blood money || YANDERE!Chuuya Nakahara

Six: The Library

You're arriving at work when your manager, a sweet old lady, stops you at your tracks with an unusually nervous look on her face. She looked grim, and the wrinkles on her face seemed deeper than usual, shadows filling in the crevices as she carefully put a hand on your shoulder. Her eyes were pink and wobbling, as though she had been crying.

"I have to let you go," She says, "I have to. I have to let you go." She says this almost gently, as if she was being humane by unleashing such terrible news onto you.

"What? I'm being fired?" You indignantly take a step back. She retrieves her hand and puts them over each other in front of her.

"No, let go," She says. Her voice borders on a sob, "I have to. Don't ask why."

"I'm going to ask why. What did I do wrong? Is it my work ethic?"

"None of that," She says, "I've just...decided. It's time to let you off."

You're stunned into anger, but that anger quickly dissolves into resignation. You feel despair wash over you, but even then, despair has its calms. Your heart feels cold and unfeeling, reminiscent of the past, but this was from fear; terror. Terror of the future.

"Alright," You say, "I'll go."

"I'm so sorry," She says. Her head drops as though unable to carry the weight of the words that were broiling in her mind, "I just have to."

"I understand," You don't, but the kind words are flying out of your mouth before you even realise it, "Goodbye."

"Goodbye, (last name). I wish you luck on your other endeavours," She says. You smile at her hopelessly.

"Me too, ma'am. Me too."

XX

What to do?

Your rent's rising, your credit card's declining, you've been dismissed from the only thing that's been keeping you afloat.

You should just kill yourself.

That's what you would say if you were Dazai, of course. You laugh to yourself with a cigarette in hand, despair woven into the laughter. You're in an alleyway, leaning against the rough brick wall with smoke fogging your vision; it surrounds you like a halo. You take another breath of it, feel it warm you inside out in the Japanese spring, and exhale,

"You look like hell." A voice cuts through your own still silence. You glance at your peripherals, see a flash of ginger, and sigh to yourself. A bellow of smoke that escapes your mouth.

"Come to gloat to me about your wealth?" You say, "Chuuya?"

"Not at all," He says, though there's a smirk evident in his words, "Hand me one."

You toss him the cigarette box. He gracefully catches it with a gloved hand. He shakes one out, and lights the end up with his own lighter. The alleyway is dim, covered by roofs and air-conditioner units from above. The occasional water droplet from said AC interrupts your smoke break. Smoke break? What break? You were laid off, for God's sake. He tosses it back to you: pseudo volleyball.

"Been laid off from my job," You say after a brief moment of silence, "Feel like hell."

"Oh yeah?" He says, in bouts of cradling a cigarette between his slim fingers, "How'd that go?"