Confrontation
Characters/Pairings: Ryuunosuke Akutagawa, Osamu Dazai, Ichiyo Higuchi, Chuuya Nakahara, no pairings.
Summary: Can an outcast ever find ways to feel like he belongs? Done for #bsdwrite no 6 (High School AU).
Notes: Alt. title – 'Akutagawa gets noticed by senpai but isn't satisfied'. Infrequent coarse language.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
"..he understood far more deeply than anyone else the loneliness that lurked beneath his jaunty mask."
― Ryuunosuke Akutagawa
I was a loner in school. People used to call me "weirdo" because I was always trying too hard to stand out.
At least, that's what everyone else thought.
/
I was just a sickly teenager with perennial asthma, so everyone doted on me or thought I was contagious. I was always trying to be a good writer, like my idol, writer - and at the time, Japanese teacher - Osamu Dazai. His books were a mirror to the real him, a busybody who was hollow with the ennui of a solitary, ordinary life and only wished to be an individual living in his ideal world; however, he was quashed by the expectations of society.
Just like me.
"Suck-up."
"Bastard."
"Sicko."
Outsiders' nasty words, hissed like snakes with secrets, came to haunt me again as I sunk into a spot at the lower end of Dazai-sensei's lime-green psychiatrist's couch in his office. Without hesitating, I grabbed my black spiral-bound notebook from one of the shelves and began to scrawl in ideas.
Ideas of vengeance, hatred, war, conflict.
"Those that torture me should be well out of my way, for I will wreak havoc on their lives if they are ever in my sight!" This was the first bitter entry, a dogmatic ideal that barely suppressed urges to get even with those who couldn't understand me, those who called me names to compensate for their incompetence. I wrote it when Dazai-sensei let me sit in his office as a reprieve from the rest of the world, and it resonated with me for a second as I flipped back to contemplate some of my ideas.
However, I was back to work in no time.
In my peripheral vision, a blonde grabbed a stack of books from the table and tried to get to the door in front of me. I paid her no heed, but then...
She knocked into the side of the couch, having not seen it due to the books, and stumbled, pages flying everywhere. A book narrowly threatened to hit me, but I managed to shove myself to the other end of the couch before any bodily harm was done. (In the aftermath of the book-alanche, I made a mental note to thank the fact Freud's couch was so long by reading some of those works Freud wrote.)
"I'm so sorry!" The blonde, wearing a pantsuit and her hair in a messy bun, bowed profusely. "U-Um, you're-" Her brown eyes reflected my all-black appearance back at me - stiff gakuran, leather shoes, hairstyle.
"-Akutagomi, am I right?" she finally guessed. I could almost see the phantom question mark hovering over her head with expectancy.
I felt a cough rise in my throat as I slammed the notebook next to Dazai-sensei's open class register. Forced myself into running, even though there was still a fire in my throat.
After being tormented by people who did the same, surely this most current misnaming shouldn't have hurt, but it still bit me to the core.
/
After I was certain I had gotten away, I glanced about while my bout of coughing eased itself. The hallways of this school all looked so similar, with their white plastered walls and wooden doors, that it was no small wonder that since I hadn't paid attention to my surroundings, I was lost in the labyrinth known as the school.
"I need to find my way back to Dazai-sensei's office, the one with the 'national language' sign on it," I reassured myself, furiously trying not to seem neurotic in case I was going to be caught, but then I realised I didn't keep my thought in my head.
That's a big faux pas if you're trying to be normal.
Just as I turned right, a redheaded student - one who loitered around Dazai-sensei's office at every chance he got, but never revealed his name (or took off his hat) - came around the corner, bumping into me. "Watch where you're going, you asshole!" he cried.
Almost without thinking, I turned back and shot back almost inaudibly, "With your crass voice, you must know you're much more of an asshole than I am."
"Oh yeah?!" He smoothed down his gakuran top for a few seconds and then jumped to a boxing stance, ready for the mock fight.
The blonde from earlier rushed in at this very moment, her books bouncing in a more manageable pile than the gargantuan one from earlier. "Stop, you two!"
"Higuchi-sensei…!" His tone of voice rose angrily, but a pouting glare from her silenced him.
"Akutagawa-san," she heaved in a breath, "first of all, you left your notebook open." While I could feel a cough of disdain ready in my throat, my mouth unexpectedly worked itself into a smile, probably because of how she'd managed to get my name right this time. (She must have checked the register.) "Secondly, there is an anti-bullying policy at this school. If you're having trouble, you should report it." She then turned to the redhead. "You, Chuuya-san, should take that hat off inside, please. I may be a teaching aide, and a new one at that, but I can and will confiscate it." There was a real threat evident in her voice by now. "Finally, Dazai-sensei has told me enough about you two and your habits. If you wish to fight over him, ask him if you can do a debate."
With this, she neatened the books with one hand and then scurried off, leaving me and 'Chuuya-san' staring at each other wordlessly.
The anger got to him first. "Who said I wanted to fight over Dazai-sensei?!"
"Calm down," I told him, placing a hand on his shoulder in what I hoped was a reassuring manner, "it's so obvious in how you hang around this office with no reason."
"Well, you go in the office without permission. No wonder everyone thinks you're a suck-up."
"I do have permission!" I couldn't help retaliating, "Dazai-sensei gave me a key to the office; he trusts me that much."
Nakahara-san's face fell into a look that was part pity, part scorn. "I think Sensei worries more about your 'wellbeing' than your 'trust'."
/
After that, Chuuya-san was more willing to stick up for me, and so the bully problem disappeared like a bad dream. Like a story idea that vanished before it got written down.
That debate Higuchi-sensei suggested never came to fruition, but the mutual bond gradually made us friends, despite the occasional clash of ideas we had.
However, knowing Dazai-sensei, he probably planned for the two of us to be friends from the very beginning...so that we wouldn't end up like him…
The real Akutagawa may not have known about Freud, but the two were definitely alive at the same time. Also, real Akutagawa would've idolised Natsume Soseki, but this is Bungou Stray Dogs.
"Akuta" means "rubbish" in Japanese and so does "gomi".
When Japanese (the language) is studied in Japan, they call it "kokugo", or "national language".