𝓾𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓬𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓻𝔂 𝓫𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓼𝓸𝓶𝓼 ♡ || Yandere Heizou x Reader

Chapter 21 ......

CW: Implied Stockholm's and mindbreak 

PS super cool note at the end!!! (arguably just normal)

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My feet pitter-patter up the wooden stairs of this weird underground hideout. I haven't felt the wind, seen sunlight, seen the moon, in days. I feel excited. I feel... like I'm going to be free. I'm so confused. I'm so... disoriented. And for a moment, I want to go back.

This staircase feels infinite– as if it goes on forever. But at the same time, my heart is racing so fast everything is a blur. I'm sure I won't even remember walking up these stairs when I'm out of here. When I'm home... with my family... when I'm walking between Mondstadt and Springvale again. I feel as if I took those moments for granted– seeing everything as if it was only another task to be completed, another chore to do, when really, I should have been happy to be able to experience anything good at all. Now I've realized that.

In this moment of clarity, I've realized just how much Heizou had messed with my mind. Scrambled it up. And if I stay with him, he'll surely break it. Mush up the shards until all I am is his partner, his intern, his toy. Nothing left of me– of my independence– my dreams. I don't want to be dependent... but at times it feels like I have no choice. At times it feels like I want to be nurtured and cared for and a part of me hopes, wishes, thinks MAYBE– just maybe, I'll find that care from Heizou. But I know it'll be different. It won't be pure and soft and comfortable no matter how much I lie to myself. It will feel dirty, it will put into perspective just how little innocence I possess. The opposite of what I long for in my vulnerability.

The ocean is loud as the snow is quiet. His touch is cold as his words are warm. Every step I take up these guilt-ridden, creaking stairs makes me feel sicker. Every miserable croak the wood lets out under the pressure of my tired feet shakes me like a snowglobe.

My entire life, I imagined I'd simply get through it– deal with every obstacle that came my way, push away everything that rejected me, rush through it and come out of everything a little bit tougher. Ready to take on the next thing. Ready for everything. Ready. Ready. Ready. Because I'd always be on the receiving end, I'd always be an observer, and never a participant. Getting through everything by myself because that's how it had always been, despite how much people told me they cared. Nothing was ever enough to prove it to me.

Is killing two men and holding me hostage enough to prove it to me?

Each step I take makes me want to go back more. Somehow, going home and leaving him behind feels like a liability, and like a crime at the same time. He would always be breathing down my neck. Always be circling like a hawk. Ready to embrace me with his cold, snake-like arms, slimy in movement and scaly in essence. But he would always be searching like a lost dog abandoned by its owner. He'd built this home for me with everything he had– his past, his present, and his future. And I would be so selfish as to destroy it? To reject it? To reject him, like so many others had done to me? It would make me rather hypocritical, wouldn't it? I guess I'd never know whether I'd hurt someone as Heizou had hurt me. Obviously, I've never kidnapped anyone, or killed anyone, but I've known people who loved what they deemed beautiful, and I've chosen to hate them for not loving me. I've chosen to destroy what they found worth everything, in turn destroying their legacy, all because I could not be part of it. I've chosen to hate because I did not feel loved.

In that way, am I really all that different from Heizou?

But he does not hate me. He loves me.

What am I thinking? He loves me? If I keep telling myself that, I'll just want to give in to him. I've always been tempted by the promise of forever. Always sure it wasn't possible. But now I have the opportunity right in front of me and I'm running from him?