ᴡᴇᴀᴋᴇɴᴇᴅ ᴠᴇɴɢᴇᴀɴᴄᴇ | ᴅᴀᴢᴀɪ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ✔️

XXXIII: Is this What Acceptance Feels Like?

Dazai's POV:
We sat on the seats near the small window of Yn's hospital room, and I asked about how everyone was doing, distracting ourselves with talking too much about the past. However, reviving good memories had brought bad ones along with it, so we just decided to let the conversation die there.

I gazed up at her bed to see her peaceful expression. She looked like she was sleeping, but was she? Is she suffering? Dreaming? Is she stuck in some dark memory?

I could see Chuuya in my vision field observing me instead of Yn. "She smiled as she drew in her final breath..." I began, looking back at him. "I didn't know what she ... smiled for. The last thing I did was call the police on her when she really looked like she wanted a shoulder to cry on. Even before that, I had a fight with her... told her that I didn't want to be with her in a relationship anymore.." I continued, knowing what the look on Chuuya' s face meant.

"And yet, she still smiled... I.." My vision blurred, making Chuuya's hair and bangs only a block of orange in my gaze. Wait .. am I crying? Thinking of that thought alone made more of them form, some falling straight on my pants while others sliding on my cheek. I tried to take deep calm breaths as I wiped my tears, looking away.

No. This is not how he should see me, this is not how anyone should see me.

I stood up, "I'll come back shortly," I said as I began walking to the doorway, but Chuuya gripped my wrist when I was still within an arm-reach from him. I looked back at him, irritated that he stopped me from going away before getting all too emotional.

"Sometimes, Dazai, accepting the pain is easier than denying it," with a determined gaze, Chuuya stated. "Trust me," he continued, his eyes speaking a million words.

A series of knocks interrupt my thoughts of coming to a final conclusion. Chuuya let go of my hand as I wiped my tears away before the visitor entered. 8 pm.. it must be..

He entered the room, crossing the last point in the list inside his book. He looked up, expressions went from relaxed to confused. "Port mafia?" He said, like he was ready to fight. I felt Chuuya's eye roll from where I stood. "Calm down, he is just a friend visiting," I explained.

"Oh okay then," Kunikida confirmed as he sat in the available chair next to Yn. He was looking at her. His face.. tired eyes behind his glasses as he observed the monitors. That wasn't the face of a Kunikida that lacked sleep.

"You've got something to tell me, right Kunikida-san?" I asked, seeing the slight flinch his tired eyes made. He didn't say anything though, he just sighed. Which confirmed what I noticed. I walked up to the other side of the bed, knowing whatever that he had had to do with Yn.

After looking too long at the monitors, like he was deciding how to put it, his gaze locked with mine. Even as he took too long figuring out how to say it, he still stumbled over his words.

"I... today, I received a call from the hospital," he started, but I interrupted. "Why didn't I receive anything? Since.. my number was the primary one to dial, and I am always available," I explained.

"It's the reason for their calling, they told me .. what you needed to know, Dazai." He said. A short pause of him considering how to say it, then he sighed, mumbling inaudible words, but I got the gist of it;

"How to say it? How to put it up for someone who's holding onto imaginary hopes?"

"What is it? Just say it, Kunikida, please save me from the wait," I said, putting all the possible answers in my mind. I felt Chuuya's presence next to me.

"Dazai, the doctors... Yesterday night, after an MRI test, they noticed how some of her brain cells were dying.

She would not make it?

Yn, she'll not make it.

My heart was beating in my guts, I gripped on the steel of the bed to conceal the growing shaking in my hands. I looked back at Yn. She looks like she is sleeping peacefully, does she feel what is happening in her brain?

"I just... hope it doesn't hurt her. I don't want her to suffer anymore," I said, placing my hand on hers. I smiled; the warmth of her fragile skin felt so reassuring.

。。。

A month had passed, and I was beginning to accept it. I visited Yn everyday, talked to her, waited for any sign of her recovery, but there wasn't.

Not a clue, nothing.

That reality was easy to take in; her being in a coma, visiting her everyday. However, I dreaded thinking about the day that her heart would stop beating, the day I have to bury her,

The day I forget what she looks like.

I was back doing my job, solving crimes, catching criminals, though I didn't do that using my skill. I couldn't.

Using it reminded me of all that happened on the day of the ambush; the day the boss of the jackals died.

I woke up in the morning, deciding to get a flower on my way, and some strawberry crepes too. I brushed my teeth smiling at the thought; today's the day our fake relationship would've come to an end.

"It is the day we would have died, but..." I continued my thoughts out loud. "It's the day I realized my love for you is real," I said, smiling at my reflection, my hair messed up and my eyes puffed up.

After all that happened, today was the day I finally had a long dreamless night.
。。。

It was seven am, and I was full of energy. I brought a strawberry crepe along with a bouquet of flowers; the same kind of flowers that I bought for her on our first date.

Entering the hospital, I walked the usual route that I took when I visited her this month.

This time, entering the hospital, I didn't feel as hopeful as I have always been. Instead, there was the feeling of acceptance, part of me knew I wouldn't love her any less if she never came back. Part of me was finally comforted at last by the final interaction that happened between us. A voice, delicate one, told me it was how she wanted it.

How she wanted to flip to her final page of her book.

Entering the receptionist area where the patients' rooms were, I heard the alarm, it wasn't any alarm. It was the sound of somebody dying. There was only one girl at the reception. I walked to the reception to ask about the situation, but her eyes, they...

No ..

I backed away, feeling my heart sink into my stomach. With the flowers and the crepe dropping from my hands, I ran to her room.

There it was, filled with nurses and doctors.

"Clear!" One doctor yelled as I walked in. My legs.. they barely hold me up anymore. "Doctor, there are no signs of the pulse," "let's try again,"

The voices .. they were closing in on me, I couldn't make out what the voices were saying, they were just sounds. One nurse looked behind her to see me, she walked toward me, I couldn't hear what she was saying. It looked like she repeated it, I looked down at her lips:

Are you okay?

I pulled my heavy legs toward the bed, pushing past the nurse. There she was,

Dry, chapped lips, pale skin, her bare chest as the doctor was charging her body to get the heart pumping again; she was dying.

It was the day. The day she flipped that page.