The Marionette • Chuuya X Reader

17: Pandemonium

With the night still young, your world had stopped after Chuuya kissed you and left. It al happened in a blur, so much so that you wondered if it had all been a dream...except it couldn't have been, because you could still feel the way he took your hand and pulled you in, the way his lips had touched yours gently in a kiss that you had been in no way expecting after his "No". You want to know why he did it now, why he said no but acted differently; you want to know what it all means and you want to read all his inner thoughts to ease your own doubts. You can't, but you feel your heart beat race unapologetically as you replay everything in your head, your mind unable to let it go.

After a few more minutes of you standing there, a clock near the centre of the plaza you were still at catches your eye, making you realize just how late it was getting and pulling you back to the reality that you still have no idea how to get back to headquarters. With a sigh, you decide on wandering around Yokohama streets a bit longer until finding a more quieted area to ask for directions of some sort.

Walking past the crowds, you reach the end of the plaza which splits into a fork in the road, the right leading to buildings you had never seen before, the left to more commercialized areas and in front of you city buildings made of gleaming metal reflecting the night time stars on it. Contemplating on which way to go, you decide to follow the taller buildings as they simply looked closer to what the Port Mafia headquarters buildings looks like, assuming it couldn't be too far off from here anymore. As you keep walking, still not too worried, your mind on a high after talking to Chuuya, you notice the streets getting progressively emptier. Your footsteps soon become the only noise audible to you, and the only lights around other than the moon itself are the dim lights of smaller restaurants and boutiques, the tall metal buildings halting once you reach another intersection.

Stopping in your tracks, your eyes narrow as you feel a shiver go down you spine, the feeling of being watched creating an atmosphere of alarm around you. Suddenly, the dimmed lights don't feel warm anymore, the magic of this new city environment dying the louder you hear your heartbeat in your ears.

The kiss was a calm before a storm.

At the sound of footsteps not belonging to you hitting gravel ever so lightly, you quickly slide out of the way, your back hitting concrete wall as a sharp, glowing cloth-like material shoots past you. With your eyes widening and taking in a deep breath, you don't need to look towards the direction of the cloth shot at you to recognize Rashomon's deadly reach.

Akutagawa.

Ducking as Rashomon shoots at you again, you turn the corner and immediately begin to run. Adrenaline pumping through your body as your only objective is now to survive, it doesn't take any sort of genius to figure out what is happening right now. Akutagawa is certainly furious at the way you treated him earlier, and as he hardly sees you as part of the Port Mafia but only a nuisance that Dazai left behind, his objective is now to remove you. Breathing heavily, you quickly cross the street and bend into an alleyway in an attempt to hide, reaching into your pockets for your pen and paper from earlier, trying to write down Akutagawa's full name once again to make him stop and hopefully come into some sort of happy medium.

All naive, wishful thinking, Akutagawa catches up to you faster than you could have guessed, Rashomon grabbing both your wrists tight enough to make you drop everything in your hands before you get a chance to finish and dragging you across the floor, knees scraping against the concrete as you let out a panicked yelp. Lost and powerless without your ability getting a chance to activate, you look up from the ground and meet Akutagawa's grey eyes void of anything but anger and hatred, the fear in your own obvious when he pulls you up to be at eye level, but far enough that if you tried, you wouldn't be able to lay a finger on him.