If Only I Died Inside

A Small Despair

'I'm being allowed outside of the basement today. I wonder why,' Q thought to themself, heading upstairs to the first floor of the mafia headquarters.

When they reached the floor, they overheard someone say their name.

"Did you hear about Q being let out of the basement?" Tachihara asked someone.

Stopping in their tracks and standing around the corner to listen to what was being said, they were shocked to hear what came next.

"I can't believe he'd do that," Higuchi stated in disbelief.

"What if there's another... Accident?" Tachihara asked worriedly.

"It's very possible that could happen," Hirotsu agreed.

"Dazai will have to come fix the problem again if that happens."

"We can't keep having that waste of bandages come fix the problem!" Chuuya yelled.

He thought about Dazai's constant teasing and imagined the worst if the fish-man came around again.

"Maybe it's better if they stay in the basement where they belong," Higuchi said. "Somewhere where they can exist without hurting anyone."

Q was shocked. They hadn't been out of the basement in so long, it had been easy to forget that everyone hated them. The only friend they'd had had been Kyouka, but now she was gone.

Kouyou looked down on them since they had been raised by Mori. Chuuya and most of the others were genuinely just scared of their ability, which was understandable, but still made Q feel bad when they were never included in anything. Elise was nice, but she never came to visit or anything. Akutagawa wasn't necessarily mean or anything, but he rarely spoke to Q. Hirotsu wasn't mean, but he would never defend Q, even if they asked him nicely. Even the background agents with no power in the mafia hated and despised Q.

And then there was the ADA. They didn't trust Q at all for the most part. Kyouka was still nice and Kenji was never mean, but they were always busy with work. Yosano wasn't mean, but she wasn't necessarily nice either. And then there was Dazai.

Dazai had been the one to lock them away. Q remembered asking Dazai why he was doing it when it had happened, and he had called Q a "Monster." A "Walking Disaster."

He'd never called them that ever again, at least not to their face, but Q could tell that he still thought it quite often.

"Yeah, we can't be sure they won't hurt anyone again," Chuuya said, thinking back to a few previous events that were all fairly recent.

Q thought back for a moment and felt bad. They hadn't meant to hurt anyone, as they never had meant to hurt anyone in the mafia. They found the floor to be very comfortable, though, so they laid on it quite often. And that usually resulted in someone not paying attention to where they were walking or thinking they could somehow ease around the child in their way. Every single time though, it failed.

The result was a handprint appearing on their body and someone seeing something they didn't want to.

Akutagawa walked by Q, entering the main area. As he passed, he asked, "Are you just gonna stand there, Q?"

Suddenly, as though if on cue (get it?) everyone's heads turned to Q, who'd started to peek from around the corner.

"Q?!" Tachihara exclaimed.

Without saying a word, Q ran away as fast as they could. They didn't like having everyone's eyes on them, and it hurt to hear what they'd been saying.

Akutagawa stood confusedly, looking at different people in the room. He was hoping for an explanation, but no one offered it. They all just averted their eyes from the one person in the room who didn't know what was going on.