Everyone finds out who their soulmate is through different ways. Some has their first words marked on a certain body part. Some has a red thread that leads to their soulmate. Some can't see color until they meet their soulmate. And etcetera.
Meanwhile, Atsushi Nakajima isnt in the orphanage, like in the original, and lives a normal life with a family who adopted him. However, his soulmate, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, was brought into the mafia (by port mafia executive dazai osamu) and was being constantly tortured by his mentor. Since soulmates share pain, Atsushi could feel all of Akutagawa’s pain– albeit it’s less painful than what his soulmate is feeling– Atsushi is still getting hospitalized because of the pain it brings. There’s no mark in his body, but he can feel it as if he’s the one that’s actually getting abused.
Few years passed, and atsushi finally graduated college, the pain lessened. Atsushi assumed that his soulmate was saved from his abuser. But in actuality, it was because dazai, his abuser, deflected the mafia and joined a detective agency instead.
atsushi joined that same agency after saving dazai from drowning in a river. as an agency member, his colleagues gave him a warning on interacting with port mafia members. after that, he unfortunately met with a port mafia member and fought with him. it was akutagawa. both of them felt a pull but ignored it so both of them didnt figure out that theyre each other's soulmate. not until after they were partnered up by dazai, fought side by side in missions, and fought each other that atsushi realized that akutagawa's his soulmate. akutagawa didnt notice because he cant figure out which pain is which and he thinks all the pain he's receiving is his pain. atsushi doesnt know what to do. he cant even talk about this to dazai bc he found out that dazai was a port mafia member and was the one responsible in abusing akutagawa when he was a kid, and in turn he abused atsushi too because he felt all of akutagawa's pain from back then too (but ofc dazai doesnt know that. thats why atsushi doesnt blame him much). So atsushi decides to face this problem head on and confront akutagawa. Akutagawa denies it for a while bc he says he hates atsushi. But along the way, atsushi falls in love with akutagawa. And then even tho akutagawa continues to say he hates atsushi, he found himself falling for him too.
A year later, atsushi asked him to be his boyfriend, and now theyre dating. They still fight a lot though and are still enemies (since akutagawa’s from the mafia and atsushi is from the detective agency).
i've been trying to write this into an actual fic but im too lazy rn lmao...