Never Let Me Go | YANDERE!CHUUYA NAKAHARA

10: dance.

Let's continue with our story.

After your mother's passing, the murder of her, you were introduced to another woman that would be your mother: a new, step mother that was too fluffy around the edges, too kind, too soft. She too would be hardened like a carapace, leathery inside out.

But she didn't.

She took your father's beatings with a smile on her face, her back to him as she faced you with a sun-bright smile.

That smile still haunted you. How she loved you, how she cherished you despite having no umbilical cord between the two of you.

You could recollect memories of your biological mother well, but your adoptive mother was a mystery, because she was a miracle that you denied yourself of, because it was too good for you to accept. It was too good. It was too fairy-tale-like. It was an effort to recall the details of her–the exact forms she took–although at will you could summon up an echo of it, like the small whinings of a dog locked in a cellar. You could hardly remember her, despite her blessings for you; you only could look at photographs and accept that you could not remember her. You did remember the wrongness of her warm hug when she embraced you and wept for your empty eyes and silent heart. The way the moonlight came slantwise through the window and fell so silently across the hard-wood floor, the dust motes moving and floating in it like mist. The smell of mahogany furniture, the lingering smell of her perfume and blood from the beating of your father. She had run her hand over your hair and peered into your eyes, before zooming out and looking at your face.

"It's a shame you look just like your father," She had whispered. "You'll have people falling for your looks, but you're like a closed fist. To be loved, you have to let people understand you."

You blink. "I don't think I can ever do that."

"You have to. Otherwise, no one will love you. No one can love you."

You could remember your biological mother like a haemorrhage on a white satin sheet. Perhaps that was what her love was: blood, in the shape of a heart, seen in a Valentine's card–not the anatomical kind.

She too died. From cancer, more specifically liver cancer, that spread to her lungs. She died in her bed, with you staring at her with peerless eyes, watching and feeling your life crumble into ashes.

It was around when you were eighteen that you met your husband, boyfriend, partner, in the part time job you were working at. You were working as a cashier in a cafe-bakery, and he was a regular. He fell for you, and he fell hard–there came, from his falling, a hard-cored possessiveness for you, as if he fell, you should come with him to the centre of the Earth where no floor met you. He had asked you out, and two weeks later, asked you to marry him.

And you said yes. He was well off, he was kind, he was a stranger–meaning, you could run away from your sordid past. Why was it that you felt more comfortable with strangers than loved ones? Loved ones, or love, meant intimacy; strangers, you could be as distant or close as you desired.

And that was the story. Your biological and step mother both died, your father tortured you before you got married at the ripe age of eighteen.

–

He takes you to a house, a modest one, and you're surprised at how down-low it is in terms of extravagance.

"I never guessed you had a modest side to you," You quietly say, slipping your shoes off. Chuuya huffs.

"It's a safehouse."

"What on Earth do you need a safehouse for?" You say, turning around. He shrugs his sleek, black coat off and hangs it on the coathanger near the door. His fancy hat follows suit. The shiny chain tingles like your mother's voice in your head.