𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫&𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 | bungou stray dogs

atsushi nakajima: Jesus of Nazareth, reincarnated in your eyes.

edited: ✓ | 1/20/2024

trigger warnings: implied abuse

—

Your head feels like a parking lot located at the very centre of the Earth: filled with smoke and rumbling and chattering and tires squeaking against the asphalt, crowded with vehicles that each carried a thought, all escaping you, leaving you isolated with the stereotype of danger and horror. You fall into this abysmal void that's darker than your shadows, understanding that it's within your eyes, the shadows, and they haunt your heart, taunting it to follow them into the dark. And follow they do, resulting in your head repressing everything that has once happened to you.

You feel so alienated and drunk—but in reality, Atsushi sees you as the bible verses sprayed on public bathroom walls; he sees you as misleading signs in a dead city where there is no one to see, he sees you as copies of holy paintings on car tunnel walls, but he knows you are the isolated parking lot of a convenience store in which drug dealers snuck around in the dark. And when he stares at you, he sinks. He doesn't know why. His image of you is so thin and two-dimensional. He can almost see the palpable past just by staring at you; and like corpses floating to the surface of the water, he sees bruises and beatings and burns and blood that you never deserved as a child bloat to the surface of your skin.

In other words, he thinks you are just something strange and almost mystical thing that people just couldn't place a finger on. The reason edged just outside their consciousness, but never crossed their mind on why. You were always calm, even under pressure, and quiet. But whenever confrontation highlighted your face, thoughts of SUICIDE! DRUGS! ALCOHOL! crept and swallowed you whole.

But Atsushi understands.

He knows what it was like to fear confrontation, knowing that he was never meant to last living on this Earth—why do you think he flung himself into every life-threatening situation within the Armed Detective Agency? It was to prove that he was, in fact, good enough to live, and that the life he lived was the correct one, because all his life he was told he wasn't good enough.

He embraces you. He presses his hand against yours and places his lips on your forehead, shyly, peppering them against your cold cheek that ripples under him when you smile distantly at him.

The concept of home, and consequently, hell, was projected onto you, and he is to wonder why he was drowning when dancing with the devil at the bottom of your ocean. Home is where the heart is, he recalls someone saying, only to realise that both your heartbeat and his were out of sync.

"Are you even listening to me?" You inquire. Atsushi shakes his head and climbs out of his thoughts.

"I'm sorry. I got distracted," He says. You hum, before running your tongue over your front teeth. "Do you mind repeating what you just said?"

"I said, don't you think it's inherently scary, the birth of Jesus? Simply by giving her son life she has already killed him, doomed him to the cross."

That makes him think for a second. "I don't think she knew she was giving birth to a corpse."

"I don't either." You look at him and there are clouds of stardust in his eyes, twinkling gently as he kindly, and lovingly, smiles at you. Spectrums of gold and violet gleam at you softly.