Graveyard • Dazai x Reader

4: Resentment

Look up.

Look away.

Don't cause trouble.

Don't prove that his accusations are correct.

Dazai needed you. It wasn't your fault.

It was him.

It was them.

"Just how much more pathetic can you get?" Akutagawa glowers, and Chuuya gives him a disapproving look.

You force yourself to look up, head spinning. Meeting Akutagawa's gaze, you feel that you can barely breathe, like the air around you is purposefully choking you, and electricity is lighting up all muscles in your body and begging you to run. If you don't run, you die.

You open your mouth to speak, to say anything, but the more you concentrate on Akutagawa's eyes, the soulless coldness of them being reflected in your own irises, you recall the way Dazai would look at you some days when you knew you would be punished.

•••

"I don't have time for this."

'What?'

Dazai's hand turns swiftly without warning so it's the back of his hand that hits you in one elegant movement, the force being just enough to make it sting, but not enough for any mark to be left against your cheek.

"You're underperforming. You were late today. It was pathetic. Do you understand, Marionette?" The boy whispers, his usually enticing, brown eyes black in the dark of your private room, looking like nothing but a void ready to swallow you whole.

You stand there in shock, body shaking, screaming at you to run, to do anything.  You knew punishment at the orphanage, but with Dazai's hands on you you knew you'd feel only things you'd experience in Hell.

"Yes. I understand." You let out, your voice coming out as more of a humiliating whimper like an animal trapped and in pain.

The without warning, Dazai grabs your face with his hands, forcing you to look up at him, forehead touching yours and his hair falling over the both of you. He moves slightly so his lips are at your ears, and he whispers again, this time making you shiver. "Without me you are nothing, but if I don't need you, I'll kill you. I don't care what Mori says."

You feel like you're choking though you can breathe just fine, eyes beginning to water.

'My beginning and end.'

"Ofcourse." You manage to let out, tears involuntarily streaming down your face, cheeks burning with shame while the rest of you is cold with fear.

Abruptly, the executive lets you go and takes a step back, a pool of honey like a sudden clarity appearing in the brown of his eyes. "Are you crying?" He asks, and immediately you cover your mouth, holding back a wave of sobs that wanted to shatter all the composure you fought yourself for in front of Dazai.

He would hurt you. You were sure of it.

You shake your head, but Dazai takes hold of your wrist and forces your hand away from your face, holding it out in an uncomfortable silence as your vision blurs from the tears, the boy in front of you becoming a muddled silhouette in front of you.

"Oh [f/n]..." He says your name so tender, so beautifully, and in a blink the executive is holding you now, your wet face against his chest.

Dazai places a hand above your head, one arm against your back and holding you in place. His body is surprisingly warm, his embrace soft like skin against velvet and gentle like he was protecting glass.