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A/N: sort of a vent from your local venti caramel machiatto. though this thing is much more tasteless.
i hope this helps you if you're in a bad place :> it's okay to feel sad, bub. feel your feelings, because they're yours.
╳°»｡ ∾･⁙･ ღ ➵ ⁘ ➵ ღ ･⁙･∾ ｡«°╳
"OH GOD," YOU cry as the phone slips from your shaking hands, "God, no, please."
It was a small thing, really.
But your mind was twisting the words, the message, the tone, the very essence of his text, to the point where all you could see him saying was leave me alone.
"No," you sob, "No, shut up. Shut up."
You press your forehead into the cold surface of your closet. You sit tucked into a corner of the room, between two closets, shaking even when the weather is warm.
God, it's so cold.
"Nanami," you plead, speaking to the empty room, the loneliness sucking out everything inside you. "Please don't leave me. Don't leave me."
The front door swings open and clicks shut a few rooms away. Nanami steps through the doorway, shaking rainwater from a blue umbrella while simultaneously undoing the knots on his tie. Though busy, Nanami searches for you. He wants nothing more than to settle in bed with you next to him, to sleep with his head on your chest until noontime.
But it takes only seconds for him to know something is wrong.
"(Y/N)?" he calls, long legs hurrying to your room. Nanami throws the umbrella aside on the way.
It had been a stressful day at work. Fuck. He should have been more careful. The pressure of all the shit he had to do was a mounting issue that pressed him with every curse that popped up in the city. All of it had finally cracked his head open today.
His words, they'd just... slipped.
He pushes the door to your bedroom open, is surprised by the lack of light.
Until he turns his head just so, and finds the love of his life curled up into a ball in the angled space between two closets.
His face falls as he takes you in.
You reel backward at the sight of him and into the security of the little space you sit hidden between, gasping fearfully. The desperation suffocating you morphs into fear.
"I'm sorry," you choke out in stuttered verses. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"Darling." Nanami kneels, urgency in his words. "Darling, what happened? Please tell me what happened."
"I—I didn't mean to... I didn't mean to. Please, please don't leave me."
"What are you—? I would never leave you. Why are you apologizing?" Nanami focuses on you with so much love in his eyes. But there is pain there, too. "Darling, what happened to you? Is it because of what I said?" He feels guilt rise like bile inside him. "God, (Y/N). I'm so sorry."
"I'm scared," you blubber. "I'm scared. Please don't leave me."
"Look at me, (Y/N)." He takes your hands in his. Grip and fingers firm, warm around yours. Still. The hole inside you continues to open up, swallowing you the waiting abyss. "Please look at me, darling."
A vise squeezes at your chest. Your mouth gulps in thankless breaths of air that do nothing to slow your rapid breathing. You can hear your heart in your ears. Feel each throb of the pulsing muscle as it strains inside you.
You hide your face from him. The darkness feels so safe. So welcoming. Sometimes you really don't know why it is you haven't fallen into its open arms yet.
"(Y/N), please," Nanami pleads as he sees your shoulders tremble. Your face scrunches up painfully as the tears fall in harder floods.
There are quiet whimpers ringing in Nanami's ears and all he wants to do is hold you to him, engulf you completely if that could keep you safe from the monster laughing in your head. The monster he put in there.
One of his hands moves to brace your shoulders. You flinch away from his touch instinctively, your hands jerking away from him and out of his gentle hold. His shoulders slump. He looks at you with hurt eyes that shove shame down your clogged throat.
You wrench your eyes from the painful sight of him. Your tears wet the wood of the closet. It's disgusting. But god, god it hurts.
"My darling," Nanami says, so softly it makes you shut your eyes tight. Why wasn't he mad at you? It was your fault, after all. Your fault for saying those things. Your fault for being honest. Your fault for letting your mask slip. Your fault for letting the words slip. "My darling, please just look at me."
Nanami's hands are big. So warm. Though you know you don't deserve to feel it they hold you firmly in their safety.
He hates the tears he can feel slipping through the cracks of his fingers, but he wipes each one away with care, brine and salt flowing down his skin.
It takes so long for you to soften into his touch. A sobbed sigh breaches the air as you finally settle into his hands.
He wants you to open your eyes, wants you to look at him. But he won't push. He will let you take your time. He is a patient man, and he can wait forever, if only for you alone.
He brushes a thumb over a tear beading at the corner of your eye. His hands never leave your face. He sits there, right next to you, waiting patiently for your heart to tune into his once more.
"What happened, my love?" he asks quietly when you slump into him. He pulls you close, your head on his chest. His fingers knead your scalp in gentle motions, stroking your hair soothingly.
Nanami has an arm curled around your back. It helps lock you into his embrace, his hesitant arms. He is scared to hurt you again.
So he has to keep you next to him. Against him, close to him. He would lay with you until you melted together if it meant he could love you past the liberty of death.
Nanami stares into the plain design of the closet, wholly focused on your breathing and the words that spill from you in a broken voice he wants to patch together. He breathes in your air.
"I... I just..." You gesture once into the air, helpless, unable to find coherence.
"It's alright," he says at once. "You don't have to talk, my darling. Do you just want to stay like this?"
