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Akutagawa walks down the pier in Yokohama City during some nights when sleeping seems as impossible as flying to the sun without death. He sits with his feet swinging from the docks, the gigantic moon shining down on him. Sometimes it feels comfortable but others- other times he feels judged , like the night sky is hating him for ruining the beautiful scene with his presence.
He is twenty years old, a member of the Port Mafia along with his sister, Gin. He is enemies with the young detective, the weretiger. He is the shameful protege of the previous Port Mafia Execute, Dazai Osamu- he is a disgrace .
Recently, the thought seems to scream louder inside his head. He’s always been the disappointment, the weaker one, the lazier one, the uglier one, the second choice .
He still remembers their time in the slums. Ryuunosuke and his younger sister walk through the street, plotting how they’ll steal their next meal when two older, much stronger males, step in their way.
“Oi! Lookie here, this babe right here would do just fine don’t you think?” One of the men- the taller one, asks his partner. The smaller, leaner man looks at them and his eyes gleam in pure danger.
“Well, well, what is a girl so pretty like you doing out here, huh?” The leaner man asks, his hand coming up to cup Gin’s much smaller face. The girl glares at the man, the hint of fear in her eyes hidden by all the hate that’s been manifested in her by the world.
“Leave her alone!” Little Ryuunosuke screams, his scraped clothes glowing a dangerous red from where Rashoumon emerges. The demon’s head appears, and with a vengeful gleam in his eyes, Ryuunosuke orders it to fight.
The two men in front of him seem excited, their faces shining in twin expressions of glee before Ryuunosuke hardens Rashoumon into a blade and slashes at them. The point grazes at one of the men’s sides and he doubles over.
“Run!” Little Ryuunosuke and Gin dart away from the men, their expressions twins in their fear. Both had learned how to hide their emotions from the enemy- but they were never the enemy.
Both kids make it to a little abandoned house, and step inside. The house was owned by a kind old man years ago, but once he died, they took over. The house has a simple layout consisting of a kitchenette, a couch, and a bathroom that occasionally runs with water.
They walk in, exhausted and hungry, and lay down to sleep. Gin takes the couch and Ryuunosuke sleeps on a little blanket placed on the floor. The setup isn’t ideal, but it’s more than they’d ever had before.
They continue on like that, slowly forgetting the two men. They’re dismissed as another pair of perverts shunned by society and sent to live in the outskirts of such. Weeks pass and the two of them are hunting for their next meal again, when they hear familiar voices and look at each other in fear- fear only visible to them.
“Ohoho, it seems the little runts are back!” The leaner of the two crouches down to their level and grabs at Ryuunosuke’s forearm. The man smiles at him, a sick and dirty thing that has Ryuunosuke whimpering before he can hold it back.
A blush makes it to his cheeks, and before he knows it, the other man is reaching out with his hand to brush it against his head. Gin’s knife stops the advance before it can get any further.
Gin looks at the finger laying on the floor wide eyed, but Ryuunosuke only has eyes for the man in front of him. The menacing aura surrounding the man makes him want to be sick and he feels thankful that it’s not possible in his current empty state.
The lean man’s other hand keeps its grip hard on Ryuunosuke’s other arm, the force turning his already pale skin almost transparent.
Ryuunosuke looks at his sister, message clear in his eyes, “run, please.” The girl shakes her head slightly and Ryuunosuke pleads at her with his eyes again. Hes’ certain that whatever those men want with her would be much worse than whatever they would want with him.
The girl nods, and before either of the adults know what’s happened- she’s gone. Ryuunosuke relaxes, Gin has always been exceptional at hiding herself and her trail. That means that whatever these men had in store for her will never reach her, and Ryuunosuke is extremely thankful for that.
The leaner man, the one with the lost finger, looks up at the boy with the meanest expression he had ever seen in an adult. For that to be the case in thirteen years of living in the slums- that meant the face was pretty scary.
Ryuunosuke has no time to really process any of what’s happened before the man presses his hand to his head and everything turns dark.
When he comes to, he’s strapped with metal cuffs to a table and the taller man is looking him over with a leer. Ryuunosuke tries to call for Rashoumon, but the demon only manifests itself in clothes and apparently metal cuffs don’t count. He’s naked . He’s also old enough to realize what these men plan to do with him.
The world around him is fading in and out, colors and shapes registering oddly. His mind tells him he’s been drugged, but he’s also not sure what to do with that information.
“It’s really a shame that we couldn’t get your sister, little boy, that girl was exceptionally pretty,” the man says, his large hands landing on Ryuunosuke's chest, almost spanning from one side to the other. Living in the slums has left him looking sickly even when he’s had his fill.
“You’ll do,” the man sneers at him and slams his lips down on Ryuunosuke’s own, the taste of cheap cigarettes and some kind of alcohol sealing itself along his lips.
The man moans, hands coming down to grope at the sides of Ryuunosuke's thighs.
“Such a good boy for us, aren’t you?” The man groans into the kiss and pants. The man’s hands grab the backs of his thighs and raises them off the surface he’s lying on.
Cold air makes goes to places it’s not supposed to be and Ryuunosuke’s traitorous mouth whimpers. He’s whimpering into the man’s mouth and the man groans, a lewd sound that has the boy shuddering in poorly concealed terror.
“Such a good slut, aren’t you? I bet this isn’t even your first time,” the man smirks at him and bends down to spit into the boy’s most private area. Tears spring up out of the sheer amount of panic encompassing him.
The man inserts a finger into Ryuunosuke’s ass and he shrieks, walls clamping around the man’s finger so tightly that the man winces.
“Shit, you really are a little virgin, well, I’ll give you a reward after then, for being so accommodating ,” the man proceeds his intrusion into the boy’s passage. He doesn’t wait much before entering another finger- and another, until Ryuunosuke’s whining and whimpering at every movement.
Tears fall at a rapid pace from his eyes and the man’s eyes look at him hungrily while the man’s other hand goes down and cups his member through his pants.
“Sto-stop, stop, please, I don’t-,” it takes a few seconds for the white-hot pain to register as being slapped in Ryuunosuke’s mind. The man is glowering at him from above and the sight makes every braveness feeling he’s ever felt melt into the floor never to be seen again.
“Shut up, you whore. You fucking asked for this and now you’ll take it, ” the man removes his fingers from inside the boy and he whimpers at the strange empty feeling inside him.
The man pulls down his slacks and smirks at the boy when his eyes widen. Ryuunosuke feels himself start to shake again and wonders how he asked for this because he doesn’t remember it but he’s also drugged and- oh god, that thing will never fit.
The man’s member is huge . It is thick and veiny in his hand and Ryuunosuke shudders at the sight. He wants to explain that he never meant to ask for it but he already asked the man to stop and-
The feeling of being split in half had never seemed like something he’d experience until that moment. The pain was immense and a loud shriek left his mouth before he could decide against it.
“NO! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, NO!” Ryuunosuke’s tiny body feels like it’s being permanently ripped apart, his muscles being stretched past their limits and beyond. It hurts .
The man backhands him and the taste of blood fills his mouth immediately after. The man’s member pushes through the resistance and he hisses, thrusts becoming more violent after a few seconds.
“Fuck! Shit, shit, baby you’re so tight, fuck!” The man moans and starts thrusting brutally when the passage is pried open, the movement smoothed by blood.
Ryuunosuke cries loudly, his face scrunched up in pain and fear. He’d never felt that scared in his thirteen years of life, not even when he thought he and Gin were going to die.
He can feel a warm liquid travel down his ass cheeks into the small of his back and he whimpers every time he can feel another trickle of it. He knows it’s blood, and he can’t help but wonder if he’ll die like this.
The man takes his fill, thrusting violently into the limp body under him. The boy’s eyes are far away, vacant, and the man smirks as he grabs both thighs before raising them as high as they would go and thrusting even harder . The boy under him shrieked in pain again, and the wounded sound was accompanied by a dark laugh from the man above him.
After a while, the man presses deeply inside the boy and comes. Ryuunosuke whimpers loudly at the feeling, the cum mixing with his injuries making him burn.
He passes out after that, and when he wakes, the other, leaner man, is there to take his fill. They both use him for their own sick relief for a long while. When they’re done, the taller, thicker man hands him an envelope and drugs him before opening the shackles holding his wrists together on the bed.
When he came to, hours later, there was a fresh pair of clothes on the table next to him and the envelope contained more money than Ryuunosuke had ever seen together in his life.
He tried to sit up on the table, the pain from his injuries making the process much slower than it ever had the right to be. The boy puts his clothes on slowly, feeling comfort at the feel of Rashoumon settling in, and grabs tightly at the envelope. He knows what he’s getting paid for but- he and Gin need money to survive, and money is money no matter what.
He leaves the building, an old abandoned warehouse, and starts walking. His gait is slow and filled with pain, locals looking at his sorry state with pity but nobody stopping to help- he’s grateful. The sun is low in the sky, early morning giving the few locals happy smiles, except the boy, whimpering at every step and feeling like he’ll drop dead at any second.
Ryuunosuke is already around the slums, leaning his tired body against one of the walls, when a woman in a lab coat approaches him with a hesitant smile. The woman has a short bob hairstyle and a beautiful, ornate clip in her hair.
“Hey...do you need any help?” The woman reaches forwards towards his arm, and suddenly she’s no longer a young woman, she’s a tall lean man grabbing his forearm in a bruising grip.
“N-No! No, I’m- I’m fine, I’ll just get home, I- yeah, I’m fine, leave me alone,” Ryuunosuke flinches away from the woman and makes starts walking away again, the woman saying something behind him but his head is too filled with noise to hear it.
He walks painfully towards the little house he and his sister inhabit and when he walks inside, it’s empty except for a few pieces of paper around the floor.
‘Out for food’
‘Please be safe’
‘Where are you?’
Ryuunosuke looks at his sister’s messy scrawls and scrunches his face when a few tears fall down his face. He feels horrible and has a weird sense of wanting to die because it’s all starting to feel like too much . He decides to go to sleep.
He’s still clutching the envelope.
Hours later, he’s ripped from sleep by arms around his body. The memory of the lean man standing behind him with his member inside Ryuunosuke and his hand over his stomach- feeling it move . Ryuunosuke whimpers and moves away before any coherent thought passes through his mind.
His eyes snap open and he looks up, expecting to find either of the men but only seeing his little sister’s hurt gaze.
They stare at each other for a few seconds, Gin taking in Ryuunosuke’s body’s state before her eyes widen and pain is evident in her whole face.
“Are...are you okay?” The girl’s voice is high and airy and comforting . Ryuunosuke’s defenses lower slightly at the familiar voice and he nods at the girl. Everything is fine, he helped her escape and now she’s safe like she should be. He doesn’t matter .
That night, when he pushes the envelope with the money towards her, he sees the tragic sight that is his sister crying out in utter emotional pain.
Ryuunosuke’s body had taken months to heal, the wound reopening with every new man he took for money. The memories haunt him, but he can’t bring himself to regret it when his sister had started to look so much healthier to how she used to be.
Akutagawa gazes at the bay in front of him, the water looking almost black- inviting . The memories come and go in nights like these.
“Next time, I’ll punch you twice and shoot you five times,” that one stood out too. His mentor had always been a rough person, his forms of teaching including from, ‘how to stand up to torture’ to ‘how to defend yourself when someone is shooting a machine gun at you’ which, in retrospect, don’t hold much difference. Both hurt.
Akutagawa used to hold Dazai-san on a pedestal so high that no matter how much he tried, he could never reach. In all honesty, he still can’t reach it. It’s funny- hilarious , even- that the young Jinko had managed to receive Dazai-san’s approval so easily when Akutagawa has been attempting for years and there’s been one occasion.
He’s aware it was done to manipulate him. He doesn’t care. It hurt .
It hurts to know that Akutagawa Ryuunosuke is the one that’s always lacking in some way. The only way he can get Dazai-san’s approval is by staying on the sidelines. The only way he could help his sister before the mafia was prostituting himself but it always broke and hurt her.
The only way Akutagawa can feel like he’s not lacking is when he kills someone and completes an assignment, getting the “good job” of acknowledgement sent his way even though he’s also aware it’s only to manipulate him. And now, now he’s gone and promised the Jinko that he wouldn’t kill for six months so he could learn something.
It feels unfair in every way that the boy can make that request and Akutagawa would just agree. Agree because the boy is clearly Dazai-san’s favorite so he must be doing something right, this might be it.
It makes sense, the world is full of manipulative people and Akutagawa’s only just a simple pawn in a chess board unfairly full of queens.
He hums a tune he’s heard his sister play in their apartment for the last few weeks. The lyrics always sound airy and calming, but he can never catch the lyrics clearly.
His feet swing under him and he shivers in the cold. His arms wrap around himself and he uses Rashoumon to slowly devour his coat and recreate it as a thick pullover hoodie over his body. He pulls the hood over his head and leans as further down as he can muster. His face touches his knees and he stops.
He must drift off in that position, uncomfortable as it may be. Next time he wakes up, there’s a hand patting his shoulder, getting heavier by the second.
“Oi! I swear to god you fuckin’ shit! Wake the fuck up, the boss called you in, holy fuck, wake up,” he raises his head at the rather rude alarm clock to come face to face with a crouched Chuuya at his shoulder.
They stare at each other for a few seconds before Chuuya raises a perfectly arched brow and Akutagawa remembers that he’s supposed to be a functioning member of Mafia society today.
He clears his throat before coughing at the itch and stands up. Chuuya continues to stare at him and Akutagawa pulls his phone out of his pocket to find one missed call from the boss. Oh, joy.
Chuuya must see his face of utter panic before he laughs at Akutagawa’s pain and pats his shoulder again- probably leaving a bruise the size of the Netherlands on there.
“Don’t worry, Akutagawa, the boss called me and he just told me to get you, we’re helping the shitty agency today,” the Executive tsks and mutters under his breath what sounds like, “shitty Dazai.”
Akutagawa blinks at the other man’s retreating back, trying to comprehend what the actual fuck was going on so early in the morning.
Chuuya turns back towards Akutagawa and frowns, “are you high?”
The question throws him off kilter and Akutagawa can actually work his brain to form a response to that question, “no.” Sure, not a convincing response, but a response nonetheless. Akutagawa rarely ever does any kind of drugs, and the previous night he did take some muscle relaxants but it should’ve worn off by now.
The executive gives him another unconvinced look before shaking his head and stomping back towards him halfway before huffing and Akutagawa feels himself floating. Honestly, it could be way worse.
Chuuya floats him all the way to the passenger side of his can and Akutagawa opens the door and gets in. The other man does the same before starting the car (expensive car too, the insides are red leather , who even-) and driving away from the docks.
“So, what are you high on?” Chuuya doesn’t waste any time, which really, shows a lot about his past with resident junkie Dazai.
Akutagawa sighs, resigned, and mutters, “some muscle relaxant, I don’t know.” He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the seat of the car.
“Okay, cool, very specific, love that,” Chuuya’s tone couldn’t be any drier because it’d simply dust away in the wind. Akutagawa opens his eyes simply to glare at the man and then glare harder when the man simply laughs at him.
“What are we doing again?” Akutagawa contemplates asking this for a few minutes, knowing Chuuya told him but he forgot in those last few minutes. Maybe he is higher than he thought.
Chuuya huffs and glares over at him before replying, angry tone and all, “I said we’re going to help the agency on something Fukuzawa and the Boss are working on together.”
“Oh, joy.”
Chuuya bursts out laughing at that and Akutagawa is left in silence, wondering what the fuck was so funny that the man had to giggle about it for the rest of the car ride.
---
So, really, Akutagawa really should’ve known getting high was a bad idea. As soon as he enters the coffee shop they’d agreed to meet up (apparently, Akutagawa honestly has no idea) the gazes turn directly from Chuuya to him.
Then, he realizes that he spent the night sleeping at the pier in only his coat-turned-hoodie and black jeans, high off his ass on pain medications, having flashbacks, and he didn’t really shower or anything that morning so it makes sense. Still, he doesn’t have to like it.
As soon as he realizes all of this, he glares at all three people staring at him, “ fuck off.”
He pulls out a piece of gum from his pocket and puts it in his mouth because he may be a criminal but he’s not subjecting anyone to morning breath.
The dumbass Jinko stares at him questioningly but after a glare, the useless bastard gets the hint and sits his ass down at the table they’ll be sharing. Chuuya and Akutagawa go to the line and he makes sure to order their darkest coffee with the highest amount of espresso shots they can give him. Two of those, if he dies, he dies, it was his time.
They wait for their orders and sit down at the table, Akutagawa already halfway done with his bitter as fuck coffee before remembering that he has gum in his mouth and grimacing. Chuuya snickers next to him and Akutagawa glares at him before turning his tired eyes back at the ADA members sitting right in front of him. Kunikida-bitch and Dazai-san are across from them in the booth and the Jinko is sitting at the end of the table in a stool he pulled over.
That same Jinko has been staring at him for the past three minutes they’ve been wasting there as Kunikida-bitch attempts to throttle Dazai-san.
“You okay?” It takes him a second to realize the question came from the Jinko and that the table quieted down in three seconds flat when the question was asked.
Akutagawa glowers at the white haired menace and scowls too for good measure. Fucking bitch, always so goddamn annoying.
“Fuck off,” he says it with as much venom as he can muster, and considering the place’s shitty coffee is taking longer to kick in than it should’ve, it comes out sounding like a tired groan but it’s accurate so it’s fine.
Of course, right at that moment the other menace at the table decides to speak up loudly and annoyingly , “aww, is Akutagawa-kun compromised right now?” Dazai-san smirks at him with a knowing look and Kunikida-bitch proceeds to look so appalled that Chuuya breaks next to him.
Jinko is the only one who looks confused, which, of course he would, fucking angel, and proceeds to ask, “uh...compromised?”
Dazai-san looks absolutely high off the pleasure to answer him (pun definitely not intended, at all ), “well, you see, Atsushi-kun , compromised is a nice way to say ‘high while on the job’,” Dazai-san’s voice adopts a sing-song tone and Akutagawa would really like to drown himself in his coffee right about now.
The Jinko looks so shocked and betrayed that Akutagawa has the distinct feeling that he just kicked a puppy but then he stomps that feeling down because fuck that, he’s a fucking criminal, he can do wahtever the fuck he wants.
“Oh…”
“How can you be so irresponsible?! Coming on to such an important job while compromised in such a way, will you even be able to work coherently?! Such irresponsibility, I can’t believe-,”
“Ahh, Kunikida-kun~, but being compromised is so fun~,” Dazai-san’s comment makes Kunikida-bitch turn towards him and attempt to throttle him again, simultaneously forgetting all about Akutagawa in the process.
Fucking dealing with the ADA should be easier not sober, wha the fuck are those people on?
Around ten minutes later, Akutagawa already drank both his espressos, bought two blueberry muffins and ate them, then went back and ordered a smoothie. His leg is shaking, his hands are shaking, even his hair feels like it’s vibrating and honestly, he should’ve just gone to drown at the pier.
That comment sounded too much like Dazai-san so he quickly compartmentalized it and drank more of his smoothie.
At this point, both Chuuya and the Jinko are bored of the other two’s bullshitting murder attempt- so is he, so he says, “Kunikida-san, if you’re going to kill him, can it be faster? This isn’t really my ideal place to be right now- or ever.”
The table quiets down even faster than when the Jinko asked for his state of being and Akutagawa has the distinct feeling he should've kept his mouth shut. He blames the two coffees.
Even Chuuya is staring at him weirdly and- okay , what the fuck.
They all just stare at each other for another long wasted moment before Kunikida slowly clears his throat and takes out some papers from his briefcase.
Everyone in the table straightens up as the meeting -finally- starts and Kinikida begins explaining.
“We’re handling it as ADA and Port Mafia because these men have passed through both organizations,” at that, Akutagawa’s eyebrows rise in respect because that’s kinda dope, but then he remembers these are idiots because they’re about to get killed.
Dazai-san takes over for Kunikida and takes out two paper records for the men. He hands them over to the Jinko, “those men are ex-government workers as well, they were double-agents, like our dear Ango, but these two did it all wrong.
“While in the Port Mafia they started a human trafficking ring that quickly turned into child prostitution. Many of the kids who were taken in by them died from two weeks to a month after, so Mori-san told them to get their shit together and stop wasting resources or to leave, they left,” Dazai-san smirks at them all, eyes looking deader by the second.
“Many kids were used by them and thrown away, I know quite a few personally, these men were not just monsters. Their abilities, Sleeping Beauty’s Curse and the Snow White Poison- their abilities are just as they sound,” Dazai’s eyes turned even darker as he gazed down at the pictures.
“Honestly, I agreed to work with Chibi mafioso over here just so he can crush them for me,” Dazai pouts at the redhead who immediately starts screaming. Kunikida joins the screaming match and Akutagawa realizes that Chuuya is no longer looking at the papers.
Mistake . It’s through years of work on self control and the relaxant pills that Akutagawa doesn’t scream bloody murder right there and then. The men in the pictures...they’re the same people . Fuck.
Akutagawa looks at a reasonable way by which he can get away from this case as fast as possible, but all of those ways include exposing himself to the people on the table and definitely his boss. Not gonna happen. It’ll be fine.
He gazes down at the bigger man’s picture, exactly the same face as the man who raped him for the first time when he was thirteen.
Name: William Grimm
Ability: Snow White Poison
Ryuunosuke knew he’d been drugged. The colors were all looking different, shapes too.
Name: Charley Perrault
Ability: Sleeping Beauty’s Curse
The lean man pressed his hand to Ryuunosuke’s head, everything immediately going dark.
Fuck this shit.
“Huh, I know them,” Akutagawa shrugs as the men on the table turn to him with horrified looks on their faces. All except Dazai-san who just gives a little cold glare and opens his stupid mouth.
“Oh? I didn’t know Akutagawa-kun was into kids~” Dazai-san’s voice takes a playful tone, but the words just taste like shit on Akutagawa’s mouth.
He ignores the explosion of hurt inside of him and glares up at the Detective, “I’m not you disgusting bitch, I mean they tried to take me and Gin when we were kids.”
His words leave the table around him still once more and he wonders if he gave too much away. He grimaces thinking about it, he definitely gave too much away.
Surprisingly, the Jinko is the first to speak, that still doesn’t make it a good thing, though, “did they...hurt you?” The Jinko’s voice is hesitant and Akutagawa wishes for a second that the boy had been shot dead by illegal tiger hunters and taken to Russia as a pretty rug. Pretty rugs don’t talk.
Everyone on the table stares at him in the beginnings of horror and pity, so Akutagawa takes pity on them, “not any more than any other man interested in my sister and occasionally me,” he shrugs, going for that causal air even though the coffee is still making his leg shake under the table, “they were real assholes about everything too, Gin cut off that Perrault bitch’s finger off when he grabbed me.”
The atmosphere around the room goes back down to chill a few seconds of tense silence later. Everyone resumes the conversation except for Dazai, who is looking at him with those dark, calculating eyes of his, and Akutagawa wishes he was alone in his bedroom asleep .
“We know where these men are, they run a brothel in neutral ground between the Port Mafia and the Agency,” Kunikida explains and suddenly, Autagawa fails to see why the actual fuck her’s here.
“Why are we here, then?” Really, no brain to mouth filter. Good job, Ryuunosuke.
Kunikida glares in his direction before shaking his head in annoyance, “the brothers know everyone at the Agency and what we do and don’t do except for Atsushi, they don’t know what you two do and don’t do either.
“All we need to grab is some security camera footage to incriminate them and take it to the government officials, they’ve been tracking this case for years.”
Chuuya grumbles next to him, “fucking government officials want us to do all their dirty work then turn around and try to arrest us a month later, fucking whores.”
Akutagawa nods in complete agreement with the man and sips at his mostly melted smoothie.
“Ah, well, you’re not wrong, Chibi,” Dazai smirks at them both and leans forwards on the table, bedroom eyes completely drawn on Chuuya and ugh , can they not? For like one day?
---
That’s essentially how Akutagawa ends up dressed in some tight leather jeans, a black shirt, and a black leather jacket. He likes black.
He puts on his combat boots (yes, they're black too) and sits on the couch to mentally prepare for the absolute mental shitshow that was going to be seeing his rapists again after a good seven years.
Gin walks in and drops down on the couch next to him. Her clothes are stained with some blood, her mask is off and hair is down so she looks more like a frail woman than a deadly assassin at the moment. Not to say one can’t be both- she certainly is.
“What’s up with you?” Her voice is still light and airy and Akutagawa smiles a bit at that. A familiar itch raises up in his throat and he coughs lightly.
“Not much, about to go on a mission with the ADA,” he twists his face into a look of disgust and the rolled eyes it gets him is worth it. He gets to flip her off.
“The little Jinko gonna be there?” Gin smirks at him in a knowing manner and it is Akutagawa’s turn to roll his eyes this time, if only to hide his flustered feelings.
“ Yes , he’ll be there, but then so will Daza-san, and the other one with the stick up his ass,” he grumbles and agrees with the face of disgust Gin throws at him.
“What’s the mission on?” Gin asks after a while and he grimaces, considering a lie for at least three seconds before deciding that no, she deserves to know as much as he does.
“We’re digging up shit on Charley Perrault and William Grimm, child predators and run a human trafficking ring,” he sighs and leans his head back on the couch at his back. He knows she probably knows who they are, she’s always been better at maintaining a grudge for much longer than him, as surprising as that may be.
The room stays quiet for a few minutes before Gin mumbles, “those men...when you were thirteen, those are their names, you know that, right?” Despite her words being low, they hold no hesitancy, and Akutagawa can appreciate that.
“...yeah, it’s fine.”
They leave it at that.
---
That afternoon, Chuuya, the Jinko, and Akutagawa are all inside some random stolen car and on their way to the brothel.
The atmosphere is quiet and tranquil so of course, the Jinko goes ahead to shit all over that, “so, I’ve never been to a brothel, what are they like?”
Akutagawa rolls his eyes and shrugs. He’s only been inside Kouyou-san’s brothels and those are nice . He has no idea about anywhere else.
Chuuya blows an annoyed noise but still goes to answer the Jinko, “it depends on the owner, Ane-san’s brothels are really nice, there are some in the Red Light district where people disappear every night due to “mysterious causes” or as I like to call it, probably some idiot with an asphyxiation kink went too hard,” Akutagawa snorts at the annoyed man’s tone at the end and pays for it in a cough.
The Jinko seems deeply in thought, brows furrowed and everything, “so what kind do you think we’re stepping into?”
Akutagawa rolls his eyes at that and answers, “probably full with a bunch of underaged kids wanting to kill themselves at every turn.”
He pretends to take satisfaction over the Jinko’s hurt look but can’t. He knows the comment was insensitive but, as someone who’s been a child prostitute, he mostly did want to kill himself at every turn.
They finally make it to the brothel and exit the car to go in. Dazai’s plan had been a fairly simple, get in, don't get caught, come in situation. Since it came from Dazai, it probably means that there are a million other steps in the way that he simply forgot to mention.
They make it into the brothel and a young receptionist greets them and starts to ask them about their “preferences” (i.e. Age). By then, Ryuu understands Dazai’s need for the sweet relief of death for once and he sighs.
The mental tirade might be why he missed the man walking around the corner, and really, at this point Ryuu will just lock himself in his room and rot away the face of the earth.
“Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite whore,” William Grimm walks up to them and latches his hands on to Akutagawa’s hips. He tenses up immediately and Rashoumon, in a fit of rage, lashes out and impales herself into the man’s arm. The big man swats the demon away as if it were nothing but a wasp and disregards the blood flowing from his arm.
The receptionist scurries away, and both Chuuya and the Jinko turn to look at him like he’s a circus animal. Well, fuck, so much for keeping them in the dark.
“...what?” When Akutagawa hears the Jinko’s voice, his eyes close for a split second before he reopens them, coming face to face with his oldest real world nightmare.
The man, William Grimm, smirks at the white haired boy and leans forwards into Akutagawa’s space again, “well, baby boy, you see, your little boyfriend and I had a long while of fun a few years ago, didn’t we babe?”
The man’s hand lowers from where he has it on Ryuu’s hip and grabs roughy at his ass. FIghting back a humiliated blush, Ryuu goes to hit the man on the balls and succeeds. William Grimm crumbles to the floor with a hiss that soon turns into a cackle.
“Hahah! What, baby? You didn’t like it? I’ve never seen a thirteen year old beg so pretty for me to stop before, you were such a good boy,” the man puts his hands on Ryuu again and grits his teeth in annoyance when everything around him, shapes and colors, start looking like a blend and shifting.
Akutagawa barely registers his eyes watering as the man pulls him closer, his Ability making his defenses weaker by the second. His knees buckle slightly and he feels another pair of arms, smaller safer pull him back and he takes a huge gulping breath, coughing with the effort of filling his lungs with clean air again.
The man is still leering at him and he gets turned around, coming face to face with the Jinko. The boy’s frown is full of worry. For him . He doesn’t know how to deal with it, so he doesn’t.
He looks down, almost hiding his face on Atsushi’s shoulder and hears Chuuya beat up the man behind him.
Everything slowly blurs together.
---
Akutagawa is now walking the streets; it’s dark. He doesn’t remember much from what happened. The guys are now in government custody, so that’s good at least. Akutagawa is sure he’d feel a million times better if they were dead. He can’t kill them, he promised .
Akutagawa makes it to the pier again and sits down at the edge of the docks, looking up at the moon.
He hears footsteps but doesn’t turn around. If he ignores them, maybe they’ll get the hint and leave. They don’t.
Dazai-san sits next to him at the docks, his head leaned backwards looking up at the sky.
“Chuuya told me what happened.”
“Yeah.”
Akutagawa really doesn’t want to talk about this. He’s told his sister, who more or less figured it out for herself; he told a doctor when his sister forced him to go get tested at a clinic.
They sit in silence for a while longer, Akutagawa content for just once to be sitting with his mentor in pure, accomplished silence.
“I knew.”
Akutagawa’s happy thoughts stop right there, with those words. His eyes snap to the man beside him and can’t felp the betrayed feeling from curling up and choking his lungs. He coughs.
“What-what do you mean?” He feels like he can barely breathe, the real estate for air inside his lungs becoming more limited by the second.
Dazai turns towards him with a sad little smile, “I knew what they’d done to you.”
Akutagawa has so many things he wants to say to that.
Of course you did.
Then why did you let me go?
Why am I always being used by one person or the other?
Why am I never enough?
Why?
What he says, “okay.”
Dazai-san blinks at him in shock, probably expecting his usual kind of banter back. Akutagawa doesn’t have the energy, he can’t even begin to pretend to have the energy. He’s so tired.
“Are you mad?” Dazai-san asks tentatively and Akutagawa sighs, suddenly wishing that he’d taken the leap the night before. Or that he’d taken an extra ten pills.
“No, I’m just really tired,” he looks up at the moon again, wondering what he did that was so bad in his past life that he deserves this .
Dazai-san looks at him for a few more minutes, Akutagawa pretending not to notice as he stares up at the sky and the moon. They’re so free .
“I’m going home,” Akutagawa stands up with a quiet whisper and starts walking in the direction of his apartment.
How did he ever think he mattered in the grand scheme of things?
~The end~