Blood Bouquet: Yandere Boys x Female! Reader

(xvi) hold on tight and promise you won't let go

You aren't the kind to dream, usually, but tonight is different. As you slip into slumber, you find yourself in a quaint little neighbourhood. It's familiar, somewhere you've been before. You look out the window and the place is vintage, filled with greenery. It's almost like a country home. It's quite pleasant. You shut the window and catch sight of your reflection — you're a child. Your face is smaller, eyes larger and wide with curiosity, your cheeks a little chubbier with that baby fat you never really managed to get rid of. Most surprising of all, you're grinning — and it feels right. It's been a while since you well and truly smiled.

But more curiously, is that through the window you see a person. You peer through the glass panes, down into the green lawn below, squinting to get a better look at the person enthusiastically waving towards you. You can feel yourself open the window excitedly, you know this person, you love this person! They yell your name, jumping and waving wildly, the most beautiful grin you've ever seen stretched across their rosy cheeks.

"Hey, I'm right here, —!" you can feel yourself start to pull a name from your memory, but your tongue goes numb as the world drains of colour and crumbles to pieces around you. You fall.

You start awake.

———

After that weird dream (or was it a nightmare? An old memory? You really couldn't be sure, your impression of it was fading already) it doesn't take you long to get ready for school, but the sour taste still stains your mouth. With a precise loop of your tie, though, you're ready to go out — you'll reach five minutes early, like you prefer to. Rantaro should be leaving his house soon...and hopefully you might run into Akane on the way there. Your heart floats a little at the possibility, and you stifle a rouge giggle. To calm yourself, you flick through a nearby chemistry textbook, going through some basic stoichiometric calculations in your mind. Simple, grounding stuff. You make a mental note to work on your theory later, though, you were a little slow in recalling the atomic mass of certain transition metals. You can't have that happening. With that, you grab a plain slice of toast, butter it, and crunch it down with a satisfied smile before heading out for school, grabbing a coat with the school emblem embroidered into it as you go.

As you tug your coat on, you remember that this is definitely not your coat — it's longer than it should be, the shoulders broader than yours are, the material softer than stiff — and you know just who it belongs to. You feel a little bad for keeping it this long. It's been weeks since he flung it at you when you got caught in a surprise summer shower and you dashed to your respective houses, laughing riotously as you crossed the home stretch into the comfort of a dry porch. You'd give it to him today, you decided, pulling it around your shoulders.

It's warm.