Estragon: Suppose we repented.

Vladimir: Repented what?

Estragon: Oh...(He reflects.) We wouldn’t have
to go into the details.

Vladimir: Our being born?

― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

In reality, everything is not as it really is.

― Stanisław Jerzy Lec

Chapter 1. The positioning

Chuuya

God didn’t skimp on my imagination, but even in my wildest fever dreams, I never pictured myself as a babysitter for Dazai’s brats.

It was October. A Saturday. Nine in the morning.

A lovely Yokohama morning, when decent people stay in bed until noon, then lazily stretch under the sunlight, light up a cigarette with some damn good tobacco, and go grab a coffee.

And here I was, at this ungodly hour, woken up by the doorbell.

The ring was short, hesitant. I considered ignoring it, going right back to sleep. But then it rang again — more insistent this time. Muttering curses at the universe, I dragged myself out of bed, threw on whatever I could grab, and stumbled to the door.

Standing in the hallway was Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Pale and brooding as ever, like a damn vampire from a trashy teen novel.

Him? Showing up at my place?

And next to him — well, who else could it be? — his white-haired little friend from the Agency. The tiger boy.

“The hell’s wrong with you?!” I hissed. “You want the whole damn Agency to know where I live?”

“We need to talk, Nakahara.” Akutagawa folded his arms in that defiant way of his, but his gaze was off. More distant than usual. The guy always looked like he dabbled in hard substances, but right now, he just looked wrecked.

That, more than anything, convinced me this was serious.

As I opened the door, I instinctively wrapped myself in a shield of gravity — like putting on a bulletproof vest. I’d worked with Akutagawa long enough to know he wouldn’t set me up, but habits stick to you like rust.

I hadn’t exactly prepared for company, but my apartment was solid. I didn’t work for Mori for free, after all. Sure, I could stand to throw out a bunch of useless crap, and the windows hadn’t been cleaned in forever — maybe I’d call a service if I remembered — but still, the place was nice. These two strays were bound to be impressed.

Akutagawa, though, barely seemed to register his surroundings — or my precautions. Moving like a sleepwalker, he shuffled through a couple of rooms before collapsing onto the couch, picking the spot with the least junk on it.

The tiger boy — Atsushi, or whatever his name was — gave me an apologetic smile as he pushed some of my clothes aside and sat down next to him. His foot knocked over an empty bottle of a damn fine ten-year-old Pinot Noir. He flinched, mumbled an apology.

“You… Nakahara-san, right? Sorry for just… showing up like this…”

He looked more put-together than Akutagawa — who, frankly, seemed completely out of it. If this was acid, he’d taken more than a couple of blotters. Or maybe something stronger…?

I dug through the sea of bottles on the floor and managed to find a couple that were still sealed. Popped one open, poured the wine into a glass — turned out to be some piss-poor, sour-ass cheap Cabernet, but I didn’t really care. I’d been hitting the bottle a little too hard these past few months, feeling like shit with nothing interesting to do. But hey, better to drink than pop hard drugs by the handful like some people — not naming names.

I dropped into a chair across from my guests. Akutagawa was still my subordinate, after all, and it was about time I reminded him of that. Figured I’d channel Mori — put on that polite but ice-cold look of his.

“I’d love to know where the hell you’ve been for the past month, Akutagawa. The Mafia’s been looking all over for you.”

“I was… in London,” he muttered, still not meeting my eyes. Not like that actually explained shit. I kept going.

“There were a couple of jobs where your assistance would have been, shall we say” — I kept up the Mori act, he loved that kind of phrasing — “not unwelcome. You know who’s particularly unhappy with you?”

Akutagawa said nothing, still staring off into space like a lobotomized corpse. I tapped my fingers against my glass, growing impatient.

“Well? Atsushi — is that your name? — you gonna sit there mute too? What brings you both to my doorstep, gentlemen?” The cherry on top — Mori would’ve said it exactly like that.

The tiger boy shifted uncomfortably before speaking up.

“We decided to get rid of our abilities. But Ryunosuke isn’t sure if it was the right choice, and he wanted to talk to someone about it.”

I laughed. Of course I did.

Then I shut the hell up, because Akutagawa lifted his eyes to mine — and I had never, never seen him look at anyone like that before. Fear. Not just fear — pure, unfiltered terror.

That’s when it hit me: Atsushi wasn’t joking.

I set my glass down, stood up, and stepped toward Akutagawa. Reached out and poked him in the cheek with a finger.

He flinched like I’d pressed a burning iron to his skin.

“The fuck is wrong with you, Nakahara?!”

Nothing unusual about him losing his shit — everyone knew the guy was a walking, talking nerve disorder who couldn’t stand being touched. But here’s the thing: before, he wouldn’t have let me touch him in the first place. That freakishly oversized collar of his would’ve snapped up in an instant, slapping my hand away. And the best part? He wouldn’t have even needed to think about it. Rashomon kept people out of his space like a goddamn force field — it was as instinctive to him as gravity was to me.

And right then, I finally realized what word had been rattling around in my head since the moment I saw him standing at my door.

Bare.

That’s what he looked like. Stripped down. His usual over-the-top gothic getup? Now it was just clothes. He really had lost Rashomon.

“I chose this,” Akutagawa said, like he was trying to justify himself. “I got rid of my ability because…”

He trailed off. Atsushi picked up the slack.

“Because our powers are evil. They hurt people. Like what happened with Kyusaku — when all those innocent civilians died…”

Akutagawa nodded, but it was a weak, unconvincing thing.

“A curse. That’s what our abilities are. But now, we’re free. Without Rashomon, I can finally live a decent, peaceful life. Do what I actually want…”

“Yes! I’ve always wanted to be a pastry chef,” Atsushi chimed in. “And now that the Agency won’t force me to work for them anymore, I can finally bake cakes like I’ve always dreamed.”

I’ve heard a lot of bullshit in my life, but this? This was some Bible salesman-level nonsense. Not very inventive, I mean. And the worst part? The fact that these two were serious.

There aren’t a lot of situations in life where you’re not sure whether to laugh like a lunatic or shit yourself in fear. This was one of them.

“A pastry chef. Sure. Got it,” I said. “And you, Akutagawa? What’s your grand plan?”

“I want to do something peaceful too. The Mafia… it’s dirty work.”

“Wow. And what path was denied to you because of your sinful, ungodly ability?” — aside from getting laid, obviously, but I kept that one to myself. “Florist? Kindergarten teacher? Bus driver?”

Akutagawa thought about it. Then, dead serious, he said:

“Maybe I’ll become a writer.”

I just sat there for a second.

And then—

“What the actual fuck.”

Look, I didn’t give a shit about whatever the hell was going on in the tiger boy’s head, but Akutagawa? Akutagawa had never been ashamed of Rashomon. The guy was a walking trauma center, sure, riddled with complexes and god knows what else, but his ability? That was the one thing he took pride in. It’s what pulled him up from nothing. And this talk about the Mafia being dirty — I had never heard that from him before.

Yeah, we weren’t exactly planting daisies and singing kumbaya, but most of the time, we were dealing with scumbags, not “innocent civilians.” There’s no such thing as pure little kittens in the world of big money. And besides, like a lot of us in the Mafia, Akutagawa was a street kid. And on the streets, the rules are simple — eat, or be eaten.

Honestly, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think the two kids huddled together on the couch in front of me, looking like a couple of lost puppies, were just a well-placed illusion — something like Kouyou’s Golden Demon, maybe some trick from that one guy in the Agency who’s good at this sort of thing. But For the Tainted Sorrow let me sense the weight and volume of everything in the room, and the cheek I’d just poked felt solid enough.

Nope, unfortunately, Akutagawa and Atsushi, spouting absolute first-class nonsense with straight faces, were one hundred percent real.

What a fucking morning.

I had no other theories. Too early for the DTs. So I asked:

"You hungry?"

My dear guests nodded in sync.

"We just got off the plane," Atsushi explained.

I fished my phone out of my pocket and ordered a couple of pizzas. I desperately needed to dilute this madness with something mundane and boring. Preferably with pepperoni.

"One thing I don’t get — why’d you come to me? Why not Dazai?"

"I suggested it, but—" Atsushi started.

"No!" Akutagawa’s eyes went wild. "Dazai must never see me. Never. Not… like this."

I translated that for myself: no matter how fucked in the head he was right now, he knew. Even back when he still had Rashomon, Dazai never hesitated to dunk his ass in the dirt — or roundhouse-kick him in the face, for that matter. But now? Now that Akutagawa was all "purified"? He became nothing for his former mentor. A blank space. Not even worth spitting on. Considering that impressing Dazai had basically been his entire purpose in life, something about this whole thing didn’t add up.

Tiger boy didn’t look too happy at the mention of Dazai either.

So. You two voluntarily got rid of your abilities? Uh-huh. Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see pigs fly.

"Strip," I said.

"Wh—" Akutagawa choked. His face turned so red, so fast, that if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d think that shit only happened in cartoons. "Go fuck yourself with that gay shit!"

Oh, this was rich. Like, sure, I’d expect him to snap at me — given the state he was in, I’d even let it slide. But for a guy who walked around dressed like a model straight off an Alexander McQueen runway to start calling me out for "gay shit"? Hilarious.

Atsushi, who apparently caught on faster than his buddy, rushed to explain:

"No, no! If you think someone forced us to give up our abilities, that’s not true! It was our decision, really, Nakahara-san! We’ve been thinking about this for a long time — practically since we were born, we’ve dreamed of this—"

"Yeah, shut the hell up," I cut him off. That weird, overly attached "we" they kept using — it was making me nauseous. Like an old married couple finishing each other’s sentences. When the fuck did they get so close? "The Akutagawa I know never dreamed of anything like this."

"I get what you’re saying, Nakahara," Akutagawa muttered, still red as a damn tomato. "It… makes sense. But I can check myself. In the next room. If you don’t mind."

I had my doubts that our favorite little edgelord could even count his own fingers right now, let alone give himself a proper once-over, but whatever.

I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, knock yourself out. Hell, lock the door if you’re so shy. God forbid your pale ass accidentally becomes the subject of my sexual fantasies. Right after those bags under your eyes."

Akutagawa turned even redder — this time from sheer rage — muttered something completely incomprehensible but definitely hostile, then just gave up and stormed off into the next room.

"Why do you go out of your way to piss him off?" Atsushi asked, sounding almost reproachful.

The honest answer? Akutagawa looked fucking hilarious when he was pissed, so naturally, everyone around him messed with him. Or, well, everyone who wasn’t afraid of getting skewered by Rashomon for it.

I went with something more diplomatic:

"I’m teaching him a life lesson." I spread my hands. "The world is cruel. The Mafia’s not a cakewalk. And there are a lot of mean people out there. Kid needs to grow some thicker skin."

"Oh, yeah, real great teacher you are," Atsushi muttered.

Wait. Was that… sarcasm? No way. The little kitty finally baring his claws? Color me impressed.

"I’ll never be on Dazai’s level, but I do my best," I shot back. Atsushi shut up.

After a pause, he spoke again—quieter, almost pleading:

"You can’t treat Ryunosuke like that. He’s… fragile."

"Fra~gile, huh."

I reconsidered his whole visit.

This kid — this soft, Agency-raised do-gooder — came to me. To me. One of the top brass of the Mafia. Mori’s goddamn right-hand man. All because he was worried that mean ol’ Chuuya Nakahara might be too hard on his friend.

A bravery bordering on insanity.

Then again, given the state he was in, it probably only counted for half.

But still. Damn adorable.

As I mulled over all this crap, I kept checking him over. Thankfully, Atsushi didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable. Made sense — he grew up in an orphanage, right? Shared dorms, shared showers, probably saw more bare asses than he cared to count. A useful trait, considering my social circle was crawling with fucked-up bastards wrapped in overcoats, bandages, and a lifetime’s worth of issues. But what actually worried me was how goddamn convinced he was of his own worthlessness.

He kept rambling while I worked:

“Ryunosuke and I went to England because there are people there who call themselves the Equalizers. Their leader, a woman known as Saint Joanne, has the power to purify sinners like me, or Ryunosuke… or you, Nakahara-san. No offense. She was one of us once, but she turned to the light. Her ability is called Cursed Child. When we came to her, begging to be freed from our curse, she graced us with her blessing.”

“Hell of a blessing,” I muttered. The kid was covered in exactly what I expected — fading bruises, half-healed scrapes, and those weird gray burn marks that looked suspiciously like electrical burns.

“I don’t… I don’t know where these came from.” Atsushi sounded genuinely surprised, like he hadn’t noticed them before. How the fuck? What were they doing this whole time, just staring at clouds? You had to be a special kind of dumb to not realize your own body was a goddamn roadmap of abuse.

I swallowed the words “Alright, dumbass, let me spell it out for you,” because, honestly, there was no honor in dunking on a couple of brainwashed kids. Instead, I said, as patiently as I could:

“Somebody grabbed you two, beat the shit out of you, then went rummaging around in your heads and left a nice steaming pile of bullshit behind.”