs, gripping the railing with her good hand and swinging over the edge, dropping onto a pile of containers, and rolling forward to decrease the impact. Her right leg cried out in pain as it was jolted, and she bit the inside of her cheek to avoid crying out herself as she looked down at it.

There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it, other than two holes that bled freely. There wasn't time to treat it properly, not if she was going to catch up to Ryuu, so she used her knife to cut off her left sleeve, wrapping it tightly around her leg to put pressure on the wounds and slow the bleeding. Then she stumbled forward, using the containers as an upper road that kept her out of the potential crossfire as she approached the maelstrom of cloth.

She paused just outside of his range, dropping down to solid ground with a wince. As she peered around the edge of the container, her heart ached to see Ryuu staggering, covered in blood, as Rashoumon whipped around him, devouring bodies with a ravenous hunger. The screams echoed in her ears even though she'd been half-deafened by the machine gun fire on the walkway, before they were abruptly silenced. But at least it was almost over: the rattling of gunfire was more sporadic now, some of their enemies throwing aside weapons and raising their arms in surrender.

And then she saw one pair of dark jaws flying towards a man kneeling on the ground. Without thinking, she ran forward, throwing herself between the two of them. With unexpected force, the beast slammed into her, its momentum driving her into the side of another storage container and making her cough and struggle to draw breath as the air was driven out of her lungs.

"Ryuu," she gasped. She didn't know if he heard her as sharp teeth pricked at her sides, and she castigated herself mentally: the man wasn't even one of theirs, but an enemy. What did it matter if he died? That was the point of this raid, after all. And yet, striking down someone who had lost the will to fight... how could she allow it?

Too soft, a voice whispered in her head. The iron jaws released her before floating back to Ryuu's side, leaving her to slide down the corrugated steel, still fighting to breathe. A sharp pain stabbed her side as she inhaled shallowly, fighting the urge to cough that would undoubtedly make it worse. Foolish, weak, still hiding behind your brother.

An ominous-looking ball flew toward her, but she just stared at it, unable to move. It crashed into the container, crumpling it inwards as easily as if it were a tin can, and she gazed at the enormous hole beside her with wide-eyed surprise.

"Alright, alright, good job everyone!"

A familiar voice rang out in the silence that was settling over the warehouse, and Gin couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief that made her wince. Glancing over, she saw Dazai standing nearby, his hand wrapped around a shorter man's wrist: Nakahara Chuuya, she guessed. Nakahara's skin was covered with dark marks that were retreating from their point of contact in a slow crawl that made her uneasy. Ryuu stood a short distance away from them, his coat no longer a mass of blades, but shining with a dampness that made it glisten ominously. But he remained in control of himself and his ability: a small blessing.

Gingerly, Gin rose to her own feet, using the remains of the container to support herself. The movement seemed to capture Dazai's attention, and he released Nakahara, who fell to the ground in a limp, boneless collapse that suggested he was unconscious. Before she realized it, the Executive was standing beside her, his hand under her elbow steadying her. Ryuu was only a few steps behind him.

"Akutagawa, take Gin to the medics, will you? And then you'll wait to get patched up too. I'll take care of the rest here."

"But Dazai-san--"

"That's an order, Akutagawa. Both of you did well."

Ryuu closed his mouth and bent over slightly to wrap his arm around her shoulders. Bands of soft, dark cloth curled around her torso so that she was barely standing, her weight almost entirely supported by her brother.

"Thank you, Ryuu," Gin whispered. But he just shook his head in response, guiding her away from Dazai and the carnage. Now that the fighting was over, he didn't seem to be in much better shape than she was: he was breathing heavily, and not all of the blood that drenched his cloak seemed to be the enemy's. But there was a fierce gleam in his eye as they walked towards the exit, his weakness concealed by a strong sense of pride that kept every step firm. For Gin, though, it was all that she could do to not lean against him, to reassure herself that he was really there. But Dazai had gone to so much trouble to keep their relationship a secret, to give Ryuu excuses for his behavior. She couldn't risk it all for a moment of self-indulgence: that could wait until they returned home together.

As they walked together, Gin wondered again about the purpose of this exercise. It hadn't seemed like Ryuu had lost control: was it intended as a test for her, after all? Or did her brother simply have a better grasp of his ability than his mentor expected?

And then she smiled slightly, her expression hidden by her mask. They were both badly injured, but they'd survived. That was all that mattered.

[teenitinygod]

Hey, so I feel bad for asking for this request because I know it is really dark, but at the same time you’re my favorite writer and your words really bring me comfort in dark times. Could you please write a Chuuya or Dazai (u can pick) about their girlfriend having an eating disorder who is obsessed with working out and how they would comfort them or something when they find out a lot of fluff maybe idk idk idk thank u sorry if it’s too much

i was having a shitty day and i saw this and started crying- I’m so happy that you love my writing and that it does that for you! <3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dazai Osamu

Dazai, being the observant person he was, picked up on it before you got together. He noticed how you rarely ate but he figured it was just because you weren’t hungry or just simply was a picky eater. When he took you out you didn’t eat big meals or sometimes you didn’t eat at all. 

The more time he spent with you, the more things he observed about you, how you were always working out, you barely ate, and after meals you sprinted to the bathroom. It wasn’t till he stayed over for the first time when he decided to address it.

Having puked your meal up in the toilet, you sat on the floor of your bathroom, tears pricking your eyes as you caught your breath. A soft knock came to the door before it opened. You panicked, flushing the toilet quickly before wiping your mouth. Dazai came in with a smile, sitting on the floor beside you, pulling you into a hug.

You laid limp in his arms, in shock that he wasn’t disgusted by your actions. The hug felt like one of understanding as he pressed his face into your neck. Overwhelmed, a sob leaves your throat as you wrap your arms around him. 

“I know you’ll be fine,” he whispered and your cries grew louder. He pulled away to press a kiss on your lips, quickly helping you up and directing you to your bedroom. You followed him, laying in your bed as instructed. 

You watched as he left and came back with tea and some crackers, placing them on your bedside. “Let’s start with keeping this down, alright belladonna?” He said, pressing a kiss to your forehead. You smiled taking the teacup into your hands, sipping the hot liquid slowly. “when did you know?” You break the silence.

“I’ve always had some idea,” He said, sitting on the end of the bed, placing a hand on your leg. You looked down in shame, you didn’t like the idea of bothering him with this. “hey, you’re not a burden. We can work through this together,” He said, climbing into your bed and laying down beside you. 

You placed your cup on your nightstand, scooting closer to Dazai, allowing him to wrap his arms around you. Closing your eyes, you relished the feeling of him being near you, swiftly falling into a deep sleep.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chuuya Nakahara

It took Chuuya directly seeing your actions for him to realize. He assumed you liked being fit when you spent most of your free time working out. He had invited you over for dinner, wanting to treat you to a nice meal and one of his favorite wines. You almost looked intimidated by the meal in front of you.

Chuuya was nearly offended by the way you forked your meal around with a nervous look on your face. Truth be told, you had thrown up your lunch and you didn’t feel like throwing up this meal he had cooked but he looked so proud of what he made. 

It wasn’t till you excused yourself to go to the bathroom that he was concerned. You had been taking a while so he made his way to where you were and pressed his ear against the bathroom door. The sound of a choked cry and a retch made him force the door open, knocking off its hinges. 

You scrambled to make yourself look composed, wiping the tears from your face and sitting back from the toilet. Chuuya gave you an annoyed look, “If my cooking was that bad you could’ve just told me,” You wanted to die in that moment, now you had to explain that it wasn’t his cooking, it was you. So you did and the look on his face gave you shivers.

You both sat on his couch, you gave a weak laugh after the explanation, the heavy feeling in the air being a bit too uncomfortable for your liking. You pulled your knees to your chest, eyes scanning his apartment. Chuuya grabbed your hand, eyes not meeting yours, “How can I help?” 

Your eyes widened, a weak smile forming on your face as tears stained your cheeks. He pulls you to lay your head in his lap, playing in your hair as he lets his back rest on the couch. “I think you’re beautiful, so kind, truly stunning,” He whispers. 

His soft touch beckoning you into sleep. When you succumb to the urge, he picks you up, placing you on his bed. He lays behind you, pressing his face into your hair and wrapping his arms around your body. Drifting off to sleep himself.

[patchwork-panda]

If A Moment Is All We Are (28/?)

AO3 link here

OP theme here

“So, Nomura-san...”

I placed a hot cup of tea on the table in front of him and sat back to scan through the briefing one more time.

“It says here you want the Agency to look into your teacher?”

“Uh, yes,” Nomura mumbled, picking up the cup with a small, grateful nod.

He took a small, hesitant sip before answering.

“That’s right. Professor Matsuyama Shin. He teaches modern Japanese history to the grad students at my school.”

“Grad students?”

Nomura nodded and I looked down to check the sheet one more time.

Nomura Ken, age nineteen, was a first-year student at one of the local universities in Yokohama (not the one I’d dropped out of). According to the briefing, he wanted us to look into a professor in his department but declined to state why. And it seemed he’d made this appointment only a few hours ago. I put the briefing down and studied him.

“But you’re an undergrad,” I said slowly. “If he doesn’t teach your class, how do you know this professor?”

Nomura colored. He lowered his eyes and fidgeted in his seat. I tried not to stare. With his large, expressive eyes and short black hair, Nomura bore a distinct resemblance to a famous anime character he shared a first name with and it was taking everything I had not to point it out.

“It’s kind of a long story,” he said shyly, making the resemblance to that anime character even stronger. “Would you like to hear it?”

I nodded and picked up a pen to start taking notes.

“I met Sensei a few years ago,” Nomura said, “before I entered university. I was taking a day trip to the beach with a friend of mine when he suddenly got called home.”

He smiled apologetically.

“Family emergency, you know? I told him it wasn’t a big deal and I could go with him if he needed but he said I shouldn’t have to cut my trip short because of him. I ended up sitting there on the beach all by myself for the rest of the afternoon, just checking social media and going for a swim whenever I felt like it. That’s when I saw Sensei.”

He laughed a little then, a small, jittery noise that sounded more like a hiccup than an actual release. But his shoulders looked less tense now and his fingers weren’t gripping the teacup as tightly as before.

“Sensei... he’s kind of a weird person to be honest. While I was sitting there looking at my phone, he had this entire stack of books with him, really old-looking ones, kind of thick. When I asked him what he was reading, he just said, ‘history books,’ and asked me if I wanted to read one.”

His expression softened.

“There’s no way he could’ve known it at the time but I had already been thinking about applying to the history program at the university, so I took up his offer. Before I knew it, we’d spent the entire afternoon just sitting there, reading those books and discussing what we read.”

Looking sheepish, Nomura scratched his cheek.

“I know it sounds kind of odd, a high school kid sitting there on the beach, reading these old books with a stranger almost twice his age but it was nice. I honestly had a lot of fun and it felt kind of natural to end up exchanging emails at the end of the day. That’s when I found out he was a professor and I’ve been calling him ‘Sensei’ ever since.”

I smiled.

“He sounds like a nice guy.”

“Yeah,” Nomura said, taking another sip of his tea. “Yeah, he is. He’s really easy to talk to and he knows a lot about the subject he teaches. I’ve been helping him out between classes since his teaching assistant got sick and he’s kind of started acting like my mentor since then. It’s great. Or, it was great...”

He lowered his eyes and stared into his tea.

“The thing is... he’s been acting kind of strange lately. It’s pretty obvious there’s something bothering him but he won’t tell me or anyone else what it was. A few weeks ago, his wife came by to drop something off for him and he actually snapped at her.”

He chewed on his lower lip.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s always been so patient, even his wife said so and it’s not like him to yell.”

Nomura sighed.

“He apologized to her and then to everyone else for making a scene but I’m seriously getting worried about him. He keeps staring at this picture in his office and talking to it.”

I put down my pen and observed Nomura as he appeared to shrink in on himself.

“I got curious, so I asked him who was in this picture and he answered, ‘Natsuki and Kei.’ I know Natsuki-san is his wife but I didn’t know who Kei-san is. And when I asked about him...”

Nomura sighed again.

“He just stopped talking entirely.”

“I see...”

“This is going to sound kind of strange,” Nomura admitted, squirming a little in his seat, “but I couldn’t help thinking that Kei-san has something to do with Sensei’s recent behavior. I’ve known him for years, and although we weren’t exactly the closest of friends, he’s never mentioned Kei once even though he was fine showing me pictures of his wife and his other friends.”

He grew quiet.

“Yesterday, he accidentally left something at his office. I knew where he lives so I went by his house to drop it off but he wasn’t there. Natsuki-san was instead and she insisted I stay for a cup of tea before I went back home. I...”

He twisted his hands in his lap.

“I ended up asking her about Kei-san, since she was in the picture with him. She told me that he was an old friend of both hers and Sensei’s and that...”

Nomura trailed off. I wasn’t sure if he was going to continue talking but then I saw his lips moving, so I leaned in to listen.

“...Kei-san actually died several years ago, long before I’d met Sensei at the beach.”

I stiffened as Nomura continued, looking pained as he spoke.

“She said the police ruled it as a suicide, since there was a note and everything but apparently she and Sensei were never allowed to see the contents of the note.”

Suicide...

Without meaning to, I glanced out beyond the stained glass panels of the client booth, my eyes sliding towards the desk area I shared with Dazai. Shadows moved beyond the tinted, lightly frosted walls. A phone rang and I heard Atsushi pick it up and answer. I turned back to Nomura.

“Kusunoki-san.”

“Y-yes?”

I started. Nomura suddenly sounded very serious.

“I want you to look into who Kei-san was.”

He clasped his hands together and squeezed them tightly, his face drawn.

“And...”

Nomura looked up at me, his dark eyes determined.

“I want you to tell me if Sensei was responsible for Kei-san’s death.”

I breathed in sharply.

“What...?”

My throat felt dry and I swallowed before trying to speak again.

“Wait. Why... why would you think Sensei–I mean, Professor Matsuyama had something to do with...?”

“Because I realized,” Nomura said, “that these episodes of odd behavior seem to come after he spends long hours in the office. When he got home last night, he got really cagey when he realized Natsuki-san and I were talking about Kei-san and when I asked him why it upset him so much when we were just talking about his old friend, he said this.”

His jaw tightened.

“‘I’m sorry about what happened to Kei. Really, I am, but he is my burden and mine alone.’”

A hush fell over the room. I could still hear Atsushi talking on the other side of the glass-paneled doors but it seemed somehow muffled by the oppressive silence that was filling the booth like fog.

I cleared my throat a little.

“Um, Nomura-san.”

I tried to put what I hoped was a professional look on my face.

“If you suspect a homicide might have taken place, why not go directly to the police?”

“Because they already closed out the investigation,” Nomura answered dully. “And unless something new happens in regards to the case, there’s no way they’re going to reopen it.”

“I see...”

I felt a chill creeping into my veins.

Outside, Atsushi hung up the phone. I heard him asking someone if they’d seen Dazai. When the person answering said they hadn’t, Atsushi began walking around, calling for our mentor, who did not answer...

“And besides...” Nomura was chewing on his lip again. “I don’t want to see him get in trouble.”

He sucked in a breath, a shaky one, and bent forward over his hands, his bangs falling so that they obscured his eyes.

“I...”

His knuckles were going white. Atsushi was still walking around, calling for Dazai, who was still, seemingly, nowhere to be found.

“Professor Matsuyama is...”

Nomura seemed to be thinking very carefully about his words. So carefully, in fact, that he didn’t seem to know how to speak of it.

From outside the booth, I heard Atsushi sigh, an audible sign of defeat. He trudged back to his desk, his feet dragging along the tiles.

“He’s more like a close relative than a teacher,” Miura sighed at last. “I don’t know how else to put it but... he’s very important to me.”

Ah.

My eyes traveled to the shadows moving outside the booth, to the lack of a tall, laughing figure wearing a trench coat.

I understood.

“You care very much for your Sensei, don’t you?” I asked gently.

A soft smile spread across my face as Miura looked up at me.

“I completely understand. I think we can help you, Nomura-san.”

“Really?”

Nomura looked ecstatic. He rose from his seat, relief etched into his every feature.

“Thank you so much, Kusunoki-san. I’m really grateful—”

I held up a hand to interrupt him.

“But before we start,” I said, my chest tightening as I spoke. “I want you to be prepared.”

Nomura froze.

“For what?”

“For the possibility that Kei-san’s death was exactly what the police determined it to be,” I said. “But more importantly...”

I swallowed.

“I want you to be prepared for what comes after if we do find out that Professor Matsuyama was somehow responsible for what happened to Kei-san.”

Hearing my tone, Nomura tensed.

Was he preparing himself emotionally for what was to come if it turned out that his Sensei was indeed a murderer?

I grew quiet, thinking back to the conversation I had with Dazai during my last case about the theoretical “goodly apple.” And about how it may change Nomura’s relationship to his mentor should his worst fears turn out to be true.

“Because I’m required by Agency policy to turn over my case files to the police,” I said, at last. “That is, if we do uncover any evidence of wrongdoing. Is... that alright with you, Nomura-san?”

After a beat, Nomura nodded. He looked determined. Nervous, but determined.

“Yes.”

I nodded back.

“Okay, then. In that case...”

I scooped up the papers on the table, tucked them back into the envelope and slowly got to my feet. Somehow, I managed to put the professional smile back on my face, even though I was honestly feeling too tense to.

“I look forward to working with you.”

***

That odd chill that had slowly settled into my bones as Nomura and I discussed the case lingered even after I saw him out the door. It stayed with me as I began walking back to my desk and grew stronger as I stopped next to the colorful client booth.

Suicide...

It was something I was all too familiar with. President Fukuzawa couldn’t have known exactly what the case was about before assigning it to me (after all, Nomura wouldn’t disclose the full details until he was inside the booth) but even if I had known, I wouldn’t have refused the case. President Fukuzawa believed I could take this case and something about that made me want to believe in myself. And besides...

I gripped the case files tightly against my chest.

If I wanted to climb the ranks so that I could be that much closer to finally confessing to Kunikida... this was the way to do it. One case at a time.

No matter what the case may involve.

I was about to step beyond the hedges when something caught my eye.

In the space between client booth and the hedgerow was a large decorative plant.

I stopped in front of it and stared.

I’d never seen this plant here before. It looked to be comprised entirely of broad, fan-shaped leaves—so many, in fact, that I couldn’t even see the wall just a few feet behind it. Stranger still, the plant was lined up with the client booth so that there was a fair amount of space between it and the back wall...

But as I reached out to touch one of the leaves, the plant moved.

I let out a shriek and jumped backwards as the plant was abruptly pushed forward. Bit by bit, a familiar bandage-covered figure emerged from the space behind it and I groaned when I saw who it was.

Speaking of connections to suicide...

“I should’ve guessed,” I sighed as Dazai moved a few of the leaves aside on his way out of his makeshift hiding space.

“What were you doing back...”

But as I watched Dazai carefully pick his way around the side of the plant—the plant that hadn’t been there before my meeting with Nomura—something dawned on me.

“...there?”

Dazai had been sitting right behind the client booth the entire time. I’d heard Atsushi calling for Dazai through that very wall.

I frowned.

“Dazai-san.”

“Hm?”

The bandaged brunette cocked his head towards me. Smiling, he continued brushing bits of dirt off his vest and pants, not even flinching when I shot him an accusatory glare.

“Were you listening in on my client meeting just now?” I asked, tucking my folder against my body as I crossed my arms.

Dazai’s brown eyes widened.

“Kusunoki-kun!”

He placed one half-bandaged hand over his heart, looking thoroughly wounded.

“What makes you think I’d do such a thing?”

“Oh, I dunno,” I said sarcastically, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “Maybe it’s because you followed me into the booth earlier and tried to stay there?”

“I was just looking for my headphones,” he whined.

“Then where are they?”

“Oh, Kusunoki-kun,” Dazai sighed.

He stepped forward and took my hand.

“You’re so sweet, being so concerned about my belongings. If your offer to buy me new headphones is still good, I—”

“It’s not,” I said, pulling my hand away with a sharp snap of my wrist.

I sighed, tucked my folder more securely under my arm and studied him as he shrugged and started searching behind the plant for something.

First, he tried to follow me into the booth and then, when that didn’t work out, he ended up sitting outside anyway just so he could listen in...

I felt my irritation slowly wane as I watched him continue to rummage around.

Was he that interested in seeing my case or was I right in guessing he was worried about me?

The folder felt slightly heavier under my arm and I adjusted it once again as Dazai pulled something out from behind the plant with his lanky, bandaged forearms.

He wouldn’t admit it when I asked him earlier but... he really was worried about me, wasn’t he?

As I watched, a corner of the bandages around his left wrist caught around one of the leaves and came untucked. It began to unravel.

“...Kei-san actually died several years ago... The police ruled it as a suicide.”

The air in the room suddenly seemed much thinner than before.

“Hey, Dazai-san...?”

“Hm?”

Noticing at last that his bandage was coming undone, Dazai took the portable game console he’d just retrieved and tucked it into his black vest. Smiling, he looked up at me and began re-wrapping his bandage.

“What is it?”

I hesitated. My eyes were firmly locked on the motions of Dazai’s hand as he wrapped his bandage more securely around his wrist.

I’d never really thought about it before but... why was he covered in bandages...? Was there something under there he didn’t want us to see?

I grabbed my own wrist.

Like layers of mottled scars?

“Oh, um... Nothing, really.”

I smiled softly and as Dazai watched my expression change, his eyebrows slowly rose into his bangs.

“Atsushi-kun was looking for you earlier,” I said at last. “I could hear him calling for you, even from inside the client booth. Why don’t you go find him and see what he needs?”

I moved to walk past him but before I could, Dazai stepped in front of me.

“What’s this, Kusunoki-kun?”

He bent down a little and studied my face. He rubbed his chin, keeping his bandaged wrist at eye level as he moved; the bandage came untucked again. I returned my gaze to Dazai’s face a second too late and his deep brown eyes instantly became piercing.

“Don’t tell me...”

The corners of his lips quirked upwards and as I watched, a sly smile slowly spread across his face.

He knew what I’d been thinking.

“Did you want to goof off and play games too?” he asked, slowly pulling the console out of his vest. “If so, I know a great place where we can sit and play games, completely unbothered. Just the two of us!”

He waved the console in front of me.

“Or maybe...”

The bandage around his wrist unraveled even further, an entire loop of the stark-white fabric slipping off his wrist all at once. Dazai’s voice remained bright, but his eyes looked much darker than before.

“You’re finally reconsidering my proposal of a double suicide?”

I stiffened.

The inside of my wrist began to tingle and Dazai’s grin widened.

“Not on your life,” I whispered.

Tightening my grip on my folder, I brushed past him.

“That’s the whole point,” Dazai said, sounding disappointed.

But I kept walking and didn’t stop until I got back to my desk. Ignoring him, I shoved my folder into my messenger bag and began packing.

Seeing this, Dazai approached.

“Going out?” he asked, walking past the hedgerows and into the main office area.

I didn’t answer.

“If it’s a snack run, do you think you could get me—”

“No.”

His face fell.

“Aw, c’mon,” he wheedled. “I didn’t even tell you what it is I wanted yet—”

“The answer is no,” I snapped, throwing the strap of my messenger bag over my shoulder and grabbing my coat. “Whatever it is you want, go get it yourself. I’m not running any errands for you today.”

“Then where are you going?” he asked.

I could feel his sharp brown eyes following me as I quickly strode through the office and towards the front door.

“Don’t you have that meeting with Kunikiiiiida-kun at the end of the day?”

I faltered, my hand stilling on the doorknob.

That’s right. He’d heard that too...

“That meeting...”

I shot a look over my shoulder, at the bandaged brunette still standing in the middle of the lobby with one hand in his pocket, his game console held loosely in the other. His bandage had unraveled even more and was now trailing on the ground. Some of his wrist was exposed...

I tore my eyes away, not wanting to see.

“That meeting is none of your business,” I said quietly.

I turned back around and walked out the door.

***

“The file on... let’s see...”

The girl at the counter paused to write down the name.

“‘Kei?’”

She frowned and looked up.

“Do you have a last name that goes with that?”

“Uh, no but...”

I glanced down at the packet and tried not to make a face. I knew this was going to be a long-shot but I had to give it a try at least...

I offered the girl a small, hesitant smile and placed the relevant page of my case file onto the counter before her.

“I was wondering if you could try to look up the file with the information in here.”

Shooting me a doubtful look, the girl took the page from me and scanned through it. Her eyes widened.

“Uh... Kusunoki-san, was it?”

She chewed her lip.

“I know you’re with the Armed Detective Agency and that your cases are very important... but as much as I want to help you, I can’t.”

She made an apologetic face.

“Not with this alone, anyway. We don’t even know where the alleged suicide took place or what year. Without that information, I won’t be able to find anything.”

She slid the paper back to me.

“Kei is a very common first name, after all...”

“I understand,” I sighed.

I slipped the paper back into my bag and zipped it up. “Thank you for your time.”

“I really am sorry, Kusunoki-san,” she said and she really did look it. “Come back when you’ve got some more information?”

I nodded, bowed politely and turned around to leave.

I really didn’t know what I was expecting.

When I’d left the Agency earlier, I honestly had no idea where I was going to go. I’d just wanted to get away from Dazai but as I headed out of the building, I realized this would be a good chance to get a head start on my case, maybe see if I could get the police report on Kei’s suicide. But unfortunately, given the small amount of information I had to go off of, it wasn’t enough. I’d have to do some more background investigating before I could obtain the report.

Neither I nor Nomura knew Kei’s last name. The one person who knew for sure would be Professor Matsuyama, but somehow I got the feeling that barging into his office and asking questions about a dead former friend was a good way to get kicked out or get the case revoked. Not to mention, I didn’t want to get Nomura in trouble either...

I paused at the crosswalk and glanced down at the report in my hand.

Nomura had mentioned a photograph in Professor Matsuyama’s office, a photograph showing the professor, his wife and the mysterious Kei. Was it possible that Professor Matsuyama’s wife knew Kei as well? If they were in a photograph together, then they must’ve at least met before.

But how was I supposed to get in touch with her without raising any red flags?

I took out my phone to check the time.

I’d been out for less than an hour, so there was no way Kunikida would be back yet. Should I try going to the library, maybe see if I could get information on Professor Matsuyama there and try to find Kei that way?

I stared at the numbers on my phone, chewing the inside of my cheek as the minute digit abruptly changed.

No, an hour barely gave me enough time to travel to the university library, much less do any sort of meaningful investigation. If I wanted to spend the rest of the work day doing something productive and avoiding Dazai, returning only at the end of the day so that I could meet with Kunikida, I’d have to think of something else...

Suddenly, the phone in my hand lit up with a new message.

It was from Kunikida.

“We finished early,” it said. “I’m heading back to the Agency as we speak. Sorry for constantly changing the time, but would now be okay?”

“Yes, of course!” I exclaimed out loud as I texted, relieved.

Thank God. I was really at a loss back there.

Shoving my phone into my bag, I ran for the nearby bus station just as the massive vehicle pulled into the stop.

Maybe if I got back to the Agency fast enough, I could even ask for some advice on the case, given that he was still technically my mentor. I just hoped my other mentor wouldn’t be there when I returned...

***

“Huh? Kyou-chan?”

Yosano blinked at me in surprise as she passed me going down the stairs. For some reason, the elevator wasn’t working when I’d gotten back and in my rush to get to the fourth floor office, I’d nearly smacked into her on my way up.

“Why are you heading back into the office? The day’s over!”

“Ah,” I mumbled, bowing hurriedly and trying to get past her. “I have a meeting to get to.”

The doctor’s purple-toned eyes widened.

“At this hour? With who?”

Why did I have to go red now? Why?!

“I...” I stammered, looking away. “I, uh...”

“Oh, Kyou-chan. Really?” she sighed.

Before I could stop her, she grabbed my arm with one black-gloved hand and began guiding me down the stairs with her.

“It’s almost the end of the week,” she griped, not listening to the frantic gibberish that was coming out of my mouth. “You’ve been working really hard and I think you deserve a break! Come with me, we’re going to get dinner at this new izakaya I found and have ourselves a nice time.”

“But Yosano-sensei!” I burst out at last. “I really do have to go! You see my meeting is with K-Kunikida-san and—”

I flinched as Yosano stopped walking immediately and turned around to give me an odd look. I felt my face burn even hotter as she eyed me suspiciously.

“Hohh...”

She let go of my arm.

“Well, why didn’t you say so sooner?” she asked, the corners of her glossy pink lips turning upwards into a knowing smirk.

The look on her face was eerily reminiscent of Dazai...

Smiling, Dr. Yosano clapped me on the shoulder and waved goodbye as she descended the stairs.

“Don’t stay too late!” she called after me as I bolted.

I could practically hear the grin on her face as her words echoed after me up the stairwell.

“And good luck~!”

“Luck?” Atsushi repeated as he and Kyouka walked past me on my way up. “What’s she talking about?”

But Kyouka shook her head and ushered him along as I hastily bid them goodbye and kept running. One by one, I passed the remaining members of the Agency from the Tanizaki siblings to Kirako, promising not to stay too late and outright lying to the last of the clerks about needing to drop something off when I saw the one with the short hair eyeing me suspiciously as well. By the time I got to the fourth floor, my face felt hotter than the surface of the sun and I was pretty sure I’d go to pieces if one more person asked me why I was returning to the office at closing when everyone else had gone.

I grabbed the doorknob and hesitantly turned it.

Please don’t let me run into Dazai. Please don’t let me run into Dazai...!

But to my relief, the bandaged maniac was nowhere to be found (probably left early when he realized neither I nor Kunikida were around to bother). I’d gingerly opened the door to the main office only to find myself arriving at an empty room.

I’d beaten Kunikida here.

“Oh, thank God,” I breathed, almost collapsing in a heap in the middle of the floor.

I thought for sure with all those stupid delays, I wouldn’t have made it in time. Reassured, I started walking back to my desk and hung up my messenger bag, taking out my folders to be put away. Since I’d come early, I could dust myself off a little, drop things off properly and finish closing things out at my desk—

“Kusunoki.”

For the second time today, I jumped, dropping my pencil case. It split open on top of my desk with a soft “pop,” pencils scattering everywhere. As a few of them rolled off the surface of the table and onto the floor, I whirled around to see a tall figure carrying an olive-green notebook stepping into the room from the inner hallway.

Putting his notebook down, Kunikida nodded at me in greeting.

“Thanks for coming back to meet with me,” he said, smiling apologetically.

He walked forward, into one of the many slats of sunlight from the unshuttered windows. In the soft orange-toned light of the slowly setting sun, his gray-green eyes looked warm and radiant, his skin smooth and bright.

“I know this was hard to arrange and that it’s getting late, so I appreciate your meeting with me today.”

He stopped near my desk and bent down to pick up a runaway pencil.

“I promise I won’t keep you long.”

He dropped the pencil into my hands.

I swallowed. My throat suddenly felt very dry. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d just run up four flights of stairs and talked to everyone I passed or if it was because tall, blonde Kunikida was now by my side, looking very attentive and so very handsome in the early evening light.

“N-no problem.”

My smile felt awkward and way too wide and my heart was pounding so loud, that I half wondered if Kunikida could hear it as well. But judging by the look on his face, he probably couldn’t, so I tried to clear my throat and speak.

“So, um... what did you want to talk about, Kunikida-san?”

I brushed a stray hair behind my ear just as another pencil fell to the floor behind me. I tried not to wince.

God, why was I always so clumsy and awkward around him?

“Ah, well...”

He trailed off, his polite expression faltering a little. I watched as he reached up, rubbed the back of his neck and quietly looked away. In the light of the setting sun, his cheeks looked a little pink...

Wait a minute.

I quickly looked around.

It was early evening, after hours at the Armed Detective Agency’s main office. Beautiful, orange sunlight softly filtered in through open, unshuttered windows, casting everything in a velvety, romantic glow. Kunikida and I were here, completely alone and the atmosphere was awkward but in a pleasant, exciting sort of way...

I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp.

No way.

This was exactly how I pictured my ideal environment for confessing my feelings to Kunikida...! But I hadn’t worked my way up through the ranks yet! I hadn’t even been here an entire two months. It was too early for this...!

My heart was racing. My entire body felt hot and flushed.

What was I going to do?!

“The truth is, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this for a while now,” Kunikida admitted, dropping his hand. “You’ve come a long way since you started here and I’ve been thinking...”

He glanced down at me, his gray-green eyes contemplative behind his thin rectangular glasses.

I swallowed audibly, my heart beating so rapidly I was about ninety percent sure I was starting to hyperventilate.

“Y-yes, Kunikida-san?”

He studied me for a moment before speaking.

“How do you feel about one-on-one combat training?”

I thought I heard a record scratching somewhere inside my head. My smile suddenly felt stiff.

“...Huh?”

“You know?” Kunikida explained, waving his hand. “Like martial arts?”

I thought I heard someone laughing from outside the window and without meaning to, I flushed.

Looks like it really was too early for a confession...

[i-write-and-draw-sometimes]

Dazai, Ranpo and Yosano with a bisexual s/o.

Dazai Osamu: 

Dazai knew something was up before you even brought it up. This man has a keen eye and most likely caught on to the fact that you weren’t exactly straight about a week into your relationship. 

A defeated sigh escaped your lips. You needed to tell him. An anxious feeling settled in the pit of your stomach, how will he react? Will he accept me? What if-

‘’Y/N?’’

You were snapped back to reality by your boyfriend’s voice. The playful smile left his face and was instead replaced by a look of concern, ‘’What is it?’’

You looked down, suddenly finding the tiled floor extremely interesting. It’s now or never, ‘’I’m bisexual.’’

With your gaze still glued to the floor, you braced yourself for the worst. After a minute of silence, you reluctantly let your eyes travel to your boyfriend. 

A small smile graced his features, ‘’Oh, is that all? I was worried something bad has happened.’’ He stalked closer to your dumbstruck form, wrapping his bandaged arms around your waist, ‘’You know that this doesn’t change I feel about you in the slightest, right?’’

You hum in response, content within his warm embrace. You lean into him, thankful for his support and understanding. Dazai rests his head on your shoulder, ‘’Does this mean I have to compete with Yosano, as well?’’ he whines.

A soft giggle escapes your throat, ‘’You don’t have to compete with anyone, silly. I’m with you, aren’t I?’’

All in all, Dazai is super chill. He’ll probably get you something like a cat plushy that has the bisexual flag on it. 

Ranpo Edogawa:

Low-key knows you are bisexual after talking to you for ten minutes. He doesn't say anything though because he doesn’t think it’s important or needed to be addressed.

After weeks of preparations and self-given pep talk, you were ready to tell Ranpo. It’s tough telling people you are bisexual; there’s always a chance that they would be put off or not believe you. Your nails dug into your skin as you clenched your fists, I’ll be fine. Ranpo is not like that. 

You turn around in the detective’s lap so you’re facing him, there was no point beating around the bush, ‘’Ranpo, I’m bisexual.’’ you stated and searched his eyes for a reaction. 

He looked back at you with the same bored expression before turning his attention back to the crossword in his hand, ‘’I know.’’

Your mouth formed a little ‘o’ shape as you gawked at him, that’s it? That’s all he’s gonna say?

‘’I-I...well-’’

Ranpo wasted no time in placing candy into your mouth, ‘’Let's watch a movie!’’

Ranpo is secretly extremely pleased that out of all the people, you chose him. Then again, why wouldn’t you have picked him, he’s the master detective after all. He doesn’t view you any differently and it doesn’t affect your relationship, although it did give him an ego boost. If Ranpo was to ever find out someone was giving you a hard time over your sexuality, you can be sure Ranpo will dig up so much dirt on the person, they will have to leave Yokohama.

Yosano Akiko:

My queen.

Unlike Dazai and Ranpo, Yosano doesn’t know you are bisexual until you tell her. That’s not to say she minds it, if anything, it’s a welcomed surprise. 

‘’Hey, Yosano?’’ you begin, taking a seat across from her. ‘’I need to tell you something.’’

Yosano places the documents she’s been working on into a neat pile on the table before shifting her gaze towards you. She smiles, taking a sip from her freshly brewed tea, ‘’What is it, love?’’

Breathe in, breathe out, ‘’I’m bisexual.’’

Yosano blinks. Once, twice. Placing the teacup onto the kitchen table, she propped her chin on top of her gloved hand. A small smile etched its’ way onto Yosano’s face, ‘’Oh, I can’t believe I didn’t notice sooner. I’m glad you trust me enough to tell me, darling.’’

Opening her arms, Yosano motioned for you to embrace her, ‘’It’s been a long day, darling. Would you like to watch a movie together?’’

Yosano is really glad you bothered to tell her. She knows to find the courage to say things like that can be really difficult and she is honestly extremely proud of you. Prepare for lots of cuddles, a more in-depth conversation if you’re up for it, and tea/hot chocolate Yosano insists on making.

[darkmindsotome]

Just Another Day

A short for my darling little OC in the IkeVamp world. 

Warnings: Strong Language

Darkmindsotome Masterlist

---

The dining table was practically groaning under the weight of the many dishes painstakingly and skillfully prepared by Sebastian. Breakfast had become something of an event it seemed after the arrival of the 21st-century woman. 

le Comte had decided to take a trip into Paris proper claiming it to be a shopping trip but it was undoubtedly something to do with Dazai who was still yet to return home after his excursions the night before. 

A peaceful atmosphere passed through the room like a warm summer breeze as they all enjoyed the bounty before them. Rich amber nectar filled her fine china cup and just as she was about to take a sip...

“Newt! There you are.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that insufferable name?” Isacc hissed.

“You don’t like it?” Arthur tilted his head a little to the left looking a little like his dog. 

“Of course I don’t like it. If I liked it why would I be telling you to stop?”

“I thought it might be one of those you say no when you really mean yes situations.” Arthur shrugged and slipped casually into his seat next to Isaac at the table. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Against his better judgement and showing all signed of scientific curiosity, Isaac engaged Arthur in conversation.

“Well, now That is a tale to tell. Shall I start at the beginning or just jump right in with the description of the fine female it pertains to?” Arthur animatedly moved closer to Issac talking like a jolly Uncle about to recant a story to a child at Christmas.The description of what the story may be had Isaac blushing before becoming very interested in the thread count of his napkin.

“Arthur you are at the dining table. If you wish to talk about such things do it after. And don’t tease Issac so much first thing in the morning.” Aerion’s level tone cut straight down the table and met its mark. Arthur leaned forward and picked up a toasted crumpet, putting it on his plate and scooping up a piece of butter.  

“Do you have to be so loud?” An exasperated Mozart asked looking up from some sheet music.

“Wolfie!”

“I am not a dog.”

A short cough followed by the sharp clink of teacup hitting its saucer with accuracy brought Arthur’s blue eyes in line with a set of piercing blue eyes from Aerion. If it was possible to freeze with a glare she could probably have it mastered. He felt a little jolt run down his spine as he took in her pointed look that reminded him very much of a strict governess who had finally had enough of disobedient children in the nursery. His smile didn’t fade, it grew.

"By Jove, I do believe I’ve managed to upset the Lady of the manor.” His teasing took on even more of a broguish tone as he grinned at her.

“I am indeed a Lady Arthur but this is not my Manor if it was you would have been tossed out with the dogs until you learnt some restraint.” Her eyes didn’t waver.

“I do so love a strong woman. You do realise you are much younger than me?" Arthur impishly chuckled. 

"Really? Given your current display, I was under the impression I was conversing with a toddler." Aerion’s reply was so flat and fast it took him off guard, but only for a second.

"I can show you I'm all man if you prefer?" He practically purred the line. A couple of suppressed groans leaked from the guests in the room. Aerion rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Don’t embarrass yourself. I take that back." 

"Oh? Succumbed to my charms already have you?" Arthur took a delighted bite out of his crumpet taking great care to make a show of licking the melted butter from his lips.

"A toddler not only has the good sense to stop whilst they are ahead they would also have better pick up lines." She shot back her retort seemingly unaffected by his open display of sensuality.

Sebastian was doing a fine job standing by the wall off to the side attempting to take mental notes whilst shooting Aerion a small warning look to watch her own manners. A look that whilst she acknowledged was in no way going to prevent her from continuing this little test of wills with Arthur. Her tea was growing cold and whilst she could still drink cold Earl Grey she had always found it better when hot. 

Leonardo had stopped in his journey to his room and couldn’t avoid his curiosity in watching yet another push and shove argument between these two. Truth be told he had something of a little wager with le Comte. His old friend had reluctantly agreed to take part even if it was as he put it “in poor taste”. Leo was struggling to hold back a chuckle as he observed the room.

Theo was largely unconcerned and muttered something about talking snacks as he poured so much syrup onto his pancakes that they threatened to swim off his plate. Vincent had a look on concern on his face watching his little brother.

Isaac was squirming in his seat a little too close to Arthur and the annoyed look he was drawing to himself. Mozart had a scowl etched into his face that could give the best marble bust sculpture a migraine to replicate. Totally unimpressed with the levels of noise, counting the minutes until he could return to his music room and cloister himself away with his melodies.

Arthur didn’t break eye contact. He had at least learnt not to do that much after the last time when Aerion flicked him in the forehead with her finger and stormed off. Something in him was enjoying this a lot more than his daily teasing of Newt and Wolfie. It had been a long time since he had such a worthy opponent. At least one that wasn’t Leo who would quib back but lacked the display of reactions he wanted to make it a satisfying endeavour. 

He had met many females in his long life but no one spoke to him in such a manner and this was... thrilling. It was up there with the rush he felt having sent Holmes tumbling down into the Reichenbach Falls. The tension was broken by the unencumbered laughter from Napoleon.

There was little doubt to her first impression of this man. Yes, he was a novelist and one that she was certainly more than familiar with through his writing but he was an incurable flirt that bordered on the extreme. 

"You are very lucky, “little boy”, that this is 19th century Paris and not 21st century England because I could slap you with so many sexual harassment lawsuits it would make your head spin and keep you tied up in red tape for the rest of your long life."

"Oh! I had no idea you were into such delights. You really are a very interesting woman."

Yes, there was no doubt about it the man was hopeless...

---

[shinsoukokuvalentine]

King of Hearts

(I meant to have this done in time for Akutagawa’s birthday, but... Oh well. It’s here now, though: the final part of the Wonderland AU! I hope you enjoy ^^)

193: King of Hearts

Thankfully, Atsushi woke before Akutagawa, who had moved in his sleep so that he no longer held the Rabbit’s hand. Atsushi managed to slip back into his room undetected, and the King didn’t appear to know anything about what went on the previous night.

But Atsushi remembered. He remembered every time Akutagawa woke him up during that night, whispering his name, gripping his hand and pulling it to his chest. And that knowledge tore into Atsushi like a knife carving into his skin. At some point or another, he and Akutagawa would need to talk, and he couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Are you alright?”

Atsushi jumped when Akutagawa spoke to him. They walked down the hallway together, side-by-side, as Akutagawa insisted. Atsushi had to stop himself from thinking that that almost made him equal with the King.

“You seem distracted,” Akutagawa said, turning his eyes forward once again. “I’ll… Do my best to solve whatever ails you,” he ended with a murmur, covering his mouth with his hand again and coughing. Atsushi watched him, nervous eyes wide, and behind his back, he clenched and unclenched his hands.

“Would you go on a picnic with me?” He asked shakily.

Akutagawa paused in place, and Atsushi stopped beside him.

“... Pardon?” asked Akutagawa.

Atsushi, tail twitching, took a deep breath. “A picnic,” he repeated, “I’m inviting you to a picnic. I-in the garden.”

Akutagawa paused for a moment. He watched Atsushi, who could practically see the gears turning behind the King’s eyes.

“I suppose… That would be alright,” Akutagawa said, and Atsushi held back a sigh of relief. “Will that ease what bothered you?” At Atsushi’s eager nod, Akutagawa’s shoulders seemed to relax. “Okay.”

For the first time since he arrived at the palace, Atsushi felt a genuine smile on his lips.

Akutagawa arrived precisely when Atsushi asked, which caused the White Rabbit to scramble a little about the picnic blanket.

“I guess I’m so used to being late, I’m surprised when other people show up on time,” he laughed nervously. Akutagawa only nodded, eyeing the scene before him as if he didn’t know what quite to do. Before him, a picnic blanket had been laid out in the castle garden, surrounded by red rose bushes still dripping with paint. On the blanket, Atsushi had set multi-tiered trays filled with biscuits and cupcakes, a platter holding a strawberry cake, and a teapot with its contents still steaming from beneath its lid.

Atsushi sat down, and Akutagawa followed suit, sitting across from him on the blanket.

“How do you like your tea?” Asked Atsushi, pouring him a cup.

Crossing his legs beneath him, Akutagawa murmured. “With a tablespoon of milk. No sugar.”

Atsushi smiled little again. “Really? I have to have sugar, or it’s too bitter for me,” he said as he passed the cup and saucer to him. Akutagawa only nodded, blowing on the tea to cool it, as Atsushi said softly, “It’s rose tea. The cards said it was your favorite.”

Akutagawa nodded again, and even though the hard lines in his face relaxed somewhat when he tasted the tea, he still said nothing.

The silence between them felt tangible. Atsushi found himself fidgeting again, only nibbling idly at his biscuit while Akutagawa sampled everything.

“Sooo,” Atsushi said slowly, earning him a glance from Akutagawa. “Is there… Anything you want to talk about?”

His ears drooped a little when Akutagawa shook his head.

“No need,” he said plainly, passing his cup to Atsushi so he could fill it again. Atsushi offered a thin smile.

“But, well, we haven’t talked much since I got here, and it’s been a while,” he began. “Maybe we should get to know each other better?”

Akutagawa visibly stiffened, and Atsushi flinched so harshly that he nearly dropped the teapot.

“No,” Akutagawa snapped. Atsushi gulped. His instincts told him to run, but with shaking hands, he pushed them down. He couldn’t run from this anymore.

“Your Highness,” Atsushi said, drawing Akutagawa’s attention. Before he could correct him, Atsushi continued, “I have the right to know what I mean to you.”

Akutagawa scowled, but he drew his legs closer as if he was retreating into himself. “Get out,” he growled.

Atsushi set his jaw, trying to appear intimidating, no matter how much his tail twitched with fear. “We are out,” he said firmly. “There’s nowhere for me to go.”

“Go inside then!” Akutagawa roared, snapping his head up and staring him down with dark eyes that burned like coals.

“No!” Atsushi shouted right back. Akutagawa’s eyes widened as if no one had spoken to him that way before, or perhaps he had never expected Atsushi of all people to do so. Nevertheless, the White Rabbit held his ground. “Something’s going on, King Akutagawa! And I demand to know what it is!”

The King stared at him in stunned silence. Letting the rage fall from his eyes, from his lips, Atsushi let out a sigh.

“You can’t just push your problems away every time. Even if you’re afraid, you have to face them head on,” he murmured, looking down at his teacup. Veins of gold wove across it in unpredictable patterns. “Unlike me.”

Silence filled the air again, only broken by the far-off cries of a flamingo in the menagerie.

“What do you mean?”

Atsushi’s ears pricked. He looked up, back at Akutagawa, who watched him with something unknown in his eyes. Atsushi chuckled humorlessly.

“I mean I’m a coward, Your Highness,” he said, a sad smile on his lips. “I should’ve brought this up a long time ago, but I was scared. Terrified. I’ve always been scared of you.”

He could hear the King’s breathing, coming out slowly and hesitantly.

“If what you’ve told me is true,” Akutagawa said, and Atsushi cringed immediately, squeezing his eyes shut, ready and dreading whatever punishment he would receive, “... Then you’re the bravest man I’ve ever met, Atsushi.”

Atsushi froze. He looked up at Akutagawa, wide-eyed, staring at his ruler, who looked more vulnerable than Atsushi had ever thought possible, with his knees shaking and pulled to his chest, his eyes looking down at the ground.

“I’m the coward,” he whispered almost too quietly for Atsushi to hear, his hand covering his mouth. He paused, and still shaking, he murmured again, “Leave.”

Atsushi frowned, setting his jaw. “Ryuunosuke Akutagawa, King of the Land of Hearts,” he said firmly, drawing the King’s eye, “I will not leave you. Not now, not ever.”

Akutagawa stared at him, mouth open, brows twisted in what almost appeared to be pain.

“You may have been hurt in the past,” Atsushi continued to speak, words coming to him almost without his knowledge, “and you may push me away so I don’t see your weaknesses. I get it. That’s why I run so much,” he whispered. He noticed as Akutagawa began pushing trays and platters out of the way with abandon, drawing closer to him with that same expression still on his face, but Atsushi didn’t run.

“Maybe you push people away because they hurt you, and you don’t want to get hurt again. Maybe you kill them to make sure they can’t hurt you anymore,” he said softly.

Porcelain teacups crashed and shattered as Akutagawa knocked Atsushi over, laying him flat on the blanket, his hands on either side of his head. His breath came out raggedly through his open mouth, and his dark, broken eyes looked upon Atsushi with a mix of hope and fear, swirled together into a tempest.

With a single hand, Atsushi reached up, lacing his fingers through the King’s dark hair.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered.

Gently, slowly, Atsushi rose up onto his elbow, and gently, slowly, he brought Akutagawa’s lips down to meet his.

“What’s this?” Asked Chuuya, frowning at a letter that a penguin had just given to him.

Dazai shrugged as he sipped tea from a teacup so broken that only half of it remained. “An invitation, perhaps?” He looked up as another penguin flew onto the table, presenting the letter in its beak to Dazai. The March Hare smiled. “Oh, I get one too?”

More penguins arrived, despite Shibusawa’s attempts to swat them away with his hat, and Fyodor chuckled. “Looks like we all do.”

Chuuya, meanwhile, stared at the contents of his letter in disbelief. “Already? It’s only been a year…”

Dazai looked at him quizzically, but only for a moment. Then he smiled again, opening his letter, showing the invitation to the rest of the table. “It seems as if the entire kingdom,” he said with a grin, “is invited to the wedding of the White Rabbit and the King of Hearts.”

[catsbythegreat]

chuuaku week day 7: free day 

(posting this early because I’m gonna be busy tomorrow and the rest of the weekend and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to edit and post properly.)  

“Akutagawa, can I talk to you at my place later?”

Akutagawa didn’t miss the edge in Chuuya’s voice that usually wasn’t there. He didn’t know what it was about, but there was a part of him that clearly had some idea because he didn’t want to go to Chuuya’s apartment to have that conversation.

Things had changed between them and Akutagawa wondered if Chuuya was finally going to reprimand him for overstepping his bounds. Akutagawa decided to be ready with his own argument — that Chuuya hadn’t stopped him and had encouraged it. Back when Dazai was still in the Mafia, he would have taken that sort of thing from someone of higher rank without protest, especially if he viewed them as stronger than himself, but now he felt like his life amounted to more than trying to satisfy other people.

He’d felt satisfied by his interactions with Chuuya, and if Chuuya suddenly felt like that was wrong then he’d fight him over it.

When he knocked on the door he expected to be greeted harshly, or at least coldly. Instead Chuuya thanked him for coming and asked him to sit at the kitchen counter while he made them both something to drink.

If this was a reprimand, it was the nicest one Akutagawa had ever been given.

Chuuya made himself a coffee and Akutagawa the sort of tea he liked. He slid the teacup across the counter and sat down on the opposite side so that they could face each other.

Akutagawa sipped his tea. It was good.

Chuuya sipped his coffee.

Akutagawa coughed. “What did you want to talk about?”

Chuuya tapped his fingers against his coffee mug, which he was holding tightly. “I’m not good at this sort of thing,” he said. He met Akutagawa’s eyes. “What are we?”

It took Akutagawa a moment to process the words and even then he didn’t know what Chuuya was asking. “What do you mean? We’re...I’m your subordinate.”

“Come on,” Chuuya scoffed. “You haven’t just been my subordinate in a long time, and I don’t know if you ever were considering all the times you didn’t listen to me or anyone else.”

That was a fair point. “...a friend?”

“Friend,” Chuuya repeated. “That’s a good word.”

For a moment they sat in silence. Was that what Chuuya had wanted from him? To define who they were to each other?

Everyone else in Akutagawa’s life fell into a more clear-cut definition. Co-worker, supervisor, subordinate, Boss, sister, weretiger, mentor, enemy. His relationship with Chuuya couldn’t just be defined by any one of those words, and Akutagawa realized that “friend” wasn’t among the categories of his relationships.

He thought about what friends might mean and found it hard to define, because it seemed like there were no friends in the Mafia. All of the relationships skirted around what they could be if they were normal people. Chuuya and Kouyou were almost like siblings, except Kouyou kept a certain amount of distance and as a result, Chuuya maintained some wariness around her. Black Lizard used to have a kind of friendly banter with each other, but their relationship was also a work one, and clearly they hadn’t known much about each other. They’d all gone for drinks and on trips out of town, but they were always a bit out of sync and a bit distant. Higuchi admired him and was a hard worker, but they didn’t share much with each other aside for an appreciation of each others’ talents. Chuuya was the only one Akutagawa had a real conversation with who wasn’t Gin.

That meant that the closest relationship Akutagawa could this to was to his with Gin. Akutagawa felt comfortable around Chuuya in a way he didn’t around most other people, and he trusted him, and he cared about him, but it also felt completely different to how he and Gin worked. Gin felt like having a home somewhere, and being with Chuuya didn’t.

He wanted more from Chuuya. He didn’t know everything about him, but he found that he wanted to, that the intensity of his feelings was different than his feelings for anyone else. He admired Chuuya’s strength, but unlike with Dazai, he didn’t feel the need to prove himself to Chuuya anymore. He didn’t feel below Chuuya because Chuuya didn’t make him feel like that. Now that he’d gotten used to it, he felt like Chuuya’s equal.

He also felt like Chuuya wanted to know more about him. Chuuya made him feel like he was worth getting to know, worth spending time with, worth more than how many people he could kill, and every time he thought of that he felt a tightness in his throat that had nothing to do with his cough.

Akutagawa also found himself feeling a lot about other things. About how Chuuya looked, about how Chuuya’s voice sometimes send shivers down his spine, how his smile or laugh made his heart beat faster, how he felt like he could look into his eyes forever at times, how graceful his movements always were and how there were times where Akutagawa wanted more than words.

That seemed different than friendship, from what little Akutagawa knew.

“What else would we be?” he asked.

“Dating,” Chuuya said. “Romantically.”

He said those words confidently, but a light pink dusted his cheeks.

Oh.

Romance meant love. A deep intense kind of love that was giving yourself completely to another person by choice rather than by blood. It was giving yourself to someone you hadn’t known your whole life and trusting yourself with them even though you didn’t know everything about them.

Akutagawa trusted Chuuya, but did he trust Chuuya with his emotions? Did he trust Chuuya not to use them as a weakness against him?

Chuuya was someone who didn’t hide his emotions or try to suppress them, so Akutagawa didn’t think he would do something like that. Love also went two ways, so Chuuya would also be giving himself to Akutagawa.

Akutagawa realized he was getting ahead of himself. Romance didn’t always start with love.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Chuuya added. “I just...I mean, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I know there’s a lot of intense stuff involved with that kind of thing. I’m sure you know. I don’t know what love is if it gets that far, for one thing.”

“What?” Akutagawa couldn’t help his surprise.

Chuuya looked surprised too, that Akutagawa was surprised. “Why would I?”

Something about Chuuya not knowing what love was seemed wrong when Chuuya came across as the sort of person more than willing to love. But they were in the Mafia and the way Chuuya had grown up...if Akutagawa put the pieces together, he could see why Chuuya would think that. Chuuya didn’t really have close friends, he’d never had a sibling or family that he could remember, and all of his attempts to get close to people were met with resistance.

Chuuya was gripping his coffee mug very tightly.

“You want me to be the one who helps you find out what it is?” Akutagawa asked.

“I can see myself finding out what it is with you,” Chuuya said. “If you wanted.”

“But why?” That seemed like a high value to place on him.

“Why not?” Chuuya asked.

He said it like it was simple.

Maybe it was.

Akutagawa had never valued himself and he’d never felt valued by anyone other than Gin and Higuchi, and even then he only really counted Gin. He realized it mattered what Chuuya thought and wanted.

He realized that even though he’d been taught over and over again that emotions were a weakness, if there was anyone who could show him differently, who could allow him to feel more freely, it was Chuuya.

“I can’t promise anything,” he said.

“Neither can I.”

Akutagawa nodded. “I...I want to try.”

Chuuya’s smile at those words took Akutagawa’s breath away. He wanted to see it more often.

“Then we’ll try together.”

[bokutosbiceps]

GASPS. c-could you write some angsty fluff with the reader x akutagawa??? IT COULD BE ANYTHING THANK U MY LOVE xoxo

of course of course, dear anon. it would be my pleasure. i still don’t know if i’m good at angst bUT IM GONNA DO IT FOR THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AKUTAGAWA. it’s also gonna be kind of cliche, so prepare yourselves…but it’ll be good :3 i hope you enjoy (ohmygodohmygodohmygod i hope this is good omg i feel like it sucks so bad)

- Pocky

under the cut for length :)

IMPORTANT NOTE: this is set before the four years, so Aku is still Dazai’s subordinate

Akutagawa

You looked up with sleepy eyes from your book as the door to your apartment silently opened and shut, a black figure stepping lightly toward where you were and finally resting next to you on the couch.

You picked up your teacup and took a sip before you turned to your boyfriend; with the dim light coming from the lamp next to the couch aiding your eyesight, you could make out his shadow—head tilted back and fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You’re late.” You informed him, even though you both knew that it was true and obvious. It was silent for a moment before he cleared his throat and spoke.

“Dazai-san asked me if I could stay late and help him with something.” He said gruffly, as if he was pained to even answer you.

Another sip of tea. Akutagawa started to wonder if you’d made him a cup tentatively since he had told you he’d be home in time for tea. He wasn’t. But there was still a cup in front of him. He picked it up and took a sip, a slight shiver running down his spine at the frigid liquid.

“This tea is cold.” He stated, setting it back down on the table in front of the two of you.

“Well, you said you’d be home by eight. It’s a quarter to midnight, and I’m on my third cup—I waited up for you, but it seems that was a waste.” You shut your book with a thud and placed it on the table next to Akutagawa’s cold cup of tea. “Now I’m tired and kind of pissed so I’m going to bed. You can join me whenever you feel like it.” You waved dismissively at him as you rose from the couch and padded your way to the bedroom, leaving your tea and book behind.

Akutagawa sighed lightly and sent Rashoumon to bring you back to him; he felt a little guilty making you wait up for him like this, and coming home to you–whether you were asleep or not–always made him feel as if his life wasn’t a total waste. You felt a thick fabric wrap around your waist and begin to pull back toward the couch, and as you turned around, you were chest to chest and face to face with Akutagawa.

Staring him in the face for the first time in almost three days had you catching how tired and spent he looked. His thin lips were pressed together in a straight line, pale skin that contrasted with the dark circles under his eyes, small scrapes littered his cheeks, and he had a bruise on his temple.

“You look like hell.” You said quietly, trying to hide the quiver in your voice. You wanted to cry for your boyfriend, you wanted to hug him and take care of him and heal all of his wounds, take away all of his worries, but you knew you could never do any of that. Not as long as he didn’t feel as if he was valid, and only one person could make him feel that way.

And the thought of that filled you with rage. Rage toward Dazai and his stupid antics to try and make Akutagawa into something that he didn’t need to be.

“Well, Dazai-san and I—”

“Please, Ryu, enough about Dazai. I’ve heard enough about the bastard who is keeping you from me. You should date him instead.” You pushed at Akutagawa’s chest, trying to free yourself from his grip, but his arms firmly circled your waist until he decided he wanted to release you.

“Y/n…”

“No, every time you promise me you’re going to take a day off or be home early, you change the plans and say you’re going to help Dazai with something. You do everything he asks you to because you’ve got something to prove.”

“You don’t understand, y/n. He took me and trained me and made me into who I am now. I had nothing—I was a scoundrel who stole in order to survive. Now, I have everything I want.” Akutagawa’s voice was starting to rise and his tone was impatient, he wished he could make you understand the deep respect he had for Dazai, but you only saw how he was keeping Akutagawa away from home for days at a time.

“Not everything.” You spat, still implying that Akutagawa would only be satisfied once he got Dazai’s approval.

“It’s normal for a mentee to what their mentor’s approval, is it not?” Akutagawa clutched your elbows and pulled you closer to him. He wanted to tell you something that he’d never told anyone before, and he felt like now was the right time, but you just seemed to be too hurt to care.

“Not to the point where you do everything Dazai asks of you! You’re allowed to take days off, come home before sun down, spend time with me…”

“Are you jealous of Dazai-san?”

“Absolutely! He sees more of my boyfriend than I do. You’re so much more powerful and capable than what Dazai lets on. I think you’re amazing.” You say quietly. Akutagawa watched your face as it fell, going from angry to sad to resentful, and you’re about to turn away from him but he grabs your chin with his fingers and pulls your face toward him.

“Then you are enough.” He asserts.

“What?”

“Hearing that you appreciate me is more than enough to satisfy me. Thank you.” He says, his tone was flat but there was a certain sincerity in his eyes which were unmoving from your lips.

“But what about Da—” Akutagawa stopped you from mentioning Dazai again by pressing his lips to yours forcefully. It felt like you hadn’t kissed him in ages, and his lips were chapped and cold but you didn’t care. You were glad that he was alive and home.

“You are enough.” He said sharply once he had broken the kiss. “And I’m taking the day off tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Because I decided I should spend some time with my girlfriend who appreciates me.” Akutagawa shrugged and hesitated before revealing the truth. “And Dazai-san told me to.”

You chuckled lightly and moved to the kitchen to make Akutagawa a fresh cup of tea.

“Well, that’s one thing he’s done right.”

[almightytrashcan]

at least the instant noodles are fine

when Gin's out of commission since it's that time of the month, it's up to Tachihara to at least make sure his teammate gets better in time for their next mission

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: F/M Fandom: 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs Relationship: Akutagawa Gin/Tachihara Michizou (Bungou Stray Dogs)

yeah i forgot i had to crosspost my fics on ao3 and tumblr so here y’all

i was too lazy as well to do my usual format so copy-paste from ao3 haha

ao3

Gin slumped over the dining table, her long black hair tangled and all over her face. If she sat up straight she might’ve looked like the ghost from The Ring, along with a pale complexion, bloodshot eyes, and the constant, soft groaning noises coming from the depths of oblivion.

“Fix your hair. It might get in the food.” Ryunosuke set down a plate of freshly cooked omelet. He looked clean-cute and unruffled as always, in his usual all-black attire and his trademark jacket, his source of strength and solace. Gin complied, pulling all her hair back, never mind the knots, and tying it in a loose ponytail.

Ryunosuke pushed a bowl of rice towards her. “You’re on your period, right? You need to eat up.”

Gin tucked her hands in the pockets of her blue hoodie, and looked sheepishly from the food to her brother who was eating only buttered toast. “What about you?”

Ryunosuke shrugged. “I’m fine.” He smiled only the smallest fraction, but Gin noticed. Her brother was never really the type to indulge in food, anyway. This was an established fact, but Gin is relentless in finding ways to make him eat more than just five bites, even if some miniscule part of her told her it’s fine, since she always had an inflated appetite whenever she was on her period and she needs all these more than him.

“I’ll need to meet with Dazai-san and the man-tiger later on,” Ryunosuke added, before taking a sip of his tea. “Will you be okay alone?”

Gin nodded, her chopsticks poking the rice.

“I’ve informed Higuchi as well that you’ll be out of commission for a bit.”

“Well,” Gin muttered, spearing a part of omelet onto her chopsticks, “she’d understand the most, since she’s also a girl.” Carefully, she took a bite at the corner of the egg, checking its saltiness, before eating the rest.

Ryunosuke nodded.

They had a quiet breakfast together, the only sounds being the clinking of Ryunosuke’s teacup and Gin’s chopsticks. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable—it was never uncomfortable. It was pleasant. The kind that can only be appreciated by two people who barely knew peace in their younger years.

Almost immediately, Ryunosuke stood up, and placed his dishes in the sink. Gin watched him thoughtfully, chewing her omelet and rice slowly.

Ryunosuke checked his phone, his other hand on the doorknob of the front door. “I need to go. Sorry for leaving the dishes to you.”

“You owe me dinner then,” Gin said, swallowing her food and grinning brightly.

“Got it.” Ryunosuke chuckled, and closed the door behind him.

Gin hummed softly to herself as she ate the rest of her food. She took her time in eating, savouring the food her brother prepared. She was tall enough for her feet to touch the floor, but she swung them back and forth, like she did when she was a little girl, sitting on the edge of a dumpster in some back alley, watching people walk by, blocking the glare of the neon lights of store signs.

By the time she finished, it was almost eleven o’clock.

As she fixed the dishes in the sink, the doorbell rang.

“Did you forget something?” she wondered aloud, before opening the door and meeting Tachihara’s bandaged nose.

“Wah, you look really shitty today,” he grimaced, taking in Gin’s haphazard hair and poor choice of clothing (blue hoodie and black shorts). “I know you look shitty everyday, but today you overstepped that boundary.”

“What the fuck do you want, Tachihara?” Gin was polite on regular days, used only the mildest curse words towards Tachihara even. But today she was on her second day of her period and she had disgusting sensations in her underwear and her cramps were out of hand. She raised a fist, ready to conk Tachihara unconscious.

Tachihara raised an eyebrow. “I’m visiting you, you idiot.”

Gin lowered her fist. “Huh?”

“Higuchi told me you were sick today. Commander’s out with Dazai again, and there’s no mission for us today, so I visited you, you dumbass.”

Gin weighed options in her head, most of them were various ways on how to murder Tachihara quietly and dump his body somewhere unknown and not get tried for treason within the Mafia. In the end, she decided to be civil.

“Fine. Come in.”

Tachihara shuffled in the apartment, taking care to remove his shoes at the entrance. “Excuse me for intruding.”

Gin watched him carefully, her arms folded over her chest. He was dressed in casual clothes, sure, and he had a plastic bag with a convenience store logo printed over it.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, these?” He lifted the bag for emphasis. “Some instant noodles and pain relievers.”

It was Gin’s turn to raised an eyebrow.

“Higuchi told me you had woman problems today, that’s why you’re sick. She suggested I get you some pain relievers too, just in case.”

Tachihara can be an ass at times, but he was soft deep down. Gin felt the tips of her ears heat up. “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

She took the plastic bag from him, and arranged the contents on the dining table. Five different instant noodle flavours, three packs of potato chips, two boxes of pain killers, and a small can of mints.

“Huh, thanks again.”

Tachihara smiled smugly, and Gin swore she could see sparkles emanate from him. Ugh. Cringey.

“Of course you should thank me. I decided to grace your day with my presence, and the lease you can do is be grate—”

His sentence was cut off when Gin punched him squarely in the stomach.

“God you’re such a handful.”

“That…ouch…”

Gin shrugged, and left Tachihara lying on the floor of the hallway. She went back to arranging the instant noodles and potato chips in the cupboard above the sink, and went back to finish washing the dishes.

“You going to have lunch here?”

Tachihara raised a thumbs-up.

“Do you want something in particular?”

“Nah, anything’s fine. M’not picky.”

As Gin set the washed plates in the dish rack, she glanced back at Tachihara, who was currently sitting, massaging his stomach where Gin punched him.

She walked over to where he was sitting, and held out a hand for him to use as leverage.

“Wanna help me cook lunch?”

Tachihara looked warily from the hand to the owner of the hand, before taking it.

Instead of pulling himself up, though, he pulled Gin down to the floor with him. Gin barely had time to register before he found her face in Tachihara’s chest, his knees around her waist.

An extremely compromising position.

“Sure, I can help,” Tachihara replied cheerily in her ear. Thank god he couldn’t see her face, lest he’d see how red Gin’s face was. If Tachihara did he’d never live it down.

“Get off, you asshole!”

When Ryunosuke came home hours later from his mission, he found Gin and Tachihara curled up on the couch, fast asleep. There were packs of opened instant noodle cups on the dining table, and half-eaten chicken karaage in the fridge.

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

“I’m Here”

Summary: After escaping Poe’s book, Chuuya struggles- and fails- to come to terms with the fact that  Akutagawa has been killed.

Notes: HOLY SHIT ANGST ALERT, in case that summary didn’t clue you in. Normally, I try to keep my Chuuaku fics pretty light because Chuuya and Aku have suffered enough already, but I came up with this scenario after the latest chapter came out, and I just had to write this. Welcome to suffertown!

*****************************************************************************************************

I

It was summer.

Sun beat down on Yokohama with a ferocity that blurred the air, burning the city into submission. Sweat streaked Chuuya’s forehead, but he shivered. His mind had detached itself from his body, had sunk to some dark, unfathomable place where the physical sensation of heat was forgotten and feelings were dulled by distance. Chuuya stared at the ring in the palm of his hand, too numb even to cry.

He had meant to give it to Akutagawa weeks ago, once the guild had been defeated, but Akutagawa was so drained from his fight against Fitzgerald and brief encounter with Dazai that Chuuya didn’t want to risk overexciting him. There would be plenty of time to propose later, he thought, once Akutagawa was feeling better.

How stupid of Chuuya to forget that a mafioso’s “later” was a promise written on water.

Something came up. Something always came up. Fyodor and those wretched rats, the destruction, the chaos, the missions upon missions upon missions that seemed tailor-made to keep Chuuya and Akutagawa apart.

Then the book.

Chuuya was stunned when he found out he had only been gone a few days when it felt as if he had been trapped inside the book for months, but he was relieved. If only a few days had passed, Akutagawa should be fine. That wasn’t enough time for him to have gotten seriously hurt, right?

Wrong.

Chuuya bit his lip to keep from crying out. Even alone, he didn’t want to admit weakness.

Wrong, wrong wrong. . .

Chuuya couldn’t remember the moment he found out. He didn’t remember who told him, or where, or what he had been doing before, the words they had used. He didn’t remember shaking his head, denying, laughing as tears streamed from his eyes then collapsing to the ground, sobbing, believing, letting the terrible truth sink in.

All he remembered was the last time he and Akutagwa had been together. Chuuya had to leave in the dead of the night for a mission, but Akutagawa had looked so soft and peaceful in sleep that Chuuya couldn’t bear to wake him up. Instead, he settled for giving Akutagawa a quick kiss on the forehead and leaving in silence. He never said goodbye.

What was the last thing he had said to Akutagawa? What were Akutagawa’s last words to him?

Chuuya dragged his hands through his hair, tearing out copper strands. The ring slipped through his fingertips and clattered on the ground. Chuuya didn’t bother picking it up. What did it matter now? Akutagawa was gone.

No, he wasn’t gone. Chuuya could admit as much to himself. “Gone” made it sound as if Akutagawa had merely decided to leave, but that wasn’t what happened. Akutagawa didn’t leave.

No.

Chuuya’s body suddenly went cold

He was murdered.

Akutagawa had been murdered, and Chuuya already knew the culprit.

The virus ability user. . .

Chuuya kneeled down and picked up the discarded ring, cradling it in the palm of his hand for a moment before clenching his hand into a fist and striding out of the room, bent on revenge. The cold metal of the ring dug into the flesh of his palm.

It was blazing hot outside.

II

It was winter.

That was how Corruption always felt to Chuuya, like winter.

A blizzard.

Cold and capricious winds dragged icicle claws into the bellies of storm clouds above until snow bled from their wounds. Silent snowdrifts swept through his mind like static as snowflakes struck the ground with cannon-fire bombast, falling in time to the distant pounding, thrumming, buzzing deep in the core of bones Chuuya could no longer feel. The wind shrieked as if it was wounded, roared as if angered, whimpered as if grieving.

Trapped in the icy embrace of Corruption, Chuuya felt nothing as his distant body laid waste to everything around it. He remembered nothing, not the heat of vengeance nor the warmth of love. Chuuya had dropped the wedding ring long ago. He had given himself over to the storm.

Then the storm ended, and Chuuya was instantly, crushingly aware of every searing pain, every bone-deep ache tormenting the body it appeared he still possessed after all. He gazed at his shattered surroundings through unseeing eyes, unable to make sense of the blood-splattered ruins of a place he did not know. Even as he tried to make his eyes focus, the world seemed to fade to white at the edges. A cold hand gripped Chuuya’s shoulder, causing him to scream in pain.

“Calm down, partner,” whispered a familiar voice. Long arms slipped beneath Chuuya’s knees and around his shoulders, lifting him into the air. “It’s over now.”

Chuuya couldn’t make out the details of his face, but he would have recognized that voice anywhere. “Dazai?” he hissed, struggling to speak through the tightness of his throat. Chuuya couldn’t tell if he had spoken or not; all he could hear was the pounding in his head. “Put me down! I don’t want you-” Chuuya gasped, tearing up as another wave of pain struck. Before he could break away from Dazai, Chuuya fell unconscious, as helpless in Dazai’s arms as he had been in the storm.

***

Dazai’s apartment was a wretched little place.

Chuuya sat on a worn-down couch, wrapped in a moth-eaten blanket, holding but not drinking a cup of pre-packaged bile Dazai insisted was tea, listening to him explain what had happened, a look of total impassivity on his usually expressive face.

“-and then I arrive to find everything destroyed, everyone dead, etcetera, etcetera. Of course, I predicted you’d go after him once you figured out what happened,” Dazai said with a hint of smugness.“So, naturally, I had to be there, too.” Dazai took a sip of tea, then smiled. “My Chuuya is so high-maintenance.”

Chuuya gripped the teacup almost hard enough to shatter it. “I’m not yours.”

Dazai seemed a little put out. “You could at least say thank you,” he huffed, drumming his abnormally long fingers on the rim of his teacup. “I did save your life, after all.”

“Thank you!?” Chuuya leapt to his feet, throwing his teacup to the ground. Almost as soon as he was standing, Chuuya lost his balance and collapsed back onto the couch. The seismic throbbing in his head mounted, beating back his thoughts the instant they began to form. Chuuya cradled his head in his hands, willing the pain to go away.

Dazai reached toward Chuuya’s face; Chuuya smacked his hand away. Weakened as he was, the slap could not have been very painful, but Dazai drew back his hand as if he had touched a hot stove. “I’m just trying to help you,” said Dazai, annoyed. “Chuuya, I can’t do anything for you if you’re just gonna keep pushing me awa-”

“I don’t want you do to anything for me!” Chuuya cried, digging his fingernails into Dazai’s hideous couch to keep himself from attempting to gouge Dazai’s eyes out. “I don’t want anything from you- you ruin everything you touch! You’re a monster!”

“Monster?” Dazai looked pained for a moment, but his genuine emotion was quickly masked by cold anger. “Last time I checked, I wasn’t the one who murdered for a living,” he said, his words as cool and clipped as flurries of snow whipped into a frenzy by the wind, stinging like shards of glass as they struck the skin.“You might not remember what you did to all those people while you were using Corruption, but I saw it, I remember. If you want to see a monster, Chuuya, I’d suggest looking in a mirror.”

Chuuya refused to take Dazai’s bait. “This isn’t about me, and this isn’t about those damn rats I killed either,” he growled. “This is about you, and what you did to Ryuu.”

Dazai furrowed his brow. “Akutagawa-kun? I didn’t kill him, and I assume you know that, since you set out to kill the man who did.”

“You can’t be this stupid!” Chuuya snapped. “Do you really think Ryuu would have gone on that mission if you weren’t the one sending him?”

“If I hadn’t sent him to catch the virus user, Mori-san would have,” Dazai replied with a shrug. “I figured at least with Atsushi-kun, he would have someone to watch his back.”

“You fucking idiot!” Chuuya was unable to keep a bit of hysterical laughter from bubbling up in his sandpaper throat. “You stupid motherfucker.” He gave one more manic giggle, then relapsed into rage once more. “Who do you think made Ryuu that way in the first place? Every mission he’went on, he went on because you made him.”

Dazai stared down at Chuuya with eyes carved from ice. “I made him stronger.”

“You made him broken!” Chuuya clenched his hands into fists, cutting his palms with the jagged edges of his fingernails. “You beat him, tortured him, made him need you. You shot him in the face! He was just a kid, Dazai! A fucking kid!”

“I don’t have to take this from you.” Dazai took a slow sip of tea. “A current mafioso has no right to lecture a former mafioso on right and wrong.”

“I’m not saying I haven’t done worse, but at least I have the common-fucking-decency to regret it!” Chuuya cried, eyes blazing. “If I treated a kid- hell, any subordinate, anybody under my care- the way you treated Ryuu, you can bet your ass it would keep me up at night. But you-” Chuuya savagely swiped at the tears stinging his eyes. “You’re proud of what you did, aren’t you, bastard? Even now that you’re Mr. New and Improved, strutting around that stupid agency of yours like you’re a changed man who serves the greater good-” Chuuya snorted with derision. “You’ll never apologize for what you did to Ryuu. He’s dead, and not only will you not admit that it’s your fault-” Chuuya sniffled, wiping his nose on Dazai’s blanket. “-but even if you did, it wouldn’t bother you. Not for a goddamn second.”

Chuuya stood, clutching the edge of the couch to steady himself, and began walking out of the room. He was still weakened by Corruption, and his vision swam, blurred by pain and tears, and every nerve in his body ached, but he would have walked ten thousand miles on a path of broken glass as long as it led away from Dazai, who made no effort to stop him.

Sooner or later, Chuuya found himself in Kouyou’s arms. She said nothing, but led him to bed, gave him a warm cup of proper tea, and stroked his hair until he managed to sink into a restless sleep haunted by terrible dreams.

Weeks passed as one nightmare faded into the next seemingly without end. Chuuya ate little and spoke less, only leaving bed when Kouyou made him. Even then, he didn’t leave the house, but only laid on the couch staring blankly at the ceiling.

Revenge had done nothing. Yelling at Dazai had done nothing. There was nothing Chuuya could do to bring Akutagawa back.

Tears pricked Chuuya’s eyes. Without Akutagawa, life was nothing.

Then, on a day like any other, Chuuya left bed of his own accord and informed Kouyou that he was leaving. “Business to attend to?” she asked, effortlessly keeping her tone nonchalant even as her eyes shone with relief.

“Close,” Chuuya replied. His voice held none of its former passion, but he was speaking. His eyes had not lost the appearance of being haunted. “I’m going to visit a friend of mine.”

III

It was fall.

Summer had given way to autumn, and the world was fading, already anticipating the arrival of winter with a prolonged exhalation. A chilly gust of wind rustled the dying leaves on the tree just outside the window, but Edogawa Ranpo was concerned by far more pressing matters.

Ranpo rolled his eyes. “I’m telling you for the last time, Poe, ‘sepulchered’ isn’t a word.”

Poe crossed his arms, sulking and staring down at the Scrabble board. “It’s called literary innovation, Ranpo-kun.”

“Literary innovation, my ass,” Ranpo retorted. “I don’t need my ultra-deduction to know that’s a load of-” A knock at the door cut Ranpo short.

Poe vaulted across the table, knocking over the Scrabble board, and darted into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. “I’m not here,” he called.

Ranpo shook his head, but there was a smile on his face. Athough the agency had more or less accepted Poe, he still insisted on hiding every time someone came to visit Ranpo, more out of shyness than necessity. However, in this case, the visitor wasn’t from the agency at all.

Ranpo raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Fancy Hat? What brings you here?”

Chuuya looked up at Ranpo with shadowed eyes, silent.

“You should sit down,” Ranpo said, linking arms with Chuuya and leading him into the living room. He let Chuuya have the softest chair and sat on the coffee table across from him, studying his face and waiting for him to speak.

Chuuya wrapped his arms around himself and stared at the ground. “It’s cold in here.” His voice was fainter than Ranpo remembered it, and he shivered despite the warmth of the room.

Ranpo shrugged off his pancho and draped it around Chuuya’s shoulders. “Does that help?”

Chuuya’s only response was a blank stare. Then, some light seemed to flicker on inside for a moment, and he nodded. “Thanks.” He slouched over so that his forehead was practically touching his knees, crumbling in on himself, as if his bones were turning to dust beneath his flesh.

“So, Nakahara-kun, any, um, reason you’re here?” Ranpo asked, scratching his head.

Ranpo and Chuuya had bonded in the time they had spent together in the book; they had to, in order to keep their sanity in Poe’s literary labyrinth, in that shifting world populated by unrealities. Chuuya had a passion and dedication Ranpo could admire, even if those qualities were often the cause of his greatest weaknesses, and the fiery young mafioso had in turn grown to respect Ranpo’s intelligence. Grudging respect had given way to a sort of comradeship over time, but Ranpo had not expected to see Chuuya again, particularly not with Chuuya looking as if he had just crawled out of his own grave.

“He’s dead.” The words came out of Chuuya’s mouth in a short, percussive burst that seemed to leave him breathless for a moment. “Ryuu.”

It took Ranpo a moment to realize Chuuya must have meant Akutagawa, the mafioso Dazai had paired up with Atsushi, the one who had been killed by the virus ability user. “You never mentioned him before,” Ranpo said in a feeble attempt to break the oppressive silence. “I didn’t realize you two knew eachother.”

Chuuya made an effort to lift his head and look Ranpo in the eyes. “I loved him.”

Ranpo felt his mouth go dry. “Oh. Yeah, that’s. . . that hurts.” Ranpo was at a loss; he had lost his parents before, and he understood the depth of pain and grief Chuuya must have felt, but he had no idea how to communicate any of this to Chuuya. “Sorry.”

“Remember in the book,” said Chuuya, abruptly flaring back to life. A manic gleam stole into his tear-swollen eyes. “Remember being surrounded by all those people?”

“Characters,” Ranpo corrected.

“They felt real, didn’t they?” Chuuya insisted, leaning forward so his face was inches for Ranpo, his fingers tigging into the plush arms of the chair. “Like real people? Remember? Remember how it felt after a while when one of them was murdered? Like a real death? Like a real world where real people lived and died?”

Ranpo felt a shudder of apprehension trail down his spine. “Nakahara-kun, I-”

As suddenly as the burst of energy had struck, it faded, and Chuuya sank back down into the chair, his eyes dulling like dying embers. “I miss it in there,” he whispered, allowing his eyes to close. “I felt lighter there. My head was quieter.”

He was talking about Corruption. Ranpo wasn’t sure what that had to do with Akutagawa dying, but, figuring Chuuya wanted to change the subject, decided to go along with it. “Well, I mean, you know it’s different with my ability,” said Ranpo with a shrug. “It sets me apart from everyone and makes it hard to connect, but it’s a part of me- without my ability, I’m lost. I don’t know who I am.”

“That’s it! That’s it exactly!” Chuuya eyes burned with manic fire. “I don’t know who I am without him! All the best parts of me were tied up in Ryuu, and now- a-and now-” Chuuya’s shivering had grown more intense until he shook so violently that the chair creaked and groaned in protest beneath him. “I don’t want to be who I am without him.” Chuuya stared up at Ranpo through haunted eyes. “Ranpo-kun, your friend, with the books, do you think he could-”

“No!” Ranpo exclaimed, horrified. “Nakahara-kun, you can’t be serious!”

“I can’t live without him,” Chuuya whispered, at last allowing his gathered tears to fall. “I can’t live knowing I failed him. I have to see him again! I need him! Ryuu!”

As Chuuya began to cry in earnest, Ranpo leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his friend’s shoulders. “Hey, don’t- it’ll be- I-” Everything Ranpo could think to say sounded hopelessly impotent in the face of Chuuya’s raw emotion, so he fell silent, holding Chuuya and hoping physical gestures alone would give him some kind of comfort.

Though the crying gradually slowed to a halt, Chuuya never lost the haunted look in his eyes. He ran out of tears; his pain was unending. “Ranpo-kun, look at me,” Chuuya breathed. “Can’t you see I’m not the same?”

Much as Ranpo hated to admit it, even to himself, Chuuya was right. The broken man before him bore little resemblance to the Chuuya he had known in the book. In the span of a few weeks, Chuuya seemed to have aged decades, to have lost the spark of passion that sustained him, that kept his eyes burning even in the darkness of life. The Chuuya Ranpo knew would have threatened and coerced and stopped at nothing to get what he wanted; this Chuuya wept and pleaded and seemed seconds from total surrender.  

What would happen to this Chuuya in the mafia? Without that guiding flare in his heart, the drive that carried him so far, how would he survive? Ranpo doubted the mafia would take kindly to this version of Chuuya; sure, they had tolerated him up to now, but sooner or later, they would try either to re-ignite his flame by imbuing him with a lust for vengenace or, should that prove unsuccessful, he could be found a liability and disposed of.

Ranpo sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll talk to Poe.”

IV

It was spring.

A soft breeze rustled the trees, and pale flower petals descended through the air like angels cast out of heaven, spiralling toward the ground, toward ruin. Without knowing how he understood, Chuuya knew it would always be spring here. Never again would summer sear his soul, nor harsh winter air grate against Akutagawa’s fragile lungs; here, they could always be together, always at peace, always safe and always in love in this world of eternal spring.

When Chuuya lowered his gaze from the flowers above, he saw a dark figure standing alone where the trees began to thin out, staring at the edge of the sky as it faded into the sea. Akutagawa had always admired the ocean from afar although he despised the cacophony of crashing waves up close. As if on cue, Akutagwa turned around, offering Chuuya a soft smile. “I’ve been waiting for you, Nakahara-san,” he said, his voice a bit gentler than it had once been. “Don’t you want to come over here?”

Chuuya’s breath caught in his throat, and his heart began beating so suddenly and wildly that it felt as if it was beating for the first time. Tears clouded his eyes, but he swiped them away, desperate not to lose an ounce of clarity as he gazed at Akutagawa’s pale face, imbued with a look of peace it so rarely had in reality. “R-Ryuu-” Chuuya tried to smile but his lips were trembling. Despite his best attempts to keep himself from crying, tears started falling. “Oh, Ryuu!”

Akutagawa’s eyes widened as he took in Chuuya’s tears and he began moving toward Chuuya, not walking so much as gliding, like a ghost, but when he put his hands on Chuuya’s cheeks, they were every bit as cold and rough as Chuuya remembered. “Nakahara-san, what is it?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

Chuuya shook his head. “I’m okay. I just-” Chuuya sucked in a deep breath. “-I was thinking about what would happen if you died.”

“Why would you think about that?” Akutagawa’s voice was tinged with annoyance, but his hands were gentle as they stroked Chuuya’s hair. Akutagawa sighed, wrapping his arms around Chuuya. “Well, no matter, Nakahara-san. I’m here.”

No, you’re not.

Chuuya managed a shaky smile, and he wrapped his arms around Akutagawa, pressing his face close to his bony chest and inhaling his familiar scent. “I know, baby. I know.”