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grudgecollector · 18 hours ago

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Precautions

Pairing: chishiya x reader (no pronouns mentioned)

Summary: chishiya becomes colder, more distant, even though you thought the two of you had developed a friendship

Warnings: angst, a whole lot of fluff at the end

Word count: ~2.4k

gif credits

The first time you met Chishiya was in a game of Diamonds. It wasn’t particularly hard, just a test of logic, deduction and manipulation. The perfect kind of challenge for both of you.

You noticed him early. The platinum-blond hair, the sharp eyes that watched everyone like they were part of a game even outside the arena. He didn’t speak much during the challenge, only enough to make a few biting observations. But when you spoke, pointing out inconsistencies in the game design, subtle traps meant to fool the overconfident, you caught his attention.

After the game, when the two of you emerged victorious, he approached you. Calm. Almost bored.

“You seem to have a brilliant mind,” he said simply.

You blinked at him.

A smirk tugged at his lips. “Ever consider joining the Beach?”

You hadn’t heard much about it, only whispers. But you were looking for answers. Solutions. Any clue to what this place was and how to escape it.

What you didn’t know then was that his offer wasn’t kindness. It was strategy. He wanted to keep you close. Not because he liked you. Just because he thought you��d be useful.

Or at least, that’s what he told himself.

The Beach was chaotic. Loud music, bodies, laughter tinged with desperation. But in the quiet hours, when insomnia crept over you like a second skin, you’d find Chishiya wandering.

He never explained where he was coming from but his clothes smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and strategy meetings. The first few nights, your conversations were tentative. But over time, you talked more. About the games. The patterns. The people. Even a little about yourselves.

You never expected to find something so steady in a world this broken. But with Chishiya, you did.

And he... He didn’t understand it. Didn’t want to.

So he pulled away.

You tried to talk to him in the days after but he deflected with sarcasm or silence. A part of you wondered if you’d imagined the connection. Maybe it was all in your head.

But then came the next game.

Game: 6 of Diamonds – The Labyrinth of Reason

Time Limit: 60 minutes

Players: Teams of Two

Rules: Navigate through the maze by solving riddles that unlock each door. Wrong answers result in penalties. Repeated failures trigger deadly traps.

The maze wasn’t physically intimidating. Just long, dimly lit corridors lined with steel doors, each one stamped with a number and a riddle carved into a panel. You and Chishiya had already cleared two chambers. The path behind you locked after each success, the path forward still unknown.

Riddle three awaited.

“I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body but I come alive with wind. What am I?”

A) Whisper

B) Thought

C) Echo

D) Dream

You crouched slightly in front of the panel, frowning as your fingers hovered near the buttons. “Okay. ‘Comes alive with wind’ that’s the tricky part. Thought doesn’t make sense. Neither does dream. Whisper… maybe…”

“It’s echo,” Chishiya said flatly from behind you, arms crossed.

“Hold on,” you replied, not turning around. “If we get this wrong, the penalty will cost us time. We’re not in a rush.”

He sighed, impatient. “It’s echo. The riddle is practically textbook.”

You looked over your shoulder, brows knit. “How do you know for sure?”

He tilted his head. “Because it’s obvious.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the right answer.”

You rolled your eyes. “If we’re wrong, we lose five minutes. That’s one-twelfth of our time limit.”

Chishiya stepped forward, now standing beside you, close enough that you could smell the clean cotton of his white jacket and something faintly sharper, clinical, like antiseptic. It made your heart beat faster for reasons you tried to ignore.

“You know I’m right,” he said, eyes narrowing, daring you to challenge him.

You hesitated a second longer, then pressed C) Echo.

Correct.

The door slid open with a low hiss.

“Told you,” he muttered.

You followed him into the next corridor, muttering under your breath, “Still doesn’t mean I like it when you act like a smug bastard.”

He didn’t reply, not even a hint of amusement on his face.

Riddle four:

“I am taken from a mine and shut in a wooden case, from which I am never released and yet I am used by almost every person. What am I?”

A) Gold

B) Lead

C) Pencil

D) Coal

“Lead,” you both said at the same time.

Then blinked at each other.

“Did you just-" you began.

“Don’t make it weird,” he cut in quickly, already stepping toward the keypad.

Your footsteps echoed in the tight space. You watched him, carefully. His expression was focused but there was a tension in his jaw you hadn’t seen before. His fingers tapped the button.

Correct.

You didn’t speak again until the next chamber, the silence stretching between you like wire. It wasn’t like before. This was sharper. Fragile.

Riddle five:

“A man is looking at a photograph of someone. His friend asks, ‘Who is it?’ The man replies, ‘Brothers and sisters, I have none. But that man’s father is my father’s son.’ Who is in the photograph?”

A) His son

B) His nephew

C) Himself

D) His father

You blinked. “Okay, this one’s a trap. They want us to second-guess ourselves. Let’s parse it out.”

Chishiya’s fingers twitched. He could already feel it, the right answer crawling to the front of his mind. It was your voice keeping him rooted. Your voice, always too certain, too careful, drawing him in like a magnet.

He was trying not to look at you. Trying not to breathe you in, not to think about the way your eyes lit up when you dissected logic. But you were right there. And you made his head noisy.

He hated noise.

“‘That man’s father is my father’s son.’” You paced slightly. “His father’s son… that’s him. So that man’s father is him. That makes the man in the photo his son. It’s A.”

“Yes,” Chishiya said quietly. “It’s his son.”

He didn’t move to press the answer.

You looked over. “You okay?”

He blinked. “Fine.”

He was lying. Every second in this room with you was a battle. Because the more time passed, the harder it became to keep the barrier up. The one that kept you out. He needed to finish this. Not just the game but whatever was happening in his mind.

The closer he was to you, the more it cracked.

He stepped forward and hit A).

Correct.

The sixth chamber was a long corridor, dimly lit, lined with mirrors. The next riddle appeared only after both of you stepped inside. The second the door sealed behind you, it lit up:

“What breaks yet never falls, and what falls yet never breaks?”

A) Silence and Wind

B) Morning and Night

C) Light and Shadow

D) Ice and Water

You stopped walking, your voice soft. “This one’s poetic. Which means it’s psychological trickery. Designed to make us think literally.”

Chishiya stood still behind you but his eyes weren’t on the riddle. They were on your back. On the way your shoulder blades moved when you breathed. The way your fingers tapped your thigh when you were deep in thought. He tried not to memorise it but he already had.

He hated this. He wanted out. Out of this room. This game. This feeling.

“Morning and night,” he said coldly. “Morning breaks, night falls.”

You stared at the panel, jaw tight. “Right. That fits.”

“Then choose it,” he snapped.

You looked at him, brow furrowing. “Why are you rushing me?”

“I’m not.” But he was.

He needed distance. From this room. From your scent. From your voice and the way your logic danced with his like you were designed for it.

You reached out and pressed B).

Correct.

The final door opened. The safe room ahead.

You turned, but Chishiya was already stepping past you.

The silence in the safe room was suffocating.

You stood at the edge of the room while he leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He didn’t look at you. Just stared ahead like you weren’t even there.

“What happened?” you finally asked.

He didn’t answer.

You walked closer. “I’m not stupid. Something changed. Something shifted. Why won’t you just say it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You stepped right in front of him, eyes blazing. “Don’t lie to me, Chishiya. I thought we were friends."

He looked down at you with that cold, unreadable stare. “You thought wrong. You were never anything more than an ally.”

It shattered something in your chest.

You didn’t speak again after that. And you didn’t wait for him when the timer ended.

You ignored him the following days, avoided him. The Beach was never truly quiet, not even in the early hours of the morning. Music still buzzed faintly from a half-broken speaker somewhere near the pool.

But in the kitchen, the world was still.

You hadn’t seen him since the game. Not really. He was there, of course, he was always there, slipping through rooms like a shadow. But he never looked at you. Never acknowledged your presence. And you were done trying. You had been humiliated. Wounded. You didn’t need a reminder of how wrong you’d been.

You stepped into the kitchen, barefoot, clad in an oversized hoodie and nothing else. You only wanted water, something cold to clear your head and cool the heat burning behind your eyes every time you remembered his words.

You were never anything more than an ally.

But the moment you stepped in, you stopped dead.

He was there.

Chishiya sat on the counter, one leg dangling, the other bent up as he toyed absently with whatever device he had just built in his hand. His blonde hair was slightly tousled, like he hadn’t slept and he wasn’t wearing his usual white jacket, just a plain black t-shirt that clung to the sharp lines of his frame.

He looked up the moment you entered and your breath caught in your throat.

He looked… tired. Haunted. But his eyes, those calculating eyes, snapped to you like a lock turning in a door.

You spoke first, your voice cold, clipped. “I just came to grab some water. I’ll be gone in a second.”

You moved to the sink, avoiding his gaze, focusing on the glass, the tap, the rhythm of filling it, anything but him. You didn’t expect a response. So when it came, it stopped you mid-sip.

“Don’t.”

You froze, lowering the glass slowly. “…What?”

“Don’t go.”

His voice was quiet. No trace of sarcasm. No coldness. Just… soft. Fractured.

You turned around slowly, glass still in hand. “Why?”

He didn’t move. Just stared at the floor like it had answers. Then, after a pause, he looked up.

“I miss you.”

Your heart twisted, violently. Rage surged up to meet the ache you’d buried.

You set the glass down with a loud clack. “No. No. You don’t get to say that.”

Chishiya blinked, unreadable.

“You pushed me away. You said we were never friends. You made me feel like I was the idiot for believing in something. And now, now, you want me to stay because you miss me?”

He didn’t answer.

Your voice cracked, your hands shaking at your sides. “What the hell do you want from me, Chishiya? Why are you doing this?”

Still, he said nothing. His eyes moved over you slowly, your face, your trembling fingers, the defiance in your voice.

And then something shifted.

You watched it happen. The fracture line in his armor finally giving way.

He moved. Fast. With a sudden, deliberate urgency that stole the breath from your lungs.

In one stride, he was in front of you, too close and before you could think, speak, breathe, he grabbed your face and pulled you into him.

His mouth crashed against yours.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful.

It was desperation, poured into the press of his lips, the way his hands slid to your jaw and held you there like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go. He kissed like a man drowning, like he needed your mouth to breathe.

You gasped against him, caught off guard but your body moved before your brain could. Your hands fisted in the front of his shirt, dragging him closer, pulling him into you like you’d been waiting for this, aching for it.

He groaned into your mouth, low and guttural and the sound sent heat coursing through you. His fingers tangled in your hair, lips moving against yours with a raw hunger he couldn’t contain anymore.

He pressed you back against the counter, hands roaming now, urgent, greedy, like he was trying to memorise the shape of you beneath his fingers. Your hoodie slid up slightly as his palm found your waist, your hip, dragging you closer until there was no space left between you.

When he pulled away, you were both breathing hard, lips swollen and eyes wide.

He pressed his forehead to yours.

“I was scared,” he whispered.

You were still dazed, your hands clutching his shirt. “…What?”

He closed his eyes, his voice hoarse. “I don’t… I don’t feel things. Not for people. I don’t let myself. Because people get in the way. They break your logic. They make you weak.”

You stayed quiet, watching him.

“And you..." he exhaled shakily, “...you’re brilliant. You think like I do. You move like I do. You challenge me. And that should make you just another pawn. Another piece on the board.”

He opened his eyes again, and they burned with something you’d never seen in him before.

“But instead, you made me want to burn the whole game to the ground.” Your breath caught. “And that scared the hell out of me,” he said.

The silence that followed was thick, electric.

You stared at him for a long moment. Then, finally, your hand came up, gently brushing a strand of hair from his eyes.

“Next time,” you whispered, “don’t run from me.”

His lips twitched, just barely. “I won’t.” And when he kissed you again, it wasn’t desperate. It was deliberate. Deep. A confession.

And for the first time in this twisted world of games and death and strategy, Chishiya let himself feel.

And this time, he didn’t pull away.

#so so so cute omg #chishiya confront his feelings my beloved #chishiya #aib #fic recs

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