Open!

i love the Port Mafia. so much. they deserve so much love. 

They don’t really understand the word ‘family’. Most of them came under the care of the Port Mafia because they didn’t have one. No one was there to guide them, feed them, take care of them when they’re sick. The usual, stereotypical familial responsibilities seen in movies and tv shows.

Sure, a few of them had familial relations. Akutagawa has his sister, but few even know Gin is a girl or that they are related. And Mori has Elise, but no one tries to understand that relationship. Everything is twisted and not quite right. 

Yet Nakahara Chuuya remembers all the times Kouyou helped him patch up his wounds in his youth. The ice packs and stitches she would press into his skin because a mission went wrong or he trained too hard. Her hands were always gentile, her fingers delicate with only a small ‘tsk’ at each new hurt. 

“Chuuya, you need to be more careful,” she would admonish but a small smile would grace her features. He was only 12 and still had baby fat in his cheeks but he always worked so hard. 

“Ane-san, it’s fine,” the young boy would try and bite back but it did hurt and she did make it feel better. She always listened to him rant about how hard he works yet that stupid Dazai gets all the credit and recognition.

“Shitty Dazai,” Chuuya mumbled one day. Kouyou’s eyes widened before she releases a small laugh into her kimono sleeve. It was his first curse word. 

Akutagawa would never admit it, but he reminisces about the trip to the hot springs. It was rare he had a chance to speak with Chuuya-san, even during work. To hear him, an Executive and the top martial artist who worked harder than anyone and was known for his strength, say Akutagawa was strong and Dazai must have some plan for him was…touching. It was the recognition he desires, only Dazai-san can give that. But it was enough to make him at least consider coming out to those hot springs more if Chuuya-san was there. 

For Hirotsu, it’s the reason he stays. He has been part of the Port Mafia longer than some of the new hierarchy have been alive. He has seen the broken, starving children turn into confident and domineering forces of nature. He has also seen some of them consumed by the pressure and die, because they felt alone and decided destroying the Port Mafia would gain them power. 

Hirotsu is one of the few that knows and understands the truth strength of the Port Mafia. The reason why it continues to grow and thrive despite the setbacks and the volatile nature of their work.

The Port Mafia is family, at its core. It may be twisted, but so are the members. It may be untraditional, well they are all criminals after all. Yet they care, despite all of them vehemently denying it. The excuses are transparent like the cigarette smoke that passes his lips into the night air as he guides Kajii carrying a drunk Chuuya to his car. 

fandom: bungou stray dogs | kouyou & mori

notes: for  @portmafia-week day 1: then/now | words: ~800

summary: kouyou meets the old boss and the new boss in quick succession. she’s not quite sure what to make of the doctor and the quiet, sullen boy in his shadow. 

Sweeping out of the room in poorly disguised disgust, Kouyou places a handkerchief to her nose. The putrid stench of sickness still sticks to her skin, and if she weren’t being carefully watched by the guards outside the boss’ room, she’d have scoffed aloud. 

But it hardly matters, she muses privately, for her disapproval of the boss is quite the poorly kept secret, even in the lower circles. 

second day of PM week and apparently it’s also Aku love because that’s what i keep thinking of. enjoy! 

Akutagawa was familiar with the sun and the moon. He knew their rotations around Yokohama better than he knew the ways in which Rashomon would weave around him. The sun and the moon were the two constants in his turbulent life.

With the sun rise, Akutagawa pulls on his signature black coat over his shoulders before heading to Port Mafia HQ. He abandons the tea he had prepared that morning, half drank and cold in the darkness of his apartment. Much like everything else in his life. 

When the sun was high in the sky, the light beating harshly on his shoulders, Akutagawa found himself on the rooftops overlooking the Pacific Ocean. His phone clutched in his hand waiting for either a new mission or confirmation of a mission complete. It was always awkward, the waiting. The sun felt wrong on his body. Sweat always beaded on his forehead and dripped down his eyelashes. His lungs always seemed to clench tighter for breaths. Akutagawa hated the light. 

With the setting of the sun, Akutagawa turned to search for the rising moon. He always sat in a small cafe tucked in a corner next to the front window with the perfect view. It let him see the moon begin to crest over the Yokohama skyline. His hands were wrapped around a steaming cup of tea, gray eyes waiting for the comfort the night always brings. The cellphone previously clenched in anger and frustration but stayed silent now rang next to the black tea saucer. A moment passed as Akutagawa looked as the caller ID flashed ‘Boss-Mori’. Another moment passed as a stray thought that always crossed unbidden about not picking up and staying in the quiet moment. But he always answers, leaving a generous tip next to the empty tea cup to head out into the night.

When the moon shines bright in the night sky, shadows encasing the city in darkness, Akutagawa felt home. Or what he understood as a feeling of acceptance. No one truly accepted him like the night. It didn’t judge him. It didn’t tell him he was just a stray dog from the slums and useless. It didn’t glare and whisper he needed to care. Rashomon lashes across the alley, killing the random attackers, and the night keeps the single tear of monotony and doubt a secret. 

Written for Day Two of @portmafia-week

Daily Life | Historical AU

He sits in the café at his table alone, near the rear. Not quite in a corner but certainly in the back, set far away from the other guests and away from the illuminating natural light that pours in from the large café windows up at the front. He’s in the opportune place that, on the occasion that he looks up when the front doorbell chimes, he can see the entirety of the café from his spot—as if from an eagle-eyed perspective.

There’s the students who sit at the round table in the middle, their laptops out and their school chatter low. Innocuous. Then, there’s the elderly couple, always there on Thursdays to read and drink their coffee together. Akutagawa’s eyes linger on them a moment as they reach across the table, their hands clasped within each other’s. The man rubs his thumbs along the liver-spotted skin of his wife’s bony hand, and in return her lined and weathered face crinkles further into a grin.

A scoff leaves him and his eyes leave them, back to the inky kanji on the pages in front of him.

He sits.

He waits.

His Darjeeling is refilled once and the doorbell chimes three times before the fourth one rings. When he raises his eyes this time, he watches a little longer than before. He sees a man walk in—tall, suited, his hair combed back and a briefcase in his hands. He remembers the picture from the morning and though glasses cover much of the man’s face, he recognizes the long, thin line of scar that curves out from underneath the glossy black glasses, marring the otherwise immaculate face.