#finding faith

pairing: aki hayakawa x reader

genre: tragic romance · grief & healing · dark slice‑of‑life, CHAINSAW MAN MANGA SPOILERS

warnings: death of a loved one, mentions of violence/devils, grief, depression, religious themes

synopsis: you’re a survivor of loss drifts through life like a ghost until a quiet man teaches you how to live again—only for the world to take him, too. now you’re left with nothing but his lessons and the will to keep on moving.

God gave up on me

Savored teethed, slipping out lies, leave me with the moonrise

Welcome darkness, welcome the open door off the horizon

tagged by the adorable, @mariahwritesstuff!

ridiculously ominous last line(s) written in an excerpt for Finding Faith edit.

Wesley stared down at her for a moment. “Did you know?” He asked. “Know what?” Morgan asked exasperated. Wesley held her gaze. “Yeah.” She answered in defeat, looking away. “I don't like what that implies.” Wesley spoke quieter, his expression softening. Morgan stared back at him. “Well, I didn't ask.” She sneered, walking away.

Jesus once said, "You don't understand what I am doing, but someday you will." That's exactly how I felt when the little pink plus sign appeared on the pregnancy test.

Shit.

It was one time. The one time I give into Cullen, God gives me a baby.

I picked up my phone and called Cullen. He picked up on the last ring.

"Hey, wanna chill for a bit tonight?" He asked. I could hear him popping gum in his mouth.

I knew what "chill" meant in his vocabulary. No. No more chilling with Cullen. I had to tell him about the baby, but this was big news. I had to ease into the announcement.

"I'm pregnant." I blurted.

"What!" He shouted into my ear.

I winced and held the phone away from my ear while he went on a curse word-laced mini rant. I waited until he was finished yelling before bringing the phone back to my ear.

"I don't want a kid." He huffed.

"Tell me about it."

"I can take you to a clin-"

"No." I shut down the idea as fast as it had arrived.

There was silence for a long time. I sat down on the toilet lid and shook the pregnancy test, willing the plus sign of misfortune to get out of my life. But it was too late. We had done the deed. The damage was irreversible.

"I have to get ready for church." I told him before hanging up the call. I buried my head in my hands, willing myself not to cry. I couldn't cry.

A knock on the door startled me back into reality. "Esther? Are you okay in there, Honey?" Mom's voice was so soft and filled with concern on the other side of the door that it made my heart break.

"I'm fine." I flushed the toilet and dropped the test into the trash. I would tell them. Just not today.

Mom stopped me at the door and held my head in her hands. She studied my face. I forced an innocent look onto my face, but she could always tell when something was wrong wit me.

"Are you okay, Honey? You look a little sick."

*You have no idea.*

I gave her a smile. "I'm fine, Mom. Just a little tired." I pulled her hands from my face and pushed past her.

It felt like I was in the all clear when she suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, by the way, I invited Cullen and his parents over after church."

Awesome.

I gave her an awkward smile and thumbs up before disappearing into my room and shutting the door.

I collapsed onto my bed and couldn't hold the tears back any longer. I sobbed onto my pillow for a good five minutes before pulling it away and seeing that it was soaked with tears.

I still couldn't believe it. How could this happen? I was seventeen. This couldn't possibly be happening to me. I was always the role model. The one who never made mistakes. The one everyone looked up to. And now what was I? A whore. That's what everyone would call me.

"Ten minutes!" Mom called.

I took one last deep breath before forcing myself to sit up and wipe my tears away. No one had to know. At least not yet. I figured I would be able to wait a couple of weeks before ruining my relationship with my parents forever. Yes. I could do that.

I walked to my closet and picked out my most modest church outfit for when I had to face Cullen. My eyes were still puffy from crying when I swiped on my mascara, but there was nothing I could do about that now. I grabbed my purse on the way out.

My parents, who were having an intense conversation about some Psalm, hardly noticed me when I slipped past them through the door and went to the car. In fact, they hardly noticed me for the entire car ride, to which I was eternally grateful.

We arrived to church twenty minutes early, like usual. I snagged our usual seats in the second pew while my parents spoke with some of their friends. Normally I would have been there, too, but i just couldn't bring myself to talk to anyone.

Instead, I took my notebook out of my purse and tried to focus on the notes I had taken last week about Daniel. I started to highlight phrases that Pastor David had said that were important to me.

"Did you know that excessive highlighting isn't all that effective?"

I stopped and realized I had highlighted almost the entire page. I groaned in frustration.

"Someone's not having a good day." I turned to see my friend, Jesse, leaning over the back of the pew studying my notes intently.

If only you knew.

I shut the notebook, suddenly embarrassed.

"What's going on?" He asked. "You're not talking to anybody."

"If one of your friends did something bad - like really bad - would you still be their friend?"

"Like what kind of bad?" He asked, jumping over the pew and sitting down next to me.

"Well, not criminal-bad, but bad sin-wise."

"The way I see it, we all make mistakes. Wasn't that the whole point of Jesus dying on the cross? 'Cause if not wow do we have something to tell Pastor David." He teased.

I sighed. He didn't understand. He was going to abandon me. "Okay," was all I could say.

Before Jesse could ask any questions, church started and his mom called him back over to their pew. People started shuffling in the doors, their voices and footsteps echoing throughout the room.

Pastor David began making his rounds, greeting everyone who came in with a few kind words and a charismatic smile. Just the sight of him made me giddy. I had had the silliest crush on him when I was younger. I even announced to him at one of our barbecues that I would marry him one day. He thought I was the cutest thing.

"Good morning." He said to be as he walked by.

"Good morning." I did my best to imitate his wide grin, but it only made me feel awkward. Pastor David made his way up to the pulpit, gripping the podium sides in his hands. His grin was so large it almost looked goofy.

"How's everyone doing today?" He asked the church. He got a round of yeses and yeahs, and someone even whooped. The whole church laughed.

This is what I needed. Church. These people weren't so bad. They weren't the monsters I had built them up to be in my mind. They wouldn't judge me.

"Good, I'm feeling pretty good today as well. Now, onto today's sermon. In the next coming weeks we're going to be closely examining each of the Seven Deadly Sins. We're going to be starting this week with lust.

This should be fun. At least Cullen has to sit through it, too.

"Lust is described as a usually intense or unbridled sexual desire. Now, why is lust bad, you may ask?"

Beside me, my phone buzzed. I flipped it over and read a text from Jesse: I'm lusting for a hamburger right about now.

I covered my mouth to stifle a giggle. I replied, It's 10AM, way too early for a hamburger.

Him: You don't know my life.

Apparently Jesse had been paying at least a little bit of attention to the sermon, because he stopped replying just before we were told to open up our hymn books to page 51. I see stood up, hymn book in hand, ready to sing, but couldn't help to look back at Jesse, who had a faint smile on his face.

Church continued like this for another two hours. Pastor David preaching about lust, Jesse and I texting, singing hymns, and occasionally taking notes, not that I wanted to, but because my friends and I always compared them afterwards.

We sang one last hymn before we prayed, took Communion, and we dismissed.

I hurried up to pack my things and meet my friends outside. They were already in the middle of a game of soccer with some of the smaller kids when I reached them. I sat down under a tree near where they were playing.

"Why don't you come join us?" Jesse shouted in my direction.

I shook my head and took out my notes. "No, thanks, I have some stuff to go over." Even though I had already gone over everything in my notebook numerous times.

I flipped over to today's notes. My stomach growled, interrupting my train of thought. How could I have possibly been so hungry? Oh, that's right, I skipped breakfast and bought the pregnancy test instead.

After every church ceremony, Pastor David and a few other people were in charge of a huge lunch. I usually didn't eat at these things but my hunger was demanding my attention.

I walked to the back of the line. The person in front of me handed me a plastic cup.

I reached out to grab it. "Thank --" Cullen gave me an unfriendly smile. "...you." I finished.

"You're welcome." He replied.

When I came to the punchbowl, I drowned a whole cupful of the stuff, hoping I didn't have a red mustache afterward. I refilled my cup.

Cullen handed me a plate, which he had already put salad on. "Be careful not to gain too much weight." His voice was so low that I thought I had imagined it, but the small smile on his lips told me otherwise.

The thing about Cullen was that he was really sweet and caring -- when he wanted something from you. And the thing is that he was so good at manipulation, you could never tell when he was being sincere. In fact, I wasn't even sure he had ever been sincere about anything as long as he'd be alive. I was pretty sure that his entire life was one manipulation after the next.

I took a deep breath and held back my anger. He wouldn't see me mad at him. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. I was the bigger person here.

"Esther!" Cullen's mom, Jen, who had been in line in front of Cullen this whole time, had just noticed I was standing there. "Honey, you're glowing!"

I choked. Cullen's face went pale.

"What?" I croaked out.

"I mean, you've always been so beautiful, but you look absolutely radiant today."

Cullen looked noticeably relieved, and I'm sure I did, too. I put on a smile. "Thank you so much. You're too kind."

She shot me a smile and moved up in line.

I got the rest of my food -- macaroni salad and a cheeseburger -- and joined my friends back near the tree. They were comparing notes now. I sat down and chowed down on my burger. I didn't bother opening my notebook, I had inadvertently memorized everything I had written down.

"What, are you eating for two or something?" My friend, Lydia, joked.

I choked on my burger. A drink of punch washed it down. My friends had never seen me eat so much before, which made sense. I'd always been self conscious about my weight.

"So, what did Cullen say to you?" My other friend, Sabella, asked, giddy with excitement. She knew I had had a crush on Cullen since seventh grade. Looking back, it had turned out to be a huge waste of my time -- and my future.

I shrugged nonchalantly and took another bite of burger. Now I remembered why I never ate at these things. The meat was practically raw on the inside. Would that hurt the baby? Was it even old enough to get hurt yet?

Now Lydia and Sabella both knew something was up with me. Up until three weeks ago all I ever talked about with them was Cullen. Jesse, however, could not have looked less interested. He was still adding onto his notes.

"Something happened between you guys." Lydia blurted out. Sabella nodded her head in agreement.

I shrugged. "I just realized he's not that great is all. It's not a big deal."

After five more minutes of this awful conversation, Mom called my name, signaling it was time to go. I said goodbye to my friends and stuff led the rest of my plate in a garbage can.

Unfortunately, my parents no longer had anything to talk about, which meant they focused on me.

"What's wrong, Honey?" Dad asked, looking at me through the rear view mirror.

I forced a small smile. "Oh, I'm fine. That burger just isn't sitting right on my stomach is all." I gave my belly a light pat. Dad stared at me for a moment too long, and I didn't think he bought it, but he let the subject drop anyway.

We got home a whole three minutes faster than Cullen's family. I used my free time to run to the bathroom and puke my guts out.

By the time I was finished cleaning up, the bell rang. I answered it and led the Smiths to the family room and kept them entertained while my parents were preparing hor d'oeuvres. Luckily Cullen's dad, George, was a talker.

"So, Esther, how's school going?" He asked.

"I'm doing really well this year. All of my teachers are so great at helping me." I replied with the best fake smile I could muster. Like most kids, I hated to talk about school.

Just as my parents were coming in with the food, Jen excused herself to go to the bathroom. Now it was my parents' turn to ask Cullen questions. And there wasn't anything going good for him in school. I reveled in his squirming when my parents asked him about his GPA.

Suddenly there was a shriek -- yes, a shriek -- of joy coming from the bathroom. All of is shot up when Jen came running in with a pregnancy test in her hand.

"Congratulations!" Jen almost knocked Mom down trying to hug her.

My eyes went wide with shock. Cullen gave me a look that said it all: you idiot.

@underangelswing

The church that appeared downtown so long ago had stood empty for awhile. It had become just one more place where Furia could be find a quiet place no one would disturb her writing. 

She lugged the bag over her shoulder and slipped into the ruined vestibule of the church. She didn’t even look around, just made a bee line for the tall lamps she had set up a few nights earlier. Flicking them on, revealed the base colors of her latest project. It wasn’t much of anything yet, just blobs of color with jagged white peeking out here and there.