#akazaki

Part The Second! 44. “We cannot let the faeries see this.”

So I chose Akazaki for this because I had the loose idea of them getting drunk and into trouble. I dunno how it turned out. Probably a bit out of character but here it is anyway. Imma try not to overthink it. XD

~

"Who'd have thought we'd be drinking with faeries?" Akabayashi chuckled as he sauntered down the hallway, drink in hand, swaying a bit. He used the other hand to gesture at the stone walls, seemingly overgrown with ivy that parted to reveal the occasional wall hanging or sculpture hidden in small recesses. 

"Some good liquor they're serving" Aozaki replied. "Tastes like fruit juice but it sure packs a punch."

Akabayashi grinned and took another sip. "With Izaya and Shiki getting political with the important people… Faeries… "

"Whatever," Aozaki interrupted.

"Yeah, so, what say we explore this place?"

"You mean snoop." Aozaki gave Akabayashi a glare.

"Call it whatever you want. I want to see what these faeries are hiding."

"Why? Doesn't involve us any. Dunno why they even invited us. Or why Shiki got involved. Yakuza shouldn't be dealing with this kind of thing."

"Always so narrow-minded. Imagine what we could do if we had faerie allies with their abilities."

"Nothing we couldn't do without them. Might be useful but you can't trust 'em."

"That's why we're investigating." Akabayashi stopped in front of a set of double doors, ornately carved wood depicting a script neither of them understood. He tried the door and, finding it unlocked, pushed it open. "After you."

"This is your bad idea."

Akabayashi grinned and shrugged, stepping into the room. Aozaki followed despite his criticism, throwing back the last of his faerie wine. They looked around the room, Akabayashi overtly curious while Aozaki’s expression was one of bored disinterest. The room was full of more faerie art; paintings on walls, sculptures and vases on the floor or pedestals, and hanging tapestries that served as decoration and divider. Tables of food and refreshment had been set up in this room as well, drawing a grin from Aozaki as he traded his empty glass for a new one.

"Nice. More wine." Aozaki examined the food, grunting at the assortment of fruits and bite-sized pastries.

"Guess this isn’t off-limits.”

“Did the unlocked door give it away?”

Akabayashi rolled his eyes and began wandering the room, grabbing another glass of wine as he examined the artwork. “Maybe Shiki should offer to sell their art in the gallery.” He mused, half-joking. “Come here, there’s another set of doors.” 

“Or I could stay here and enjoy the wine.”

"You have no sense of adventure."

"I have better priorities." Aozaki raised his glass and downed it.

"Just grab the bottle." Akabayashi pushed open the doors onto a new room, this one lit by flickering candles and decorated in gauzy drapery. "This looks promising. You coming or not?"

Aozaki sighed and grabbed a bottle, taking a long pull from it then following Akabayashi. "I guess I should keep an eye on you."

Akabayashi snorted. "Don't strain yourself."

 "Shut up. What's the point of this? We're not going to find any secrets this way. Kick down a locked door, you"ll have better results."

"And bring whatever guards they have running? Stupid." Akabayashi stepped through the doorway and into what appeared to be the artist’s workroom. He examined the canvas set up on an easel then turned his focus to the brushes scattered on a tray nearby.

Aozaki settled into a chair, watching Akabayashi. "Might be fun to fight them skinny fuckers. Mess up their pretty faces. They don't look like they’d put up much of a fight though.” 

“Is there anyone you wouldn’t fight?”

“Sure. Lots of people. I wouldn’t bother with most of them but guards are fair game.”

“You ever take art classes in school?”

“The fuck kind of weird question is that?”

Akabayashi picked up a brush with a grin. “I always thought art class was pretentious. Bunch of snobs talkin’ ‘bout what art really is.”

“Good thing you’re not in charge of the galleries with that attitude.”

Akabayashi snorted and put down the wine bottle, studying the small tubes of paint instead. “Even Shiki wouldn’t call the knockoffs we sell art.”

“Hey, the originals we’re ripping off are real art.”

“Stay still. I’m gonna paint you.” Akabayashi grinned at Aozaki but the other just rolled his eyes. 

“Idiot. Don’t mess with the faerie art.”

“I forgot you don’t know what a joke is.”

“Sure I do. Your jokes are just shitty.”

“So you don’t want a portrait?”

“It’ll probably look like a five-year old’s first drawing.”

“As if you could do better.”

Aozaki snorted and pushed himself to his feet. “Bet I could. Give me that brush.”

Akabayashi grinned. “Bet you can’t.” He replied as he tossed the brush at Aozaki then grabbed another one, turning to the blank canvas.

It wasn’t long before the two were laughing at their best attempts at art, completely terrible cartoonish drawings of each other that got worse with every brush stroke. They were finally interrupted from their fun by the insistent chiming of a clock that filled the room, reminding them that they’d been away from the party for nearly an hour. 

Akabayashi stared mournfully at the empty bottles of wine while Aozaki contemplated the canvas. “We cannot let the faeries see this.”

Akabayashi snickered. “Probably should have considered that before you started painting.”

“Think we can sneak it out to the car?”

“Without someone seeing us? Impossible. Just leave it here, they won’t find it till tomorrow and by then it won’t matter. Maybe they’ll even hang it in their gallery. Let’s go find more wine.”

Some select examples, just to drive the point home: 

Aozaki:    “I don’t care how much you’ve bullied your way around out there—we don’t give prizes for that here, Mister Playground Bully.”

yea, you tell him buddy

Vorona: "Are you foolish? An executive of the organization should not show himself so proudly alone in front of people like us."

Aozaki: "…Miss, your Japanese sucks."

oh no he’s hitting below the belt now

Aozaki:   “Ha. So everything else goes, but drugs are off-bounds? What, you wanna be the outlaw in a ninja movie?”

i like how he is specifically singling out ninja movies, as if the 'anti-villain with principals' trope doesn't exist anywhere else,

Aozaki: beep boopin’

Fluffy:

I’veseen ppl complain that it’s impossible to write fluff for these two, and like. Yougotta remember that these two both have seriously screwed up ideas of love/affection. So it’s not that fluff is impossible; it’s justthat what’s “fluffy” for them is totally horrifying to everyone else. 

Basically:

Aozaki refuses (Refuses) to let Shinra anywhere near him (and who can blame him honestly), and will usually try to walk off his injuries, no matter how severe or,,,,,,,,,,, gaping, they are. Akabayashi has given up on trying to point out how unreasonable this is and just busts out a needle and fishing line whenever Aozaki decides to catch a knife with his abs. 

He’s actually pretty proud of how good he’s gotten at stitching up flesh wounds, but no one ever seems impressed when he tries to brag about it. :(

Aozaki breaks up drug rings in his spare time, makes excuses that he only does so b/c he hates the idea of Akabayashi getting to take the moral high ground for any reason, and every last member of the awakusu-kai (including akabayashi) just rolls their eyes bc this is like the fiftieth time they’ve heard that excuse and it’s starting to get embarrassing,,

Aozaki eventually proposes using the severed finger of some punk that was giving Akabayashi trouble, and Aka just “:) :) :)”

alternatively, aozaki threatens to poke out akabayashi’s left eye and the exchange that follows is basically “ha ha if u pull that off i guess i’ll have to marry u” “wh--”

For less horrifying/questionable headcanons, Akabayashi’s favorite color is actually blue and Aozaki’s favorite color is actually red!

and akabayashi definitely takes full advantage of the fact that ppl sometimes assume that he is the “blue oni of the awakusu-kai” bc he’s…. wearing a blue shirt lmao. 

aozaki loudly complains about how the color red has been “ruined forever” for him, continues to wear red spectrum clothes anyway,

This is arguably already canon but They’re usually the first people to jump to each other’s defense, even if they do it in roundabout ways! 

Tellingly, Akabayashi has actually never spoken badly about Aozaki behind his back. He also refuses to play along with other characters (i.e. Shiki/Mikiya) who DO try to shittalk Aozaki– like, he’ll either change the subject or dish out points in Aozaki’s favor instead.

Equally tellingly, Aozaki has never once harassed Akabayashi over his past or the rumors that surround him, even though doing so would be one of the better/easier ways to hurt him. 

I’m not saying Akabayashi gave Aozaki his bangles but

Akabayashi gave Aozaki his bangles 

Aozaki is by far Akabayashi’s maximum favorite person to tease, because he’s the only one who A) gives back as good as he gets, and B) actually gives Akabayashi some kind of reaction (read: attention). To Akabayashi, there’s no fun in teasing someone who wont even react or fight back– which is why he doesn’t go out of his way to tease Shiki or Kazamoto.

Akabayashi has also developed a habit of writing down Aozaki’s more… “creative” insults, for later use. 

His current online handle is one example of this (”Gaki”, with the root Aozaki-ism being “Gakitaisho”)

Aozaki and Akabayashi once got wrapped up in a mission that forced them to work together on December 24th, and the irony of it being a super-duper romantic couples-only holiday wasn’t wasted on either of them (or any of their asshole colleagues). 

At some point Aozaki gets mistaken for one of santa’s elven helpers by a throng of rosy-cheeked elementary schoolers (b/c his ears are just Like That?? for some reason)– Akabayashi gleefully feeds their delusion by showing them pictures of Aozaki and Dougen that were very suspiciously saved to his phone.

“See? Here he is with santa! :)))”     “…….!!!! :O”

And Aozaki tolerates this for about five minutes before he shoots them all a glare that sends them scuttling; Akabayashi is just impressed that he even lasted that long.

Movie night happens at Aozaki’s place and his entire collection consists of nothing but B-grade yakuza flicks (on VHS tape, natch). Aozaki takes the plot & characters -very seriously- and sulks like an absolute child whenever Akabayashi starts playing with his cellphone or making sarcastic comments during all of ““””the best scenes”””””.

Nota headcanon, but the Awakusu-ninkyo side story is basically the akazaki bibleand it serves as a good blueprint for how “fluff” would realistically play out between them. Pls give it a read if you haven’t!

Sad:

Aozaki is going to die first, and he’s going to die hard– and Akabayashi isn’t going to know how to process it because he’s never allowed anyone from “his world” to get that close to him before. 

Like Akabayashi, Aozaki is someone who takes intimacy with others very seriously. He values relationships where everything is very clearly defined and he doesn’t have to constantly second guess himself– and this is mainly because Aozaki is so bad at processing his own emotions, so the added stress of having to process SOMEONE ELSE’S emotions as well would just frustrate him to no end (and as you can guess, this is one of the main sources of friction in his relationship with Akabayashi).

But seriously, a fusion of them would probably just be little more well-adjusted b/c their respective strengths would compensate for their individual hang-ups.

Aozaki’s temper would be somewhat mitigated by Akabayashi’s “easy-going” nature (though i imagine that when a fusion of their personalities does get mad, it’d be pretty terrifying b/c you are combining akabayashi’s cold fury with ao’s proclivity towards casual murder).  And Akabayashi’s inability to bond with his peers (or anyone else, really) would benefit from the fact that Ao is, somehow,, still the only awakusu executive who seems capable of forming a strong bond with a fellow yakuza. of course i’m not saying that aozaki was secretly the most well adjusted awakusu all along– but he is the only awakusu so far who has been shown to have a mutually affectionate, mutually respectful, and somewhat semi-healthy relationship with another gangster ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  So a fusion of the two might  have an easier time getting along with the other executives– especially if you can combine Akabayashi’s natural charisma/”friendliness” with Aozaki’s more candid, up-front nature.

Also, Ao’s ability to dedicate himself entirely to “the organization” would fuse with Akabayashi’s valuing himself as an individual above all else, etc etc etc 

Aozaki would most likely misinterpret his emotions as “feeling disappointed that he wasn’t the one to finish Akabayashi off,” imo. He'd probably throw himself into his work afterwards, taking on increasingly dangerous assignments and picking increasingly unwinnable fights without any regard for his own safety.