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When Atsushi first learned to properly read, he had been handed two books not long after learning the basics and been told to figure it out for himself. One book was a dictionary, the other was a bible.
They were free, he’d been told. Money was a luxury that could, in the end, only be wasted on him.
Atsushi did not believe in God, and neither did the rest of the orphanage. All except for one of the directors, who used to wear a cross around his neck before his wife passed away. He had been the one to give Atsushi the bible. Christianity and Catholicism were discussed as concepts but were not widely believed in in Japan, so Atsushi read the bible the way one might read a fairy tale if they knew what fairy tales were.
At the time, Atsushi had never properly read a fairy tale, but he had this;
As Jesus walked, "he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away."
Atsushi’s brow was scrunched at the time as he read and reread the passage. Jesus had destroyed a tree because there was no fruit growing from it, but it was stressed that it wasn’t time for figs to grow on it in the first place?
Of all the characters in the book, Jesus was the most confusing, and not just because it was hard to imagine what anyone looked like even if he tried to picture them. It took a long time for Atsushi to understand the verse as it might have related to himself.
If the holy light of Jesus belonged to the orphanage director, then it was Atsushi with only leaves in the tree he had become as he grew older. There was nothing of substance or worth about him, and so he was struck down as punishment.
For three years, Atsushi only read the bible. He fumbled through verses and phrases and vocabulary and flinched awake at night from nightmares of genocide and war. For three years, Atsushi found that he did not love reading.
And then he was given a book of fairy tales by a girl who came into the orphanage and was quickly adopted. She was a bit older, so she was good at reading them out loud to everyone and never complained when Atsushi sat in to listen. She left the book on her bed by accident when she left, so Atsushi stored it away with him until she came back to get it.
She never did.
So maybe he hadn’t been given the book so much as he had come to possess it.
Atsushi would not steal anything now that he was eighteen and had a salary of his own, but if he ever had it in his mind to, he would steal books. Reading was a luxury that he'd indulge until his death. Fairy tales, children’s books, novels, short stories, poetry collections- anything but the bible, really. Because despite his distaste for it, Atsushi had many verses memorized; mostly the kinder ones, but he was haunted by one in particular that popped up to the forefront of his mind when he first saw Dazai Osamu’s eyes go dull and his hand twitch towards the gun at his hip.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
Bloodthirst was not easy to pick out or identify in other people. It was generally just a vague unease that sometimes swelled into a fierce and overwhelming tidal wave that threatened to consume the one it was directed towards. Dazai’s bloodthirst was a wading pool, rippling out to anyone who stepped in the vicinity of it.
For the first time, Atsushi did not wonder what the devil might look like in human form.
But then there was Nakahara Chuuya.
The problem was that time was linear in the agency. Atsushi could wake up and it wouldn’t be dinner an hour later. There wasn’t a way to properly or reliably check out of his body and just exist aimlessly until it was time to sleep once again.
Meetings were scheduled and held to their set time, lunch followed at a reliable ticking of the clock, Dazai walked in to talk to the president at least once a week in the afternoon, and the routine was so seamlessly predictable in the office that it was comfortable. Atsushi’s only deviation came from jobs, run-ins with Akutagawa, and Nakahara Chuuya.
The knock was loud and obtrusive even from across the office.
In retrospect, Ranpo getting up to answer was the most out of character part of the whole encounter. Typically, Atsushi, Kenji, and Junichiro were the ones who’d answer the door. Kunikida tended to be too wrapped up in his work and Ranpo had the amount of unspoken (and spoken) superiority that said that he did not have to be the one to do it.
Atsushi was the only one paying keen and weary attention as Ranpo opened the door to Nakahara-san (Chuuya-san, he supplied. Dazai typically called the man Chuuya).
“How long’re you keeping him for?”
Who? Atsushi wondered, and then, you know who.
They weren’t talking loudly, but Atsushi’s hackles were raised violently fast at the undercurrent of upset in Ranpo’s voice. A primordial growl waited in his throat, tempered and shoved down and kicked for good measure until he relaxed back into his seat as Chuuya responded, gruffly, “the hell are you talking about? None of your business.”
Nakahara needed to leave. He needed to leave and never come back, but Ranpo stepped aside and Atsushi loathed to trust him, but he tried to relax again. Ranpo’s word was law in the office. “Kunikida! When’re the boss and Dazai going to be done?”
“Why?” Kunikida asked from Atsushi’s left, his head down to look over documents for a moment longer before it snapped up. “Nakahara-san, what are you doing here?”
And just like that, finally matching the distress Atsushi felt in the raise of his hackles, the rest of the agency was on guard. Even Yosano, lingering around the door to her office, peeked her head out fully to watch the interaction. Junichiro’s hand wandered towards his carry-on, and though Kyouka undoubtedly knew Nakahara, her hand was drifting along the handle of her knife. There was a duel instinct warring with Atsushi there too, because Byakou wanted to protect her, their sister, their little sister, but Atsushi could not take his eyes off of Nakahara for even a second.
As dangerous as the tiger was, Nakahara Chuuya was even more so.
“Business,” Nakahara said.
“Um,” Atsushi let slip, now forced to continue his thought when three sets of eyes turned towards him. “What kind of business, Chuuya-san?” He had to once again force his shoulders out of a hunch then, because business meant Nakahara was here to be cordial.
“Though it’s unprofessional to show up out of nowhere,” Kunikida tittered just a bit, irritation gliding through the straightening of his spine, “we are having a slow afternoon. Dazai is meeting with the president at the moment, but I’ll ask if he can meet with you afterward.” He flicked his pen with a once-over gaze aimed at Nakahara.
“My business is with Dazai, not the president, so I’ll wait until he’s done,” Nakahara said gruffly then, and it was so simply said that it took a half second to recognize the visceral anger that flooded Atsushi for a short but intense moment.
Dazai was dangerous, too, of course, but he was dangerous in the way that a glass cup on the edge of a countertop was dangerous. He could shatter on the floor at any moment, but the only real damage would be dealt to innocent passerby who stepped on the glass shards left scattered about.
Everyone in the office knew. Dazai was inherently wrong and no one could place exactly how. It was that simple fact, that simple concern that fought constantly with reflexive survival instinct, that had even Kenji tensing up, watching Nakahara with a keen, considering eye.
“What do you need with Dazai?” Kunikida very nearly demanded. “If it’s for anything serious, Dazai has the rest of the day off. The agency doesn’t violate off hours unless absolutely necessary.”
Dazai did have the rest of the day off. It wasn’t a good thing; although Atsushi felt certain that Dazai did not know, very little got done in the office when he had the day off. There was an undercurrent of concern that flowed through everyone, unspoken but true. Yosano especially hid her worry underneath scathing comments towards their coworker, but even she could not hide the way her eyes drifted to her phone, waiting for a call of notice from a hospital.
Even as Nakahara opened his mouth to respond, the door to the president’s office swung open gently. The president walked out first, followed by Dazai, cowed by the hunch of his shoulders until they straightened out as he walked through the door.
Atsushi knew the sound of teeth grinding together intimately.
His eyes snapped to Nakahara immediately.
“Oi, Dazai,” Nakahara called, so very clearly ignoring the sharp looks cast at him as he walked towards Dazai.
Atsushi took a slight shifting step forward, waiting, ready for the cue from Dazai as he turned to face his mentor-
.
..
…
Oh.
Dazai existed as a sub-human, some cataclysmic difference separating him from humanity and wedging through to deepen the divide. It was obvious from the air around him, the movements he made, the tone of his voice- Dazai was fundamentally different from every other person Atsushi had ever met.
The difference was jarring. It was a shock of lightning to his system, the kind of strangeness that even clients could feel. It coiled underneath his skin and hissed its deep green danger.
But that wasn’t right, was it?
Atsushi never would have noticed the emptiness in Dazai’s eyes if he hadn’t seen it filled in that moment.
“Chuuya~!” Dazai drawled, something like surprise tinging his tone. He was walking towards him too, meeting him in the middle, and Atsushi saw fluidity in his movements that had never existed there before.
Chuuya stopped him before he could get too close by thrusting the cup he was holding out toward him. “I got your stupid fucking tea, so start drinking and shut up.”
Dazai’s body locked up so briefly Atsushi would’ve thought he’d imagined it. “Ah, but how will Chuuya know where I want to go to lunch? I don’t think dogs can read minds.”
“Stop calling me a fucking dog,” Chuuya spat. “You’re not paying so you don’t get to decide where we’re eating, jackass, now grab your shit and let’s leave.”
It was that tone that reminded him of the faintly lingering threat. “Don’t talk to Dazai-san like-”
“I knew Chuuya would give in to paying!” Dazai chirped, skipping back towards his desk and effectively cutting off whatever protest Atsushi might have mustered up.
Huh.
It wasn’t much longer until Chuuya was tugging Dazai along out of the agency, ignoring their protests at the roughness. Dazai let him, though. He wasn’t sure what that said, what that meant, but it meant something.
The work day continued. Time went on, linear as ever, and slowly they all hid their concern once more, jokes and snide words decorating the office air, more quips against Dazai than not. They tried to be normal.
And Atsushi, faithless and atheist as he was, wondered at the humanity he saw in Dazai as he looked at Nakahara Chuuya.
2 Corinthians 11:14 - And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.