#What Remains by frogmouth (91frogs) on ao3

[kyouka-supremacy]

you never miss about chuuaku can we hear more thoughts about them from you pretty please

Aawwwwww, thank you!!! Here's even more chuuaku thoughts. This is how their relationship would play out in my opinion:

Akutagawa joins the pm, picked up by Dazai. When he joins the pm, Chuuya is... Vaguely sympathetic for him, but not to a particularly great extent really. He's a traumatized kid from the slums, but that doesn't make him any different to like 95% of the other people Chuuya has met in the pm. Chuuya barely spares a thought for him beyond remarking how he's been twice unlucky to be recluted by Dazai of all people. He probably stops a second to wonder whether there was a meaning to Dazai choosing him - because nothing happens by chance with Dazai -, but doesn't waste too much thinking over it because it's useless to try and understand what goes through Dazai's twisted mind anyways. At this point Akutagawa just joined, and is probably not even aware of Chuuya's existence yet.

Akutagawa spends time in the pm under Dazai's training. Chuuya has slowly grown a subtle disliking for him– nothing like outright animosity, but he's annoyed, on one hand, by Akutagawa's ruthless and chaos-ridden way of executing missions, on the other, by how blindly loyal he is to Dazai. He doesn't really dwell on how Dazai is training Akutagawa; it's none of his business, he's in no place to judge how other pm members train their disciples, and it's the mafia, he never expected to find kindness in it to begin with; he'd twist his nose in disapproval whenever he catches a glimpse of what Dazai is doing to his trainee, but it's also like the tenth worst thing he's seen Dazai doing, so he doesn't really think about it.

Akutagawa, on the other end, is fastly growing hostile to Chuuya. He adores Dazai and trusts anything he says, and Dazai is constantly acting like he hates Chuuya– how could it be any different? He's still a child, and a very immature one at that. He's damaging a lot. Not to mention, he can sense Chuuya and Dazai share this connection, this complicity he can only dream to have with Dazai; his antipathy for Chuuya is heightened by jealousy in the partnership he shares with Dazai.

Dazai leaves, and hell breaks loose at the pm. Chuuya and Akutagawa are both left behind, alone and broken. They're hurting like no one can understand– no one except the other. And I don't think they talked about it right away, that year, or the year after that, and I don't think it visibly brought them closer in the immediate; but even then, they must know they're the only ones who can understand each other's pain. Especially on Chuuya's end, who is a little less repressed and a little more emotionally intelligent, this must have been the first time he felt strong sympathy for Akutagawa; because he's going through a lot, and he gets it. He gets what it feels like to be left behind without a warning or a word. He gets how it must have been, if possible, even worse for Akutagawa: because Chuuya loved Dazai, but he also hated him, and their relationship was so complex and infuriating it must have been in part relieving when he left. But Akutagawa loved Dazai blindly and without reservations, and the whole world collapsed upon him when he left, because he was his whole world, and now he's not there anymore. He was just 16.

The ship kind of sails off from there, slowly, gradually. Everyone at the pm expected Akutagawa to leave in the following days. For some reason, he doesn't. Things slowly go back to normal. Years pass, and time heals, I guess. Akutagawa's furious rage through which he would take out his pain gradually morphs in efficiency in carrying out his missions. He has to relearn what it means to have free will, but he's slowly coping. He got a promotion. Overall, he's more mature, and that ends up shrinking the distance between him and Chuuya. At first, it happens casually: waiting together that it stops raining so they can go home after a long mission, and Chuuya initiates conversation. Eventually, they end up spending more time together– at first coincidentally, because of their shared status of high ranking members, and later intentionally. Soon enough, they realize the other was actually so different than the image they had made up of them; and with that unconsciously arises the wish to learn what the other is actually like. And it's gradual and unintentional, untill they get to a point where they've become each other's safe place– they become the person they know isn't going to abandon them. It's kinda sweet :)

#Just yesterday I read a very good fic on chuuaku's slow burn from their shared hurt when Dazai left. #What Remains by frogmouth (91frogs) on ao3 #ryūnosuke akutagawa #chūya nakahara #chuuaku #Dazai is such a fundamental element in ss/kk's relationship but it's not like it's any different when it comes to chuuaku. #That man really is fated to sign every life he comes in contact with... #bsd #bungou stray dogs #mine #people asks me stuff #Thank you for asking!! I love talking about them :)