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It starts out innocently enough, really.
Kyouka was fairly sheltered to begin with, and most of her opportunities to have normal childhood experiences were shattered the night she became an orphan. So when Atsushi found a small but still functional TV at the thrift shop one day, along with a stack of DVDs that looked like something a girl her age might like, he’d splurged a bit and brought it home. It’s the start of a bit of an addiction, honestly; Kyouka instantly falls in love with the idea of magical girl teams and has to be reminded to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but it’s worth it to see the expression on her face.
Sometimes Atsushi watches with her; the plots are simple enough, and the animation is pretty with lots of bright colors and sparkly attacks. It’s a soothing distraction, and Atsushi finds himself getting more invested in it than he thought. And the outfits.... The outfits are so pretty, he finds himself wondering if he could take inspiration from them, if he could wear something like that. He’s never had the money to buy his own clothes before; he thinks he’d like to try it.
He takes Kyouka thrifting with him the next weekend, managing to find a grey newsboy cap for himself plus a warm sweater with a scalloped collar for when winter comes, while Kyouka buys herself a purse and a pack of colorful hairpins. She smiles that evening, pinning back her bangs, and Atsushi is hit by a pang of longing he can’t explain.
Is he...jealous?
Kyouka is cute. It’s a simple statement of fact; her short stature and innocent features make her look younger than she is, and she’s not afraid to use this to her advantage. She’s won over most of the agency with it, and occasionally is approached by excited strangers on the street, complimenting her fashion sense and long tresses. She handles this with grace, and pays no attention to the doting glances she garners.
Atsushi remembers well from his time at the orphanage; beautiful children were adopted first, and the ones who looked foreign or unusual were passed over. None of them save Atsushi were ever told they looked disgusting, but it was always implied from the way adults’ lips would curl in distaste.
She is cute in a way that he never will be, he knows. He is so used to squashing down any hint of bitterness, he hardly acknowledges the emotion when it comes, but now he watches the tail end of it retreat into his mind like the trail of a comet meeting the horizon.
Oh.
Oh. Atsushi is jealous. But why? Is it that he wants to be seen as cute, too?
To test this theory, he walks into the Agency fully transformed into the tiger one day, and sorts through the feelings that come.
Naomi, fearless as ever, is the first to launch herself at the two ton cat and start snuggling into his fur. “Aaaaaa, he’s so fluffy! Everyone, come feel!”
“You’re staying like this for the rest of the day, doctor’s orders,” Yosano commands, then buries herself in his fur. Ranpo joins her, playing with Atsushi’s paws and making awed noises about his massive toe beans and how squishy they are.
Well, he can’t exactly defy doctor’s orders, so Atsushi makes himself comfortable in a patch of sunlight and acts as an emotional support animal for the rest of the day, providing cuddles as needed. Junichirou takes a nap on his back, joined by Kenji after lunch. Kunikida sighs in that way he has and then admits that yes, perhaps some stress relief is required, and yes, Atsushi is incredibly fluffy like that, but this can’t become a regular occurence. Atsushi nods solemnly and tries not to laugh at the expression on the man’s face as he pets him. Even Dazai borrows a pair of surgical gloves and joins in the fun at some point, rubbing under his chin and cooing about what an amazing pillow he makes.
Is this what Atsushi wanted? They’re calling him cute, and he enjoys it, but it’s not the same. No, this goes back deeper, to his lifelong struggle to accept the tiger. And that can’t be what’s been bothering him lately, can it?
No, Atsushi thinks, tucking his nose under his tail as the president scratches behind his ears. He’s no closer to finding an answer than before. Or maybe, after eliminating a wrong answer, he’s closer than ever.
Atsushi loves freely, more freely than he should.
Dazai was an obvious choice for his first crush. Thirty bowls of food, and a job, and a place to stay? Atsushi isn’t a terribly proud person. He can be bought, and something about those hazel eyes and lopsided grin had made his heart melt. Dazai had a strange charisma, almost like gravity, that made you want to be near him.
Next was Junichirou; sure, his first impression was a bit traumatizing, but he apologized so profusely and looked so cute with that sweater too large for his arms that Atsushi fell a little bit in love. In that darkened alleyway, he had cried out, run, through lungs torn and tattered, and Atsushi let the newborn love in his heart turn to rage until it overflowed.
Then there was Yosano. Refreshingly honest, dangerous with a confidence he could only dream of, and sweet until the moment she turned sadistic. Atsushi loved her like he loved a storm; from a distance, in awe of such majesty. It was a dangerous feeling, but a precious one nonetheless, and he nurtured the feeling in his heart until the storm passed.
His crush on Haruno, by comparison, was a gentle thing. It was like dew in the sunlight, precious and fleeting moments that he treasured. It was a smile, a brush of fingers as she handed him a mug of tea, the sound of her voice lingering with him long after she’d left.
Atsushi has always been like this, loving people who can’t love him back, loving anyone who gave him the time of day, loving regardless of gender. He never told anyone about his preferences; in an orphanage sponsored by the church and in the middle of nowhere, to admit such things was as good as banishment from any kindness. In that tiny kingdom with no one else to teach him otherwise, Atsushi was taught that his love was a twisted and disgusting thing.
But then, when he came here, his world changed. Kenji reminisced sometimes over boys he’d danced with back home; Yosano and Dazai shared the same taste in women, and joked about being bi buds. Ranpo presented him with several interesting essays on gender theory and wore they/them pronoun pins.
When Atsushi figured it out, after months of digging and doubting and hating himself, the Agency had been there for him. They’d thrown him a small coming out party, even gave him a flag to hang on his closet door.
“Here,” Junichirou had said, pressing a small pin with pink, yellow, and blue stripes into Atsushi’s palm. “I got a matching one, and I figured we could be pan pals, y’know? Since Dazai and Yosano are already the bi buds.”
Atsushi loves freely, but the Armed Detective Agency were the first people to love him back as only a family could. They’re the only ones who’ve assured him that they won’t leave him, won’t ever stop caring for him. As much as he has trouble believing it some days, they like him.
Atsushi still wonders sometimes, if that could change. Because Atsushi is changing, or maybe something inside of him— inside of them— has always been different, suppressed by all the hatred they grew up in.
Atsushi takes the words, he and him and his, and casts them aside. These words belong to a boy locked in a cage, and Atsushi is not that person anymore.
Eventually, they decide to talk to Yosano. She seems the most educated about these things; last month she came in sporting a black eye like a badge of honor and took the time to explain to them what a TERF was and why she’d punched one in a public bathroom. She’s the one who taught Atsushi how to recognize toxic people, and provided them with a much more comprehensive sex ed that emphasized safety rather than abstinence.
She’d been horrified at the fact that Kyouka learned to use her body to seduce targets at such a young age, and stabbed the nearest wall with a barely human growl that sounded like ‘Mori.’ She gave the girl a firm talk about the importance of consent, and the right to bodily autonomy. The right to be a person rather than a weapon or a victim, the right to feel safe.
Despite the terrifying nature of her treatments, she’s the best person to talk to about gender and sexuality— Dazai will make inappropriate jokes, Kunikida will flush and start rambling, and Ranpo, by their own admission, wouldn’t know a gender if it hit them in the face. They carry around pamphlets because the best explanation they have for their gender, or lack thereof, is ‘gender doesn’t vibe with me.’
Is that how Atsushi feels? No, that’s not quite it. They have a lot of feelings about gender, and none of them make sense, and most of them are terrifying. They is just a placeholder word, one that feels safer, because anything else feels...unsafe. Or maybe it’s a permanent word, one that will eventually feel like home, but home is a scary word too.
Atsushi hopes Ranpo doesn’t mind them borrowing these pronouns. They pass the detective’s desk on their way to the infirmary, and pretend their hackles aren’t rising under the curious gaze of someone who understands far too much.
Yosano is sharpening her knives when Atsushi walks in, a consistent shnk, shnk, shnk of metal sliding across metal. They used to be scared of her, but now they find her weaponry a comfort. She uses it to protect people, after all.
“Hey, kiddo. You’re not injured, are you?” She asks with a grin, hopping off the counter and twirling an iridescent rainbow knife in her hands.
“No, I, um… I wanted to talk to you about something.” Every word feels like coughing up bullets, trapped under the weight of her gaze. Come on, Atsushi. You can do this, they tell themself. “Uh, something gender related, actually.”
“Ah.” She nods, twirling the knife once before sliding it into the wooden storage block. “This wouldn’t happen to be related to you coming into work as a cat yesterday, would it?”
“Well, sort of.” They look away, fidgeting with their gloves. “I think...I might not be a guy.”
“Do you want to talk about this in here, or go somewhere else?”
“Here.” They swallow, hard. “You’re the first person I’ve told this, and I’m still not sure about a lot of it, but it feels more comfortable when I think about myself in more neutral terms, and I guess… I want to be seen as… cute. But these thoughts only started recently, and I’m scared of what that means.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” she remarks. “I know you had a rough childhood, and a lot of people tend to repress these things until they have a safe space to explore. It’s not surprising that you’d only start to realize it now.”
“I guess… you’re right.” Maybe they’ve known this all along, but to have it validated by someone older and more experienced in these matters is a relief. “What does it mean, though? I mean, do I want— do I feel like— I don’t know what my gender is, and there’s so much to unpack, and I don’t know where to start.”
“Start right here. Start by asking yourself what you want, and listening to the voice inside of you. It’s okay to want things, Atsushi. We’re not going to punish you.”
“I know. Logically, I know. It’s just...hard.”
“Yeah.” She gives them a knowing smile. “Why don’t you come shopping with me this weekend? Clothes are a good way to express yourself, and you can start figuring out how you want to be perceived.”
“I’d like that a lot.” They think of how happy Kyouka looked pinning back her bangs, think about how long their own hair is, whether they could get something cute to put in it. Cute. It’s a childish word, a feminine one, but Atsushi was never allowed to be either of those things.
It occurs to Atsushi then, that Yosano has known Ranpo much longer than them. That maybe she’s had this same conversation once before, helped someone else reach the same conclusion, or a different one.
“Um,” they say, “you don’t have to answer this, but do you know how Ranpo figured out they were nonbinary?”
She laughs at this. “Honestly? They always checked ‘prefer not to say’ on paperwork that asked to give your gender, and one day they were complaining that they just wanted to unequip gender, because it was exhausting. I asked them why they didn’t, and they stared at me like I’d just given them the answer to a mystery. Apparently it had never occurred to them that they could do whatever they wanted in that regard, and so a week later they announced that they were something like agender.”
“I guess sometimes all it takes is a little push, huh.” If only Atsushi’s path could be that easy.
She shrugs. “Gender’s different for everyone. Some people take years to figure it out, or find a label that fits only to realize a different one fits better. It’s okay if you don’t find the right label right away. Just… let yourself have this, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.” Atsushi gives her a low bow, wishing they had some way to express their gratitude. “Thank you. So much.”
It’s going to be… a journey, to dig up the pieces of their identity that were broken and buried by their childhood. But maybe it’s more like a treasure hunt, finding something precious that they thought was lost forever, sifting through the sands of time and reclaiming a sense of belonging.
It’s going to be okay.