I want to be an idle teen.

58.A stubborn reckless idiot

The fresh air did wonders for his clouded mind.

Atsushi's rage still felt quite foreign. It felt unreal, due to the fact that he never truly allowed himself the privilege of anger. Annoyance, depression, resentment was always present.

But…anger, anger was strange.

It felt all consuming and even when he knew he shouldn't press, that he shouldn't dig the knife even deeper in the two men's gut, he still did, just to get rid of it.

So, now that he was kind of back to his normal headspace, he did feel like quite an ass. Instead of working through all of it, he decided to snap at them. But, he wouldn't go back on any of his statements, even if asked right now for his opinion on the entire situation, so….

With that in mind, the tiger ordered another glass of lemonade at the cafe, and dialled up a number.

"Yo, 'Tsu? What's up?" Tachihara's familiar voice called from the other side of the line  sounding quite a bit confused.

"Can you and Gin-san come over to the Shoya cafe?" He asked, as he swirled the lemonade around, eyes blankly staring ahead.

"Is everything alright?" The redhead questioned in turn, puzzled by his sudden invite.

"I just want to talk for a bit." Atsushi decided to say, taking a sip of his drink as he zoned out of the rest of the few short words that Tachihara ended up mumbling before agreeing to head over with Gin.

They needed to talk. Atsushi needed to talk to them about this. This concerned them as a team, and they should know that Atsushi was the reason why one of their coworkers, maybe the hardest working oen, was put at such risk.

They also needed to communicate on what their team's next step should be.

And yet, even once the two arrived, he had no way of approaching the topic.

"Is Akutagawa alright?" Was the first thing that came out of his mouth, as he licked his dry lips, looking down at his drink instead of at the two.

"The bastard will live." Tachihara shrugged, which didn't make him feel any better at all, actually.

He looked at Gin, who seemed…worried. Worried and yet oddly calm for someone who listened in on the entire thing. Knew that her brother ended up in this situation because of Atsushi.

"I'm sorry." The tiger mumbled, as he gripped the glass, making Gin blink.

"It wasn't your fault. Those were the orders." The woman said, her voice not wavering even a bit.

"And you're fine with that?" He couldn't help but question, feeling a tight knot in his stomach.

"Yeah."

That's the one thing he disliked about his team and the organisation as a whole. Orders weren't definite in his opinion. If they weren't done with the best possible outcome for everyone, then the orders were useless.

Osamu and Chuuya had only their personal gain and the person they cared about in mind, disregarding the life of one random teammate simply because Atsushi was more important to them. Not because he was more promising, not because he could bring more for the agency, but because they had private life entanglements with him.

Which is why he was uneasy about this relationship in the first place.

"Whatever Dazai says, we do." She continued, as she pushed a strand of long dark hair behind her ear.

"And if he did it for personal reasons?" Atsushi bit back, as he stared at the table.

"Even so. He's done a lot for us. For me. For Akutagawa. " Gin muttered, as she tried to explain it to Atsushi, clearly withholding some details.

"For the entirety of the port mafia."

The words were spoken quietly, as the girl recalled memories from the past, a bit haunted by them.

"You…you're both new. You don't know him, them , like I do." She finally said, as she darted her eyes between Tachihara and Atsushi, clearly trying her best to hold back from spilling secrets of the mafia's old ways.

Which only urged Atsushi more to try and find everything out.

"No matter what they do, they saved us from a hell much worse."

He bit his lip. So, clearly both Gin and Akutagawa were fine sacrificing their lives for the two.

That still didn't make the wrongs that they did any better. If not because of the needless harm that came Akutagawa's way, then because of the fact that they were overbearing and overly controlling.

They liked having everyone simply obey their words.

And that might go by the entirety of the port mafia, but Atsushi would not allow the two to leash him.

He was nobody's precious pet, not one of those crusty white dogs that he saw people wear inside of their bags as accessories.

But he also wasn't a beast either.

Atsushi was a human. He was a boy, a young man, who had every right to pose his boundaries and set them in place.

And both as an employee, and their lover, he had the right to demand respect for both his beliefs and request that he be allowed to do his job without outside interference.

"I do believe that I'll never truly understand your connection to them." He mumbled, as he took a deep breath, letting the glass escape his grasp and land back down on the table.

"But I'll also let you know right now that I'm uncomfortable with any of you following those types of orders."

The silence was deafening as the two awaited the rest of his sentence.

"I'd like ask you to tell me in advance when you get them, if you decide to follow them so I can simply quit the mission." Gin opened her lips, but before she could interrupt him, he raised his hand and looked at her apologetically. He hated to leave them hanging but he did need to get this off his chest before he could forget his point or worse, back down. "I'll also have a talk with our superiors about my personal boundaries and maybe…" He took a shaky breath, before finally letting the words slip past his lips.

"If, if our morale becomes far too spread on the scale, I'll have to part ways here."

Tachihara was the first to react.

"Fuck off. You're not quitting and leaving me here with that emo bastard." He chuckled  trying to make it into a joke. But all Atsushi did was stare at him, with the same old blank expression.

"You're….you're not, right?" The man giggled nervously, still getting that dead panned look.

"You're…a good addition to the team, Atsushi. I would hate for you to part ways with us." Gin said next, as she tried to gather her thoughts and pick her words carefully.

"That all depends on our superiors, after all." He smiled, as he took the last sip of his drink, and stood from the table, leaving behind the two worried and anxious coworkers, who shared a look of understanding.

They both realized then, that Atsushi wasn't a reckless idiot. He was a stubborn reckless idiot.

-RAN:I sure do wonder what else Atsushi might have in mind and I also wonder how Mori and the history of the PM might get revealed to him. Perhaps....our kitty doesn't only have claws for slicing, but also digging, if you know what I mean.