When they got down from the ferris wheel, most people were leaving the fair as it was near closing time. Atsushi called Dazai and told him about the green mist he saw in the man's apartment a couple of days ago and the similar mist that was now encircling Yokohama. While he made the call, they walked to the entrance of the fair to see if Q was there.
"The Agency are going to investigate," Atsushi said when he finished the call. "They're going to head to the edge of the city and find out where the mist is coming from."
"What a pain," Akutagawa said, tucking his arms into his coat. "The Port Mafia will probably get involved in this, too."
"If the threat really is that dire, we might end up working together again."
"You say that as if you want that to happen."
Atsushi's face dropped. "Is that so bad?"
"It doesn't matter. Whoever my opponent is, I'll destroy them without your help. If the boss sends me out on a mission to defeat whomever's behind that green mist, I should expect you not to interfere."
A thick silence hung between them as they walked. Atsushi didn't like how Akutagawa always reverted back to his cold, rigid attitude. He felt that those soft moments they shared, those few times when they were willing to kiss each other, didn't really exist. As if those moments were quaint bubbles existing outside of reality that were too easily popped.
When they reached the fair entrance, Atsushi was disheartened to find that Q wasn't there at all.
"Should we go and look for him?" Atsushi asked.
Akutagawa responded with a shrug. "He might still be on a ride."
"But all the rides in the fair are closing. They're ushering everyone out."
"Then who knows where Q might have gone?" Akutagawa's expression was a grim kind of calm. "He might have gone back to the Agency, or he may have even returned to the Port Mafia."
"Q wouldn't do that."
"You think you know what's going on in that boy's mind?"
"Why do you talk about him like he's always got ulterior motivations? Q's just a child. I'm sure he only wanted to come here today to have fun. Plus, weren't the two of you getting along?"
"Q is an unpredictable force of chaos. You're foolish if you believe anything that he says."
"What?! So what was all that about him saying that he wants to get rid of his ability? Was that just a lie, too?"
"Who knows?"
"Akutagawa, you're the one who decided to leave him alone. If we can't find him, then it's your fault."
"Can you please shut up?" Akutagawa grabbed Atsushi by his shirt. "Taking Q out to the fair was your decision, and I'm sure nobody else thought it was a good idea. Don't implicate me in your problems."
Atsushi pushed him away. "But he wouldn't have gotten lost if you hadn't wanted to go a second time on the ferris wheel."
"It's closing time!" a fair employee shouted at them. "Sorry, but you're going to have to leave. We're closing the park immediately."
"But we're looking for someone," Atsushi replied.
"If we find someone still in the fair after it's closed, and they're lost, we'll take them to the police station."
Atsushi gulped. He didn't want to reveal that the person they were looking for was a child with an extremely dangerous ability, even if that ability shouldn't be capable of being activated without his doll.
"We'll head to the police station, then."
Once they were ushered out of the park, Atsushi followed Akutagawa, who appeared to be heading in the direction of the police station. He was surprised that Akutagawa cared enough about Q to want to search for him and wondered if he had misjudged his intentions. The police station certainly wasn't close to the Port Mafia if that was where Akutagawa wanted to go. And it was also quite a distance away from their homes.
They passed by the old hill where Atsushi had first met Dazai, and where the two of them had been just a couple of days prior. Both knew it was too early to wait at the station yet, since they'd need to wait for the fair employees to bring Q there if Q had still been in the park. Akutagawa stopped at the hill and sat down on the grass.
"We should stay away from each other for a while," Akutagawa spoke up.
Atsushi walked up the hill. "Why?"
"Too many ways for our objectives to conflict. I'm from the Port Mafia; you're a member of the Agency. If we end up fighting each other..."
"I won't fight you."
Akutagawa shifted his head to look up at Atsushi. "Not even if I came for your life?"
"I hope it won't come to that."
"Hope is pointless. You should always expect your enemies to be coming after you."
"But...we're not enemies anymore, are we?"
"Do you always live in a dream world full of ice-cream and puppies?" Akutagawa gave out a long sigh. "Regardless of our relationship with each other, our allegiances to our companies take precedence. Would you really say that you'd choose me over the Agency? Not even you would be that naive."
Atsushi sat down beside Akutagawa and gazed at him with quiet eyes.
"I'll keep you and the Agency."
"...You really do live in a dream world."
"I don't want to fight you, and I also want to keep working for the Agency and to protect my friends there. I'll just treat you as someone else that I'd have to protect. That way, no matter what the mission, I'll never have to end up fighting you."
"Are you really that foolish?"
"When it comes down to it, the Agency and the Port Mafia really aren't enemies, are they?"
Atsushi was surprised he was able to see that after all the things the Port Mafia had done. He thought he'd never be able to forgive them, especially not someone like Akutagawa. But things had a way of playing out in ways he could never predict. He never imagined he'd end up...respecting, even liking, the man that rested in the grass beside him. He had always thought that people like him were irredeemable. They were too deep in their own evil to ever change their ways.
But in the days that he'd hung out with Akutagawa, he had started to see a side of him that resonated with his own past. A side that developed out of a childhood of hunger, violence, and hardship. He saw in Akutagawa's eyes the want – no, the need for approval, for someone to say that he had the right to exist. And he saw in every one of Akutagawa's actions the need to prove that he had earned that right.
To prove to Dazai.
Things weren't ever so simple. Dazai had been the man that saved Atsushi, and for a while, Atsushi had really believed that Dazai was perfect. That he wasn't someone who could have had a past steeped in the darkness of the Port Mafia, someone who had been responsible for training and torturing Akutagawa and depriving him of all his self-worth. He felt shivers just thinking about the ways someone as intelligent as Dazai could have made Akutagawa suffer. That was a relationship no one ever deserved.
But then, somehow, Dazai had also been the one who saved him.
There was this odd triangular relationship connecting Akutagawa, Dazai, and himself, and no matter how hard he tried, he could never break out of it. That was why he'd stopped trying. It was why he stopped resenting Akutagawa and learned to appreciate him enough to invite him over to his house for sake. And, regardless of how coldly Akutagawa presented himself, he had a very warm and supportive side. A side that could silently listen to another person's pain and suffering and not only bear it with them, but understand them.
He had seen in Akutagawa's eyes, whenever they fought, a degree of self-loathing and torment that no one deserved. No human being should ever crave for the right to live to that level of tenacity.
So, he would never be Akutagawa's enemy.
"We won't have to fight each other," Atsushi said, extending out a hand. "I'll make sure of it. And I'm certain Dazai will, too."
Akutagawa stared back suspiciously, but his expression slowly relaxed.
"The Agency might not make us enemies, but my boss will certainly not hesitate if you get in the way of his plans."
"If that ever happens, why don't you just not do it?"
"What? The boss will have my head."
"Maybe, you could leave, like Dazai did, and join the Agency instead?"
Akutagawa laughed.
A loud laugh. A gentle laugh. An insane laugh.
"Impossible. My sister..." Akutagawa shut himself up and steeled his expression before he could follow through that line of thought. "You're too foolish."
"Maybe I am."
"So? You're just going to hope that we'll never end up fighting each other? Continue our current relationship in this flippant manner, as if we were never enemies?"
"I guess that's all we can do."
Atsushi still had his hand out for Akutagawa.
A quiet minute passed as neither of them spoke, only gazing into each other's eyes, trying to find the source of each other's resolve.
Akutagawa finally took Atsushi's hand...
...and pulled him down to the grass with him, where he wrapped his arms around Atsushi's body and kissed him on the lips.
It was such a deep, long, passionate kiss. Atsushi buried his face into the man before him. Their tongues touched and Atsushi felt a warmth rising deep inside him at the feeling of Akutagawa so close and hot. He breathed in his fragrant scent. He tasted Akutagawa's lips, soft and moist. His tongue darted around, longing for the taste of every inch of Akutagawa's mouth. He wanted to give every bit of his warmth to the frail, pale body that pressed tightly against him yet with a tenderness that he had never felt from anyone else before. A tenderness that he realized he had always wanted.
Akutagawa pushed away and looked into Atsushi's eyes.
"You have the prettiest eyes I've ever seen," Akutagawa said. "That dusk colour, lavender and gold."
"I never expected to hear anything like that from you."
"...If I were to kill you one day, I'd take care to preserve your eyes."
"You're awful."
Atsushi wrapped his arms around Akutagawa and held him as firmly and closely as he could. He wanted more warmth, even if Akutagawa felt a little cooler than most people.
He didn't know why, but he was beyond caring who saw them together like this.