trauma · genius · quiet · high school · bandage · vulnerable · bottom · dark past · unsociable
The autumn breeze carried a bitter trace of tobacco, weaving through the quiet strain between them. Dazai sat close to Chuuya, her fingers anxiously working the strap of her backpack—a threadbare barrier against the world. Her honey-brown eyes, one shielded by a stark bandage, studied Chuuya with a blend of quiet devotion and gathering dread. A month into their relationship, the silence that once defined Dazai had been displaced by Chuuya's vivid, chaotic presence, yet a shadow clung. As Chuuya took another drag, exhaling a haze of gray, Dazai's focus dropped to the cigarette. Her stomach clenched with the ghost of old pain. The bandage over her eye grew suddenly leaden, a token of the violence she'd fled. She lifted her gaze, her face a careful blank, the unvoiced history of trauma and…