Chapter Text
< Twenty Days left
..-. --- .-. --. .. ...- . -. . ... ...
Dear To Chuuya Nakahara.
I forgive you.
You may not even remember the context of this message, hence I feel, for the lack of better words, a tad silly. Yet, I remember. I recall that day clearly, I recall your words with utmost clarity.
The day after that man, Osamu Dazai, left the Port Mafia.
I was inconsolable and at the same time, happy. Glad that the monster I called my mentor was gone, upset that I had been abandoned. The dichotomy of the situation is slightly funny in hindsight, you must admit. I am not praised for my sense of humor but with you and frankly, I do not understand the causes for your laughter either. Although, I will say, the times spent with you were not awful, instead it was fairly refreshing to finally be able to speak my mind on most topics. Even with Gin, I cannot relax sometimes. The guilt of bringing her into this dark world still clings to me.
I am getting ahead of myself, my initial words in this letter are the ones that need to be transcribed first, lest I die while writing.
That was a joke and while I am aware that explaining a joke ruins its humor, I believe you may take it badly, so I must clarify.
That night full of tumultuous emotions, you came to me. You came to me and apologized for not trying to help me earlier. Truly then, and to an extent even now, I thought you to be exaggerating your woes. To be honest, I thought that you were mocking me. What help had I needed? Back then I didn’t understand the extent of the scars I was to be forced to live with for the rest of my short life, I was too young. I was only sixteen. I didn’t understand.
Neither did you, I believe.
You apologized for barely trying to lessen my hellish training, only pulling me away when I was on the brink of death. You apologized for that one time during a shared mission, you messed up and I took the blame. That one was particularly enraging, I knew that back then as well. How could you have known that your subordinates blamed it on me, while you were sent to another mission out of the city almost immediately? After your arrival back to Yokohama, you became privy to this blunder fairly quickly and just as fast, tried to correct the wrongful placement of guilt to the wrong recipient, me, back to yourself.
It was too late, however, that man had already given me my punishment. Boss swept it under the rug as well, deciding that the matter was in the past and there were more pressing matters to worry about at the time.
I hated you for that. I hated that you weren’t the boy in the untrue image I had constructed of you in my mind. I suppose that I should explain to you what I mean, to really stress how much I have grown and how my forgiveness is based on logic.
I used to think you were heartless.
When I first met you, it was purely by chance. I was making my back from a particularly grueling training session, during my early days in the Mafia. A limp was prominent, and perhaps that’s what you noticed first.
I remember your words clearly.
“Oi, kid, are you alright?” You had asked, stabling my posture by putting my arm on your shoulder.
I didn’t trust you. I even attempted to use Rashoumon to slice your neck off.
He stopped me. Returning just like me, he grabbed me by the neck at the exact moment I activated my ability. Right before I behaved like the rabid dog I was.
He threw me to the floor, leading to a scuffle between you two. Well, to be specific, you grabbed him by the scruff of his neck while his taunts echoed through the corridor.
You were about to punch him when he reminded you.
Reminded you that he was the executive and you were not.
Reminded you that I was under his supervision.
That I was his dog.
Disgusting.
It was disgusting.
I could tell that you were revolted at this piece of information. Perhaps you had only heard of the stray animal that he picked up from afar, perhaps you never expected it to be a boy who looked to be on death’s door.
Perhaps you never expected that you really had no actual way to retaliate, aside from harming him and facing probation time later.
And so you left.
With a glance back at me almost like you were trying to apologize, you left.
He told me not to interact with you again and dragged me back for another training session, citing that he was getting annoyed.
Back then, I hadn’t realized the words you wanted to tell me. I hadn’t realized the turmoil you must have felt in forcing yourself to walk away. I had thought that you constantly trying to catch up to me was a ploy to get me in trouble, I truly believed that you and that man– well, boy at the time– were close. You were, in a way, but not in any sort of healthy manner.
I thought you were sickening.
That was till he left.
Circling back to my original point, the night when he left was full of highs and lows. I was glad. I felt abandoned. I was laughing hysterically one moment and eerily silent the next.
I was going mad.
And that’s when you came.
You came to settle your sins, to give your side of the story, to try and show that you never held any ill will towards me.
I didn’t believe you. I thought that if you truly felt this way all the time, then you would have done something earlier. Said something. At least helped. (PS: I know that you often helped Gin buy medicine for me. I only found that out later on.)
I refused to respond to you and you didn’t push me any further.
I thought that you had as much freedom as I wanted you to have. It all came down to that idealistic portrait I had of you, the image of the boy who held me in contempt, and I the same. The one with much more freedom and power than me, the one with more respect and friends alike.
The one without my problems. The one without my defects. The one much better than me.
But now I realize, you’re human just like me. You were just a boy back then, also attempting to survive in the Mafia. You were searching for your own purpose, battling against all odds once you actually found it, and staying as loyal as you possibly could, as per your personal code of conduct.
You were just another human being like me. You were just as trapped as me.
It is a tad funny. Soon, I’ll be the free one, how I’ve always wanted to be.
So I leave you with my last words.
Chuuya Nakahara, I forgive you.
I have cherished the past four years we have had together. Our drinking nights, the times I had to carry you back, every time you took me on a shopping spree to buy new clothes that I never wore;
All of them were memorable.
Thank you for making the last few years of a sinful man like me positive enough. My cowardice never deserved you.
Thank you for letting me be ‘Your boy.’
Goodbye, until we meet again in hell.
(PS #2: Do NOT let anyone outside of the Mafia near my grave)
—Akutagawa Ryuunosuke.
..-. --- .-. --. .. ...- . -. . ... …
Ah.
His condition was getting worse.
Ryuunosuke glanced at his hand, completely drenched in the blood he had just coughed out. He had managed to avoid spilling any on his desk and hence, on any of the letters he penned.
Thank goodness.
He might’ve actually just died right there if all of his hard work was going to disappear.
Making a mental note to have another check-up with his doctor later, he got up and stumbled over to his bedside table, passing the mirror on the way.
He was deathly pale, more so than usual. His eyes were bloodshot, due to lack of sleep and overexertion of his body.
How funny would it be if his life was shortened even further due to his negligence?
Ryuunosuke sighed, wiping his hand with some tissues that were on his bedside table and then plopping onto his bed, grabbing his phone and opening his notes app.
A bunch of things in a list were written, with some crossed out– Like names of people for writing a letter– yet most were as is. The way they were written would be almost nonsensical to anyone except him and he liked it that way. These notes were only for him, after all.
He scrolled to the very bottom, staring at the newest edition he had added, after a comment from Gin about the topic of the stray cat living outside their house.
–To do: Cats for Gin–