Strawberry Panic {TomTord}

A good day

Good days were hard to come by.

For whatever profound, cosmic reason, the universe just seemed to take some extreme perverted pleasure in making him as miserable as humanly possible.

Maybe it was karma. Perhaps, in a past life, he had committed some of the most atrocious horrors known to mankind, and as punishment for being just a general, all around awful human being, was sentenced to suffer in a loathful existence. After all, why would you be sent to hell when you can start out a hopeful beginning on earth with a million prospects just waiting, tingling at your fingertips, only for everything that you've loved and dreamed for to be snatched away. It was harsh, cruel and something that he definitely deserved.

Everything happens for a reason.

God, past him was such a dick.

From experience, he found it unreasonably difficult to have a day that he would label as 'decent' or 'fine' on life's Shit-'O- Meter. In most instances, the mass amount of bad days always seemed to outweigh the few good ones; which really, only helps to fuel his bleak outlook and binge drinking habits.

Sometimes it felt like he was crawling on his hands and knees; already bloody and bruised; broken beyond repair. Struggling as he tried to carry himself through an endless stream of thick, viscous mud that refused to budge and constantly threatened to weigh him down. Agonisingly uncomfortable hours filled with hopeless sobbing and desperate thrashing, only to sink back to the bottom anyway.

 At least there was always a tomorrow.

He always had a chance to fail again.

So, yes, if sat down to think long and hard about all of the knowledge that he had gained during his twenty-three rotations of the planet; the only truly heartfelt wisdom that he could pass on to others would be just that;

Good days were hard to come by.

Tom wasn't usually one for waxing poetry about how depressingly pathetic his life is (okay, not since high school at least), but as a pessimistic person, he felt as though he at least earned the right to have such a piss poor attitude. Between his parent's abandonment, his mutation, and his alcoholic episodes; life hadn't exactly given him a reason to be as carefree as he wanted.

So, when one morning he found himself waking up with a small smile on his face, and a whistled tune on his lips as he walked to work; he was a little sceptical.

He really should have seen the signs sooner.

Maybe there was something in the air- or perhaps he was still reeling from the Tord-based shenanigans from the day before, but by whatever reality that he now somehow lived in, he was, in short; a happy boy. High on a cocktail mixture of validation and immense relief, he can barely remember another moment where he had felt so calm.

Yesterday had proved a many of different things to him; previous insecurities that he didn't have the strength to voice out loud, but still lay close beneath the surface. Tord's clear public display of jealousy towards his (totally platonic) relationship with Cherri and the look of sheer want that he had displayed during their weird blowjob competition soothed some of the seeds of doubt that had been growing within the shaded part of his self-loathing brain.

It made whatever tension that had been surrounding them for a while now seem more real, and less like the one-sided mess of emotions that he had suspected in the beginning.

Again, he really wished he had spotted the signs sooner.

—
Making his way to the changing rooms, Tom paused, his toneless whistling quieting down into a bleeding, open silence. His lips were left pursed, almost comically, as he squinted his eyes in narrowed suspicion.