leo, leonis (Akutagawa x Reader)

Chapter Fourteen

A/N Y'all the ending I have planned for this story goes so hard for no reason. I can't wait for you guys to read it (in like seventeen chapters probably lol).

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Things returned to a sticky version of normal between the pair. Akutagawa was as loyal as ever. loyal to a fault, but something about it was starting to make Y/n a little uncomfortable.

Her greatest fear had recently become turning out like her brother. Seeing him now as an adult, looking back on their lives together through the picture frame of time, having learned what he had done, Y/n realized he was cruel. Dazai's cruelty was innate, stemming deep from within the marrow of his bones. He would get what he wanted, and he would never care what it took to get him there. She did not want to be like that, to see the people in her life as nothing but means to ends.

They had never particularly gotten along, Dazai doing the bare minimum to make sure she was safe and Y/n having been just another jaded teen when he exited her life. She had however, to some degree, looked up to the man. He was strong and confident, always doing the thing that was needed even when those around him thought it the wrong path to take. She had found that admirable.

And then there had been everything with Chuuya. To say she was shocked when Dazai had introduced him to her as his boyfriend would be an understatement. It wasn't that it was unexpected for him to have a romantic interest in a man, no. It was that he had any modicum of care for anyone, let alone the will to share it. In the Mafia, caring for someone like that was one of the most dangerous things a person could do. The second most dangerous thing was telling people about it.

That was how Chuuya and Y/n had first met. She was twelve and angry, he was sixteen and terrified. He had blushed a bright crimson, smacking Dazai over the back of his head when he had said the word. Y/n had liked that and so, she had decided they would be friends.

Chuuya had been reluctant at first to the idea. She was so much younger than them and he was so wrapped up in the chaos of his own life. Chuuya didn't need anyone else's chaos, he had enough to deal with on his own.

Y/n trailed after him constantly, pulling on his jacket's sleeves, telling him what she had accomplished on her missions and in her classes. Before long, he realized he was worrying about her. Dazai used to tease him that he was Y/n's real brother. None of the three knew then how right his words would end up being.

After everything with Dazai, after the way Oda's death had effected her, the way she had watched Chuuya suffer from her brother's absence, Y/n was scared. Dazai had been difficult and confusing. Their relationship had been in a rough spot, and he was the only living family she had. He was the reason she had joined the Mafia in the first place, Dazai having made a deal with Mori when he first took over to give her a position in the organization and keep her safe. It was the same deal he had made with the man when he had first started being affiliated with him: I will do what you ask, just keep my sister safe.

Oda had been more complicated, the most complicated out of the three. Y/n had never been all that close with Ango, mostly because the man didn't really know how to interact with her, but Oda had been something entirely other. He was strong, confident, even tempered. He loved deeply and cared about the way he interacted with the world around him. She had idolized him in a way, and he, the man who always had a place in his heart for orphans, was kind to her. He always worked to involve her in their dialogues, always smiled when she timidly peeked out from behind her brother's back, having tagged along. In many ways, she saw him as someone who had helped to raise her. 

No, Y/n didn't want any more bonds, any more friendships, than the ones she already had. Having more meant there was more to lose, and she had already lost so much. That was why she had always tried to remain cold and closed off towards Akutagawa. 

The thing was, he had this way of worming into her life. She would catch herself thinking of him at odd times of the day for no apparent reason. She hovered constantly between holding him close and pushing him away, not sure how to live with or without him by her side after all these years.

It was strange. She had always considered him a friend, a work place acquaintance but, after she had crossed the line, said those things to him, she realized he was something more. Akutagawa wasn't just someone she knew, he was someone she cared about. He was her friend.

She began trying to be kinder to him. Akutagawa noticed this of course. The way she began to try and include him in dinner discussions, asking his opinion on obsolete pieces of literature no one else had read. It was jolting and awkward, he didn't really know what to do with it and although Gin noticed the tension, she did nothing to help.

That was what it was, a tension. There was a pane of glass between them. There had always been a pane of glass between them only now, there was something frail about it, something brittle. If one of them blew on it the wrong way, it would topple and neither knew what would happen next.

Y/n struggled with being kind to him. It was easy with Gin whom she loved like a sister, easy with Chuuya and Koyo who had nearly parental presences in her life. With Tachihara and Hirotsu, there was the undeniable shared trauma of their work life binding them together. She could bully and tease them and be teased in return and have that be their whole relationship because they were family. Akutagawa was different and Y/n didn't know how to navigate the details. She was lost at sea.

And Akutagawa was, well, Akutagawa. He was quiet, stoic, smart. He said a lot with few words and held the same constant of anger that she did. He hung around her as he always did, silently completing his own work by her side, exchanging the occasional snide remark. Akutagawa could feel the change and though he would never ask her, couldn't help but wonder what it was and what it meant for what was to come.