my solace, my sanctuary.
akutagawa ryuunosuke x reader.
hurt/comfort ?? fluff?? idk what to call this
the back of the book: chuuya sent akutagawa home on his birthday to spend time with his family. akutagawa doesn't know what he means by that.
note : happy birthday to my favorite boy, akutagawa !! this is very much self-indulgent, like idk what's happening here, i just know that i want akutagawa to be surrounded by so much love.
Akutagawa doesn’t celebrate his birthday. To be honest, he almost forgot that today was supposed to be something “special.” If his superior, Executive Nakahara Chuuya, didn’t shoo him away from the office earlier to “spend his day with your family, not rot here at work,” he would’ve gone through the day like normal. Mumbling a quiet “what family?” at his superior, fully knowing that the Mafia is aware of his upbringing, Chuuya pushes him out the door and leads him back home.
He returns home with a slight scowl on his face, wanting to turn back and go to work anyway, but he knows that Chuuya will just kick him out again until it turns midnight. The good thing about this, he realizes, is that he’ll spend this day with you.
As expected, you’re still sleeping soundly on your shared futon. Akutagawa’s work hours were very early in the morning, so even if you tried to wake up before him, you’d end up falling back asleep. He sits back down where he laid previously, watching the slow rise and fall of your chest. As if on instinct, you stir quietly, blinking up at your boyfriend beside you. You squint your eyes at him, almost not believing that he was there, then move your eyes to glance at the clock, which read five am, and back at him.
“You’re… home?” your voice still laced with sleep as you sit up, rubbing one of your eyes.
“Chuuya-san sent me home.”
You hum in acknowledgment, closing your eyes again. After a few seconds, you smile and pat your boyfriend on the back, “happy birthday, Ryuu. Do you have any plans?”
“... plans?”
Sighing quietly, you take a peek at his expression, seeing a genuinely confused look on his face. You rest your hand on his, rubbing his knuckles with your thumb. You’ve already predicted that Akutagawa would pass off this day like any other, not bothering even to acknowledge the date, so you’ve planned it out for him a week before.
His colleagues, Higuchi, Tachihara, Hirotsu, and his sister, Gin, would come over later, bringing him their gifts. At first, Akutagawa didn’t like the extra company: he seemed to enjoy the quiet tea time you two had before Tachihara repeatedly banged at your door, but he was thankful for their presence. They fed him the cake they bought on the way, giggling as his face scrunches up into a look of disgust when he realizes how sweet the cake is. He complains that it was a waste of time inviting them over, but Higuchi replies, "spending time with family is never a waste, Akutagawa-senpai!”
“Gin is my only family here.” He replies with a straight face, sipping on his tea afterward. A collection of whines and pretend sobs come from Tachihara, exclaiming, “aren’t we family, Akutagawa-san? I feel hurt!”
After his colleagues leave, you take him on a walk outside.
It was one of Akutagawa's preferred language of love: quality time. He takes you on midnight strolls around places in Yokohoma only he knows, or he takes you to the seaside to walk near the shore while gazing up at the night sky, or he takes you to the highest point in Yokohama to look down at the city below. Wherever it is, he likes to take you places to spend time with you, even if it's in silence. You knew he enjoyed taking walks with you, so you decided to return the favor.
As you're both padding through the park, you notice a bunch of colorful lights on the far right side of the park. Moving forward, you get a better view of the tents and stalls set up on the other side, the place filled with banderillas and led lights that make the area more bright than usual. There was a whole row of mini stalls that sold all the food you could think of, while there's a chance you might see someone selling crystals or even perfumes. It was a night market, essentially. You and Akutagawa were never really fascinated with these endeavors, but you wanted something different tonight.
"Ryuu," you tug on his dark coat, "can we go there?"
Akutagawa pauses his steps, looks towards the direction you're facing, and immediately grimaces. He doesn't like overly bright and crowded places, not to mention the contrasting smells and tastes he'll encounter while strolling.
"No, we can't go there" is what he wants to tell you, already hating the thought of walking through crowds and crowds of people, but the unusually happy sparkle in your eyes makes him hesitate to say no.
With a simple nod, you gesture to him to follow you on your way to the night market. You both walk in silence, the ambiance of talking people and loud, trendy music playing from the speakers filling your ears. Akutagawa starts to squint at the approaching lights, pausing every so often to readjust his eyes, deciding to focus on the back of your coat instead.
He quietly follows you inside the crowd, letting you take the lead. His eyes travel from different areas and land on a family of three sitting on a bench. The family looked happy, at least from his perspective, as the son kicked his little legs back and forth while licking his bright blue ice cream. The mother tended to the little boy’s shirt, wiping off the massive stain near his collar, while the father laughed at his wife’s fussing. Akutagawa liked to think that they were the standard definition of family, a group of parents and their children.
As you continue to examine the varying stalls, he spots another couple. One of the girls was crying, holding her cheek, while the other girl wiped her tears away with her thumb. He looks over to see a hammer game right next to them; then he assumes that the crying girl hit the target with the hammer too hard, resulting in it bouncing back on her face. The other girl holds her face in her palms, whispering quiet assurances as she leads her away from the crowd. Akutagawa thought that this is the more socially acceptable definition of family: people who comforted each other through hard times.
You mindlessly browse what the vendors have to offer: from tiny crystals and pendants to potted plants and succulents, you pause at a small stall that sells calligraphy brushes and pens. Looking up at your boyfriend, who’s looking at some arcade game, you tug at his coat to direct his attention to the stall. His eyes visibly widened at the selection presented, hands itching to reach out and test them for himself. Instead, he looks over to you.
“Looks pretty, right? Did you want to pick up anything?” you whisper to him, still looking at the calligraphy materials displayed. You knew that Akutagawa enjoyed doing calligraphy whenever he had time, clearing the living room table when he would. You also knew that he had started to throw out some old brushes that were beyond repair, hairs sticking out in different directions. He was also running out of the paper he used, and who knows, maybe he wanted to use something other than black ink.
“I don’t need anything,” he says despite his lingering gaze over the assorted color of inks, “I have everything I need at home.”
“If you take two ink bottles, I’ll give you two more for free. Same with the brushes.” the vendor suddenly speaks, an old woman who looked happier for someone who was selling these kinds of items. Akutagawa squinted at the older woman, and she only smiled wider. You chuckled at his reaction, reaching out to grab one of the ink bottles.
“You use Sumi ink, right? They have tons of colors here, Ryuu. Why don’t you go pick some?”
“I told you, I have everything I need at ho-”
“This looks pretty, doesn’t it? It’s a metallic silver!” you lift the bottle and tilt it around, showing the reflectiveness of the ink in the bottle. Smiling at your unamused boyfriend, you gesture towards the collection of inks, “come on, pick three more!”
You ended up picking out the other inks while he picked up some brushes instead. As you browse other color options, he locks eyes with a kid who tugs on his coat. He looks down at the little boy, recognizing him as the kid he saw earlier eating ice cream. The kid almost recoils at Akutagawa's scary resting face, but he stays put. Sniffling, the child tugs on his coat again. “Sir, have you seen my mom and dad? They were right here… !”
Akutagawa almost shakes off the tiny hand from his coat, telling him to scram, but he only takes a deep breath and looks up again, searching for the little boy’s parents. Instantly, he spots the couple a few meters away, frantically asking around, obviously looking for their missing son. He points towards the direction of his parents, and the kid follows his gaze. Once the boy recognized his parents, he uttered a quick “thank you!” and bowed half-heartedly as he rushed to them. The dad spots him almost immediately, kneeling to his level and catching him in his arms. He was aware that the kid was scared of him (and he tried not to look scary), so why didn’t he run away? Facing fear just to be reunited with his parents? He thinks, doing everything they can to be reunited with their family.
“Here, Ryuu.”
He looks back at you, holding a small paper bag with four different-sized brushes sticking out on one end. He mumbles a quiet “thank you” and accepts the bag. You smile, continuing to roam the night market.
Walking side-by-side, he glances around while you continue to look through the stalls. A group of teenagers catches his eye, laughing at pushing at each other lightly as they try to consume the cotton candy they each had as fast as they could. Looks stupid, he thinks; why would you eat cotton candy that fast? But as he stares more, they don’t care if they would choke or cough at the swift shoving of the candy down their throats. They’re having fun doing stupid stuff together. Another definition of family, Akutagawa thinks, is people you share stupidity- happiness, rather, with.
Following his line of vision, you notice that he’s staring at the kids eating cotton candy.
“Oh, did you want some cotton candy too?”
He doesn’t, but he nods anyway.
“Chuuya-san said I should spend time with my family,” he starts as you were a reasonable distance away from the crowd after eating the cotton candy, “and I didn’t understand what he meant by that. He knew that Gin was my only family.”
You nod along to his words, staring at his calm features. He wasn’t fond of maintaining eye contact whenever he spoke; he usually looked off into the distance or down at his shoes whenever he talked to you. He also wasn’t fond of speaking in general, so all your focus shifts to him when you hear his voice.
He swallows a newly formed lump in his throat, “you’re my family.”
He looks into your eyes, and you can tell he’s trying not to look anywhere else, “I thought the family was just… people you share the same blood with, people who have a child together, but you aren’t any of those things, and you still stick with me as family does. Why?”
You reach up to cup his cheek with your palm, smiling softly, “you said it yourself; I’m your family. I don’t have to be related to you, and I don’t have to have a child with you to consider you my family. Family can be anyone you want to be family with, as long as you stay with each other when you get hurt, when you get happy and when you get sad.”
“Higuchi, Tachihara, Hirotsu… can they be my family, too?” he asks, and you can’t help but feel your stomach sink at the sincereness in his voice.
“If you want to.”
He nods, leaning in into your touch, “but you’re different.”
“Mhm.”
In the end, Akutagawa did spend his birthday with his family. He wouldn’t have traded it with anything else.