What you're name ?

Chapter 15 Bystander Effect

Made by @cataclysmiceve1 on Twitter!
-
TW // homophobia and abusive parents

-

Chuuya feels himself slowly starting to adjust to the new normal. His friend group at school has shifted away from his friends in from soccer and towards Gin, Ryuu, and Higuchi. He's an unofficial member of Dazai's baseball team. He makes sure Dazai and Mori actually eat.

There are things he misses from before, yes. He misses his mom. He misses his room. Sometimes he even misses Yuan. Not the physical parts, but the friendship. But he's learning how to replace them with new things. Weekends at Odasaku's. Lunches with Gin. Nights with Dazai.

But, a little over a month after he left home, things change.

"Nakahara-kun?" He glances up from his math quiz to see his teacher standing at the front of the room, looking over a piece of paper. "You've been requested by the principal's office."

Chuuya exhales slowly. The walk is long, and it stretches out in his head. He doesn't know exactly what this is, but he has a pretty good guess. He manages to send off one text before he walks in.

// Chuuya: I think they came to my school.

// Dazai: Wait? Right now?

The door to the office opens. The principal is sitting there—looking uncomfortable. Opposite his desk, his parents are sitting in two chairs, huddled close. A police officer is standing in the corner.

Chuuya wants to slam the door and make it all disappear, but he's awake, and that won't work.

"Chuuya—" his mother stands up, rushing over and pulling him into her embrace. "We—" she chokes back tears, "we've been looking all over for  you. How could you do this?"

Chuuya doesn't move. His father isn't speaking. His father isn't even looking at him. He forces himself to move, to pat her arms awkwardly, because he doesn't feel comfortable hugging her—and he hates that.

"Nakahara-kun..." his principal looks wary. "Have a seat."

Chuuya's mother gives him a small push, and he forces himself to sit down.

"Your parents," he gestures to them, and Chuuya's father still won't look away from the window. "Have reported you as a runaway. Now—I know my teenage years were hard myself—but we both know that you belong at home."

Chuuya's mother has wadded up tissues in her hands. Chuuya is staring at a fixed point on the wall where the paint is starting to chip.

"But if there's something you would like to tell me or Officer Seijo, please," his principle says emphatically, "now is the time."

There are things that they never explain on TV. You always stare at the screen and think to yourself, 'Why didn't they tell? Why didn't they just say? something?' Chuuya has been raised, his entire life up until this moment, to not make a scene. That's the entire reason it took his parents a month to file a police report. They didn't want to deal with the embarrassment of admitting that their child didn't want to be at home. And it's that frustration, that fury and humiliation, that Chuuya can feel radiating off of his father right now.