All About Us [Yuri Katsuki x Reader]

127 - Mind the gap

The train was late but it was just for a little while. Despite having been dressed rather warmly you still found yourself shiver at the nippy air. The familiar metallic shriek herald the arrival of what you endearingly called, the 'harbinger of your death'. It's doors opened, looking all too eager for you to get inside.

You always were prone to exaggerate.

Each step brought you closer, each step made your chest tighten even more. You felt like a lamb being brought into the slaughter house. The trip going back to Hasetsu wasn't as long as you had hoped. Even with some delays back in the airport, both you and Yuri had arrived back in Japan earlier than you expected. All initial excitement of leaving had long since ebbed away and was replaced with the feeling of dread that coiled uncomfortably in the pit of your stomach. You now wished that your parents put up more of a fight to stop you from leaving. Maybe just maybe they could have talked more sense into you but no. All they told you was that 'you'd better be careful' and 'have a safe trip' after a fifteen minute debate on whether or not you should go. You were beginning to see that your departure may have been a tad bit too hasty and rather premature. You inwardly laughed dryly at your inner battle that you were waging against yourself.

Just what on earth were you thinking? You left them just like that, completely out of the blue and now you're coming back all of a sudden? You really did not spare any thought in thinking this whole ordeal over...and you were beginning to regret not having done so in the first place.

You haven't been gone for that long and yet it suddenly dawned on you, it had felt like a lifetime ago since you left. The sights, the smells, and the sounds...being back and among it all, you felt absolutely foreign.

You admit that leaving was not as easy as you had initially made it out to be. It was difficult and for a moment, it felt excruciatingly painful if the dull ache that you had felt for days on end was anything to go by. It wasn't comfortable and it wasn't pleasant. However it also cleared your head, gave you some much needed time to think and to heal. The act of turning back changed you. It had left marks in your memory, in your consciousness and in your heart. When you left you had taken everything with you and you swore that you did not leave anything behind. You just never expected it to turn you into someone you no longer knew, a stranger in the place that you once called home. It was like, all of a sudden, you no longer fit in, you no longer belonged.

How does one go back to being strangers with someone who has opened their arms out to you?

You had just been going through the motions, allowing yourself to be whisked away wherever Yuri decided to drag you off to. The scenery became a blur as the train sped forward and the places that was supposed to be familiar, still felt so far away.

A seed of worry planted itself into your mind. You were afraid that you would never be completely at home here again. Because part of your heart would be elsewhere, scattered in the wind. Was this the price that you had to pay? Was this what you had to give up for knowing and loving people in more than one place?

You were terribly off balance and you were teetering off the edge.

You sat by the window as per usual and Yuri sat beside you. You had to admire your travel companion's innate ability to slip off into sleep. You remembered the last time the two of you had taken the train back to Hasetsu, he had used you as his pillow for the whole trip, dead to the world and leaning against your shoulder. You wanted to follow his lead as well, the rhythmic bumping of the train over the tracks was supposed to rock you to sleep. The lull of its inner mechanisms was somewhat helpful to some extent but it only did get you so far.

You hoped that sleeping would have taken your mind off of having to face everyone again. Did it make sense that you were looking forward to it and at the same time you wanted to shy away? Just as your eyes were about to close and just about everything else was about to get tuned out, you jolted a bit in your seat. It must have been your nerves. And once again, you cursed your inability to sleep in a train.