I am made of bullets; shrapnel
You are solar flares
And soft lips –
Better creatures could love you, I know.
But now they'll have to
Get through me.
Nothing makes sense to Akutagawa anymore. Chuuya picks her up off the floor, bruised and bloodied, insists on dragging her to the infirmary even though it's on the other side of the headquarters and Akutagawa knows for a fact that Chuuya's supposed to be on a mission right now. Even through her haze of delirium, Akutagawa can't stop looking at Chuuya. ( She's a sixteen year old girl and staring at the shock of burnished curls at the far periphery of her vision. ) It's a jolt to the system. Not entirely unpleasant, but not entirely welcome, either. Her voice is smooth, silky like the inside of an avocado, even as she curses out Dazai bitterly, words tumbling forth from pretty, red-stained lips that are turned down in displeasure. Chuuya smells like lilacs and vanilla, and when she turns soft eyes onto Akutagawa it turns her insides into liquid, but she would rather die than admit that. The arm wrapped firmly around her waist scorches heat through her clothes, into the very foundations of her bones and skin. It is the only thing keeping Akutagawa upright, from dissolving away into nothingness.
. . .
She starts to have dreams. Dreams that have her tossing and turning all night, reducing her to a sweaty, gasping mess in the middle of her twin bed. Her dreams are plagued with a flimsy apparition in gossamer bandages and a smile as sharp as the blade of a knife, close enough to see, but never close enough to touch. Akutagawa finally reaches her, pulls the figure into her arms. I will never let anything hurt you, she thinks, with a ferocity that surprises even her. And she slides her fingers through long silky hair that unexpectedly changes from mahogany to burnished orange. She has to fight her way back into sleep, and it's delightful and confusing at the same time, because Chuuya is everywhere now, not just in her life, but in her head and she doesn't have to think about it. The thought of her, of Chuuya, seeps all the way down to her fingers and toes and there's an overwhelming desire to hold her completely, for real. You should tell her how you feel, sister, Gin says, and they both know what she's talking about, but all Akutagawa knows is that Chuuya deserves better than the feral, rabid dog of the Port Mafia.
. . .
The day Dazai leaves the Port Mafia, Akutagawa hacks furiously at her hair with a pair of scissors. Her long, gorgeous hair that Dazai had actually complimented her on, had flatly refused to let her cut, that took forever to wash and even longer to dry. There's no one to tell her no. ( Not anymore. ) No worlds to collapse if she does it. No one to care. Her head feels lighter instantly. With each chunk of hair that falls to the floor, Akutagawa stands straighter, feels older. Her new haircut curls and cups her chin and makes her eyes look bigger. Chuuya finds Akutagawa surrounded by a river of black, her eyes red-rimmed and accusing and her nails drawing blood as they dig into the soft flesh of her palm. There's something like sadness and anger and pain in Chuuya's eyes, an expression Akutagawa is sure is mirrored on her own pallid face. Chuuya takes the scissors, evens up Akutagawa's hair without a word, and runs her fingers through the soft silkiness when she's done. You look beautiful, Chuuya tells her softly, leaning in far too close for Akutagawa's comfort, her breath tickling her nose and smelling of alcohol and grapes. Akutagawa hates herself for wanting to lean in and close the space between them.
. . .
Her stomach tightens into a fist when she catches Chuuya staring at her, a puzzle or an enigma that she can't quite work out. Her heart feels light, unfettered and unbound, a bird set free from its cage. Still, Akutagawa fights against the new sensations, quashes down the hope swelling within her into a crescendo. Her body aches every time – the pit of her stomach, the tip of her tongue, the hollow at the base of her throat. It would be so easy to hate Chuuya, to direct poison and venom and bared teeth and claws at her. It would make things so much easier. And yet, Akutagawa cannot bring herself to do that. If Dazai were still around, she would have been beaten for the ingrained weakness, this much she knows.
Somewhere along the way, they take a trip to the hot springs, a chance for Akutagawa to rest and recuperate and relax – as though she is capable of such! Akutagawa is rewarded with Chuuya's skin, soft and smooth and glistening with water, a fluffy white towel that hugs her every curve, slicked back hair the color of amber. There are gentle admonishments and even gentler hands, a soft touch with no ulterior motives. Chuuya washes her, scrubs her skin clean, her hands lingering on the curve of her bare spine, along her shoulders, and the casual touches bring with them scalding hot pain, even more so than the numerous beatings that she'd been dealt. Chuuya is hope, salvation and light in a filthy, rank place that reeks of despair and desolation and she does not deserve any of it.
. . .
She's trying – and failing – to bind her cuts and scrapes with lengths of bandages and gauze when Chuuya knocks on the door and muscles her way in, throwing herself down onto the sofa and complaining about all the travelling that Mori is making her do. Chuuya makes it seem easy, staring up at the ceiling as though her bounding into Akutagawa's office at 4:00pm on a Wednesday afternoon is completely normal. Chuuya's wearing a lipstick red miniskirt, short enough that Akutagawa can see the black silk stockings hooked to her black lace garter belt. She wonders what it would feel like, to hitch that skirt up, to hook her fingers in those garters and press kisses into the bare skin there. She feels the heat race up into her face. Akutagawa manages to rip the bandages clean in two, kicking over the bottle of antiseptic. Let me help, Chuuya says on a laugh, light and melodious, and bends to help her clean up the mess. But nothing can be messier than the tangle of veins and arteries looping around her heart, beating a traitorous tattoo against her chest. Hunger hits Akutagawa with brutal force, striking her blind with the realization of what she longs for but cannot have; the bright languorous blue in Chuuya's eyes, the soft fullness of her lips and the way she so easily graces everyone with her laughter and her smile. Akutagawa is both cursed and wretched because she wants to feel Chuuya's lips on her neck.
. . .
Sometimes, Akutagawa thinks it would have been easier if they had kept their relationship strictly professional and business-like, a subordinate and an executive, because now there is a space between their current relationship and the one she craves. You can't stay under the umbrella forever, Akutagawa, Chuuya laughs. Her hair is still damp from an earlier dip in the sea, and pinned atop her head in a lobster clip. A floral sarong is tied around her hips, and everyone is staring at the barely-there bikini that clings and shows everything off. Akutagawa wants to growl, and drive Rashomon into all of them, but she only ends up glowering silently, which is just as effective at fending off would-be admirers before they can even think of coming close. Someone has to look after your hat, Akutagawa says instead, deadpan, and Chuuya tips back her head and laughs. She seems to be doing that a lot around her, lately. Akutagawa ends up getting dunked into the ocean, and even the scorching burn and sting of salt water in her eyes and throat is not enough to wash away the fingers that burn on her waist, and the thoughts of Chuuya that still cloud her mind.
. . .
She's frightened by the intensity of her affections for Chuuya, who quickly becomes something precious to her, like Gin. Dazai, had been that too, once upon a time, but that was dead and gone. Her thoughts always seem to stray to Chuuya on default, and she should be thinking about missions, the paperwork piling up on her desk, even the Were-Tiger that she's been tasked with apprehending, but all she can think of is the auburn haired girl, the very embodiment of life itself. And Akutagawa finds herself clinging onto those better pieces of her memories – Chuuya's laugh, her smile, the bright gleam of her burnished curls under the sun – as the whole world crashes and burns around her. There is a thick, acrid smoke in the air, her entire body is on fire, and all Akutagawa can taste is coppery pennies in her mouth. Then gentle hands are holding her, curved to fit her cheek and delicate fingers fumbling for a pulse at her wrist. Akutagawa, Chuuya is saying her name over and over again, sounding unusually frantic. Akutagawa, Akutagawa, stay with me, you're going to be fine, and even through the hazy blur of pain, she thinks dying like this wouldn't be so bad at all.
. . .
Chuuya is an itch she cannot scratch. Even in her darkest of drug-induced sleeps, Chuuya still haunts Akutagawa's every thought, her every dream, a persistent, dogged ghost in a flurry of pale skin and black silk and an impish smile. And it is Chuuya's face that she sees when she wakes up, bent over her cot and peering intensely into her face. There are eight little freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her eyes are the brightness of a summer sky. She'd never thought she'd miss the color of the sky, but now, Akutagawa's tired eyes take in every cubic centimeter of the blue. Up close, Akutagawa can see how tired Chuuya looks. There are dark half-moons under her eyes, and her eyelids are pearly from sleeplessness, but all Akutagawa can think is beautiful beautiful beautiful. You're awake, Chuuya says, do you know how worried we were? She pushes aside an errant curl with a twitch of her wrist, and Akutagawa has to be imagining the note of relief threaded into Chuuya's voice, because who could possibly be glad that she survived? Akutagawa, wretched and miserable, can only close her eyes on a shaky nod and hope the warmth she feels upon being offered a kind word isn't out to get her.
( If she isn't hallucinating, Akutagawa swears she feels a hand clasping tightly onto hers, and it feels like she's holding the weight of the full blazing sun in her cold palms. )
. . .
The other day, a subordinate tossed out a crude remark about Chuuya and Akutagawa's first instinct was to punch him almost hard enough to expel all the source of feeling from her knuckles because Chuuya is nice to her and smells like flowers and Akutagawa feels like she's drinking down liquid sunshine whenever she's around her. It's a heady feeling that leaves Akutagawa feeling breathless and light enough that she could float away, like she is drunk on champagne that Chuuya is so fond of drinking. Pretending becomes second-nature to her. She does it all the time now. Today, she pretended that she wasn't perturbed when Chuuya asked her to zip the back of her dress up, at seeing that bare expanse of skin and the crimson lace of her bra. She can pretend that she isn't reduced to quaking like the waifish orphan she had once been on the streets, unsure and insubstantial, that placing her hand on the small of Chuuya's back does not kick her senses into overdrive.
. . .
She sees Dazai again, after all those years of radio silence and it shouldn't affect her, but it does. My new subordinate is much better than you. The words burn their way into her brain, and it seems that they will stay there forever. Akutagawa is drowning in anger and spite and somehow Dazai's managed to worm her way under her skin and inside her thoughts again and she's somehow managed to plant a vision of Chuuya tossing her aside like a worthless doll and it is scaring the shit out of her. She can't stop thinking of what would happen if that were true, if at some point she's deemed useless and unneeded and discarded and she cannot stop thinking about it, and her breathing slowly inches its way into hyperventilation. She wishes for comfort, for Gin, for reassurances, but there is nothing and no one and all she can hear is the thud of her heart and her ragged, pained gasps. So she sits outside the cells and she's pale and shaking and sweating and the click of Chuuya's heels on marble tiles does nothing to soothe her frazzled nerves. Akutagawa, Chuuya's saying, and then she's running over to her, near enough that Akutagawa can feel her closeness, smell the sweet scent of her perfume. What happened? Are you ill? What's wrong? A crease appears in between Chuuya's brows and her face is scrunched up in concern and all Akutagawa can do is shake her head numbly and swallow back the bile scorching a path up her throat. And Chuuya holds her tightly, so tightly, like she's afraid that she will shatter without her there, and Chuuya's mouth is pressed into her hair and she's murmuring reassurances and nonsense words all at once, giving comfort that she does not deserve.
( Akutagawa leans into her. Her eyes burn. )
. . .
A few days later, Chuuya corners her in a quiet corner and Akutagawa is still muted and exhausted from her encounter with Dazai, and she can still feel Chuuya's lips in her hair, her voice low and smooth and velvety. Chuuya looks burdened and just as tired as Akutagawa, but she's asking her what happened to make her frightened and pale at 3.00pm in the afternoon. Somehow, Akutagawa manages to get out an insubstantial answer that vaguely resembles Dazai's name, and fury flashes over Chuuya's face, right before warm hands are cupped to fit the curve of her cheek and Chuuya is standing on her tiptoes to rest her forehead against Akutagawa's. I should have punched her harder, Chuuya says, eventually, and it manages to coax a slight upturn of the lips from Akutagawa, and Chuuya is laughing, and holding her close, and somehow breathing comes easier to Akutagawa with the warmth of Chuuya beside her.
. . .
As is customary, the Port Mafia holds a ball at the end of the year. Akutagawa lingers in the corner, in a fitted black dress that hugs and flatters the little curves she has. She's never been good at social events, she doesn't want to be here, and she would have been at home if Gin and Chuuya hadn't both ganged up on her and badgered her until she'd given in. She's never been able to say no to Gin, and it looks like she can't say no to Chuuya now, either. Somehow, Chuuya manages to find her – she always has – and grasps her firmly by the hand. She's a vision in her strapless gown, the black and crimson satin underskirts swishing about her knees with her every movement. Dance with me, Chuuya says, gifting her with a smile, bright-eyed and flushed and pretty, and Akutagawa wonders why, out of all the people in the room, would Chuuya choose her. Chuuya-san, Akutagawa manages to get out with difficulty, I can't dance. I'll show you, Chuuya says, slow and patient and coaxing, her hair a riot of color against a black and white backdrop. It isn't smooth, and Akutagawa thinks she steps on Chuuya's feet more than once, but the auburn haired girl never complains, only laughs and spins and twirls, and despite herself, she finds that she loves moving through the space in Chuuya's arms, their bodies close together, thighs brushing, the perfume of her clothes and hair – She's never flown before, but Akutagawa imagines that it feels much like this, floating high up on a cloud, lightheaded and breathless, only held steady by the firm grip on her hand and waist.
. . .
Chuuya drives her home, as she is wont to do whenever she and Akutagawa stay late to complete paperwork – despite Akutagawa's protests that she can look after herself, that her house isn't far and that she can walk. There's only a few inches separating their arms, the car smells like Chuuya's perfume, and she's turned the heat on high for Akutagawa, who was cold and shivering but isn't anymore. When they've reached her apartment, the street signs swallowed up by the blackness of the night, the two of them sit in silence; and for the briefest of moments, Akutagawa finds herself wishing that they could stay like that forever because she isn't ready to say goodnight yet. And it is Chuuya who leans forward first, the space between them collapsing into nothing, and Akutagawa's hands twine themselves in soft, silky hair, and Chuuya's lips press against hers. Akutagawa closes her eyes, and in the darkness behind them she sees beautiful blooming things, flowers spinning like snowflakes and hummingbirds beating the same rhythm of her heart. She's gone, lost, floating away into nothingness, but this time it's a good feeling – like soaring, like being totally free. Chuuya sighs into her mouth, and her hand pushes inky black strands away from Akutagawa's face, and she can feel the impression of her fingers everywhere they touch, branding a trail of heat into her skin. Sorry, Chuuya mutters, once they break apart, her cheeks resembling miniature solar flares on a much smaller scale. I shouldn't have – Akutagawa has never been one to use words, not when she can use actions – and so she kisses Chuuya again, relishing the quiet noise of surprise that the auburn haired girl makes, muffled against her lips now. And while Chuuya's saying her name into her mouth and Akutagawa's breathing into her, she's soaring.
( Congratulations sister, Gin says on a snicker, when Akutagawa steps into their shared apartment, very much late and very much happy, Chuuya's slightly wrinkled jacket draped around her shoulders. Akutagawa's face is still burning, and her lips are stained cherry red from Chuuya's kisses, but she still manages to throw a cushion at her sister's face. )
. . .
Chuuya takes her out for a date one week after their first kiss. Gin brushes out her hair, now falling past her shoulders, and insists she wear a dress ( a plum sheath one ), and insensible heels. Chuuya, in a light and clingy sundress and her usual fedora, breezes into their apartment and presents Akutagawa with a rose that elicits a girlish giggle from Gin and sets Akutagawa's cheeks aflame. The petals are a bright, vivid red, and is as soft as anything, a breath of air, Chuuya's lips, and Akutagawa strokes them absently, adoringly, before sliding the stalk into a vase of water. The two of them wander around Yokohama, café hopping and walking and talking. ( Akutagawa doesn't have it in her to even attempt to hold Chuuya's hand, but Chuuya takes one look at her and says, It isn't a crime to hold my hand, you know, and practically snatches up Akutagawa's own calloused hand. Akutagawa cannot look Chuuya in the eyes for ten minutes. ) I had fun today, Akutagawa says, slow and deliberate, as the Ferris Wheel makes its second revolvement. The words are foreign and clump together in her mouth. Everything is new to Akutagawa, her insides are alive and fluttering, trasnforming her whole body into a dancing, glowing thing. She keeps her eyes fixed on her strappy heels, feeling the heat creeping into her cheeks, uncharacteristically bashful now. I would like to do it again. And Chuuya beams, and oh, Akutagawa realises, in something akin to wonder, that she really really likes Chuuya.
. . .
Chuuya presses kisses against her cheeks, her chin, and Akutagawa kisses her back until their mouths blend. Akutagawa sighs into Chuuya. Her kisses chase the chill away. Akutagawa runs her palms over the swell of Chuuya's hips, her stomach, each finger finding a groove to claim. Chuuya drags in a ragged breath, a gasp hitching in her throat when Akutagawa kisses up the side of her neck, and up beneath her ear. Lightly, so lightly, they could have been sighs instead of kisses.
Chuuya's fingers find the skin between the bottom of her blouse and her skirt. They burn paths into Akutagawa's stomach. There's a question in Chuuya's eyes, murmured thickly against Akutagawa's mouth. Is this okay? And Akutagawa exhales shakily, nods her consent, a small part of her touched that Chuuya would even ask in the heat of the moment. Chuuya tugs and her blouse falls into a crumpled heap onto the floor.
She feels vulnerable. Open. Her spine no longer juts with each vertebra. Her ribs can be felt, but don't protrude. There are veins, mapping out stark blue traceries against the paleness of her skin. Every part of her is made up of sharp edges and angles, carved out from marble, and there's a niggling voice in her head that constantly reminds her of her own flaws and failures. What if she's not enough? But Chuuya is gazing at her in such undisguised tenderness and adoration, like she's everything she's ever wanted, and these are the two things that she's craved for her whole life. the way that she parts her lips and closes her thickly-lashed eyes makes her feel perfect, not just adequate.
And she thinks she could melt because nothing has ever felt this right.
. . .
There are millions of individual snowflakes, spinning and twirling and looking, all together, like rolling waves of white. They collect in Akutagawa's hair, bright bits of white in a sea of ebony. Chuuya's nose is wrinkled, her forehead creased as she mumbles about how unfair it is, to be sent overseas on a mission on Christmas Eve, but Akutagawa doesn't mind. ( She thinks Chuuya looks cute with her face scrunched up. ) Chuuya doesn't see Dazai and the Were-Tiger through the window of the café, but Akutagawa does. The Were-Tiger's cheeks are pink, her silvery hair is still cut in that stupid, stupid haircut. Dazai's head is thrown back in a laugh as she sits close, the warmth and life in her dark eyes unmistakable. Her world is no larger than the girl sitting beside her. Through the window, the Were-Tiger says something unheard, and Dazai smiles. They do not glance up to see Akutagawa where she stands not two feet distant. The pane of glass between them and Akutagawa reflects a galaxy's worth of twinkling lights. Once upon a time, Akutagawa might have resented the Were-Tiger for so easily gaining Dazai's affections, her acknowledgement. She thinks she still does, but that hatred is dulled down to a small, insignificant point that doesn't leave a bitter hint of chicory clinging to her mouth. Now, she looks but she does not pause. Akutagawa catches up with Chuuya and slips her free hand into Chuuya's. Chuuya tightens her grip around her hand.
A/N: DAMN, SAM, BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH THE FANFICTION. This time, I've gotten into Bungou Stray Dogs, and I've fallen in love with ChuuAku, so I wrote something for them ( and became a hundred percent gayer in the process ). Reviews, followers and favourites are greatly appreciated!