Graveyard • Dazai x Reader

17: Sickness

The boy's hands hover over your sleeping face, tucking some hair behind your ears just gently enough so that you don't wake up, tracing your expression with his fingers, lightly, like a butterfly's kiss; innocently like a toddler discovering a new sensation for the first time.

His hands tremble as he lets go of you, regarding you with a deep despair that roared in his chest as he sits at the edge of your bed, his brown eyes searching you for an explanation why.

Why did he feel this way? Why now?

Your tears had stirred something in him, something he couldn't express but that could be compared to the way one stone could tear through calm waters and send ripples that resounded all the way to the next shore.

He'd never felt anything like it before, his life a series of muddled memories and direful days, sounds drowned and feelings numbed. He'd never seen so much of humanity's worst and fragility expressed in another child to the point that it touched him.

The boy believed with his entire being that he was destined to lose everyone that belonged to him, and such was life. Nothing to him had ever been worth pursuing at the cost of a life so filled with suffering. Life itself was not worth pursuing but death.

Only death could give him peace.

He'd never felt human, though staring at you now, he felt just as human as anyone else. That terrified him, a change to his enveloping and constant depression that clings to him like a blanket, assuring him he'd one day suffocate and stop breathing completely. He'd become comfortable in this horrible world, comfortable with pleading for death.

Caring for you and your humanity would only lead to delusions of life and more loss, so the boy drowns these feelings and keeps them as secrets locked and caged in his heart.

Instead of caring, he'd pick you apart until you and him were the same hollowed skeleton of a person.

You would stop reminding him of his torment. You would be a puppet and you'd be grateful that he's saved you. And if you hated him, it would be for the better.

Letting his body drop next to you on your bed, his soft waves falling over his bandaged face, his visible eye lighting up in the warm light, the boy lets his body go numb and his mind sink into silence.

Before he falls asleep, something occurs to the boy.

A curiosity, a blameless thought.

Looking at you once more, he whispers three words he wished to express, or he imagined he'd want to say to you some day.

But he's already promised he'd be the one to ruin you, so the world couldn't hurt you more than he has.

Then you'd be safe.

The boy falls asleep, and you were never conscious to hear what became what you'd always wished he'd say.

•••

The cycle of pain had been a game from the beginning.

You'd been placed on this merry-go-round of life as a child, cursed to fall into the same fluctuating and painful patterns as those that had given you the ticket of permission to ride.

You feel bilious, staring up at the fluorescent lights of the agency infirmary that, in your mind, mimicked that of the Port Mafia's. It was eerie, how one place so different could feel just like another; how one place could send you down the same spiral of hopelessness.

Your body is sore and your mind tired, holding back tears of frustration as Yosano places a gloved hand on your skin, tracing over your scars and inspecting you thoroughly in order to make sure she'd stitched you up properly before wrapping your wound up again.

She's offered to use her ability, but after finding out how it worked, you'd refused. This was after she'd held you back from Dazai seconds after you'd slapped him, grabbing your arm and pressing a hand to your wound that had torn further, your face losing colour by the minute from the blood loss while her face appeared close in front of you. Magenta eyes enthralling you, her golden butterfly pin shines in the artificial light of the halls and distracts  you enough to be caught off guard.

At first, you thought she was protecting Dazai, but as your replayed the scene in your mind, you realize she'd been protecting you.

"Control yourself or he keeps winning," she'd whispered, her voice sweet and silky against your ears, and you recall her holding your weakening body up, pressing you against her in restraint while keeping her hand on your wound, the pressure grounding you as she stood between you and Dazai, blocking the man's eyes from reaching you like a viper's fangs ready to kill.

The way she held on to you left the butterflies residing in you when you had looked at her before turn from a warning into a devastating wave of resignation under her guidance, and you wondered how you ever thought you could hate her — not taking away from the fact that you were still sure if you followed her, you'd be burdened with more truths you couldn't take.

"You better explain yourself when I'm done with her, Dazai." Yosano had demanded, and the rest had become a blur in your misted mind.

Now, you sit up in a hospital-like bed as Yosano took care of your injury with a gentleness and precision you could never have treated yourself with, and you hadn't let the Port Mafia execute. Your blood is wiped off your skin as well, though

She doesn't say anything while she works, and you expect it's because she knows you don't want anything said. Your tears are close to the answer to her questions, though you also know she was waiting to speak with Dazai too.

"Have you eaten today?" Is the closest you'd gotten to a conversation with Yosano in the last few minutes, to which you had shaken your head.

You weren't hungry.

You weren't often hungry.

There was more she wanted to say, you can tell, but right now, the silence said enough.

Thirty minutes later, there's a knock at the door. You know who it is before you see his silhouette slip through the opening and Yosano freezes, eyeing him with irritation.

"I want to talk to her." Dazai's voice carries itself plainly across the infirmary, and Yosano glances at you, a frown etched on her elegant face.

Seeing her troubled knowing you were the cause, you stare at Dazai and before Yosano can say anything, you speak up.

"Ok."

Both Yosano and Dazai look slightly surprised at your sudden agreement, but Yosano quickly resorts to a defeated sigh and leaves a light touch on your back as assurance when she walks away, Dazai taking her wheeled chair and pulling it next to you, seating himself close enough so that if either if you dared to reach, you'd easily find each other's skin.

Dazai waits until Yosano is gone to say anything, head tilted back, face no longer red from where you'd hit him.

"I should have told you..." He begins, and as he tilts his head back towards you, curls bouncing in response to his movement, his eyes conjure wistful shadows that threaten the image of him you'd carried for so long.

"Told me what?"