Graveyard • Dazai x Reader

6: Relapse

The car skids to a halt when you open its door; Chuuya yells out your name and reaches for you too late. You make the mistake of looking back at him as you push yourself out of the car, and for some reason your heart aches with guilt and loss. Chuuya's blue eyes look at you with such worry and care — but  you can't imagine why. He had been so ready to chastise you just a few minutes ago, clearly displeased with you... you shouldn't feel anything.

He shouldn't care.

He doesn't know you.

But that isn't what's on your mind right now.

He's alive.

He's alive and no one told me.

They all let me keep guessing.

You gasp when you are almost hit with an oncoming vehicle as you stumble onto the road, quickly running off to the sidewalk before death tries to reach you again. A hand of yours clutches at your chest, your breathing unstable and heart burning with all the sorrows that the knowledge of Dazai's status brought to you. You feel as if a fire is eating you alive from the inside, pain erupting from places you can't even describe. It's still raining, but you no longer feel the storm because it can't possibly feel worse than this.

You start running, needing to get away from the possibility of being found by the Port Mafia too quickly. You don't know where you are exactly — you could have left Yokohama and you wouldn't even realize it — but as you turn a corner, you find yourself staring out into the harbour. You hadn't gone far at all.

You were stuck, always stuck.

The streets are empty, and you are just as alone as you are stuck yet lost.

Shaking, you drop to your knees once you've reached the wood of the pier, the swirling, dark waters altered by the storm a menacing force so close now. Would it feel good to drown in them? To let the water fill up your lungs, to sink to the depths of an ocean full of forgotten secrets...

Then you start crying, and your hands cover your mouth to try to stifle the sound of your sobs.

Everything was so confusing.

Confusing and painful.

The last couple years flash before you, and you remember when Dazai disappeared a night after he had claimed you were his. You remember the shock of seeing Mori at your bedroom door, the fear when he entered and held your shoulders so tightly, letting his touch linger and make you nauseous...only to tell you then that Dazai was gone. That was somehow worse than being chosen by Mori.

You remember the tantrums you threw, though you were around 16, the crying and the loss you felt. God, the loss and the grief. They never told you if he was alive or dead or why he disappeared so suddenly. Still you had lost him and still you grieve.

You had gone back to what Dazai had saved you from the first time, spending time with Mori and Elise, serving them. You were too old for either of them now, and they would taunt you with the fact that you had no one else. You killed for them, and simultaneously you killed a part of yourself.

When Kouyou found out about you, she fought to take you in. She fought to find information about you, to give you back a piece of your humanity that was no longer there. Often she'd tell you she wished you'd been out under her care from the beginning.

You wished death had come for you sooner.

You missed him.

You blamed him.

You loved him.

You hated him.

You wanted him.

You needed him.