Sae Itoshi had always wondered what dying felt like, not out of anything truly.

Sae simply liked understanding things, and death was one of the few things nobody could ever properly explain to him.

People always described it differently.

Some said it happened all at once. One second you're standing and the next you're gone.

Others described it as slow, like watching the shoreline disappear further and further away until suddenly your feet couldn't touch the bottom anymore and panic finally set in when it was already too late.

He used to think it was the first one.

He believed death would feel sudden, like a gunshot, maybe even like a cliff giving out beneath your feet.

Now he knew better.

Death was slower than that.

Death was realizing one day that someone had dug their roots into your ribcage so deeply that every attempt to pull away only tore pieces of you off with them.

Death was sitting across from you apologizing while you couldn't do anything but watch, knowing you'll only let them back in.

Death was hearing the same promises repeated so many times they lost all meaning.

Death looked a lot like you.

The worst part was that you sounded sincere every time, your hands wrapped around his.

Warm and soft, the same hands that had built him up only to leave him staring at his phone at three in the morning wondering if he'd imagined the entire relationship.

It was the same hands that had stroked his hair while swearing he was enough, the same hands that had promised change.

Promised effort.

Promised tomorrow.

Promised forever.

You always promised forever, and that same forever always seemed to expire within a week.

"I'm sorry."

Your voice was careful, almost like someone approaching a wounded animal.

You were apologizing.

Again.

And Sae hated that his first thought wasn't anger, his first thought was relief because at least you came back into his arms.

Sae stared at your intertwined hands.

Your thumb brushed over his knuckles, an affectionate gesture, a comforting one.

A lie.

Everything was a lie.

The realization should have hurt by now. Instead it settled inside him with a familiar numbness the same way old injuries stopped hurting after enough time.

Not because they'd healed, but because they'd become permanent.

You had lied when you told him you were his.

Not because you intended to deceive him, that would have required intention, and consistency.

You lied because you didn't understand the weight of your own words.

You said things because they felt true in the moment.

You loved him in moments, that was the problem.

Sae loved in permanence.

You loved in weather.

He remembered every promise you'd ever made.

You didn't.

The thought made something bitter twist inside his stomach.

He hated how well he knew you, he hated knowing exactly how your mind worked.

You would forget while Sae remained trapped inside every version of you he'd ever known.

Every laugh.

Every smile.

Every touch.

Every absence.

Especially the absences, those were the worst.

People thought heartbreak happened during breakups, sae knew better.

Heartbreak happened on ordinary Tuesdays.

It happened when you stopped replying, when a message sat unread for six hours.

Eight hours.

Twelve.

It happened when his calls went unanswered, when the ringing stopped, when he stared at the screen waiting for your name to appear, when it didn't.

The spiral always began the same way.

First came irritation.

Then worry.

Then anger.

Then panic.

By midnight he was convincing himself you'd died.

By two in the morning he was imagining you with someone else.

By four he hated you.

By five he hated himself more.

The bathroom floor knew him better than most people, cold tiles against burning skin and nausea twisting through his stomach—his brain has already convinced itself of seventeen different tragedies.

His phone clutched in white-knuckled hands, messages sent and deleted and rewritten.

Sometimes cruel.

Sometimes desperate.

Sometimes both.

Where are you?

Are you ignoring me?

Answer the phone.

Forget it.

Don't bother.

I hate you.

Please answer.

Then he'll start making up scenarios, maybe you're hurt.

Maybe you're dead.

Maybe you don't love him anymore.

Maybe you've found somebody better.

Maybe you're laughing at his messages right now.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

The word haunted him, because loving you meant existing inside an endless cycle of maybes.

Nothing was ever certain, except the fact he'd always come running back.

The humiliation of it never stopped, the awareness never stopped either.

He knew exactly what he looked like.

Pathetic.

Obsessive.

Unstable.

And somehow that knowledge only made him angrier, he hadn't been like this before you.

Before you, control had come naturally. Before you, emotions were simple things.

Then you arrived and suddenly his entire emotional state revolved around whether your name appeared on his screen.

Pathetic.

Pathetic.

Pathetic.

The word echoed endlessly through his mind.

Yet here he was, still holding your hands, still listening to your shitty apology.

Why?

The question haunted him.

Why couldn't he leave? People left relationships every day, people moved on. People recovered, people found better.

Sae had options, he knew he did.

People wanted him.

Admired him.

Desired him.

He could walk away right now and find someone else within a week, someone who wouldn't turn affection into withdrawal, someone who wouldn't accidentally destroy him every other month.

So why couldn't he do it?

His eyes slowly lifted toward yours.

And there it was, the answer looking at him like he mattered, looking at him like he was home.

The worst part wasn't that you lied.

The worst part was that you believed your lies when you said them.

Right now you meant every apology, right now you meant every promise right now you loved him.

And Sae was weak enough to accept moments even knowing moments were all you'd ever give him.

You had reduced him to something embarrassingly simple, a man starving to death who kept accepting crumbs because they came from your hand.

He should have been angry.

He was angry, furious.

The anger lived permanently beneath his skin now.

It fed on disappointment.

It fed on abandonment.

It fed on every cancelled plan and every ignored text and every broken promise.

Sometimes he imagined blocking your number and disappearing completely.

Sometimes he imagined cutting every thread connecting you to him.

But every fantasy ended the same way, with him crawling back, with him answering the call, with him opening the door, with him forgiving you.

Again.

And again.

And again.

You squeezed his hands, waiting—hoping.

The silence stretched.

You looked nervous.

Good.

Part of him wanted you nervous, part of him wanted you to understand what he goes through just trying to get you to look at him.

He wanted you to finally realize what loving you had done to him.

The sleepless nights.

The anxiety.

The obsessive checking.

The sickness.

The dependence.

The constant fear.

Love wasn't supposed to feel like this, this wasn't love, it couldn't be. Love wasn't supposed to make someone feel haunted.

Yet despite everything, when he looked at you, his chest still ached with unbearable affection.

You were waiting for judgment.

He opened his mouth, the words were already there.

Get out.

Leave.

I'm done.

I'm tired.

I'm choosing myself.

The speech had lived in his head for months—years, maybe, perfectly rehearsed.

Instead he heard himself say, "It's okay."

Your shoulders relaxed instantly.

The sight made something inside him break, not because you were relieved, but because he was.

"I forgive you."

The words came out soft, a confession of weakness disguised as kindness.

Your expression brightened, hope returned to your face and Sae hated himself for loving that look.

He raised a hand, his fingers settled against your cheek, warm skin he kissed every night.

His thumb brushed beneath your eye, a tender gesture, and a even more devastating one because even now he couldn't stop caring.

Even now he couldn't stop wanting to protect the person hurting him.

You smiled, and there it was again.

That awful fluttering inside his chest, those butterflies people wrote poems about.

Sae thought butterflies were a stupid metaphor, butterflies were beautiful and what lived inside him wasn't.

It was starving.

It was ravenous.

It chewed through reason.

It devoured self-respect.

It swallowed pride whole.

Sometimes he thought it wanted to consume you too, it wanted possession and ownership.

It wanted access to every thought in your head, it wanted guarantees, it wanted permanence. It wanted to crawl beneath your skin and stay there forever.

Because if he could become a part of you— truly become a part of you— then maybe he wouldn't spend every waking moment terrified of losing you.

You leaned into his touch.

"I love you."

The words left your mouth so easily.

Sae stared at you, searching, looking for certainty where certainty didn't exist—trying to find permanence inside someone who had never belonged to permanence.

You smiled softly, waiting, loving, at least in this moment.

And maybe that was the tragedy.

You loved him, just not forever.

Sae leaned forward.

His hand remained against your cheek.

His eyes closed, and he kissed you.

His hands are shaking when they cup your face, thumbs pressing into the hollows of your cheeks like he’s trying to memorize the shape of you.

His tongue is hot and desperate in your mouth, messy and wet, and you can feel the way his breath hitches when you bite his lip just to hear him whine.

And when you pulled back just to breathe, just to see him, his eyelashes fluttered like moth wings against the flush of his cheeks, pink and feverish.

“Don’t,” he gasped, voice ragged, already chasing your mouth again before you could even speak. “Don’t stop, don’t—"

And maybe that was what death truly felt like.

#sae

No but we need more sub yanderes bc wydm I see yanderes like play and cheat and do all types of diabolical shit to their darling/reader or wtv and the reader does nothing about it... Like we NEEEED more submissive yans who gon take it up the butt and beg you not to leave them

Btw would y'all be comfy with me posting smut bc I was gna write smut for this one but I didn't know so TELL MEEEEEE