twisted devotion || Yandere!DAZAI/READER

[17] The Dinner

A/N: I asked you guys if you preferred monologue heavy or dialogue heavy chapters, and since monologue was preferred, the next coming chapters will be monologue/prose heavy chapters. Hope you enjoy!

XX

The walk home is awkward without Dazai; the loneliness feels like an acid eating away at you, dissolving layers and layers of flesh to corrupt the core within you. There's a terrible loneliness that you fear; you fear it might come from becoming too dependent on someone else, as someone who has gotten through life alone without much help, as someone who has been fine their entire life being alone in their own world. You feel cold despite the dimming summer heat.

The crosswalk light turns green. You cross the street, but feel ultimately alone and scared and untouched despite dozens and hundreds of people brushing past you in their own solitude routines. You stand alone, in the pool of hundreds, and look up at the sky: a clear, translucent blue, cottoned with convective summertime clouds: a clear sign of Japanese humidity fogging the air. You felt so paralysed that you could do nothing.

You shake your head and quickly cross the road before the lights turn red.

When you arrive back at the dorms, with a habitual tadaima exiting your lips, you're greeted with the smiling face of Dazai sitting by the table, with two meals opened and prepared in front of him. The brunette had shed off his jacket and thrown it somewhere into the corner as though he had been in a rush, and you picked it up to hang it on the coat hanger by the door.

"Dazai?"

"You're home! I just arrived too," He says, "Wash your hands first and come here; let's have dinner together again."

A smile graces your lips: your first smile of the day, "Alright, give me a moment."

You enter the bathroom and begin washing your hands, but something in you compels you to keep washing it as though something was on it that you couldn't get out. Something sticky, like blood. But you shake your head violently, squeeze your eyes shut and then that compulsion is gone. You towel your hands dry and re-enter the living room.

"What did you bring home?"

He pops open the lid and steam immediately escapes it, "I bought katsudon; I traded it for tonkatsu because that would have meant you needed to cook. I wanted us to relax for today."

You snap open the wooden chopsticks apart, "I wouldn't have minded cooking for you again, really."

"But I would have," He says, imitating you, "I wanted us to just relax today."

"Tell me about your day today," You say, picking up a piece of meat. He frowns, before gently saying,

"I think that discussion should be saved after we finish eating."

"Oh, I forgot," You say, slowly spooning rice into your spoon, "I forgot you were involved in those cases."

"My silly girl," He chuckles, before taking the spoon to his mouth, "You're so forgetful. It's endearing."

"Not my fault I want to hear about my boyfriend's day," You quip back, and he puts a hand to his chest as if it were violently thudding.

"Ah, hearing that from you...!" He says, dramatically, his voice filled with an apoplectic blush. You roll your eyes playfully.

"Just eat your food, Dazai," You can't help but giggle when he sighs and starts chewing, "Thank you for thinking about me."

"You ought to stop thanking me. It's my duty." He mildly chastises you.