Ardent Hope: Chainsaw Man x Male Reader Insert.

20. Minutes to Midnight.

"Will you forgive me now?" Power asked, her voice in a soft murmur as it quavered slightly.

"Fine goddamnit, but I'm still salty over it!" (Y/N) exclaimed, pretty fed up with Power's constant pleads for forgiveness. (Y/N) was sitting at the bed's edge, Power on the floor sitting on a pillow, resting her back between his legs and the bed's side.

"But I killed the assassin!" Power complained. "It was the right thing to do after all!"

"By destroying Kobeni's car and killing both me and Denji in the process." (Y/N) argued back. "Besides, you killed him by accident, you didn't even knew he was a copycat in the first place." He said, as he tenderly rubbed Power's damp hair with the towel he held in his hands.

Power had taken a shower minutes ago, so (Y/N) took it upon himself to dry her hair carefully with a towel, something they had mutually gotten used to since a couple of months now. For Power, it was almost therapeutic, and had grown to find comfort in the tenderness of (Y/N)'s careful touch as he untangled her locks and properly dried her long hair. It remembered her of the way she would sometimes be treated on the Public Safety Headquarters, where they would constantly try to make Power look at least presentable. "Fine, fine." She said. "I'm sorry."

"Just don't do it again." (Y/N) said sternly, although Power was able to recognize the small taints of tenderness on his voice. Now getting up from the bed he threw the towel across the room to land on the dirty clothes basket on the hallway, but Meowy was on the way and was almost struck by the flying towel. She hissed loudly at the two of them before running back into the kitchen. "I'm sorry!" He yelled at the cat, who responded from the other side of the wall with a furious meow.

"Meowy!" Power exclaimed, before she promptly got up from the floor to run behind the offended cat following it into the kitchen as well. Once Power had left the room, (Y/N) walked towards the wardrobe at the other side of the room, opposing to his bed.

There, (Y/N) searched for a proper set of clothing to sleep in. It was really late already as they had once again been patrolling all day until eleven, and he had let Power shower first, as she insisted on doing it, something (Y/N) found to be almost a miracle. He pulled a pair of comfortable shorts he used to sleep and a plain oversized shirt, aside from his underwear.

Aki and Denji were already fast asleep, as they had arrived the house pretty late, and although Aki and (Y/N)'s constant complains, Denji refused to take a shower before heading to bed, thoroughly exhausted.

He could hear the thunderous clouds forming above, the deep rumbling of a thunder's echo traveling on the air, and the fresh breeze carrying the always comfortable scent of wet dirt made him remember a lot of things. He always thought of the rain as the only mean for the earth and the sky to connect, two concepts completely opposite to each other that would otherwise never be able to reach for one another. Maybe, rain could do the same for yearning hearts, he thought.

His mind constantly wandered around the idea and plan he had conceived a couple of nights ago, one of the sleepless nights he spent at Power's side, his sole company being the moon as Power slept, as it always had been.

Perhaps he could try.

By the moment (Y/N) had left the bathroom and walked into his shared bedroom, Power was already lying down on the bed, looking through the window as Meowy rested on her chest. The very sight of her presence there, in that calm mood only he and Meowy knew of at all, was always comforting for him. So he stopped dead on the door, staring at her for a couple of seconds before she noticed of his presence and turned back to look at him, a faint smile on her lips.

(Y/N) smiled too, and entered the room as he scrubbed the towel through his face one last time before throwing it into the basket on the hallway, once again it flew through the dorm, although this time Meowy was safe and sound from the towel's path. "Still mad at me?" (Y/N) asked the cat resting on Power's chest, who growled lowly. (Y/N) already knew the cat enough to know it was still offended, so he tried to clarify. "It was an accident, I promise."