🩰⃝⃝ Atsushi Nakajima Headcanons

Do you think it would have been cool if Atsushi's white tiger aged with him as he grew up

okay since obviously ive gotten to into catifying atsushi i forgot he was a tiger - as u guys pointed out

this is how a beach episode would ACTUALLY play out in my head - kunikida, dazai, and atsushi focus

kunikida: are you not gonna go swimming dazai?

dazai: nope! i think today im just going to relax in the sand! maybe i'll try and drown myself later tho... what about you?

kunikida: im not swimming either

dazai: awww why not

kunikida: for some reason i dont feel safe getting in the ocean w/ u here

dazai, snickering: aww~ how could you say that~ im so hurt

atsushi, in the background, trying to secretly run away:

dazai: aww atsushi-kun why are you sneaking away

atsushi, startled: me? running away? haha... no i wouldn't

kunikida: atsushi, is everything all right? don't tell me you've decided to not participate in a company wide vacation?

atsushi: no! it's not that

dazai: you cant swim? but you fish me out all the time

atsushi: i know how to swim! i just... i don't really like water

dazai: is it becuz you're a cat?

kunikida and atsushi: he's/im a tiger

kunikida: atsushi don't tigers usually like water

atsushi: well... im not really a tiger... it's just my ability

kunikida: is it becuz dazai's here?he is a rather unsafe person to be near when you're also near wtaer

dazai: how cruel~ atsushi-kun i pinky promise i wont drown you~

atsushi:

atsushi, shyly: you really promise?

dazai, who was just joking: ?????????

kunikida, also flabbergasted: ?????????? did you think one of us would-

atsushi: no! i mean obviously not haha... but you promise...?

dazai:

kunikida:

dazai: of course! we promise not to drown you

kunikida: and to get you out of the water if you're in trouble

atsushi: oh... but didn't you not want to swim

kunikida dazai, professional dgaslighters: that never happened

atsushi: ...oh okay... then i think i'll try to swim... you'll be there?

dazai and kunikida: of course

*later*

dazai: atsushi-kun you really...

kunikida: atsushi, please, it's been 7 hours come back out

atsushi, having the time of his life, eyes sparkling, tail wagging: five more minutes!!

kunikida: you said that last time too...

dazai: atsushi-kun sure likes water

kunikida, fixing his glasses: we have to just grab him and run off quickly

dazai: ooh~ kunikida wants to kidnap someone~? how despciable

kunikida: its not kidnapping its for his own good

dazai: if that helps you sleep at night :3

Portrait Of a Father(?)

I think we can all agree that this is the most controversial chapter in the whole manga. We can’t agree on what its message is, if we are supposed to agree with it, what Asagiri wanted us to think about the characters involved … So, I finally decided to jump in the lion pit and put forward my opinions on it.

I’ll start with a brief recap: Atsushi finds out that the Headmaster of his orphanage, the one who tormented him, is dead. His reaction is … well, if he had been legal for drinking, he would have rushed to buy champagne. A fitting reaction, considering what we have already seen of the Headmaster at this point.

But then we get a shocking revelation: the Headmaster died in a car accident while going to buy flowers for Atsushi, to congratulate him on his successes with the Agency and his great work in saving the whole city. Atsushi is shocked, because … seriously? Eighteen years of abuse, and now he acts like he has always cared about him?

And he expresses his conflicted emotions with a likewise erratic behavior: he runs off from Tanizaki, tries to have a cathartic fight with Akutagawa (who ignores him exactly because of his state of mind), goes to his old orphanage to attend the funeral from a distance, and lastly wanders off to see some conveniently placed families with attentive fathers and young sons.

At this point, Dazai reaches him. And here starts the really controversial part.

They examine together the Headmaster’s background: he appearently grew up in the same orphanage, but at a time when it had even worse conditions, enough to make Atsushi’s time under his education ‘look like heaven’ in comparison. When he got out alongside some other orphans, he quickly fell into a life of crime; then they all got drafted into the Great War, and saw his friends die one by one, until he was the only one left standing. 

This left him with an huge unaddressed trauma and the convinction that his determination and will to live, acquired in spite of hardships, were the only reasons he survived; so he decided to dedicate himself to raising the next generation of orphans according to these principles, creating a system where the priority would have been survival at all costs. 

And the narration, through Dazai, sorts of portrays him positively for that. Attention is brought to how he was tortured worse than Atsushi did, how the fierce mindset underneath Atsushi’s meekness was grown by his treatment of him. If the Headmaster never did so, would Atsushi be so attached to life? Would he have not succumbed to self-loathing?

To answer this, I’ll take the liberty to give first my own analysis, and then consider what the manga probably wants me to answer.

Yes, if the Headmaster had not been abusive, Atsushi would have survived. Much better, I’d add. It is mentioned that Atsushi was nearly killed at his orphanage, more that one time, and let’s remember that he has one hell of an healing factor. If he had been a normal kid, chances are that he wouldn’t have survived … which, besides begging the question of how on earth the Headmaster’s own time at the orphanage could have been worse than attempted and nearly successful murder, makes one wonder how exactly it’s supposed to be formative for the kid.  

Then, the Headmaster is given the credit to have prevented Atsushi’s self-loathing for being a tiger, by becoming himself the object of his hatred. What a martyr. The problem with his reasoning is, that is all the damn story that we see Atsushi have an huge issue with self-loathing! And it isn’t even related to the tiger, most of the times! There are moments where he’s shocked and scared after he went overboard with his power, but the main sources of his problems, the flashbacks that plague him? They’re about his time at the orphanage. 

He regularly remembers, and even has allucinations of, the Headmaster and the other members of the staff calling him worthless, good for nothing, pathetic, unworthy to live, and all sorts of pleasantries of this kind. When he allucinates the Headmaster, that nasty voice in his head is the one who tells him to quit, to give up, that he’s not good enough and he shouldn’t even try to do something with his life. 

Of course, at this point we could rigirare la frittata saying that it’s what the Headmaster meant, to make Atsushi stronger by giving him someone to rebel against … but honestly? There are thousands of better, different ways to teach someone to value their own life. If the Headmaster, given his traumas, couldn’t think of one, then it’s his own damn fault for not realizing that he couldn’t be a good teacher or caretaker before a lot of therapy, and not taking a different life path. 

The one who gives his all despite his insecurities is Atsushi. The one who is willing to face down powerful enemies in desperate battles for the sake of a city he has come to love is Atsushi. The one that didn’t wield to despair and self loathing, pushing forward each and every time, that’s Atsushi. The Headmaster doesn’t have a shred of merit in this. 

Now, time to take a guess at authorial intent. And this is … tricky, that is, for the very simple reason that I can’t get into Asagiri’s head and extract the intended correct interpretations from the multiple possibilities. All I can do is propose the most likely, based on what I can read.

The first possible interpretation: the most obvious. We are meant to take that scene and its message as it is. The Headmaster did terrible things, but he also helped Atsushi in his growth. Our boy wouldn’t be half as strong if he hadn’t already experienced severe abuse, and he’s really got to cry the death of his father figure. Bacia la mano che ruppe il tuo naso perchè le chiedevi un boccone. 

Another possible interpretation is that it’s an acknowledgement of the fact that people are complicated, and it’s fine to have complicated feelings towards them. Warped as he was, the Headmaster truly believed that he was doing what was better for Atsushi. Isn’t it horrible to confront the fact that the person who abused you is not a cardboard villain with nothing inside, but instead a very complex human being who had a ‘benevolent’, if not logically sound, reasoning behind them? Atsushi is not in a good situation: on the one hand, he can’t forgive the Headmaster for what he did to him, but on the other, he can’t ignore the fact that he did it out of “care” for him (wheter of not it did him any good). He, who had repeatedly been told that he was worthless and undeserving, he had been the object of care all along! What’s one to do in such a situation?

Atsushi doesn’t know either. There is no manual with the instruction for the right emotions and reactions to have. 'Quando a mio padre si fermò il cuore' ... magari avessi semplicemente non provato dolore. He ends up looking at Dazai with that face, a very forced smile in the uncertainty about how else to react. And Dazai just gives his comment about people crying when their father dies, and Atsushi does exactly that. This is already a kinder interpretation: Dazai made it clear that Atsushi could react however he felt better, but he understood that the kid felt like crying, and gave him an implicit okay to do so. It was a way to help Atsushi express his emotions, bypassing the blocks that the Headmaster himself had put on the road. And personally, I suspect that it gets the closest to authorial intent, because of the emphasis on ‘finding a will to live despite one’s trauma’ has already been established as a central theme of the manga.

A third interpretation put as much focus on Dazai as it does on Atsushi. Dazai is the one who reaches to Atsushi and all but call the Headmaster’s violence ‘necessary’, defining him as Atsushi’s ‘father’. And we already know that Dazai is no stranger to violence as a teaching method; just ask Akutagawa. His treatment of the young mafioso - beatings, calling him worthless, even an attempted execution - is strikingly similar to how the Headmaster raised Atsushi.

And sure, Dazai’s got his promise to Odasaku, be a better person, stay on the path that protects the weak, but these are the ideals he picked up in his formative years in the mafia. It’s likely that he can recognize that his treatment of Akutagawa was wrong, but on some level, he thinks himself as justified: it was how you taught a kid to live in a cruel world, the same reasoning of the Headmaster. He still has his violent tendencies: remember the famous slap he gave Atsushi?

I’m not sure whether he still stands by this ‘educational system’ or not. He hasn’t expressed any explicit regret over how he treated Akutagawa, but he made a point of treating Atsushi in a very different way. He still gave that slap, but that could have been a moment of ‘regression’: a situation in which he needed an Atsushi on top of his game ASAP, couldn’t figure out how to calm him down properly, and fell back on doing what he knew: teaching through violence and harsh words. He expresses no regret over this thing either … but there actually might be, Dazai is a character defined by the fact that he lies to everybody (to his mentees, to his colleagues, to the enemies, to the readers) and so pinning down his true thoughts is very difficult. 

With his answer, he might have projected more than a little in the Headmaster. Maybe what he told Atsushi was a covert way to explain his own actions, to present the point of view of ‘a person who does these things’. Maybe prepare him for an absolution; maybe prepare him to handle disappointment over his mentor’s true nature. Maybe prepare him to recognize himself in Akutagawa, and thus sympathize with him and improving the Shin Soukoku dynamic! Bungou Stray Dogs has pulled bigger levels of insane planning after all. 

Anyway, I find this a pretty interesting interpretation; even if it could have been elaborated upon better, if this is the case. It would show the situation not strictly as a message to the readers, but an analysis of the characters.

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!

thought this as i was getting ready to sleep last night

atsushi who starts getting super clingy -- all hugs and cuddles, more than normal

atsushi rubbing his cheek against his friends'

atsushi giving his sweaters to his friends, or gloves or scarves or other such things

atsushi taking their clothes and wearing them and giving them back

the ada confused as hell, finally going to ranpo like "is atsushi dying???"

and ranpo is like "isn't it obvious"

and the ada is like "no" unaware that atsushi is scratching/sharpening his nails at the entrance

and ranpo is like "its the time of year we get a lot of cats in the neighborhood. he's marking his territory"

fukuzawa is delighted at being shown affection by his cat son but heartbroken that his cat son is trying to make sure no other cat comes

everyone else is mostly just amused

this fic is one of the best things I've ever read https://archiveofourown.org/series/2388478#bookmark-form

I want a bsd au where Atsushi ran away from the orphanage at one point (maybe the tiger took over and ran off or something) and just ended up living in the woods for a while

Cannon eventually catches up with him one way or another and he’s still Atsushi but his feral cat meter is dialed up to ten

Like, he pushes Kunikida’s paperwork off his desk when annoyed

He takes naps whenever he ends up under a sunbeam

He has Matt Murdock super senses

Whenever he decides Akutagawa is being to much of a dick he just, Chomps™️

All that fun stuff

(I also really like the idea of Dazai having to explain things like curse words and sex and drugs the Atsushi ‘grew up in a catholic orphanage and then The Woods™️’ Nakajima)

Dazai makes one suicide joke and Atsushi is like "what's that??" and everyone just freezes all ?????

“over and over, all born into great pain” — bungou stray dogs — chuuya, atsushi, dazai

“Atsushi appears on Chuuya’s doorstep covered in blood and full of drugs. Dazai, despite not being present, dutifully haunts the narrative. or: Strangers who’ve been shaped by the same person. or or: 4,000-ish words of musing and vibes and no plot.” — posted for @dazaibirthdayweek2024 !

words: 3,925

first published: 6/18/2024

characters: dazai osamu, nakahara chuuya, nakajima atsushi

relationships: nakahara chuuya & nakajima atsushi, dazai osamu & nakajima atsushi, nakahara chuuya/dazai osamu

tags: mild hurt/comfort, light angst, introspection, no plot/plotless, implied/reference drug use, non-consensual drug use (off-screen), mild gore, tiger nakajima atsushi, implied/referenced cannibalism (crazy), caring nakahara chuuya

crossposted on ao3

Dazai’s stupid kid is crumpled on Chuuya’s doorstep.

Chuuya had wanted to head down to the liquor store. Instead, his boots hit boy as soon as he stepped out the door. Fucking Dazai, Chuuya thinks, because it must be Dazai’s fault.

Chuuya sighs. He turns back to his empty penthouse, as though expecting Dazai to pop out from behind his couch and shout surprise! then announce to him some stupid plan that absolutely necessitates the weretiger bleeding out in the hall.

“Weretiger,” Chuuya says. The weretiger gives a noncommittal grunt. Copper is already filling the air and seeping into the carpet from a wound that must be in the kid’s torso, way he’s doubled over it. God, the stain in the carpet. Chuuya should just get the carpet ripped out, with how often he has to call the cleaners. Doesn’t the kid have superhuman healing? Chuuya squints. Shouldn’t he be healed already?

“Weretiger,” Chuuya says again. The kid’s shoulder shifts a centimeter and that’s about all the response he gets. Well, okay. Questions later. First things first — the weretiger rises into the air and floats into the middle of the living room. His eyes flutter, but he doesn’t seem to register the red glow around him.

“Bwuh,” the weretiger says. A conveniently stashed sheet of plastic (this is not Chuuya’s first rodeo) lifts up and settles over the couch cushions. The weretiger follows. “Bwuuuhhgggg,” he says smartly into the plastic. His left arm is a long pale line hanging off the couch, which Chuuya’s black Maine-coon is already clawing at. The weretiger seems unperturbed by this.

“Uh-huh.” The first aid kit deposits itself into his hands as he strides over to the couch. “Lemme see that wound.”

Except there’s nothing to see. Under the ripped up shirt and all the clotting blood and bits of loose flesh, it’s just smooth skin. So his ability has done its work, if belatedly. Some of this blood is only a few minutes old. It healed fast, but not as fast as it ought’ve. But the weretiger is still acting all loopy, whimpering like something hurts. Just blood loss? That doesn’t feel right.

Chuuya sits himself on his coffee table, knees bumping the couch. “What’s your name again?” It’s somewhere in the back of his mind, but all he ever hears is Akutugawa’s jinkos.

“Naka…” the weretiger starts, then seems to forget he was saying anything. He turns to the cat as though he only just realized she was drawing tracks down his arm, and coos, scratching at her chin. His pupils are huge. Ah, that’s one question answered at least. A hard drug hindered his healing — and it would have disoriented him enough to panic, go out searching for help. Now the question was what drug, why, and how the fuck did his mind, even drug-addled, end up at Chuuya?

“Naka…” Chuuya echoes, scratching his chin. He really should know this, considering the scuffles and the bounty and the general hot topic the boy was around the Port Mafia. The weretiger does not provide any more help. He is entirely caught up with the cat. Now fully turned onto his side, the weretiger has both hands around the cat’s face, scratching dutifully under both her ears. She purrs like a motorboat.

“Hello,” he says reverently. Big-eyed, he tilts forward until he and the cat can touch noses. When he smiles Chuuya catches braces and grimaces. “Hello, hello, meow.”

“Mrow,” the cat offers.

“Nakajima!” Chuuya finally settles on, triumphant. Nakajima looks up at him fully for the first time, grinning with a Dazai-like edge. Well — tree, apple, falling, etc. Chuuya supposes he’s not so much grinning like Dazai as he is grinning like someone high on nebulous hard drugs, which Dazai often is.

“What’s her name?” Nakajima asks, glossy eyes settling somewhere on Chuuya’s chin.

“Pingus,” Chuuya says, and Nakajima dissolves into giggle fits. He rolls over, pushing himself into the back of the couch, giggling so hard his feet kick out. Pingus, scandalized, climbs onto the couch and begins kneading at Atsushi’s side, trying to force her head under his hands. “What!” Chuuya says, even though he’s listened to a hundred people laugh at his cat’s name before. “It’s a fine Spanish wine, Nakajima, does your idiot mentor teach you anything—”

Nakajima’s laughter stops abruptly. Everything about him stops abruptly. He pushes himself up onto his forearms and Chuuya realizes he hates the sight of him — collapsed on Chuuya’s fine couch, which he’d bought with blood money; white hair and moonlight skin and tatters of a white shirt, all matted and sticky with his own blood, bits of flesh trailing down his stomach. He’s got, Chuuya realizes, red smears all over his chin, his neck, and if he opened his mouth a little wider it might be on his teeth, too. Chuuya had always thought the kid sweet, a bit naive, earnest and reckless. Akutugawa had called him a stupid dog. He wonders about the man-eating tiger stories; wonders what Dazai saw in him in the first place that he thought would make a good partner for Akutugawa. He wonders what Dazai’s taught the kid - what he’s nurtured in him.

“Dazai,” Nakajima says, just as reverential as when he’d been speaking to Pingus. “Dazai told me to come here.” Out of his front pocket, he pulls a crumpled, slightly damp piece of notebook paper and holds it out to Chuuya. He grins big, proud of himself.

A safe place in case of emergency! :D It reads, in Dazai’s stupid messy scrawl. Chuuya will be kind and keep Atsushi for a bit. Tell Chuuya Dazai sent you!

Below these instructions are Chuuya’s address, his phone number (Jesus, Dazai, Chuuya thinks — might as well start plastering Chuuya’s face all over Main Street), and, of course, nothing directed at Chuuya.

Chuuya sighs, runs a hand through his hair. Fucking Dazai — what was he thinking, sending Nakajima his way? Did he tell his whole gaggle of do-gooders Chuuya’s place was a safehouse? And why the hell would he send Nakajima straight into the Mafia’s hands?

(Unless, of course, he believed Chuuya would decline to tell the Mafia about this at all. It was a big risk, believing that.)

“So.” Chuuya leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He studies Nakajima, whose chest is heaving, every breath coming with a hint of a wheeze. Did he overdose? Chuuya taps his foot, considering — he has aspirin in his first-aid kit. Narcan too. “What happened, huh? Too much catnip?”

Nakajima grins lazily (yes, he was right — blood and braces), head lolling against the couch. His arm is limp when Chuuya picks it up, presses two fingers to the pulse point at the inside of his elbow. Nakajima’s offering way too much trust, either because of the drugs or Dazai — Chuuya could stop his blood from flowing at all, if he wanted to. But Dazai would shoot him in the temple, probably.

“I dunno,” Nakajima slurs. His mental condition is definitely unnerving, but at least his pulse feels fine, and his skin isn’t clammy.

Chuuya pinches his inner arm and Nakajima yelps, jolting — his arm becomes monstrous and heavy. Chuuya stares at it, considering the length of its claws. Man-eater, he thinks.

“Huh,” Chuuya says. Then: “Wake up, kid. Tell me what happened.”

“Um.” Pingus is rubbing her face all over Nakajima’s jaw. A deep purr rumbles in Nakajima’s chest to match Pingus’s, which Chuuya is only mildly surprised by. There’s some semblance of awareness in Nakajima’s eyes that Chuuya thinks is due to Pingus’s bothering. She’ll get extra fish with her dinner, as a reward. “Dazai and I were undercover…” Nakajima’s eyes roam the ceiling, running his (both now human, thank God) bony hands up and down Pingus’s back. “Undercover, and… Dazai told me to leave — really fast.”

“Why?”

Nakajima looks frustrated, and Chuuya understands. With a mind addled like his is, it can be hard to put words to things even if you know exactly what you’re trying to explain. But if there’s trouble, there’s no time to wait for Nakajima to sober up.

“Because…” Nakajima says, “He said we were drugged… we were at this fancy party, and I started feeling funny, and Dazai said, go to the Agency, but the Agency was far away… I left him there…” Nakajima jumps up, suddenly, throwing a yowling Pingus off his chest. White knuckling the back of the couch, Nakajima shouts, “Dazai’s in trouble!”

“Calm down.” Chuuya considers reaching out, pushing Nakajima back down onto the couch. That probably wouldn’t go well. “You know Dazai’s fine.” Fine was maybe a strong word, but alive was a fact that seemed to stay true no matter what. “I need more from you. How’d you get injured?”

Nakajima blinks at him. “Injured?”

“Injured,” Chuuya reiterates, pointing at the chunk of yellow fat smeared across Nakijma’s stomach. What a fucking sight. All the hallmarks of a corpse on his couch, except the actual injury.

“Oh,” Nakajima says, squinting down at his own blood. He sort-of snarls as he runs his tongue over his upper teeth, like he just realized the blood on it. “I don’t — remember? I think someone tried to stop me leaving…”

Chuuya puts the images together. Thinks it through — Nakajima and Dazai, both of them completely out of place in some party full of cocktail dresses and tiny sausages. The drugging had to be well hidden for Dazai not to notice, but he would have known the second it slid down his throat. He imagines Dazai’s panicked face — the one no one else ever notices except Chuuya, who is very well attuned to the tiniest twitches of Dazai’s eyebrows — imagines him calculating exactly how many minutes him and Nakajima had, making an estimated guess based on Nakajima’s size and ability and how much he’d unknowingly chugged, and then deciding the kid had enough time to get the hell out of dodge.

Nakajima would have had to leave as discreetly as possible, as though he didn’t know anything was wrong. But if someone had drugged them both, then they were watching them, too. Nakajima had been intercepted, gotten hurt, and — hm. The man-eating thing had only ever been rumors. But if he had claws like that, Chuuya could only imagine the teeth, and what one does when there’s an unknown drug and panic and blood loss all settling in at once. With his efforts to get all the blood off his teeth and out of the crannies of his braces, Nakajima is making a lot of funny faces.

So someone was probably dead. And Dazai was God knows where. And — okay.

Chuuya tilts his head up to the ceiling, ignoring Nakajima, who has once again become preoccupied with Pingus. Question time:

1. Where’s Dazai? Did he get himself out too? Or is he drugged up in someone’s basement?

2. Why Nakajima and not him? If it were one or the other, Dazai would have had a much easier time getting himself out than Nakajima. His tolerance is higher, he probably had less, and, frankly, he’d probably be much more useful in terms of knowledge.

3. For that matter: why not both? Why couldn’t both of them leave? Scratch question 2, then — the only reason Dazai would let himself get caught is if he had a reason to.

4. Fine then, last question, besides why come to Chuuya: how long should Chuuya wait for the stupid mackerel to show his face before he sucks it up and calls the Agency?

Hopefully, he won’t have to deal with the last question. Either Nakajima sobers up soon or Dazai escapes. It’s been a few years and Dazai’s gone weird and soft, but at the very least he should still be totally capable of escaping some stupid fucking kidnappers.

Chuuya should probably add who drugged them to his list of questions, but that’s not really his problem. With the story straight-enough in his head, he just needs to focus on getting Nakajima sober. By the state of the kid’s giant pupils and still-heaving breaths and incessant giggles every time he whispers Pingus to himself, it’ll be a while.

Babysitting duty. Ah, well — Chuuya’s used to babysitting duty, ever since Dazai fucked off and left the Akutugawa kids reeling and helpless. (Not that either of the kids would admit that’s what happened.) Dazai was always leaving him on babysitting duty.

Chuuya sighs, stands, retrieves a blanket. By this point Nakajima’s sunk back down onto the couch, holding a loaf of Pingus against his chest. “Rest up, weretiger,” Chuuya says, throwing the blanket over the both of them. He’ll wash all the viscera and shit off the blanket later.

Nakajima, covered up to his nose, blinks with those big, dual-colored eyes. With a little mrow, Pingus’s head pops out of the blanket and she starts nuzzling Nakajima’s cheek with his nose.

“Are you gonna tell Akutugawa I’m here?” Nakajima asks softly. It should be a question asked with fear, but it’s awfully bland — unafraid. Chuuya’s lips twitch.

“No,” Chuuya says, and heads into the kitchen.

Dazai used to do a lot of cocaine.

He probably doesn’t anymore. Or he’s really good at hiding it. Chuuya doesn’t imagine a cocaine habit would go over well with the detectives, and he doesn’t imagine Dazai could even hide something like that from the smart one. (From the others, he could definitely hide it. But not the super smart one.)

Chuuya’s done it a few times himself, but it’s never been his preference. The dignity of alcohol, the richness of it, and most of all the beauty of it — all those fine, expensive, aged bottles sitting on his shelves — has always appealed to him. But Dazai liked the way things like cocaine got him excited, amplified his mania. He liked uppers, from cigarettes to ritalin to coke, because they made him feel human.

Not that it’s cocaine, Nakajima’s got in him. It’s definitely not cocaine. It was probably ketamine or benzos, an attempt to make Nakajima all loopy and relaxed and weak. That’s not what happened, clearly. At least it’s not what happened immediately, because Nakajima had enough strength in him to escape an attacker. Must’ve been his ability slowing the drug.

It doesn’t matter. This is all to say that Chuuya has more than enough experience sobering himself and others up. He sets to work frying some eggs.

Nakajima’s not asleep; from the other room, Nakajima’s quiet voice wafts in, indistinguishable murmurs interspersed with giggles and Pingus’s mrows. At some point he starts humming a song which Chuuya has to strain his ears to hear. It’s a sweet, lilting melody — his brain fills in the lyrics instantly and his heart twists at the realization that it’s Dazai’s stupid song, can’t do a double suicide alone.

Chuuya slides the eggs off the pan with his spatula and sets them gently on the plate. Then he stops there, stares at the eggs, the shaking yolks. Thinks about being fifteen in Mori’s office, glaring at Dazai, the feeling in his gut that something horrible had changed in his life. Thinks about the stark red marks of Dazai’s hand on Akutugawa’s cheek. Thinks about childrens’ feet pattering softly down the halls of the Port Mafia’s safe houses and headquarters’ halls. Thinks about Nakajima, smiling at Dazai’s name, singing silly tunes Dazai taught him.

Toast pops out of the toaster. It’s a little burnt. Chuuya blinks and takes a breath that does not shake. He flicks on the radio — some public station playing soft jazz — and he can’t hear Nakajima anymore.

When Chuuya returns to the living room with two ham egg and cheese sandwiches, Nakajima pops fully up, although this time he holds Pingus to his chest so she doesn’t fall. The blanket falls, though, and it’s the same as it was before: the remains of a nice shirt falling over thin shoulders, drying brown blood splattering his stomach and chest and arms, his own fucking skin and flesh and fat stuck to him. Chuuya’s seen gore before — seen it a thousand times worse than this — but something about the sight has him keeping his eyes dutifully on Nakajima’s forehead.

Nakajima devours the sandwich in practically one bite, his jaw wider than it ought to be. Chuuya pretends not to be unnerved by this.

Once Nakajima has fully chewed his sandwich and patted his stomach and hummed his thanks, Chuuya asks, “Feel any better?”

The penthouse is cold. Chuuya likes it that way. But Nakajima shivers, pulling the blanket back up, tucking himself back down onto the couch. “A little,” he says, suddenly very childlike. As though he’s only just realized he’s cold (likely, considering what some drugs can do to one’s awareness of things like temperature), Nakajima curls more and more into himself on his side, pulling the blanket up his face. Ridiculous, that he’s on Chuuya’s couch right now. Ridiculous, that Chuuya doesn’t call Akutagawa. Fucking Dazai.

Chuuya stands abruptly. Nakajima blinks in response.

“Rest,” Chuuya says again, then promptly retreats to his bedroom.

Dazai is sprawled out on Chuuya’s bed, twisting the soft black covers beneath him, hair fanned out over the pillow. He’s got a few bruises on his cheek but there’s no blood, Chuuya recognizes first, then recognizes second that Dazai is on his fucking bed.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Chuuya says. Throws his hands up in the air, lets out a noise like a yell without any air — makes a scandalized face that Dazai only blinks at, throws his arms back down, then towards Dazai, into the air, then out, gesturing widely at the room around him. Every loose object in the room raises about a centimeter, drops, raises. “When the fuck did you get here!” He crosses the room in two long strides, pulls the lounging Dazai off the bed by his shoulders, and shakes him. “Your stupid kid is high out of his mind in the living room!”

Dazai groans, fake, squeezing his eyes shut. “Chuuya, Chuuya,” he whines, putting on a strange voice like a telenovela housewife, “Chuuya, my head is killing me!”

“You’ve done worse drugs,” Chuuya says, but he brings up a hand to start prying Dazai’s eyelids open and check his pupils. Yelping, Dazai bats him away, wiggles out of his grip, then rolls floppily onto the other side of the bed. He pats the space next to him in invitation.

“Fuck you,” Chuuya says.

Dazai just frowns.

The window is open, Chuuya realizes, a breeze fluttering the blackout curtains. This is somehow an even worse realization than finding Dazai on his bed, and Chuuya has to fully turn on his heel so he’s facing away from Dazai. He grabs his face in his hands, bounces on his heels once, twice, thrice. The idiot had either broken into the apartment below and climbed up to the penthouse or started from the roof and climbed down — either way, it’s so ridiculous and unnecessary that the thought of it gives Chuuya heart palpitations.

“You have a key to this apartment!” Chuuya hisses, although something about it feels like he shouldn’t say it out loud, like it’s an admittance. “Why would you-!”

Dazai hums in a way that tells Chuuya he won’t get an explanation. Either he’d done it for fun or done it because it was all part of some stupid plan or mind game or manipulation. Chuuya decided he didn’t care, because the more pressing question was—

“Why would you give that kid my address?” He steps forward so his knees are bumping the mattress.

Doe-eyed and innocent, Dazai stares up at him. “Why wouldn’t I?” He asks, “Chuuya is a good babysitter…”

“I’m going to kill you,” Chuuya says, but he doesn’t add his usual violence to it because he’s squinting at Dazai’s pupils. Blown pupils, but his cheeks are a normal warmth, he seems perfectly able to move himself around. No need for the damn narcan, which is a blessing, because Chuuya’s had to give Dazai narcan more times than he’d like in this lifetime.

Dazai pats the spot next to him again. Rolling his eyes, Chuuya acquiesces. Shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee; fifteen, twenty-two. They sit in quiet a moment, Dazai taking deep breaths Chuuya recognizes as an attempt to sober up. The summer breeze through the window adds a bit of warmth to the cold room. Nakajima is humming that tune again, loud enough to hear through a closed door. Chuuya closes his eyes.

“I escaped a little faster than I meant, but I got good information,” Dazai muses. When Chuuya glances over, an eyebrow raised, he waves his hand in dismissal. “Agency business.”

“Agency business,” Chuuya repeats flatly, “but you can send Nakajima here in the middle of it.” He’s indignant, even though an hour ago he said whoever drugged the two of them wasn’t his problem. It’s the principle of the matter — he can decide he doesn’t care. Dazai can’t decide that for him.

Yawning, Dazai scratches at his jaw. “I didn’t specifically send him here. I gave him your information a long time ago. You were closer than the Agency.” The drugs are making him a bit less playful, more direct than usual. His gaze is sort of lizard-like, unfocused on the wall opposite him. “Chuuya’s a good babysitter,” he repeats. Chuuya could vomit. He leans a bit away from Dazai, but Dazai just lifts one leg and settles it over Chuuya’s, holding him in contact.

They’re silent for a long moment, in which Nakajima begins to giggle, repeating Pingus to himself several times.

“What’re you doing with this kid?” Chuuya finally asks, glancing sidelong at Dazai.

There’s that Dazai smile. The actor one, the robot one, that reaches his eyes as though it’s clawing for them. “Does Chuuya have a soft spot?” he asks, leaning back into Chuuya’s space, chin hitting Chuuya’s shoulder. He whines when Chuuya plants a hand on his face and pushes him off. With the momentum he falls over himself so that he’s become a ball on Chuuya’s bed, moaning about how mean and awful and cruel Chuuya is.

“No,” Chuuya bites, “I just wanna know what you’re planning in your stupid mackerel brain.”

Said mackerel doesn’t respond for a while. Chuuya is reaching out to jostle him when he realizes the rise and fall of his back is real, actual sleep, and his hand stops in the air.

“Damn it,” he says, but it’s a quiet mutter. Out in the living room, Nakajima’s quieted, too.

He stands. Goes into the living room. Stares at the now-sleeping kid for a long moment. In sleep he’s serene, cheeks thin but still childlike, face still all smooth like an artist had just gone over the clay of him with her thumbs. Pingus curls under his chin. All sweet, except for the brown-red on Nakajima’s jaw, resting against Pingus’s dark fur.

Chuuya crosses into the kitchen, sits heavy in a chair, and considers. Considers — all of the safe houses Dazai could have sent Nakajima off to. Considers that stupid tune Nakajima and Dazai seem to love, and the edge to both their smiles, and the vigor with which Akutugawa and Nakajima hate each other. Considers how a man was dead, and how he probably deserved to die, but it had been a desperate, drugged eighteen year-old on a job who’d done it. Considers Chuuya’s a good babysitter, and tea with the Akutugawas, and Nakajima’s braces. He comes to no satisfactory conclusions.

TIGERS DON'T FUCKING PURR.

Bsd fan creatives stop making Atsushi purr challenge.

headcanon that atsushi constantly has to try and ignore his cat instincts and constantly fails

atsushi, sitting down at his desk after a mission: it is SO HOT OUT. my throat is so dry, i think i’m going to die of thirst…

dazai, setting down a glass of water:

atsushi, looking at it:

atsushi, slowly using his hand to knock it off the desk:

dazai: ??? why did you do that

atsushi: i am SO THIRSTY

dazai, getting another glass of water:

atsushi:

atsushi, knocking it onto the ground:

dazai:

atsushi: i’m so thirsty