Like The Water Loves The Air (Chuuya x Reader)

Chapter Three

"Have you been getting enough sleep?"

Y/n grinned lazily across the bar at the man who was like steam rising from the water on a cool spring morning. She was fully entranced in her self destructive spiral now. The stench of smoke hung around her, rolling off of her in waves.

There was an odd sort of comfort in the letting go. Y/n reveled in it, in the man's presence. Reveled in the fact that she had someone to blame other than herself for this little slip up.

"You seem... different."

"Do I now."

"Yeah." he indignantly replied.

"Maybe I was acting different when I met you. Maybe this is what I am."

The man thought for a moment before shaking his head.

"No."

He picked his glass up off the counter where Y/n had placed it.

"No, I don't think so."

The smile fell from her face. She watched him through narrowed eyes.

"You don't know me."

The barrier between them hung thin. There was an inexcplicable urge that ate at Y/n, burrowed into her skin. She wanted him to see the truth.

Unlike the other two times the man had come into the bar, Chuuya had not used his jacket to reserve a seat while he ordered. She watched as he slipped a hand into one of its deep pockets and pulled out a small book. Y/n recognized the cover immediately.

"I think I do, L/n." he taunted, shaking it slightly in his hand as if to prove a point.

"Just because you know what I am capable of does not mean you know me, Nakahara."

She had seen his name on the card, on the receipts. It was impossible not to. The man grinned.

"Well then," he hummed, letting his hand fall back to his side, "surprise me."

The determination with which Y/n found herself before the keys of her computer the next morning was something she hadn't felt in years. It knocked her back into place. It pulled her headfirst from drowning and held her feet to the fire. It was the fervor of her high school self, deciding the path of her life and willing to do anything at all to make it happen.

She was ashamed. There were so many promises her weakness had broken, so much effort. She was just as set on it never happening again as she always was when something like this happened. She was just as angry.

It wasn't just about proving the man wrong. It was about her. It was about proving to herself that she could do it, that she had changed, that she wasn't the kid she had been once upon a time. That coming back to Yokohama wasn't a mistake. 

Taking a deep breath, Y/n began to write.

--There was an artist who lived in the woods. He surrounded himself by nature, hoping the connection to the world around him rather than to other people would provide the thing he had lost in his work somewhere along the way. It's a funny thing, loss. Most often, you don't realize you are in the process of losing something until it is already long gone.

I listened intently from my place on the couch beside you, gripping the stem of my mostly empty glass. I was young, your words sounded like philosophy.

--There was an artist, you began again, and one day, he went for a walk. Along his path, he stumbled, his toe having caught on something. Upon further inspection, he realized it was a rock. 

The rock was beautiful, full of strains of mica that caught the sun, reflecting Apollo back up at him. --This is it! the artist thought, this is what I have been looking for all along! With great care, he picked it up off the ground and slipped it into his pocket. Upon returning home a few hours later, he held it in his hand once again.