Atsushi couldn't get Akutagawa out of his mind that evening. He felt strangely satisfied after training and looked forward to meeting Akutagawa again the next day. When he realized that he was actually excited about meeting with his enemy, he felt the distinct sensation of his face dropping very, very low. A dark cloud came over his eyes.
It wasn't that he enjoyed fighting, especially when so much of the fighting involved him getting stabbed repeatedly by Rashomon. Even when he landed a blow on Akutagawa, he was always thinking: "is Akutagawa all right?" In spite of Akutagawa's cold demeanour, it was obvious that he wasn't fighting Atsushi with the intent of killing him, so Atsushi had to return the favour. Whenever he hit Akutagawa hard enough to send him flying, Atsushi was also ready to spring towards him to save him from suffering a too-heavy hit.
Of course, he had never hit Akutagawa hard enough to injure the man during their training sessions, and he dreaded thinking of the words Akutagawa would have for him if he had actually tried to rescue him out of fear that he wouldn't survive.
"This is so tiring," Atsushi mumbled to himself as he sat down before his desk to begin writing his reports. A yawn escaped his mouth. He would do almost anything other than writing tonight. Each mind-numbing report was like a pickaxe steadily chipping away at the rock that was his brain. Sooner or later, that rock was going to burst, and there definitely would not be any gold to retrieve inside it.
He needed another bottle of sake.
As he went to his refrigerator to retrieve some sake, he found himself wondering – what exactly did Akutagawa do in his evenings here, anyway? Surely working for the Port Mafia wouldn't involve anywhere near as much documentation and report writing as working for the Detective Agency. The thought of Akutagawa sitting down in front of a desk in his room, spending an entire evening drafting documents, was enough to make Atsushi burst into a fit of laughter.
"Maybe I should offer him..."
Atsushi had to stop himself from continuing that thought any further. Offering Akutagawa a drink was tantamount to self-treason! He couldn't forget how cruel Akutagawa had been to Kyouka or to himself. Akutagawa stood for everything that Atsushi himself stood against. But, if that was true, then why did Akutagawa lend him a hand today to pull him back onto his feet after he had fallen? Why didn't Akutagawa just finish him off and be done with him forever?
He grasped a cold bottle and felt his hands shaking. Looking at the mountain of work that lay on his desk, he couldn't imagine enjoying working on it all alone by himself. If only someone was here to talk with him, someone that could ease his loneliness and boredom, someone to share a drink with and laugh together. He could try to invite someone from the Agency, but the only person who'd agree to come over was probably Kyouka, and she was definitely not of drinking age.
No matter how he tried thinking of a way out of it, he realized that the only option he had was a certain darkness-seething neighbour whose sinister aura stretched uncomfortably often into his room.
A minute later, he found himself standing in front of Akutagawa's door. Hands shaking, he knocked and waited for a reply. He waited barely more than a second before the door opened.
"Ummm, hi?" Atsushi said, putting on a smile that was remarkably forced. "Would y-you...like to come over to my room for a drink?"
The look on Akutagawa's face could possibly be described as that of someone who had extreme trouble believing even a single word of what he heard.
"What?" Akutagawa responded, his eyes growing wide. "Are you serious?"
"Well..." Atsushi felt his confidence eroding away even faster than his earlier conception of that mental pickaxe chipping off his sanity. "Ummm...I m-mean, I've got a lot of work to do t-tonight, and I h-have drinks in my room, so, w-well, since I'm living alone by myself and I have no one to drink with, I thought, maybe I c-could ask you..."
Akutagawa began to look more convinced, but he was still staring at Atsushi with an expression of stark disbelief. "I thought you didn't trust me."
"Don't think that I'm offering my trust to you just because I'm offering you a drink! I just want someone to keep me from growing really bored while I'm working on my reports."
"I find it hard to believe that those are your true motivations. This had better not be a trap."
"Hey!" Atsushi raised his hand to point a finger. "You're the one who intruded into my room on the day you moved here by spreading your ability through the walls! And let's not even talk about what you did after that when we were standing under the moonlight."
"Oh? Did I do something unwarranted beneath the moon?"
"What?! Don't you remember?"
"Not particularly. Are you, perhaps, suggesting that I leaned in too closely to observe your features when I developed the sneaking suspicion that you were going to transform into a were-tiger on me because of your immature control over your ability?"
Lava surged into Atsushi's face, and he was pretty sure they were taking full occupancy of his cheeks. He had to summon all his willpower to keep the fire from bursting. "Okay, are you going to come over for a drink or not?"
"If you're offering, then certainly."
Atsushi couldn't believe it. His mental state was a blur as he took a bottle of chilled sake out from his refrigerator and handed it to Akutagawa.
Akutagawa, the man that was supposed to be his mortal enemy, was occupying his living space at this very moment, and he had just offered him alcohol.
While Atsushi stumbled towards his desk and nearly crashed into his chair, Akutagawa sat down onto the nearby couch and leaned his head back against the wall, crossing his legs. Atsushi couldn't help but notice how graceful the man looked. Akutagawa's expression was usually something between a frown and a grimace, but when he was relaxed, his lips curved up in a way that appeared almost calm, peaceful. Not exactly happy – Atsushi couldn't imagine a happy Akutagawa at all – but, contented, in a way that he had never seen him before.
Was Akutagawa satisfied because Atsushi had invited him to his room and served him sake?
As much as Atsushi tried not to think too deeply about Akutagawa's appearance, he couldn't help noticing Akutagawa's slick black coat and how well it blended with his long dark hair. The only part that appeared a little out of place were his hairs' white tips, but even that composed well with his pale face which always had that regal, 'can't-let-you-think-I-have-interest-in-you' expression. Atsushi usually wasn't fond of those faces given his history in the orphanage, but Akutagawa was different. He was definitely haughty, but he wasn't nasty like those children that had bullied him, or malicious like his headmaster had been.
That was a very strange description of Akutagawa, and he was sure others, like Kyouka, would disagree. Why did he have to think such flattering thoughts towards the person that was, for the hundredth time, supposed to be his enemy?
'Supposed to be'.
"Are you going to say something, were-tiger, or are you going to keep ogling me like I'm some prized animal in a zoo?" Akutagawa spoke up, shattering Atsushi out of his thoughts.
"What?! I wasn't doing that!" Atsushi cried and returned to the pages splattered out on the desk in front of him.
He tried to focus on the reports, but found that not one corner of his mind had any attention to spare for the bureaucratic procedures behind solving a case. Kunikida would definitely get mad at him tomorrow for not finishing the documents that he'd promised to draft, but everyone knew that he was also under special circumstances. Namely, these circumstances involved training with someone that had been hell-bent on killing him just a couple of weeks ago, and potentially also having that person in his room, drinking ice-cold sake on his couch.
"I hope I'm not distracting you from your work," Akutagawa said. "If you want, I can go back to my room and let you concentrate."
"No, it's f-fine," Atsushi said, trying to smile. "I invited you here to have a drink, after all, so feel free to stay as long as you want."
As those words left his mouth, Atsushi could feel himself sinking into the ground, where he wished he could stay forever.
But was Akutagawa really supposed to be his enemy? Even after everything that had happened, the two of them were always able to reconcile. It was because that they had worked together that they had defeated their common enemy, the Guild, and saved Yokohama from a catastrophe. Within a few days, they were training together, and a week later, they were sharing a drink in the same room.
Atsushi knew he couldn't keep lying to himself. Having Akutagawa over so that he could procrastinate on writing reports was the exact opposite of being mortal enemies with him.
"You trained well today," Akutagawa spoke up after taking a few swigs. "Although your performance was slightly worse, your resolve was much better. In battle, resolve is what often decides the victor. Having more resolve than your opponent will always swing the fight in your favour."
"Thanks," Atsushi replied, turning his chair to face him. "You did pretty well, too. I didn't expect you to recover so quickly after I hit you with all my strength."
"As long as Rashomon is protecting me, I don't get injured from most attacks."
"Yeah, but I almost thought you were going to crash into a tree."
Akutagawa closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall before taking another swig of the bottle.
"Your eyes," he spoke up.
Atsushi blinked. "My eyes?"
"Yeah. The way you looked at me when I offered my hand to you." Akutagawa's normally-hard expression softened. "You were surprised, weren't you?"
"How did you know?"
"From the way you looked at me. Your eyes show a lot of things that I don't see from other people. A lot of people have empty eyes. Eyes that hold no emotion, no sense of history, complacency. But your eyes are different. They're full of...fear. Pain. Anger. But, instead of shutting it all away, you show it, viscerally. It must have fueled you with absolute resolve when you fought against me – today, and in the past."
Atsushi lowered his eyes. Had Akutagawa really gleaned all that just from looking into his eyes?
Moreover, why was Akutagawa being so sentimental?
"Maybe that's why Dazai let me into the Agency," Atsushi said, feeling a little embarrassed.
"He told me he saw the same things in you as he did in me."
"Wait. Dazai saw the same feelings in your eyes?"
Akutagawa's expression hardened. He looked almost embarrassed, something that Atsushi had never thought possible before. Maybe drink really was effective at bringing out peoples' innermost thoughts.
His own head was starting to feel light, too.
"I must confess something," Akutagawa said. "Dazai was not the one responsible for my moving here and training with you. I was the one who proposed this idea to him, and he accepted it."
Atsushi nearly split out his drink. "What? Why?"
"I thought it would benefit us both to train together."
"So, I was right!" Atsushi stood up and tried to laugh, but he felt the ground swaying underneath him, and he collapsed immediately back into his chair.
He had a feeling both of them were going to regret this night.
"I have not met a more formidable opponent since losing to you," Akutagawa said. "Since that battle on the ship, all I've wanted was to have a rematch with you. And I had the chance, on the Guild's airship. But the circumstances prevented it, and at the same time, they allowed me to see the potential you have inside you. I realized I had to bring out that potential."
"But I'm still your enemy, aren't I?"
"I wasn't so sure anymore. For the longest time, I had wanted approval from Dazai, but as a member of the Agency, he was my enemy, too. And you, whom I wish to defeat, have turned out to be both my enemy and my ally. As much as I want allegiances to be black and white, it's never so simple. Circumstances constantly shift, and I find myself changing in the same ways."
Atsushi couldn't believe the conversation that they were having. He was having a hard time getting used to sentimental Akutagawa, and he was sure that things were all going back to normal tomorrow, with Akutagawa being his usual unemotional self.
The moon and the stars lit up the night sky with a glow that felt both warm and cold.
"I suppose that's the way it is," Atsushi said. "I wanted to see you as my mortal enemy. I couldn't forgive you for the things you did to Kyouka. But...after you extended your hand to me today, I realized that I just couldn't see you in that way anymore."
"Is that why you invited me over for a drink?"
"Shut up! That was because I was lonely!" Atsushi slammed the bottle on his desk, not realizing the words he had just admitted.
"I saw that, too, in your eyes," Akutagawa said. "Your loneliness. Tell me – what made you feel this way?"
Atsushi had to try hard to keep himself from revealing everything to Akutagawa.
An awful memory lingered in his mind. A rainy day, him standing before a brick wall, his face burning with shame. His hair was a mess. Behind his back, the other kids must have all been laughing at him. The headmaster was punishing him for being weak again. He'd be starved, he'd be beaten, and he'd have to stare at this wall, every day, until his teachers were pleased with the degree of suffering they had incurred.
It was such a horrible part of his past, a past that he wanted to leave behind forever.
"I've never had anyone," Atsushi spoke up, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. "I grew up in an orphanage without any friends."
He really was going to spit everything out, wasn't he?
"I suffered every day in that place. Insults, beatings, being starved, locked in dark rooms – there wasn't a thing you, or anyone else, could do to me that hadn't already been done by them. Them–" he sniffed and gulped the rest of the bottle "–the headmaster, the teachers, and the children. They tortured me until I was shattered beyond repair."
Akutagawa's gaze grew soft, almost...sad.
"I don't seek revenge on them," Atsushi continued. "What's done in the past can't be changed. I don't even remember most of their faces anymore, except...except the headmaster."
"Would you go back to kill him?"
"No. I don't want to kill, or hurt, anyone."
"Even though they inflicted such terrible pain and trauma on you?"
"Even so. I don't–" He tried to smile, and felt a tear rolling down his cheek "–I don't want to remain angry at them, not when I have such a good life now, not when I have such good friends at my side–"
The bottle fell from his hand, and he wiped the tears away from his eyes.
He couldn't stay mad at the people in his past. No matter how justified it felt, no matter how much he wanted to return the pain and suffering they had inflicted upon him, he just couldn't.
He had already achieved his revenge by proving to himself that he deserved to live. That his life had worth.
Before he could get out of his chair to pick up the pieces of the bottle, he felt arms being wrapped around his body. Akutagawa's arms.
"It's okay."
He never thought he'd hear those words from him.
Looking up into Akutagawa's eyes, he discovered that he could see similar things. Pain, fear, self-directed anger, loneliness, a lack of self-worth.
Maybe, if Akutagawa was training him to become stronger, he could also teach Akutagawa to love himself? Just maybe?
Atsushi sank his face into Akutagawa's chest, beyond caring about what this showed. He wanted someone's warmth. He wanted to have Akutagawa at his side so that he didn't feel so lonely every night anymore.
He really was lucky to have found such good friends.