DON'T GET IT TWISTED. [RYO ASUKA X READER]

You.

Your heartbeat was rapid. Your eyes stung. Your callous hands were fighting the rampaging wind like treading water. You heard distant calls. You blocked them out. Everything felt so quiet. So many sounds, and yet, such an evil silence. All was familiar, but all was so alien. Running through a monochrome landscape of constant confusion. Your mind was boggled. Your skin dry and cracked, a strained smile pursing upon desperate lips. Tears littering sideways across your cheeks, following the wind's direction.

"Y/n!"

"Y/N!"

Just keep on running. Keep on fighting this. It isn't real. Maybe if you try hard enough. You'll wake up. You'll jolt up as usual, that awful sensation, but there won't be a text from Akira. There won't be any hatred from Ryo. All will be familiar. All your pain will have vanished.

Or you'd wake up in a casket, perhaps casted away by the mourning of your peers. You'd be lowered into the ground and destined for an infinite sleep.

Any option would do. Just not this awful whirlwind of emotion and unrequited love.

"Y/N! GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!"

Pulling you away from your erratic thoughts, a pair of strong-willed hands snapped you out of it. They pulled your shoulders forwards, and in an instant, you were nestled with a grip so stubborn, but comforting. In the middle of the street you stood, gripping Ryo's coat in pure insanity. You let yourself have a heavy cry for a few minutes, as Ryo's soft hands tangled in your h/c strands.

"What's all this running away bullshit about? What is going on with you?"

It was a question you couldn't quite answer. You didn't even truly know yourself. You just stayed silent, your lip quivering as you sniffled, Ryo pulling out a handkerchief and offering it to you. You took it from him gratefully, giving your red eyes a gentle wipe, and blowing your streaming nose.

"Ryo-"

Within seconds, you felt a cool metallic sensation press against your head. It was so intensely swift, that you hardly noticed the environmental change. Your vision faded to a blanketing blackness, as five menacing fingers crept over your field of vision. Your lower lip trembled in anticipation, your body also beginning to tremble in familiar emotional distress. The click of a gun could be heard against your skull, but nothing else happened, just the bone-chilling silence reeked of expectancy.

"Sorry you had to hear this from me, daffodil. But humans don't belong in a place so devilish. They are vulnerable, pathetic, and weak. No match for...demons, of any kind. Nor is the army of determined devilmen any match for stone cold entities. You will die one way or another in life, be it a car accident, a shooting, a stabbing, an accidental mishap, or simply the doors of death welcoming you. Humans are just physical bodies with no soul and a clueless little mind. You're not going to make it. And I'm not willing to help you. Since you always made me feel like the weak one, the unwanted one. Now, it's my turn-"

You reached up and clutched his wrist desperately, trying to move his gripping fingers away from your eyelids. You couldn't see a thing, only forced to listen to his bone-chilling voice tickle your neck. He was holding you tightly against him, a gun to the left side of your head, a strong and tense arm clasping your waist possessively. You dare not move. Only your feeble words could make the difference.

"Ryo. Listen to me. You don't have to do this. I'm in a time loop. Nothing is real."

"Nothing you say matters."

"I love you, Ryo. I've always been too afraid to say it because I wasn't sure you would ever feel the same. And after remembering how Akira and I used to neglect you, I felt awful. I just never assumed you wanted to be included. I should've tried harder. I sho-"

His fingers forcefully yanked at your h/c hair, snapping your head backwards. He leant his head to level with your ear, his cold lips lightly brushing the side of your face. Tension rose in the air, the gun pressing harshly into your scalp.

"So what if I'm not the Ryo from your original life, where we were supposed to be 'in love.' Who gives a fuck about that, uh? I'm still Ryo and I still remember that you only started giving a shit about me after Akira and I reunited. I never thought I had feelings growing up, but now I'm realising that so much internalised anger is eating away at me. You're an evil bitch."

"And unnecessary evil must be erased."