Outside the Dream (A Junjou Romantica Fanfiction)

Dear Agony

Outside the Dream (A Junjou Romantica Fanfiction)

Chapter Seventeen: Dear Agony

Enjoy!
_________________

Misaki's POV:

Dear Diary,

Hugh-sama thought it would be a good idea to start "illustrating my feelings". And if that isn't the most bull-crap excuse for a $70 counseling session, then I don't know what is. But, I have a feeling he'll want to check up on my entries, so, here you go, Hugh-sama.

I'm not sure what month it is. I know I got discharged from the hospital a week or so ago...that's when I was recommended for counseling. And as much as I hate it and as much as I want to punch Hugh-sama in the throat, he's someone to talk to.

Usagi hasn't been talking to me very much. Most the time he's on the phone with Detective Loyd, the one running the whole find-Takahiro-and-pin-him-up-to-a-board case. All the others he's researching all people passing in and out of Sapporo drunk off his ass on some foreign vodka. That's where we're staying for now - Sapporo. Some witness protection BS.

I want to go back to the way things were. I miss the old Usagi.

I really shouldn't call you "Diary". I should call you "Agony". You're more like a literary from of all the shit in my life. At no point will I re-read these entries and shake my head at myself for how idiotic I was. Because there will never be a time when I'm better than this.

It's just me and you, Agony. Welcome to my life.

***

I tapped the dull graphite of the pencil on my lip, waiting for more words to come, but they never do. And with that, I close the notebook, running my fingers over the smooth blue cover.

"Keep tabs on him, I'll be down there in five minutes," Usagi's disembodied voice says from his study. He sounds raucous and anxious, like he was trying to keep his voice down, but couldn't pull himself to do so.

I arched an eyebrow as I see him struggling to put his coat on.

"Usagi?" I asked as I poked my head around the door. "Yes, Misaki" he says a bit rushed.

"Are you going somewhere?"

"Yes, Loyd has found a man that matches Takahiro's appearance. I'm going to go down there."

I exhaled in a way that sounded like a scoff of disbelief, "You can't just do that, Usagi! He's dangerous, you could get hurt!"

"Like the way you were? No, Misaki, I have to go find that son of a bitch myself. I will not let him live a moment longer."

"I'm fine now! You can't let this crap keep you from thinking straight!"

He turned around abruptly, his eyes had small fires of rage within them, flickering and crackling with each word. "Fine?" Usagi reached down and pulled up my shirt, revealing a discolored scar running across my stomach. "What is that, Misaki?! A birthmark? Why do your hands always tremble? Why does your chest ache when you take a deep breath? You need to stop protecting him! He may have been your brother, but he isn't anymore. He's a sick animal that would try to kill his own flesh and blood. And I have to 'let this crap keep me from thinking straight'."

He dropped my shirt and whipped around to the door. I wrapped my arms around my abdomen and stepped back until I hit the wall, after that proceeding to slide down it to the point I was sitting in a ball at the corner of Usagi's study. I heard the door open and close loudly, followed by a thick silence swelling around the apartment.

I wept and wept, but no tears came. Rather my jaw hung open, letting out the heartbreakingly loud sobs. They echoed around the bland walls of our apartment. They tormented me, and I was helpless, the way a cat was helpless against a coyote.

Usagi was not the person I fell in love with anymore.

I shielded my hands over my face. How was I even going to function like this? I loved Usagi more than I loved myself, more than I loved anything and he was slipping from my grasp ever so slowly. I guess it was my fault. I didn't believe him when he told me Takahiro was dangerous. I left and went to go see him, the same person Usagi told me to stay away from. How could I have been so foolish, Usagi would have never done that.

Thoughts of suicide had crossed my mind before, but now it was overwhelming. No longer being a liability to Usagi, a once very successful handsome writer, acted as my resolve. I didn't want to cause him anymore pain. Anymore guilt. Anymore regret.

I stood shakily and made my way to the room opposite of Usagi's. My diary lay on the oak chest, and I grabbed it with my evermore trembling fingers and turned to a blank page. I wrapped my hand around a black pen and began to write the only words that could convey what needed to be said. I would only write one note, one note to the last person I loved and the last person that loved me in my life.

I'm sorry, Usagi.