Ardent Hope: Chainsaw Man x Male Reader Insert.

27. Trip.

Dry bloodstains resting on both their shirt and tank top respectively, (Y/N) slowly opened his eyes as the blinding sunlight struck right on his face. At his side, Power was lying down still, her head resting on his chest, listening to the rhythm of his gentle heartbeat, although she wasn't asleep. Power looked up, their eyes met for a brief moment, on which (Y/N) remembered everything that happened last night, and almost was brought to tears of joy. "How are you feeling?" He chose to ask instead.

"Much better now." She said, a faint smile decorating her features.

And the days kept going on.

Life didn't, however. At least not for one of them.

Aki's cold bed sheets felt even more disheartening than ever. A slight remembrance, the despair of a requiem directing straight at what he dreamt about, the dying echo of a desire and determination. He remembered, the way Power looked on the ground, lying victim of her wounds, and the faint stare Denji had shot at him the moment the Darkness Devil stood right at his front. Memories he may never be able to forget were promptly interrupted, by a low snore that seemed to be close, and he looked down, only to see Meowy resting at his feet, right at the end of the bed.

Time seemed to stay still, even if he couldn't recall for it.

There was something else, however. Perhaps it was the time, the moody clouds on the sky, the particularly humid days of the upcoming autumn, always a sentiment present on Aki's mind, a feeling he would always associate with something else. Aki sat on the bed, trying to stretch his back, as he looked towards the wall at the other side of the room, where a calendar was waiting for one of its pages to be torn.

Oh, right. It was September once again.

He'll have to visit his home.

And as the days kept going on, (Y/N) and Power grew even closer to each other. They would sometimes leave the house for a day, right at the sun's rise, and came back jut when the sun started to set, as (Y/N) didn't want Power to stay in darkness any longer.

Once, as they walked down an avenue under the gaze of confused people who would make comments about Power's status as a fiend, but dared not to in more than a whisper, in case (Y/N) heard them, that Power stayed for a while at a shopwindow. "You like that?" (Y/N) asked.

"No, I don't." Power said, still staring at a silver necklace that was shown on a bust in display. The necklace wasn't too fancy, but it had something that caught Power's attention right away, and it was that the pendant had the shape of a small silver cat. She would always deem such items as things humans would wear, vanity nonsense, something she would never care to even look at.

So that night, Power came home with a new necklace, the first one she ever had, and she wouldn't let anyone near it. She even cut Denji's face with a blood knife when he tried to take it from her.

It was really strange for both Denji and Aki, to see (Y/N) and Power finally together. Although they hadn't told anyone about it, for Aki it was pretty obvious to see and notice the sudden change in their every interaction ever since a couple of days after the encounter with the Bomb Devil. Of course, both Denji and Aki had assumed something would eventually come out of it, but still, it felt weird.

"I've got to tell you something." Aki told them one day, when the other three were on the floor. Denji was petting Meowy, who rested on his lap quite offended with (Y/N) after he had thrown the bed sheets into the washing machine while the cat was trying to sleep in them, and Power was arguing with Denji about to whom the cat actually belonged. "I'm going home to Hokkaido tomorrow, so I'll be gone for at least two days." Aki said, and the four glances on the floor shot straight at him. "I'll cook some meals before I go, so you'll just have to heat them up in the microwave."