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“You really shouldn"t be moving."
Akutagawa rolls his eyes, and completely ignoring Atsushi’s warning, moves towards the hospital bed. “I’m fine, weretiger,” he says. “I’ve been fine, actually.”
“You… died.”
Atsushi keeps saying that.
“And now, I’m alive.”
Akutagawa keeps saying that back.
“Still,” Atushi’s trying to remain calm. It’s not working. “Why won’t you stay longer?”
“Because, Jinko, I need to go back,” Akutagawa crosses his arms, his voice serious.
“What if something happens?!” Atsushi feels his breathing quicken, his heartbeat hard against his ribcage. “God, why won’t you take this seriously?!” He’s yelling now.
“I’ve already entertained your foolishness for too long, Jinko! I’ve even allowed that detective doctor of yours to look at my condition and stayed the night, even when she agreed with me that it was unnecessary to do so. What else could you possibly demand from me?!” Akutagawa’s yelling too.
A pause. A long silent one. One either of them had felt since they had reunited.
Then, the dam breaks. A sob echoes all around him, filling up his ear drums until he can no longer hear anything else nor would he want to. Atsushi is crying.
Oh, no, Atsushi is crying.
Akutagawa wishes he could walk away from this entire situation.
He can’t, and he doesn’t necessarily want to either.
He does exactly what he’s been doing since he woke up to his new purpose (and Bram’s command), Akutagawa stops thinking and just lets his body move by itself. There was no room for fear and shame in his new mission, after all. He strides to Atsushi, and pulls him into a tight embrace.
Atsushi wraps his arms around him, his nails digging into Rashomon’s inky fabric across his back. Akutagawa imagines he did the same thing during the weeks he had been dead, and Atsushi was left mourning. He could hear it in Atsushi’s cries too, that maybe the blood under his fingernails and a dead man’s coat were the only thing that kept him together. And now that he was back, Atsushi was allowed to break.
So, he’ll let him.
Even if it hurt.
After some time, the sobs turned into sniffles. While the tight hold lessened, they still held it — neither of them ready to let go quite yet.
“RYU-CHAN! Are you done yet?!” Aya burst into the scene (literally) with a whoosh of the door and a volume that left him wincing.
Atsushi flinches and lets go of him, putting as much distance between them as he could muster (which wasn’t much, considering the tiger was still holding on to his coat sleeve).
“Aya,” Akutagawa says calmly. “I didn’t know you were still waiting, apologies. I thought you went with Kunikida-san.”
“I did, but then he tried to get me to go to bed,” Aya humphed.
How could such a little body hold so much attitude?
“So?”
“So! It’s eight pm! That hasn"t been my bedtime since I was like six.”
“Aren’t you like seven?” Atsushi asks, his cheeks still red from being interrupted.
“How dare you? I’m ten and a half. Not that that’s any of your business!”
“Okay… sorry?” Atsushi can’t deal with this right now. The only little girl he’s used to is Kyoka. Akutagawa’s new (sister? daughter?) charge couldn’t be more different if she tried.
“We’ll be going soon,” Akutagawa tells her.
“Ugh! Is he coming?!”
“No” “Probably” — they say at the same time, and immediately look at each other in surprise.
Atsushi didn’t want to invite himself to Akutagawa’s home, especially because he figured he deserved some alone time after the last few days. And Akutagawa figured Atsushi wasn’t going to leave him alone any time soon, and he might as well accept it.
But they both had to admit to themselves, neither of them would sleep if the other wasn’t within arms length.
“Huh? Well, which one is it?!”
Akutagawa needed to teach Aya some breathing exercises. Not that he had much ground to stand on with that.
“He’s coming,” Akutagawa has never felt more sure of anything. “You might want to get used to it, because he’s not going anywhere.” He took his weretiger’s hand, threading their fingers together into a beautiful design of strength. “And neither am I.”
Atsushi is tempted to ask what happened to the Akutagawa he used to know and who this new one was. But, he already knew. Atsushi is tempted to start crying again.
“Whatever, I better get ice cream for this,” Aya rolls her eyes and walks behind them to push them into walking. They head out of the Agency and into the crisp evening air. “And you’re paying, tiger boy.”