Hold On (I Still Need You)

Seven

Chuuya was thrown awake in a cold sweat. He tore himself from the bed, and scrambled to the bathroom. Not bothering with the lights he collapsed next to the shower. Reaching up, he turned the knob slightly, so that a steady stream of cold water began to flow. Not bothering with anything, he pushed himself weakly into the enclosed space.

The water hit him like daggers, Chuuya didn't flinch at it. He pressed his forehead to the fabric of his pants, and held his legs against his chest.

He knew his hands were shaking. That he was shaking. But it wasn't until the fabric clung to his skin and his breath hitched that Chuuya tugged himself from the shower. On shaking knees he turned off the water. Grabbing a towel and peeling his clothes from his skin, he fell against his counter.

Grief racked through his body, he shook against the cold air, against the shooting pains tearing through his body, against everything. His past is gone. Chuuya hadn't looked back in a very long time, and he wasn't about to start.

What was that? He thought, leaning against his wall, and trudging back to his room.

He gritted his teeth when light began pooling into his home from dawn. Today was a day he hadn't planned anything for, though no doubt Mori would decide to pile on as much as he could before whatever was to happen tomorrow.

Trying to black out the nightmare, Chuuya grabbed his comforter and tugged it against his body. It was a feeble attempt to calm the shaking from the cold, but at least the nausea was gone.

It was a fools game, playing with a god of death. Yet Chuuya had been tugging himself along with small victories for years. Still the black that hushed him back to sleep was a foe he couldn't win against.

"Hello again, little boy," Arahabaki drawls on boy mockingly. Instead of a response, Chuuya stares blankly at a small corner of the room. A point of focus for his mind, to settle it.

"You really have quite the tragic story," Arahabaki continues. "You never knew your father, I do though, and your mother oh was she-"

"I suggest shutting the fuck up," Chuuya bites out.

"And why would that be?"

"You have no right to speak of my mother."

Arahabaki laughs, and the wicked noise is a faceless image of a man doubled over clutching his stomach all but politely.

"How so, boy?" It asks.

"She is- was everything you are not."

"Care to elaborate?"

"My mother was kind, and caring. She was not someone who would trick a young boy into a deal that would steal from him his life."

"You know what I'm the god of, as you mortals put it, do you not?"

Chuuya does know, he knows the many labels the government had given it when it was sealed away. "You're the god of calamity, of destruction, of pain and loss." The energy around him shifts, the darkness something like smirking.

"We do suit each other rather well," It chuckles.

Chuuya frowns, though with no idea of the shape or appearance of Arahabaki, he isn't sure it can see him.

"Was that dream your fault?" Chuuya spits.

"Which one?" It asks, taunting. "The one with your mother?"

"Yes," Chuuya seethes.

"Well yes, that was all me," It seems pleased with it's response.

"Then let me go,"