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This punishment was most definitely his fault. He hadn’t screwed up this badly in a good few weeks, and he was doing well, if the fading burn on his lower back had anything to say about it. Akutagawa knew, deep down, that whatever horrors were about to unfold were as ‘just’ as could be. Yet the fear, the terror, racked through him still. If he could keep his feet any further planted into the ground, he might begin to grow vines from his soles. There was an unsettling quiet in the abandoned warehouse, known as his personal hell, that he would frequent for training with Dazai. The faint dripping from a pipe overhead, scattering droplets over the floor to create a sharp smell of damp, mixed with the echo from Akutagawa’s own palms. His dirtied fingernails had pierced his flesh, shaking in such extremes that any passerby may think he was seizing up. He was no stranger to medical emergencies, this was just a cowardly puppy waiting for his owner to come home after knocking down a vase.
So what got him into this flow state of waiting fearfully? It was a routine grab and go, nothing more - nothing less. It should not have resulted in a screw up of this magnitude. Any normal 15 year old child would not feel comfortable, with a confidence multiple times their age, in a dark alley way with two groups of men. Akutagawa was tasked with retrieving a briefcase from a group working with the Port Mafia. This was a direct order from Dazai himself, and so he had been itching to get it done correctly and swiftly. There was no room for error, but Akutagawa Ryuunosuke was a failure. Errors came as naturally to the teenager as coughing up blood. Along with these, came social awareness and distrust.
He bristled under the lingering stare of the man in front of him. He had been looking him up and down, repeatedly, shuffling his feet and keeping long gazes on Akutagawa’s waist. It was enough for him to feel unsettled, and he could feel the tingling of Rashoumon wanting nothing more than to rip this random man to shreds. When he had reached for the briefcase, a much larger hand than his own wrapped around his wrist. Static flooded his ears as the man spoke, the guards behind Akutagawa had all raised their guns and the clicking of safety only shattered his feeling of security further. It was like he had been floating outside his body, watching as a ghost above the spectacle as Rashoumon proceeded to dismember the man beyond recognition, his gang following suit. Akutagawa had always been described as a ruthless coldblooded mongrel, but in this moment as he felt the sensations of his ability burn and slice through the long dead corpse of the leader, he had never felt more like his rumours portrayed.
He was only 15.
When he and his team made it back to headquarters, unharmed but bloodied, Dazai had made a point to never once look directly at Akutagawa. He had listened, bored, as he gave the report, before dismissing the team and walking to stand in front of him. As he stared down at Dazai’s clean shoes, trying his hardest to keep his breathing in check, his mentor had spoken.
“You know where to go.” He had said.
And so, he was waiting.
Dazai was yet to arrive at the warehouse, and the rain had begun to sputter against the raggedy building. Some windows were long broken, wind gusts tearing in and biting at Akutagawa. He knew that deep down he could move to warm himself up, but even in the solitude of this tortuous room, he felt he was under Dazai’s scrutinising gaze. He felt, if his finger had twitched, he would have a fist flown at him quicker than he could even comprehend. So he stayed put, not wanting to upset his all seeing God. It must have been about another twenty minutes, maybe, before the door in front of Akutagawa was thrown open and clattered against the wall behind it. In a swift movement of a black coat and bandages, his reason to live stood mere metres ahead of him. Dazai stared down at him with pure indifference in his eyes, expression as unreadable as ever. He was carrying a big cardboard box under his arm, which had grown soggy from the roof all the way down to the middle.
“Do I even want to know why you screwed up that badly?”
“Dazai san-”
“Shut up.”
Akutagawa’s mouth snapped shut and he willed himself to stop shaking with the best of his strength, already feeling the exhaustion creep in from his panic. He forced himself to stand as straight and still as he could manage, only dipping his head down once Dazai poured the contents of the box onto the floor with a loud shattering. At once, multiple glass items, expanding from cups to plates, crashed into pieces across the floor in one big pile. Months of training had aided him in swallowing down any noises of surprise, and so the yelp that flew into his throat was buried down and shut away. It couldn’t be said the same for his hand, which nervously raised to pick at the dry skin of his lip. The dread that settled in his stomach was pushing like a machine, the urge to throw up from the dizzying nausea that hit Akutagawa was almost making him go off balance. He swore to himself, the next time a man forced himself onto him, he would let him have his way. So long as he did not have to endure facing Dazai as some useless underachiever. He would rather be eaten alive, deflowered and degraded by the predators of Yokohama, than ever have to stand in front of his saviour as unworthy.
“Strip.”
He froze, tearing his eyes easily away from the mess on the ground and back up to meet Dazai’s. They were empty, naturally, and void of any sympathy. He stuttered out a breath, feeling his thoughts become foggy. He was under this gaze many times in his life, the look he was met with from the executive was always one that was uncaring or disappointed. On some moments, when Akutagawa was alone, he would think of the times he had made Dazai angry. Puke would splash onto his floor with hacking wheezes, sending him into a frenzy as his already weak lungs would claw their way through mucus in his esophagus to breathe. The wrath was, without any doubt, terrifying, and Akutagawa was easily obsessed with it. Being under his eyes, and then his fists. Just happy to be given time of day, even for just a fleeting moment of his rage. For Dazai to look at him with anything positive in those eyes, Akutagawa would finally - Finally - have lived a life worth living.
Messy, trembling fingers moved deftly to his neckline, unbuttoning his coat and the rest of the clothes above his waist with ease, like he had done many times in this position. The cold nipped at his scarred body like a wild animal, and he suppressed as many shivers as he could while he worked on removing his pants, shoes and socks. His small frame stood bare safe for his briefs, and he wrapped his arms around his middle uncomfortably. Being without Rashoumon had always felt like a glorified death sentence, but having her as a safety net meant nothing around Dazai anyway. Akutagawa was by no means unhygienic. Sure, sometimes he could barely brush his teeth and he remained frazzled in the same clothes from days previous, but he showered and took as much care of himself as he could. Despite all of this, there was always the uncanny guttural feeling that he was unclean. This was something to be amplified in Dazai’s presence. He had no right to be before the deity that remained in front of him, frail and underweight as he was. He was barely anybody when he had the furious jaws of Rashoumon to keep him powerful, and by his lonesome he was just some disgusting mutt from the slums who had just happened to be brought home by a man who hung the stars.
“Get on your hands and knees, then walk to me.”
Akutagawa moved on autopilot, obeying Dazai as his second nature. The teen had planted his palms and knees firmly on the frigid concrete floor. He shuffled forward with a burning shame that spread throughout his body, stopping short at the first line of glass. He hadn’t meant to hesitate, fully intent on getting it quickly over with, yet he stopped. His mouth pooled with saliva as he bit back a whine, hand raised above the glass. It was going to hurt, and very badly. He was only a boy, and as dedicated as Akutagawa was to Dazai, he had no desire to prance on shards of glass.
Unaware he had even zoned out, he was brought back to earth with a scream of pain, barely recognising it as his own. Searing agony pierced through his palm and wrist as a hard muddy boot slammed down atop his hand, the impact forcing the connection that brought his reluctance in the first place. He sobbed, cradling his mangled forearm to his chest once the boot lifted. It was torturous, like he knew it would be. Hot tears poured from his eyes, little ‘ah, ah, ah..' sounds spilling from his mouth like a faucet as he panted. A foreign hand suddenly in his hair forced him to look up, blinking back the salty tears that gathered quickly, swallowing loudly. He came face to face with Dazai, unsure of when he had even moved to crouch beside him in the first place. “This is why you’re never the horse I bet on.” He had said, a harsh grip straining Akutagawa’s neck before he was let go with a force that pushed him in front of the glass once more. “Do I need to open a gate for you to fucking go forward? Answer.”
“No, Dazai san.”
“Then go.”
He shook, staring at where the glass ended. The crawl atop of the glass was only about 3 feet, but on hands and knees made this especially challenging. Akutagawa thought of his apartment, gifted by the Port Mafia. As he pressed his bloody hand down and stabbed his other hand in the agonising crawl forward, he tried to will his mind to be somewhere else. He thought of that first real meal he had with Gin, before his knee made contact with the bloody carpet of torment. Stifling his shrieks of pain was a useless attempt, thwarted before it began. He could hear groans and whines, realising they were to be his own as he advanced forward.
In trying to keep his shins safe from being slit, he had put more pressure on his knees and palms. He hadn’t stopped crying since that very first affliction of pain, hiccuping and heaving through the excruciating sensations he was dealing with. “You think that a dirty old man holding your hand is bad?” He had almost barely made out the coo from Dazai, taunting him as if he were a stupid child. Akutagawa choked on an apology as he pushed forward deeper into the sharp field. “It’s nothing. You’re nothing. You also fucked everything up. As per usual.” Akutagawa wanted, so desperately, to give him any reason why Dazai was wrong, that he was useful. But he fell short, the asperity almost enough to immobilize him, had he not been moving like a puppet through Dazai’s will. “Thank me for all of the chances I’ve given you.”
He finally stopped in his advance toward his superior, looking up at him desperately. He knew how pathetic he looked, arms and legs pouring with blood and his face hot with tears. “Thank you, Dazai san. Thank you, so much.” He sobbed, repeating himself like it was the easiest thing on earth to preach.
“Did I say you could stop?”
Akutagawa’s head fell, “I’m sorry, Dazai san.” He spoke, robotically. Pushing forward yet again into the glass, straining his ears to listen as he continued to speak. “It was a mission you’ve done countless times before. I didn’t expect anything from you in the first place, but this incompetence was disappointing.” He had made it to the final home stretch, the rigid floor coming back into sight. He shuddered in discomfort, advancing so his hands were finally free from the glass. Managing to avoid collapsing completely the minute his knees had moved past the fragmented finishing line, he used the best of his strength to relieve any pressure on his injuries and dropped onto his back with a long sigh. His tears still flowed freely, and the blood began gushing down his destroyed appendages. Holding his arms up, miserably surveying the damage and gagging.
His palms were utterly mutilated, and he noted with astonishment that all ten of his fingers remained. There was a harsh gash across between his thumb and index finger, embedded glass protruding out like a white flag of surrender. He spent most of his young life injured and was not unfamiliar at all with the sight of blood and gore, yet the glimpse of dark liquid like a vice across his bony limbs brought him to the urge of unconsciousness. Oh, how he wished to be in his warm bed right now. Akutagawa bit down into his chapped lips and let his head smack onto the floor, a pleading look in his eyes as he finally glanced up to Dazai. The other's countenance seemed slightly strained, eyebrows drawn together. If he hadn’t spent months studying him, Akutagawa wouldn’t have noticed such an emotion, especially not from the executive of all people. Black dotted around his vision, the darkness dancing around the corners, was Dazai upset with him? Had he failed? Was there something else he missed? He tore his teeth away from the gnawing of his lower lip and stammered out an apology, along with a promise to do better, before sleep finally took hold and he passed out on the cold floor.
Something from training that Akutagawa had learned was if he were to wake up in an unfamiliar environment, he was to feign sleep and gather his bearings, listen for anything that could give him a hint in his faux unconscious state.
What he could gather, at the current moment, was nothing short of confusing. There was a hand petting his hair, his body was freezing but there was a blanketed layer atop of him, his hands and kneecaps burned and throbbed. As for what he could smell, the dew from the warehouse was poorly masked by the scent of another person, one he knew of very well. Akutagawa peeled his eyes open, against the ache from previous sobbing that stung his retinas. Dark black reviewing his form, laying on his back with his coat placed above him to keep him somewhat warm. His gaze travelled above him, making eye contact with Dazai. Confusion filled him, before the realisation smothered it. He was laying with his head in Dazai’s lap, and the hand in his hair belonged to the former. Warmth bloomed through Akutagawa, and he couldn't help the small smile that appeared on his puffy face. He noticed that Dazai was without his usual dark coat; it was placed under Akutagawa’s head for more comfortability in his position.
Keeping that eye contact, he let himself indulge in this rare moment while flexing his fingers and feeling the bandages wrapped around them carefully. Dazai was no doctor, and even the suggestion would irritate him, but he felt the blush on his face as he revelled in being cared for in such a way. The fingers that threaded through his hair almost lulled Akutagawa back to sleep, but the shuffling of the older mafia member and a sudden voice startled him out of his comforting thoughts. “You know why I have to do these things to you?” came from him, and with Akutagawa’s weak nod he continued. “Don’t make me do this again.” He sniffled and nodded once more, a curt “Yes, Dazai san. I’m sorry.” tumbled out of his throat before he turned to bury his head against Dazai’s thigh, inhaling his scent and closing his eyes when the gentle sensation on his head continued.
Dazai hummed as he went pliant in his lap, maybe he had gone a bit overboard this time. He searched the room for the showerhead and chains pinned to the wall at the other side of the warehouse, lightly scratching Akutagawa’s head as if he were his pet. He didn’t like to repeat himself and he knew Akutagawa was now in deep sleep, so when his dog shuffled itself up on its paws once more, Dazai knew where he would walk him for round two.