The Marionette • Chuuya X Reader

2020 December Special

This update is a huge thank you to all who have supported this fanfic and a happy holidays after a rough year. I tried to steer away from making it too Christmas-y for those readers who maybe don't celebrate that holiday. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this little after-story winter one-shot (don't set your expectations high for this one) <3

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The last time you celebrated any sort of holiday, you were still under Mori's care as a naive little girl with the hope you had found family. After your reality came to light and pulled you in without remorse, 9 years later you can only briefly grasp at some of the details of what it is to hope for that mystified warmth next to those who love you. The memory is far too faint and unfamiliar...far too painful to wish for now when you have no one to share the season with.

Now, a year after you took Chuuya's offer to ride through the city on his motorcycle, letting your heart be carried by the wind, your love for him out in the cold winter air meaning to bring him warmth as his love did to you, you find yourself alone in the Port Mafia head quarters, roaming around in the dark in the attempt to ignore the ache in your heart haunting you tonight.

Ever since last year, everything around you seemed to change. You know it is good change, you yourself feel all the weight you've always carried on your shoulders slowly lessen until you can walk with your head held high like never before, but still it leaves you uneasy. Breathless. Sometimes you feel as if you need to run to catch up to it all, hand reached out unable to truly grasp the moment. The world is spinning around you and all you can do is spin with it out of fear of getting stuck in the same place again. Tonight however, that distress feels different.

Tonight, I can finally see how much has changed.

The world is no longer spinning, and you're dizzy after trying to keep up.

The pain of wanting more you don't have during the holidays and the ache of the distress of change have collided, and for the first time in a year, your world has stopped as you stand in the middle of a Port Mafia corridor, a dim light shining on your face and illuminating your thoughts more than your pathway. Staring at you as much as you stare at it are multiple hallways lights lit up gently, each holding a candle fire while the brass is decorated with the most elegant bows, holly attached to it. It's not that you found it out of place or odd, it's that you had never seen an atmosphere so warm and mundane inside the Port Mafia before, and to see it and feel it now, alone in the halls while everyone else has gone to celebrate Christmas Eve of their own accord...

It's lonely.

It's suffocating.

But it's beautiful. It's been so long since I've truly seen the present...

Yet...Why am I alone tonight?

At the root of all on your mind, the question of why you're alone rings loudest, and as much as you want to wallow through your own sorrow as you're used to, you already know the answer. There is nothing further to think about and no one to blame but yourself.

A few months after you had gotten together with Chuuya, you made the decision to put a stop to your relationship for the time being. It had been an agonizing conclusion to come to, but you for the first time had choices, and you wanted to find yourself before you slipped again and became dependent on all he is. You didn't want to be his burden. You wanted to put yourself back together while holding on to all he has taught you and made you feel.