Star Crossed (Chuuya x Reader)

(C. 15) Time

A/N we're changing Rampo's age when he meets Fukuzawa from 14 to 17 to make this timeline work. We're also making Yosano 17 when she gets recruited instead of 14 for the same reason. Sorry y'all.

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Nothing changes all that fast and time does not heal all wounds but, it certainly helps. The formation of the Agency hadn't been easy. There had been mounds of paperwork with complex language Y/n had struggled to understand. It had been a uphill battle but, it was an uphill battle that they had won.

Fukuzawa had rented a new apartment, one that had three bedrooms rather than two. For the first time in her life, Y/n had a place that was not only safe but entirely her own. Sometimes, she still pulled a cot into Fukuzawa or Rampo's room, unable to sleep for the lack of bodies around her, for the silence. As time passed, it became less and less frequent. Before she knew it, six months had passed.

That first night in the big empty office that would become the home base of their operation, Y/n, Rampo, and Fukuzawa gathered in a circle on the floor and ate takeout: their favorite tradition to mark when something was beginning.

She turned sixteen. The Agency was still small, just the three of them working hard. There were still days where she couldn't stand for the strength of her loss, for the grief but, she was beginning to learn to live with it. Y/n knew it would never go away, not completely, and she didn't want it to. After all, Fukuzawa had been right when he had told her that the reason it hurt so much was because the care she had had for Chuuya had been real. If the strength of her pain showed the strength of her love, she had decided she never wanted to stop hurting.

They didn't get too many jobs at first. Even with all the press surrounding the incident at the theater, it had taken them so long to get the Agency set up with all the permits it needed that such publicity didn't translate into many real jobs. However, with each job they did take, more followed.

Rampo turned eighteen and not long after, they caught word of a woman who had been locked in an institution for her part in the great war. Apparently, she had quite the prestigious healing ability. It didn't take too much for them to get her on their side.

She was timid at first but, as the only other woman working in the Agency, quickly developed a close bond with Y/n. The pair become inseparable, Y/n looked up to Yosano like the big sister she never had.

For Y/n's seventeenth birthday, she had accidentally revealed to Yosano that she had never had a birthday party before, and the doctor had thrown her an extravagant party. The office was covered in streamers and there was a big cake for them all to share. Y/n had nearly cried and really did burst into tears when Fukuzawa gave her her present, revealing that he had officially adopted both Rampo and herself.

Jobs became more frequent and their reputation grew. As another year passed, the now eighteen year old ability user made friends, ones outside the detective Agency, and even joined a band. 

Another thing that had changed with time was Y/n's own comfort with her ability. For years, she had beaten it down, thought it to be an embarrassment, a curse, useless. While she still had to defend it's use, and even was teased by her coworkers for it in comparison to their own abilities on occasion (lovingly of course), she had begun to find a sort of pride in it. More often than not, the newly nineteen year old could be found half transformed, her ears mingling gently with her hair as they tumbled down her back. 

With the arrival of two new employees just after her twentieth birthday, Dazai Osamu and Kunikida Doppo, she realized suddenly that she was enjoying life without guilt. 

She struggled with that idea, mourned the fact that her grief had lessened, that it had become livable. She thought it should always have been as brutal and all consuming as it had been at the beginning but, there was nothing to be done. Still, sometimes she would see a pair of children running after one another, she would catch a glimpse of a particularly bright patch of red hair, she would look the wrong direction, and it would crash back over her in a wave.

Dazai saw the grief this girl carried and realized it was similar to his own, if a bit further progressed. Without needing to tell the other their stories, each found a sort of solace in the other.

Kunikida had been hesitant about her at first, just the same way he had been with Rampo. They were both so childish after all, and with the way Y/n dressed? All fishnets and black? It was hard for him to take her seriously. That all stopped the first time he was sent on an assignment with the pair.

The more time passed, the larger the Agency grew and the more of a home it became. With the additions of the Tanizaki siblings and Kenji, her surety of self and confidence only grew. By the time she was twenty one, she realized Fukuzawa had done what he had promised: they had made a safe haven for Y/n, Rampo, and others like them. The Agency was her pride and joy and the rag tag band she had formed with her friends before was gaining some traction in Yokohama's underground music scene.

With her twenty second birthday just around the corner, she moved into a small house on the outskirts of the city, which she shared with her adoptive older brother. Over the years, they had fallen into a sort of pattern with one another. They protected each other, took care of each other, and, of course, caused all sorts of mischief for the Agency with one another.

The newest addition to their numbers was Atsushi: a boy who could turn into a tiger the way Y/n could become a rabbit. The revelation that there was someone else like her out there in the world was astounding to Y/n, life changing even. She quickly became a mentor-like figure to the younger boy, along with Dazai.

Time had passed and time had done its job. She had found a life, built a life, learned to live and Fukuzawa had been right, everything she did was still stitched with Chuuya's color. And Fukuzawa had been right, she had put one foot in front of the other. She still held the boy tightly in her heart, the memory of him anyway. She chose to move past their final meeting, the things he had said to her, everything that had occurred. She chose to stop blaming herself for his death and learned to be brave, to never again stand on the sidelines when she could intervene.

It was the seven year anniversary of Chuuya's death. Yes, time had passed and time had done it's job and, although she didn't know it, as Y/n headed home to get ready for a show her band was playing, halfway across the city, a certain red haired young man was thinking about her too.