Friends With Benefits | Chishiya x Reader

Chapter Twenty-Six

☆ In which you wonder if, given the chance to start over, you would've done things differently. You find you would have still done the same, no matter the outcome. Every time. ☆

Apparently you were more prone to vulnerability than you thought, which is what you realise when you find you are curled up in something similar to a fetal position on your hotel room floor.

Arms wrapped around your legs, knees pulled to your chest. In a sudden wave of lucidity, you find it fitting that this is a position designed for protection; your knees another barrier to keep your heart from one more fatal crack. You almost laugh at yourself, because there is nothing left to be done and you cannot change what has happened, and yet here you are huddled up on the floor. You squeeze your eyes shut and attempt to reason with yourself; but when all rational thought fails you, you decide that perhaps you could allow yourself a moment of dramatics. 

In your now more conscious state, you do not unfurl yourself but raise a cautious hand to touch the corner of your eye. It is slightly wet, evidence of tears, but there are no watery trails on your cheeks. You suppose that the shock - or rather, the disappointment - is still sinking in, and the actual waterworks would begin at a much later time. 

You take in a deep breath and exhale slowly, doing your best to keep yourself from wallowing in self-pity. How could it have been over so quickly? It was almost unbelievable how it had taken less than ten minutes for every moment you had spent with Chishiya to have been your last. Less than ten minutes for him to hug you for the first time of his own volition, only to tell you he would probably never see you again and you would most likely kill him too. You pinch the bridge of your nose with a sigh. This is nobody's fault but your own, you think, for expecting too much even when you were meant to be so perceptive. Why is it only now that you realise you can't remember what it was like to exist here without Chishiya in the first place? 

At this thought you are unsure of who you are disappointed with more; yourself, or him. 

Perhaps it really is yourself, because you find that after all you still can't help but think of how much he had grown on you. How much you loved the way he smiled, how his hands were full of stars, and how now, whenever you would look at the moon, you would think of him every time.

How you can't help but wish that you had tried a thousand times harder to change his mind, even though you knew this was how it would end from the very beginning.

☆

You open your eyes and find yourself curled up against the arm of a Blonde Man, who is trying to turn the pages of a book as carefully as possible as to make as little sound as the paper would allow. The first thing you register once gaining consciousness is that Chishiya has been trying not to wake you up, and you feel the easy smile spread across your face. The sun is just coming up, sending the first rays of light through your window and enveloping the two of you. You think hazily to yourself that Chishiya looks kind of cute when he reads, with his lashes lowered and the look of gentle concentration on his face. You feel a kind of warmth, a new kind of contentment that makes your breath catch slightly in your throat, because waking up to Chishiya Shuntaro means this isn't just a dream.

If this is what morning people woke up to everyday, you might just become one of them. 

"Awake already, are we?" Chishiya says, voice tinged with amusement. You notice how he keeps his voice softer than usual, easing you carefully into the conscious world. "Great, because I do love it when my arm isn't numb."

"Shut up." You swat at him sleepily, laughing, and make no attempt to move from his apparently numbed arm. "It's too early for this. You could have left, anyway - I wouldn't have minded."