Belle âme || Bungou Stray Dogs × Child!Reader

V.

At night, the river was a black hole mirroring the distant light of the moon.

Likewise was Akutagawa's coat as he stood still on the moist ground of the riverbank, with the frigid breeze doing no good to his sickly condition. There crouched a child next to the water; she didn't act upon his presence, and neither did he, as he found it idle to link her to his mindset of the weak, the strong, and Dazai.

"Go home, brat." Finally, he started. "The night is not a time for children like you to loiter around."

"Oh, but the moon is as beautiful as it could get, isn't it?" The little girl replied.

Obsidian eyes narrowed in response. He took notice of the girl's hands as she let go of a paper boat, allowing it to be dragged along by the river's current.

"This time, it's the fox that will leave me." She explained. "But it isn't because I need to reserve the special slots in my heart."

Akutagawa hesitated to speak, but her words sounded lacking that it vexed him. "It's because of what?"

"I think it deserves better than all I had to offer."

She turned to look at him, and was taken by surprise upon seeing his ebony hair, pale complexion, and overall comeliness. Underneath his vehement and bellicose mien lied an insatiably veracious soul.

He was a silent rabid dog influenced by the mafia's moral indignation, but to her, he was as beautiful as he could get.

"You are exquisitely beautiful." She confessed. "The stars and the moon might as well envy your existence."

The compliment was a foreign lullaby he wished to hear more of in secret. "Save your words. They mean nothing to me."

"...alright."

Without respite, the paper boat continued to flow lithely. The girl remained an anachronistic enigma to him, but he had long dismissed the thought deeming her a threat. Her fingers had gone damp from reaching out to the surface of the water.

He couldn't quite contain his curiosity. Begrudgingly, he spoke, "What makes you think that you're safe out here?"

"My own safety is none of my concern at the moment." She answered. "I am looking for someone whom left me here to wait. He promised to come back for me."

In the adult's mind, the promise was a painfully hollow statement embedded in the child for her to keep. He realized that there lied no truth in the words of her promisor, but supposed that it was her loss for believing that somewhere in time, she would get to see him again.

"But I'm becoming tired, and I'm guilty for feeling so. If he returns to find out that I had lost faith in his promise, he'd be dismayed." Continued the girl. She no longer had her form crouched on the ground, but her eyes still settled on what black abyss the river turned out to be.

"I'm looking for someone as well." Akutagawa replied, preceding a small fit of coughs. "But I'm not waiting. If anything, his presence is of urgent matter. He is a foreign criminal ability user whom the government needs to arrest."

"A criminal?" She reiterated; the word meant so little so her, and he came to notice this.

He chose not to speak, therefore ensuing silence. His eyes beheld her tiny figure standing next to the river, and in the evening breeze, her locks trembled gracefully, resorting to fall down and rest on the layer of her scarf. The article of clothing appeared to be large around her neck, but it looked well on her, considering the low temperature of dusk.

He couldn't quite point out why the scarf seemed awfully familiar to him. His gaze remained on her for a minute, until something in his memory clicked.

The criminal's profile also had a similar scarf. Akutagawa only decided to apprehend her when, at the time of reading the criminal's files, it was stated that he had been frequently found with a little girl.

"Brat," he began, "who is this someone that you're looking for?"

"I don't often call him, but he goes by the name Saint-Exupéry."

Dark streaks emerged from her ground quite suddenly. They wrapped around her wrists, legs, and waist, rendering her immobilized from any sort of heavy movements. This had caused her eyes to contract in fear and mouth to open wide to release a scream of surprise and terror, but when she did, her neck was met with his slender fingers.

"A-ah..." she choked, a string of saliva trailing down from her lips due to the harsh pressure he instated.

He lifted his other hand to his mouth, coughing lightly. His grip on her throat tightened greatly, and soon tears fell from her bottom lids as a result from enduring the pain.

"W-why... why would you do s-something this mean..?"

Indescribable guilt took a form of his breath hitching at hearing her damaged voice. He completely pushed it away, after realizing that his heart might have opened up to a feeling so benign.

"The night is not a time for children like you to loiter around," he recalled, "you should have known the incoming danger."

Not long did her head dip forward as her body submitted entirely to the black restraints. Upon realizing her loss of consciousness, his fingers left her neck and ran endearingly through the strands of her hair - it was an action that elusively asked for her forgiveness, unbeknownst to himself. He then took his time going back to the mafia headquarters, with Rashoumon carrying the girl following shortly behind.