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The first time Akutagawa Ryuunosuke bathes in the Port Mafia headquarters, he does not undress.
The bathroom is larger than any room he and Gin have ever slept in. The tiles are white, the porcelain unchipped, the mirror unbroken. The light hums faintly overhead. It is clean in a way that feels like a lie.
He stands at the threshold for a long time, thin shoulders rigid beneath his worn black coat. The fabric is stiff with dried blood—some of it his, most of it not. His lungs burn from the evening’s smoke and from the coughing he refuses to let overtake him.
“Use it,” Dazai had said, waving a bandaged hand as though granting permission to breathe. “You’re Mafia now. Try not to stink up the place.”
Gin had watched him with wide, silent eyes.
Now the room is quiet except for the drip of the faucet.
Rashomon stirs against his back, a familiar, living weight. The ability does not like enclosed spaces. It does not understand “safe.”
Neither does he.
Ryuunosuke steps inside and locks the door.
He does not take off his coat.
He does not take off his shirt or trousers or boots. He turns the water on and waits until steam begins to climb the air.
Then he steps under the spray fully clothed.
The shock of heat makes him flinch. Rashomon snaps outward instinctively, a black blade flashing across tile before retracting at his sharp inhale.
“Stand down,” he whispers.
The water darkens the fabric until it clings to him like a second skin. Blood loosens and runs in thin, pink rivulets toward the drain. His sleeves grow heavy. His boots fill slowly, water sloshing around his ankles.
If he undresses, he is unarmed.
If he undresses, there would be a span of time where Rashomon would not be draped over him. When his skin would be bare.
He will not be bare.
He presses one palm flat against the wall and bows his head into the spray. The water pounds against his hair, his neck, his shoulders. It is too loud. Too exposed.
His breathing grows shallow.
He imagines footsteps outside the door. Imagines the handle turning. Imagines laughter.
The cough comes anyway—violent, tearing, bending him in half. Water floods his mouth. He chokes, sputters, claws at the wall to stay upright. Rashomon lashes outward again, shredding the shower curtain in a single, furious arc.
He gasps until the coughing subsides to a tremor.
He remains under the water long after the blood is gone.
—
The second time, Gin stands guard outside the door.
She does not say that she knows why he keeps his coat on. She only leans against the opposite wall, small and straight-backed, hands tucked into her sleeves. Anyone who walks past sees a child.
Anyone who looks closer sees the way her eyes never stop moving, and the knife strapped to her thigh beneath the tattered jacket she wears.
Inside, the water runs.
Ryuunosuke counts his breaths to the rhythm of the spray. Rashomon coils tighter than usual, its presence heavy and alert. Steam curls beneath the door and touches Gin’s boots.
When the coughing starts, she straightens.
“Ryuu,” she says quietly through the door. Not alarmed. Just present.
The coughing eases.
“I am fine,” he answers hoarsely.
There is a pause.
“I know,” she replies, softly.
She remains until the water shuts off.
When he opens the door, his clothes are soaked through, hair plastered to his face, skin pale beneath the heat. He does not meet her eyes.
Gin reaches up and brushes a damp strand of hair from his cheek. Her hand is cold and steady.
“You don’t have to,” she says.
He does not ask what she means.
“I do,” he answers.
Rashomon shifts, brushing lightly against her wrist like a restless animal. She does not flinch.
—
The third time, Chuuya finds out.
He nearly collides with Gin outside the bathroom.
“What’re you doing loitering?” he demands.
She glances at the door.
Chuuya hears the water.
He hears the cough.
His expression shifts—not softer, exactly, but sharper. Focused.
“He’s in there?”
Gin nods once.
Chuuya jerks his chin. “Move.”
“I am guarding,” she says.
“Yeah? So am I.”
He plants himself on the other side of the door, back against the wall and arms folded. If anyone approaches, they’d have to answer to him.
Inside, the water keeps running.
Chuuya stares at the opposite wall and pretends he cannot hear the hitch in Ryuunosuke’s breathing. Pretends he does not recognize that sound from nights he himself could not sleep without a weapon in reach.
When the water stops, he knocks once—sharply.
“Oi. You alive?”
There is a pause long enough to make his jaw tighten.
“Yes,” comes the strained reply.
The door opens.
Ryuunosuke looks smaller drenched. Coat clinging to narrow shoulders. Lips faintly blue from standing too long under the water without moving.
Chuuya’s gaze flicks down. “You bathe like that every time?”
“It is efficient.”
“Bullshit.”
Rashomon bristles faintly at the tone.
Chuuya doesn’t step back. He meets the ability’s invisible edge without blinking.
“No one’s gonna jump you in the damn shower,” he says.
Ryuunosuke’s eyes are flat. Unconvinced.
Chuuya exhales through his nose, irritated—but not at Ryuunosuke.
“…Tch. Fine.”
He reaches out abruptly and grabs the front of Ryuunosuke’s soaked coat. Not hard. Just enough to anchor.
“If you’re gonna do something that stupid, at least don’t lock yourself in alone. Got it?”
Ryuunosuke stiffens.
Gin watches carefully.
Chuuya releases him just as quickly. “You pass out in there, I’m kicking the door down. That’d be embarrassing.”
It is the closest thing to concern he offers.
Ryuunosuke does not know what to do with it.
—
The fourth time, Dazai comments.
He leans in the hallway, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable.
“So diligent,” he hums as the water runs. “A Mafia member who washes off his sins immediately. How admirable.”
Chuuya scowls. “Shut up.”
Gin does not respond at all.
Dazai tilts his head. “He keeps the coat on, doesn’t he?”
Neither of them answer.
Dazai smiles faintly. Not mocking. Not kind. Something predatory, sad.
“Interesting.”
Inside, Ryuunosuke stands under the spray, eyes closed. The water feels different tonight. Less like punishment. More like noise.
Rashomon shifts, restless.
He remembers Dazai’s words from earlier that week.
“You belong to the Mafia now,” Dazai had said, fingers ghosting along the edge of Rashomon’s manifested blade and dissipating it. “Which means you belong to me.”
Belong.
The word twists in his gut like a knife.
Under the water, his hands tremble.
Rashomon senses it and tightens around him instinctively, cocooning his body beneath the coat, fabric rippling unnaturally.
He is not alone.
The door remains closed.
Outside, Chuuya slides down to sit on the floor, back against the wall. Gin mirrors him on the opposite side. They do not speak.
Dazai eventually leaves.
When Ryuunosuke emerges, coughing and exhausted, he finds them both there.
Chuuya stands first, offering a hand without comment.
Ryuunosuke stares at it like it is a foreign object.
“…You’re shaking,” Gin says softly.
“I am not.”
Chuuya clicks his tongue and grabs his wrist anyway. His grip is warm and solid.
“You’re freezing.”
Ryuunosuke sways slightly.
For a moment—just one—Rashomon flares defensively.
Chuuya does not let go.
Gravity bends subtly around them, lightening the weight of soaked fabric so it doesn’t drag him down.
“Idiot,” Chuuya mutters. “You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
Ryuunosuke’s breath stutters.
Gin steps closer and takes his other hand.
Between them, he remains upright.
—
And the fifth time, he does not lock the door.
He leaves it cracked.
Steam spills into the hallway.
He still keeps his clothes on. The coat remains a shield, Rashomon alive beneath it. The water still pounds against fabric and skin alike.
But when the coughing comes, the door opens immediately.
Gin is there first, slipping inside without hesitation. Chuuya follows a second later, heart twisting at the sight of the shredded curtain and the claw marks in the tile.
“Dammit,” he mutters.
Ryuunosuke is on his knees in the shower, breath ragged, hands braced against the floor. Water soaks all three of them within seconds.
Gin kneels beside him. “Ryuu.”
He does not push her away.
Rashomon writhes uncertainly at their proximity, then stills when neither of them shows fear.
Chuuya reaches up and twists the faucet off. The sudden quiet is startling.
For a long moment, there is only the sound of three sets of breathing.
Ryuunosuke’s fingers dig into the tile. “If I remove it,” he whispers hoarsely, “there will be a chance.”
Gin understands immediately. Of course she does.
Chuuya does too.
“A chance for what?” he asks, voice low.
“For something to happen.” He trembles. “For someone to happen.”
Silence.
Chuuya crouches in front of him so they are eye level.
“Then we’ll be here for that chance,” he says simply.
Ryuunosuke blinks.
Gin reaches up and, very gently, places her hand over the clasp of his coat.
“Together,” she adds.
Rashomon quivers, uncertain. Protective. Frightened.
Ryuunosuke’s throat tightens.
The room is small. The air is still warm with steam. The tiles are cracked where his ability struck them before.
But there are hands on him that are not hurting.
There are eyes on him that are not hunting.
Slowly—so slowly—he nods.
His fingers move to the collar.
The coat slides from his shoulders.
For one suspended, fragile second, he is bare.
Nothing happens.
Chuuya remains in front of him. Gin remains at his side.
The world does not end.
Ryuunosuke’s breath leaves him in something dangerously close to a sob. He clamps down on it, but Gin wraps her arms around him anyway, small and scared yet still so strong.
Chuuya looks away pointedly and mutters, “Took you long enough.”
Yet his hand settles on the back of Ryuunosuke’s head, steady and unyielding.
As shelter.
—
+1
Later, much later, when the bathroom tiles have been repaired and the shredded curtain replaced, when the headquarters has gone quiet in that uneasy way it does past midnight, Ryuunosuke cannot sleep.
The room assigned to them is modest but clean. Two narrow beds. A small window overlooking the dark stretch of Yokohama’s harbor. The sheets are unfamiliar against his skin. Too soft. Too clean.
He lies rigid on his back, eyes open, counting the faint cracks in the ceiling.
Across the room, Gin’s breathing shifts.
“Ryuu,” she says softly.
He does not answer immediately. He knows better than to pretend sleep around her.
“Yes.”
A pause. Fabric rustles.
“Come here.”
It is not a question.
He sits up slowly. The room feels colder without the coat, even though it hangs within reach over the back of his chair. He crosses the small space between their beds.
Gin lifts the blanket without another word.
They have shared worse than this—shared floors, shared scraps of food, shared nights where sirens meant running and silence meant hiding. Shared cold that bit into bone and did not let go.
This bed is narrow, but they fit. They always have.
He lies down facing her. For a moment, they simply look at each other in the dim light.
Her hair spills across the pillow like ink. There are faint shadows beneath her eyes that no amount of safety has erased.
“You’re shaking,” she says quietly.
“I am not.”
She reaches forward and places her palm flat against his chest.
His heart is racing.
Gin does not comment. She only shifts closer until there is no space left between them, until his forehead rests against her shoulder and her arms wrap around his ribs.
He does not flinch at this contact. He never did when it came to Gin.
Her warmth seeps into him gradually, like fire into frozen hands. Not too sudden. Not too overwhelming. Just steady.
Gin presses her cheek against his hair.
“You did well,” she murmurs. “You let us stay.”
Chuuya’s steady hand. The silence in the shower. The second where nothing happened.
His fingers tighten in the fabric of her nightshirt.
“It was inefficient to resist,” he says.
Gin huffs softly against his temple. She does not argue the lie.
For a while, neither of them speaks.
The building creaks faintly as pipes cool. Somewhere far below, a door shuts. Footsteps pass and fade.
Ryuunosuke’s breathing gradually begins to match hers.
He is not used to this kind of quiet. Quiet without hunger gnawing at his stomach. Quiet without fear prowling just beyond a thin wall.
His body does not know what to do with safety.
Gin’s hand moves slowly up and down his back, a small, rhythmic motion. The same way she did when he coughed until he could not breathe. The same way she did when the nights were too loud and he pretended they weren’t.
“You can sleep,” she whispers.
He wants to say he is not tired.
Instead, his voice comes out small. “If something happens—”
“I’ll wake you.”
“And if you—”
“You’ll wake me,” she answers immediately.
It is a promise. It always has been.
He buries his face closer into her shoulder. Her pulse beats steadily beneath his cheek. Warmth builds between them beneath the covers.
His trembling eases.
Gin’s fingers curl lightly into the back of his shirt, anchoring him there. As if he might disappear if she loosens her hold.
He would not.
Not now.
His breaths grow slower. Deeper.
Just before sleep finally drags him under, he speaks again, voice barely audible.
“Gin.”
“Yes.”
“…I am glad you are here.”
Her arms tighten, just slightly.
“I know,” she says.