Beneath Their Devotion (Yanderes x Reader)

2.11 Stranded

⚠️ This chapter contains depictions of harassment. Reader discretion is advised. Please prioritise your well-being above all!

The night air was cool against her skin, but Y/N barely felt it. Her steps were uneven as she moved down the street. Everything looked a little off, like the world had shifted five degrees out of place and no one had noticed but her.

She didn't know for how long she walked.

Her mind ran in circles—Akira's smile, Akira's voice, the softness in his eyes when he spoke to her, the way he remembered her favourite stuff, the way he listened like he actually cared about her.

It had all been some sickly calculated performance. He had been keeping secrets from the start. Had he ever been real to her?

She clutched her arms around herself tighter, not against the cold, but against the ache that had lodged somewhere deep inside her lungs, right where her breath used to come easily.

Who else was manipulating her? If Akira was, she honestly wouldn't put it past anyone anymore.

The faces blurred in her mind. She thought of her mother and her clipped words about Akira, always said with something sharp beneath them. She'd chalked it up to overprotectiveness, or something uglier, even. But now she wondered if it was something else.

Had she seen through him all this time? Maybe that was why she hated him so much.

A wave of nausea rolled through her. She stumbled slightly, catching herself against a streetlight post. Her vision swam, not from dizziness but from too many thoughts crashing together in a space too small to contain them.

When she finally reached the bus stop, the street was deserted just like it had been when she had arrived earlier, when everything was still... slightly normal. She moved toward the sign with the schedule and squinted at the timetable, the numbers not making sense at first.

Until they did. The meaning hit her like a slap. The last bus had left five minutes ago. Of freaking course. She stared at the time on her phone. The next bus wouldn't come for another six hours.

Y/N let out a breath that shuddered on the way out. Then, without meaning to, she laughed. A thin, humourless sound that scraped out of her throat.

She screamed.

A raw, voiceless kind of scream. Not loud enough for neighbours to peer through windows, but just loud enough to scrape something loose inside her, just enough to make the night feel real again.

She just dropped herself right there on the pavement. She folded into herself on the concrete by the bench, arms wrapped around her knees. She didn't cry. She wanted to. The pressure behind her eyes was there, relentlessly so, but the tears wouldn't come.

She just sat there, the world vast and empty around her, feeling a strange sensation of numbness. Something inside her had fractured in a quiet, kind of permanent way.

Y/N sighed and turned on her phone.

She hunched forward, elbows on her knees, her phone cradled in hand. The light of the screen cast a pale glow on her face, and for a while, she just scrolled without looking.

She paused when she saw Akira's contact, staring at her. It was still pinned to the top of her messages. It still had that smiling picture of them he never changed since they were kids.

She hesitated for only a second. Then, with her thumb moving slowly, she opened the settings and hit delete contact. A small box popped up. 'Are you sure?' She hit yes before she could think. There was no surge of victory or satisfaction. Just an emptiness, followed by a flicker of something petty and sharp.