Spain Without The S!

Chapter 16: Regret.

  "Chuuya?"
  Chuuya felt like he was being shaken awake.
  "Chuuya?!" They whispered a little more harshly.
  Chuuya forced his eyes to open, who was here? He couldn't recognize their voice, and he certainly couldn't see them.
  "Are you okay?" They asked.
  Chuuya felt uneasy that someone he didn't know had somehow gotten in. He sat up and moved back quickly.
  "Sorry for waking you... You looked like you were having a pretty bad dream..."
  "Who..."
  "Wow, Chuuya, it's only been a few days and you've already forgotten me?" The inflection of the voie sounded familiar.
  "A few days..." Chuuya forced the gears in his head to turn. But his mind hurt terribly because of it. It felt like there was something blocking him from accessing anything.
  He felt the person move closer, "Chuuya, what's the matter?... you seriously don't remember what I sound like?..."
  Chuuya shook his head. He wasn't confident that he ever knew this person at all. He didn't trust them.
  The room was silent.
  They sighed, "well, this is worse than I thought. And here I was going to do you a favor and tell you what happened."
  "What... happened..." Chuuya could barely grasp the concepts of what was being spoken. He felt so slow and sluggish. All he could do was repeat what was being told to him.
  Suddenly he felt a sharp pain stabbing into him. He clutched his head with both his hands, biting his tongue to keep from screaming.
  Then, everything came flooding back. The memories of the past week flowed back into his mind as if the flood gates had been lifted.
  "Dazai what are you doing here?!" Chuuya asked.
  He chuckled, "I just told you, weren't you listening?"
  Chuuya frowned, "just tell me what you want."
  "I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop in," Dazai said.
  "Yeah, right," Chuuya grimaced, "isn't it the middle of the night, still?"
  "Yeah," Dazai laughed.
  Chuuya sighed, "I'm going back to bed if you don't spit it out, already." Chuuya kneaded his temples, his head was still pounding.
  "You know... a lot of people tried to stop you when you used corruption." Dazai stated with no tone to his voice, "most of them didn't make it out alive."
  "What- but Ane-San said-"
  "She lied to you, Chuuya." Dazai said firmly.
  "How do I know that you aren't the one lying." Chuuya started to feel upset. Kouyo couldn't have lied about something so important. He would have known.
  "When have I ever lied to you about something like this?" Dazai asked.
  "When-" Chuuya froze. The only lies he remembered Dazai telling were for the sake of teasing Chuuya or bluffing to his enemies.
  Dazai sighed quietly as he carefully placed his hand on Chuuya's arm, "over a dozen Mafia members were murdered."
  Chuuya opened his mouth to speak but couldn't think of anything to say. He just felt horrible.
  Dazai squeezed his arm a little bit, "well, good luck going back to sleep." Dazai had a forlorn hint to his voice as he spoke, "sorry I woke you..." Dazai started moving away.
  "Wait, Dazai!" Chuuya grabbed his shirt, "you can't just say something like that and leave!"
  Dazai put both his hands gently against Chuuya's, "I can't talk more right now..."
  "You can't just-"
  Dazai swiftly tore Chuuya's hand away and moved out of his reach.
  Chuuya stood up as quickly as possible, not caring about how badly it hurt, "Dazai! You-" in his desperation Chuuya had miscalculated where the chair was and ended up falling.
  He couldn't hear Dazai's footsteps anymore. He was already gone.
  Chuuya cursed under his breath as he slammed his fist against the floor in frustration.

——

  Elise threw open the door, "GOOD MORNING!!!!!!" She skipped over to the bed, "hey! Wake up!" She shook him.
  Chuuya's eyes opened as if he was already awake. His eyes drifted in her direction. He had large, dark circles under his eyes.
  Elise gasped, "you're eyes are almost normal again!"
  He rolled over away from her.
  "Hey! Don't ignore me! I have good news!" She shook his arm, "come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!"
  Chuuya didn't respond.
  Elise sighed, "fine. But you better listen. Mori said that he thinks he found a way to get your sight back!"
  Nothing from the executive.
  Elise sighed in an annoyed way, "you're not even happy about that?!"
  She climbed up next to him on her knees, "Chuuya? Did you go back to sleep?"
  He waved her away.
  Elise folded her arms, narrowing her eyes at him. "Hmmm..." she walked out of the room trying to think of a way to get him to talk.
  But she ran into Kouyo. Literally.
  "Careful, Elise. You should watch where you're going," Kouyo said.
  "Oh! You can help!" Elise grabbed her arm.
  "Help with what?" She asked.
  "Chuuya won't talk to me," she said, starting to walk back.
  "Are you sure he's not just asleep?" Kouyo asked.
  "Yeah, he's awake." Elise nodded, "he just won't talk."
  Kouyo became worried, "do you think something might have happened?..." Kouyo thought of what Mori said about Chuuya seeing things.
  Elise opened the big door again and walked inside, followed by Kouyo.
  "Good morning, Chuuya," Kouyo said as she stepped inside.
  "Elise, did you knock the chair over?...." Kouyo asked, noticing it laying on its side on the floor.
  "Nope," Elise said, "I didn't even notice it was there."
  Kouyo knit her brows in concern. She walked over and picked the chair back up. Then, she took her seat, "Chuuya?"
  No response.
  "Chuuya, did something happen?..." Kouyo reached her hand out.
  If anything, Chuuya seemed to move away slightly.
  Kouyo started to feel bad. She had finally worked up the courage to tell him... but now did not seem to be a good time.
  She sighed to herself, hoping this would pass in a few hours. Occasionally Chuuya would do something childish like this so she brushed it off as something normal. But she had the strangest itch that it wasn't...

——

  "He won't talk to anyone..." Kouyo said, "it's been all day... I'm starting to worry... what if he saw something else?..."
  Mori shook his head, "it isn't that."
  "How do you know?"
  "You said he seemed shaken up before. He seems to know exactly what's going on." Mori said plainly. "Just sit in there with him. He'll say something eventually."
  "How are you so sure?..." Kouyo asked.
  "Trust me." Mori smiled as he went back down the hall.
  Kouyo paused before turning and heading back into the room. Chuuya remained laying facing away from the chair.
  She carefully made her way over and sat down.
  Hours of silence. No one moved. Occasionally there would be muffled sound from outside the room, reminding them of how isolated they were.
  Then,
  "Do you know why I hate killing people, Kouyo?"
  She felt her stomach drop and began to feel even worse when he used her given name. "Why, Chuuya?" She asked, almost losing her composure.
  "Because I hate that I never feel bad about it."
  She couldn't trace any emotion from his voice. Kouyo felt horrible.
  "Dazai's a liar, right?"
  "What?..." Kouyo's mood plummeted into the floor.
  "He told me that a lot of people were killed trying to keep me in that room."
  Kouyo took a shaky breath and opened her mouth to speak.
  "But you told me that I didn't kill anyone."
  Kouyo couldn't force her mouth to say words.
  "So he just lied to me. Like he always does."
  She physically felt her heart breaking. Had Dazai really been here and said that?... And she had been so ready to tell him, too...
  "Right?" Chuuya asked in a whisper, remaining turned away from her.
  "Chuuya..." she started slowly, trying to hold back her tears, "I don't have any excuses... Dazai wasn't lying..."
  She hated to admit that she was the one who lied, knowing Chuuya might not trust her again.
  "Why?" He asked.
  She bit her quivering lip, she had cried too much already. "I couldn't tell you..."
  "Why?" He repeated.
  "You were already... I didn't want to hurt you any more..."
  "So you kept it from me."
  "I was planning on telling you soon..." she said slowly.
  He didn't say anything after that. Neither did she. Kouyo didn't think anything she said would mean anything to him, anyways.