This is a translation of one of my fics with the same name. I apologize for possible grammar mistakes or misspelled words that I may have. WARNING! This fic includes some triggers as mentioned suicide and self-harm, and a low-level of internalized homophobia. Nothing it's explicit but take in consideration what I just said if you read it. The ships here aren't "together" together, it's more like a post-relationship kind of fic ; - ;
Nakajima Atsushi's first love was a boy.
A somewhat peculiar boy who would always walk alone. A boy who didn't talk with the other students. Nakajima didn't really get along with him at all. A boy who he only has seen with a frown on his face. It seemed like he didn't have any desire to collaborate with his classmates. But for some reason, Nakajima found himself always looking his way and how he would borrow his eyebrows like reading the complicated kanji troubled him. Nakajima knew the boy had the best marks at Literature, so he wondered.
Nakajima was a little bit of an expert on this boy named Akutagawa Ryunosuke. He wondered if anyone on the school was a little expert on him. He probably wasn't good enough for that.
.
On the next month, Akutagawa Ryunosuke confessed to him out of the blue and so the two of them started dating in secret on the first year of high school.
Nakajima had agreed to dating not because he was one of those, his reason was different. In this all-boys school, dating experience wasn't one thing a lot of students could brag about so Nakajima thought that it would be nice to become good at it now so when they were out of there, he could shine. This way maybe someone would look his way. He also thought that the way Akutagawa Ryunosuke would read complicate Chinese poetry to him was pretty.
They would sit on the back of the school, with as much as three feet between them.
Ryuu would always pronounce 'love' as 'give' and not as 'take'.(*)
"I am of the opinion that if you have to use love it's far prettier when is love even if you are not loyal to the original text", he had said as an answer one morning, while they were looking to their different lockers and changed shoes.
"Is there a significant difference anyway? Both get you to the same result".
"Hmm, I guess…" Ryuu sounded uninterested. He would sometimes do that: Nakajima didn't know how to interpret it and worried he was boring him. Why should I care? Nakajima would think, because after all, this thing they had going on wasn't real. Just a game of imitating adults.
Ryuu would close then his shoe locker and leave first. Today they won't see each other again.
Nakajima waited a little more, eyes focused on the inside of his locker. He wondered if he became smarter, would he be able to understand Ryuu better? Would he stop sounding so bored? Nakajima wanted to know why Akutagawa Ryunosuke had took an interest on him.
.
Some days, Nakajima Atsushi and Akutagawa Ryunosuke shared secret kisses.
Ryuu's lips were as cold as the rest of his body –his hands and his ears, the parts that Nakajima was able to touch. (Ryuu was reserved and Nakajima was unable to recall a time when he had seen him without his school blazer or the long-sleeved shirt underneath. Even in summer days like today, Ryuu wouldn't let his body to be exposed.
Oh, well, if Ryuu's temperature was always this cold Nakajima would understand it to be a reason.)
.
They kissed for hours; till their lips hurt, till they learned how to do it properly. After separating, Ryuu would get up and leave to his main room in search for some water and Nakajima would remain sit in the dormitory number 524 thinking he still needed more practice.
Anticipation or nervousness, those are things he does not feel. Of course not. He isn't some girl in love, nothing like that. They are just learning how to evolve from their adolescence. But he thinks that if a girl were to fall in love with Akutagawa Ryunosuke and her feelings were to be returned, that would be okay.
If falling in love with a girl would make Ryuu happy, that–––
Nakajima Atsushi isn't a selfish person. He is conflicted however because when thinking about that possibility, he can't stop thinking he would steal from Akutagawa Ryunosuke that happiness.
.
"I didn't know you had a sister".
"Uhm. Ah, Gin." He said, fixing his gaze where Nakajima was poking around in his room. It was a framed photo of the Akutagawa siblings. This was the first time Nakajima saw Ryuu having a genuine complicated expression, like internally arguing with himself.
Nakajima who is kind of an idiot, said "you two look alike, it must be nice having a little sis".
Ryuu stared at him for a moment in sincere surprise before changing his expression. Akutagawa Ryunosuke wore on his face the softest smile Nakajima had ever seen. He was captivated; unable to take his eyes from it for a mere second, he was staring like an idiot. It was precious.
His heart aches.
"Yes, it is".
.
The great majority of the students are orphans. Of course, there are exception to the rule like his friend Tanizaki.
Most of them are a burden so they don't really have a place to go back to. It's odd too to find those of them who aren't single children. Nakajima can't stop wondering while he sits behind Ryuu at class, that it's nice he has someone he can't go back to and spend holidays with.
Knowing that makes Nakajima happy.
Akutagawa Ryunosuke is a second-year now and he keeps walking alone. He still has an aura of not wanting to collaborate with anyone around there. Nakajima is content knowing that there's someone Ryuu can be affectionate with, someone he would smile more around without having to hide.
Nakajima Atsushi is a coward.
.
He would measure his hand against Ryuu's. His fingers were a little thicker than Ryuu's thinner ones, but their hands were almost the same size. One day of October on their last year he noticed this, and Nakajima is unable to stop giggling like the idiot he is.
"What's so funny…?"
"I have grown up! We are the same height now", he states with confidence.
Ryuu arched an eyebrow apparently confused.
Nakajima does not understand why this information he just discovered makes him so happy either. It may be because he has stop being all bones, scrawny and finite. Now he must look like an adult and not just a kid and so in PE they have stop laughing at him. It also may be because for the past three years he has grown up next to Akutagawa Ryunosuke.
He shakes his head.
"You don't make any sense, Nakajima", Ryuu declares.
"At least I'm not pretending like you in Literature class! I know you can read those text", in irritation, he cries his questions.
It's just a second where Ryuu's gaze darkness more. His black eyes become darker but it's possible that it's just an effect of the cloud that navigated the fall's sky and hides the sun from them. Ryuu drops his hand and goes back to holding his book again.
"Is something noticeable?"
"Uh, not really" It's just that I look at you a lot. "Why do you do that?"
"It's not your business"
.
Nakajima Atsushsi's heart aches, while he too puts his hand away and looks at the sun now that the cloud had vanished.
"You are right…"
.
Nakajima finds in front of him a blank page called life.
He should have filled it with goals for when he is out of high school on his way to university; filled it with ambitions of something he wanted to do with his life; filled with fake dreams only to pretend he had things like that. But the hour the class took passes by without Nakajima having completed nothing but his name on it.
He would like to…
What would he like to do?
Looking through the window to see the clouds lethargically passing by, this is a sky at the end of winter. Spring is approaching as slow as those clouds, at the other side of the glass, unapproachable, floating over the intense blue of the sky. Nakajima thinks that the sun seems lonely.
His homeroom teacher asks him to stay after classes when the ring bells. He isn't the only one though: Akutagawa Ryunosuke is one big step away from him, not far enough he wouldn't be able to spread his arm and touch him. They both have given the paper blank.
Someone as smart as Ryuu, has nothing to be passionate about? It's what amazes him.
He looks back at Ryuu in complete awe. His teacher must call him twice to make Nakajima pay attention again to her. But words come and go, and Nakajima does not give them any space on his thoughts because he can see by the corner of his eye how Ryuu's seem mesmerized with the sky.
'Sky'. Or could it be that Akutagawa was thinking about–––(**)
.
Nakajima Atsushi writes down that he would like to become a translator. Maybe that way he would be able to share with Akutagawa Ryunosuke lots of pretty words and significances. He plans on telling him the day of the graduation, they hadn't been able to spend a lot of time together recently.
.
Akutagawa Ryunosuke committed suicided two days before graduation.
.
Nakajima must play it like the body inside the black bag is a stranger. He is completely still in the middle of the commotion, looking in front of him like this image is your typical Tokyo landscape. Inside his chest, there's something growing like a thorny plant, tearing his heart apart when it pierces through.
He grasps his hand where he thinks the plant is steady growing, he opens his lips and nothing, but a moan comes out.
Nakajima is so sad that he can't even cry.
.
Nakajima Atsushi does not attend the graduation ceremony. He lays at the bed on the dormitory number 524 that has been completely wiped off any memory or personal things that it used to have. He has a spare key for reasons. He lays there, looking at the ceiling.
Then he starts crying and does not stop until his eyes hurt and he can't even close them because of how much they burn him.
.
"Atsushi, you okay?". The week after, during the spring break, Tanizaki asked him this.
"Uh sure?", Atsushi arched an eyebrow. "Why?"
"You seem distant since the graduation. Is it because of the Akutagawa incident? You both were classmates after all, so you must have talked sometime, right?"
"I was just thinking that things like that are totally awful", he shakes it off, laughing. "But you are wrong, Akutagawa and I were… completely strangers".
.
Nakajima Atsushi is eighteen years old and has a hole the size of a fist on his chest. When he puts his hand over the left side, he can't hear beating or feel any warmness. This hole is a little bit like a hollow (because it's deep and profound in his skin) and a little bit like a window (because it goes through Atsushi). He has stop feeling terror a long time ago when he sees himself in the mirror and the reflection is empty. The only fear he feels is thinking someone, anyone would discover what he is hiding under the shirt.
Hollow.
Empty.
A heart that's been substituted by the superficial ideas of what is love.
Atsushi is unable to comprehend what he is doing there in class. Studying translation wasn't one of his brightest ideas. But if he were to start directing his life to decadence now and dropping studies, nobody would know why he did it. Then someone would discover his reasons to stop caring about everything and that someone would find his three lost years of high school. And then Atsushi would feel even more disgusted with himself.
Not only was he a boy, he was a dead boy.
That's the explanation of Atsushi attending class everyday even though he has no idea why he keeps trying one day after another. He wants to live, right. But it's hard trying to live acting like a part of your life happened the way the people around you remembers it and not how you do remember it.
He hates studying translation, after all Atsushi was never able to understand such complicated kanji.
.
"Why the long face", Tanizaki asks him at the campus' cafeteria.
In the end, Tanizaki and him attended the same university but different departments. Lucky him because Atsushi doesn't feel like trying to start new social relationship with anyone, not that he would be able anyway. Atsushi wonders if he has had anything other than superficial relationships with other people.
"Uh? Ah, it's nothing really! I was thinking on joining a club maybe". He lies, looking at the showcase with all the information getting updated that right moment.
"A club?". Tanizaki meditates a moment. And then he says, "Like debate… or something like that?".
Atsushi shakes his head. "Now that we are at university, I am thinking of changing", he rests his face on his left hand. "But changing it's so hard, ugh".
Tanizaki laughs.
"You haven't changed a bit since I know you. You think it's hard because you never try it, probably".
Atsushi, however, thinks he has changed a lot. Sometimes he can't even recognize himself. But how can he simply admit that?
"A sport club then?".
"We can go check it out now, if you want", Tanizaki suggests.
"Okay".
They chat about trivial things the rest of lunch time and then they get their trays to the collection point.
.
As they get close to the cabinet with all the information, at the entrance of the cafeteria, Atsushi can see all kinds of papers on both sides of the enormous crystal. Be it with staples against the wall or with tape to the glass. It isn't something out of the ordinary: you have basketball, volley, relays… and then the culture clubs with the famous debate club, there's also literature, newspaper… The only thing that may be new are the associations like other NGOs.
"If you had a pet you could join this", Tanizaki takes one of the flyers and shows it to him.
"Animals doesn't like me though".
Shrugging, Tanizaki puts back the paper. When he does it, another flyer falls so Atsushi bends to pick it up. But when he sees it, Atsushi freezes while reading it.
.
'the Broken Hearts Club'.
.
Atsushi keeps the paper on his pocket and pretends it's nothing. Later, when they both take their separate ways because Atsushi apparently is going to study at the library, he takes the paper out and analyzes it.
It's handmade, a photocopy of some ballpoint pen scribbles that are hard to read at first –it gets easier though if you focus on it for a while. There's a room written on it, but no scheduled for when the club's activity may start or finish. He puts the flyer in front of his resumes, staring at it without knowing how it got there. What's he doing?
He does not have a broken heart. Atsushi just does not have a heart at all.
Moreover, he has never been in love with anyone.
.
At the eight day after seeing the flyer for the first time, Atsushi goes to the written classroom because his feet took him there. Yet he doesn't know what he'll say when he arrives or why he is going in the first place. But the hollowness of this hole in his chest makes him wonder that if there are more people like him, could he possibly be comfortable with his empty self?
Atsushi thinks that probably is impossible.
.
He knocks on the door twice and enters saying "Excuse me!" when an answer never comes.
The room is empty except for a guy sitting on the fourth row, on the left side if you look from where the blackboard is, seventh seat from the central corridor. The guy looks like he is reading completely concentrated and doesn't give a care of what's happening around him. Atsushi thinks of Akutagawa when looking at this man. He looks somewhere else, where the blackboard is. The name of the club is scribbled there with the same bad calligraphy as the flyer, so he hasn't made a mistake.
Atsushi closes the door behind him and climbs to the second raw and sits on the second seat from the central corridor.
He looks at the blackboard.
He looks up at the other student on the classroom.
He goes back to looking down, at the desk.
On this classroom where the windows don't show the sky but the ceiling of the building outside the doors, Atsushi thinks he doesn't have a lot to think about and that he had mentally prepared for nothing. Searching on his backpack, after some minutes he finds the book he's been trying to finish for weeks now.
He stays one hour reading without interruption.
Then he gets up, says goodbye though he isn't aware if he is annoying that guy and leaves.
.
Nakajima Atsushi continues going to that room all days of the week later. He sits and read, finishes a book then starts a new one. Some days, Nakajima Atsushi observes by the corner of his eyes the other student. Some other days, he just stares at the words on the blackboard, separating the formation of how the words came to be and thinking about what Akutagawa wondered the moment before he left.
And one day, at the end of the first quarter, like today, said student talks to him for the first time.
"So, you want to join?".
Atsushi stakes a while to notice that the one who have just spoken is the quite student that he's been sharing classroom with for some months now. The student who changes books daily. He turns around to look at him and blinks in confusion, trying to understand the situation.
"I thought I already did", he murmurs.
"No, no, this is a serious club. You must go through an exam to be able to join, like the other clubs".
"What's the exam about?", Atsushi is utterly confused.
"Why you care if you already pass it", with the distance between them Atsushi can't see him clearly, but he would swear that the guy is pouting. "Your name".
"Ah, Nakajima Atsushi, first year translation student. It's a pleasure".
"Very well. See you tomorrow, Atsushi-kun". The student gets up and choses the closest corridor to climb down the stairs and leave. But before he can close the door, Atsushi is able to ask him his name and in respond, the student says, "Dazai Osamu, third year French philology".
Then the door closes with a soft noise.
.
Of course, Nakajima Atsushi returns next day. He is a good kid, obeys what other says without asking much. He just follows. He wouldn't even try to do something that would go against what's socially accepted. And yet if he is in that club at that moment is because Atsushi did it.
Dazai is sit on the eighth seat of the right side in the fifth row.
"Good afternoon, Atsushi-kun", he greets without taking his eyes from his new book.
"Ah, good afternoon, Dazai-san", he says back politely.
He sits in what's now his habitual spot and puts out his new book that he just rented from the library. He would love to know what kind of books does Dazai read and where does Dazai get the ability to read one a day. He asks himself these superficial questions because Atsushi isn't sure if asking Dazai directly would be considerate polite.
If it were him… he would be able to admit nothing.
.
He sighs.
.
Today too nothing happens.
During January, Atsushi forces himself to reduce his visits to the clubroom due to the final term exams approaching. He must put this through and do a good job. He wonders if Dazai has been there all the days that Atsushi hasn't.
Dazai doesn't give the vibes of a busy person but he must have obligations too.
Only out of curiosity, Atsushi goes one day after finishing an exam and looks inside.
The clubroom remains empty the first week of January.
.
Monday, 27th January 201X
From: unknown number
Good evening. I'm Akutagawa Gin, you attended high school with my brother, Ryunosuke. There's something he left for you. Could we meet some day? I'll be waiting for your answer, thanks.
.
"Welcome back, Atsushi-kun". Today, Dazai Osamu isn't reading. He isn't even sitting on a chair but on the desk. But he has gone some rows back: to the ninth one. Sitting on his desk, Atsushi is finally able to see the strange person that is Dazai, with a bandaged body and a weird smirk on his face. "Were the exams the ones to make you cry?"
"How do you know I cried, Dazai-san?". Atsushi rubs his hand all over his face, while he goes sitting.
On his other hand, he is still holding his phone. The screen is broken; the other day he kicked it out of his bed and when he went to check it, the screen had already cracked. The state of his phone has nothing to do with the message he just received today at half past eight on the morning.
"It was my first guess". Dazai says calm.
"I see. Dazai-san", his name Atsushi pronounces a little louder so the mentioned hears him, "why did you create this club?"
There's a silence that takes some minutes to be filled. Atsushi turns and looks back to see if Dazai Osamu is still there or if he has left to avoid answering. He only thinks on this last possibility because he is projecting on Dazai. Of course, he doesn't leave, he looks from the top at him with eyes that make Atsushi had a chill running down his spine.
"Why did you join?", he answers.
Atsushi feels like the hole on his chest is getting filled with stones and believes he is sinking. He feels heavy, but his body is asleep. He feels like a burden.
Atsushi runs away that instant.
.
Why did you join?
Because he was curious? No, because he didn't know what to do with all these feelings that were eating him up, piercing through this emptiness inside him, using this hole in his chest like a pot where a thorny plant was slowly growing, scratching his heart. He didn't know what to do with the nights where he dreamt; he was a first year back in high school, changing his shoes at the hall of the building with Akutagawa behind him doing the same. And then Atsushi was back to having nineteen years, and when he turned around to take Akutagawa Ryunosuke by the arm, Akutagawa was out of reach, leaving him.
So, he falls on his knees, and he cover his eyes with his hands.
Trying to suppress the pain.
It didn't happen.
Forget everything, it didn't happen.
Then he wakes up.
.
One day of March he returns to the clubroom with his head hanging low.
Dazai Osamu is reading on the first row, left side from the blackboard, fifth seat from the central corridor. Like the first day he entered months ago, Dazai does not even look up when Atsushi comes in. He is completely embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, Dazai-san". It's the first thing he bumbles.
Dazai moves his eyes towards him. Then he looks at the blackboard, leaving his book aside.
"Why don't you take a seat, Atsushi-kun?".
Atsushi sits on his spot while he looks at the blackboard with the club's name written on it.
"When I was fifteen years old, I started dating someone". Atsushi says, lowering his gaze and frowning a bit, with a face of disgust. "It was the first time going out with someone for both of us and we didn't make it public. I like to think that we had fun together, even if we didn't know each other that well. Close to the end of our last year, they… took their own life. Since then, I feel like there's a hole here", he puts his fist over the left side of his chest.
Later, bit by bit, he relaxes and lets his hand fall to his side again.
Now that he finally admits it, he feels like choking.
"It was a boy, right?".
Atsushi straights up and turns his head to where Dazai is, with a stressed expression. Dazai is just laying his head on his hand, his gaze still fixed to what's in front of him, looking uninterested. Atsushi turns his head back and looks at the board too, shrugging a little to make himself look smaller.
"People who date the opposite sex, always have the chance to brag about their partners aspect and physical attributions. But in the case where is two people of the same sex dating, we don't have that privilege because it would mean we expose ourselves to judge", he explains and Atsushi notices.
We.
"Dazai-san…".
"You see, Atsushi-kun, the reason why I created this club is because I wanted a place where I could read in peace", he declares completely serious. ", and I thought none would try to enter a club with a name so bizarre. And then you opened the door".
"Ah, sorry about that".
Dazai half smirks half laughs at his face and Atsushi feels less tense now.
"Then no one broke your heart, Dazai-san?".
"I never said that", he shakes his head softly. "Look inside the desk".
Inside the desk? Atsushi puts his hand inside and with surprise finds a very thin book inside. It couldn't be more than a hundred pages long. Atsushi opens it and passes through the pages, barely looking at them, with his thumb. And then he notices it: this book is empty from the middle to the end. Page 52 has a huge ink spot on it.
He turns the book around. It says it belongs to Oda S.
.
Atsushi turns his head towards Dazai.
"As much as I want to, I don't know how to finish that story", Dazai says, sighing dramatically. "Someone important to me wrote that, but he died before being able to finish it. I promise this friend I would do it for him, but it turns out that I don't know how to write. You could even say I'm the worst at it".
"Was this Oda S. that friend?".
Dazai blinks, changing his expression.
"He is the person I love more that you could ever imagine. After him, breathing as usual became harder. You understand that, right, Atsushi-kun?"
Atsushi goes back to looking at nothing in front of him, those words intoxicating his head. Using love like 'give' that easily. 'In love', that's the word Atsushi's been avoiding because it's not normal, it's against. But Dazai-san uses it with calm and he even admits things like that.
Was he in love with Akutagawa?
Atsushi doesn't look back at him and tries to read the foggy letter of the unfinished book.
"Isn't it painful to have this?"
"If you could, wouldn't you like to have something from that boy you loved?", when Dazai says this, Atsushi closes his eyes just a little.
"I didn't love him, we were just going out", he squeezes the sheets on his hands.
"Are you sure, Atsushi-kun?".
Nakajima Atsushi squeezes shut his eyes, trying not to cry and hides his head behind the open book.
"No", he lets on a small shout.
.
Wednesday, 2nd April 201X
To: Akutagawa Gin
Forgive me for answering so late. Right now, I'm free if you still want to meet.
.
Gin says that they don't want to bother Atsushi a lot. They are thankful for Atsushi having taken care of their brother all those three years and then they give Atsushi a little something covered in gift wrap and with a thin rope holding onto it. After that, they bow, and Gin disappears inside the train.
They had gotten off on the same station that Atsushi was and now they return to the school dormitories.
Atsushi tells them that if they need anything, they can always hit him up and he apologizes once again for reaching to them months late. Gin thanks him without changing their expression but their eyes become a little more kind. Or at least that's what Atsushi would like to think.
Later, at home, he unwraps the gift that ends up being Akutagawa's book of Chinese poetry that he always read him at the back of the school building.
.
'To Atsushi'
.
He falls on his knees to the ground, squeezing the book against his chest in an odd hug. His head falls forward, protecting the book from something invisible he lies on the floor on fetal position while crying. When he starts to read the verses, he finds Akutagawa's writing in small notes indicating him which way is the best to interpret this or that kanji.
Nakajima Atsushi feels like that hole on his chest he had all this time, that pot with the thorny plant, is finally getting filled and hiding the emptiness he has felt all this time. A bright spring flower is blooming in yellow and pink on his chest. The hollow is slowly disappearing with the words.
He continues looking at the poem whose topic was love and finds that Akutagawa has written 'I love you' in the page.
Atsushi smiles, while crying and thinks:
'Me too'.
.
'I've been in love with you all this time'.
.
"Dazai-san, do you remember when you asked me if I loved that boy?".
Dazai Osamu is sitting on the third row, right side from the board, second seat, directly behind Atsushi, while he scribbles things down and looks at a French dictionary. Apparently, Atsushi isn't the only one who must retake some exams on June.
"On March, was it?".
"Yeah, around that month. I forgot to confirm you that you were right".
"I didn't doubt my guess but it's nice to hear I was right~" Dazai closes the book and tics Atsushi two times on the head, to make him turn around and look at him. "So, are you leaving the club?".
"No, no, of course not!", he moved around his hands.
"Oh? But you don't have a broken heart anymore~".
Atsushi does not want to know how Dazai knows that, to be honest most of the things Dazai knows are better not to ask how he discovered them. For example, last month he gave him a free chazuke ticket for the cafeteria.
"But Dazai-san doesn't have a broken heart either and he created this club, right? It's like Oda-san's protagonist from his novel; trying to hide his true intentions when he wants to help other people", Atsushi affirms, confused. After some help, last week he was able to decipher Oda's drafts.
Dazai Osamu opens his eyes surprised.
"I wonder…", he closes his eyelids, smiling and Atsushi arches an eyebrow, still confused.
Nakajima Atsushi is nineteen years old and where he used to have a hole (in the left part of the chest, as big as a closed fist) he has now a shiny bouquet of bright buds of what will be then violets. When he puts his hand over his left side, he can hear it beating softly and feels warm.
Nakajima Atsushi's first love is a boy named Akutagawa Ryunosuke.
Clarifications!
(*) there's a difference in Japanese between writing love like ai, which basically means "give love" as in exchanging feelings, more like a "true love". And written as koi with is more of a "carnal" love, to only take and not give.
(**) "sky" and "empty" can be written with the same kanji. This what Atsushi means: that maybe Akutagawa isn't just thinking about the sky at all.
An that's all! This fic is mostly angst with a kinda happy ending(?) i THINK. Again I apologize for any mistakes and thank you for taking the time and read this! Also you can find me at twt birbcake or in tumblr kielisjustfine