worn out.

D For Detached

Atsu wakes up. It's funny, he doesn't really remember going to sleep. The air is groggy, fuzzy. His heads hazy like the day after the anniversary―those are always the worst, he'll confess in the wee hours of morning. Atsu's arms are heavy. His pulse is heavy in his veins.

(It's kind of funny, all things considered, how easy it is to ignore it; the difference between feeling ten times to much, but Atsu's always been good at taking his heart and shutting it up. He just has to breathe.)

The adrenaline still thumps through his mouth, in his hands. He's sweating. He isn't breathing. He needs to open his throat, needs to spill his fucking lungs out and breathe. Atsu'll rip his throat open so the water leaves―

"Aniki―" He hears, so far away. "aniki, aniki, aniki―"

"Mouto?" He says, blinks. Once, twice, thrice. "Imouto-chan?"

"Aniki." She says, and she's closer now, she's wrapped her arms around his head, hugged him into her shoulder. "Aniki you went away again."

"'M sorry Imouto-chan. I'm sorry." He should get dressed, but it's four-AM now, and that fog is going away. Just a little. It's slips into his skin, reality, figmented, really. "I have to go, I think. I think."

"Okay, I'll―Aniki," His sister says, and she sounds hollow and hurt. "aniki can you help with my bandages when you're done?"

Atsu blinks. Once, twice. He nods. "Yeah."

He thinks he might be slipping more than he ever has. He's fourteen, he can do better. He can he can―

He'll get dressed. He'll take off his shirt and pants and change his underwear and feel the frozen air on his skin wake him up. He'll put on a white tank top, and his uniform shirt, and his pants. He'll grip that stupid green knife and blink. He'll make his hands stop their stupid shaking and he'll hold his breath and―

"Nacchan, Nacchan I'm done."

The door creeks open. His sister's arms are splotchy red and white, cloth slated off.

_

When he leaves his hands are cramped and his sister is fast asleep on his bed, the dark circles under her eyes blend to her inky hair. It's wavy, less likely Atsu's more like their father. He kisses her forehead and grimaces.

There's a pattern, somewhere here. He's got the brain for it, his spine's melted away, though. His body won't listen. Atsu ignores it. He ignores lots.

(Nothing matters, he doesn't care. Nothing matters, he doesn't care.)

Atsu's fingertips are frozen as they can be. Blue like something out of a dream, crooked. He's breathing out red because his mouths all messed up and he's sick again. Atsu wonders if he can steal Mor's money to blow some cash out on medication. If Nacchan throws up from guilt than Atsu throws up the the man-made pneumonia that never goes away.

Whatever. The trains already here―he'll stop worrying about his own conditions now; teeth worrying against each other is enough. He only lives a stop away, but his legs are aching awfully and he's cold.

It's early enough in the morning that the only people on the train are students. It still smells like cigarettes, though. Atsu blinks, then he leaves. Lost in the sea of people too far above him in stature born from power. He'd grin if he remembered how to.

_

The silvery schools gates were behind him now, towering over the entrance of the school. The main building was gone, too, pristine glow given a burial in branches and shrubs that had overgrown on a dirt path to the classroom atop a mountain.

He hadn't reached the stone steps yet, his knees ached, the bandages on his calves threatened to come off, it's irritating. It's annoying. It's.. something awful. Raining by the beach or that stupid chair. Atsu'll keep his head tucked in his chest and disappear now.

(Pretty please?)

"Hino-kun!" Someone called through the trees. Everything stopped then.

(The mockingbirds froze mid air, their soft and harmonious chirping and tweets paused as they did so. The squirrels halted to watch the show from the center of dying tree trunks, fuzzy tails twitching behind them in wait of the show that was bound to take place.)

He's bored, maybe. Atsu doesn't know―maybe it's less bored, more hollow. Like something carved him out and ate everything. "Yes, Shiota-san?"

"Geez, no need to be so formal," Shiota says, rubbing his hand to the junction where his neck meets his shoulder. Atsu wonders how fast he'd have to be to make Shiota go down. "anyway, me and a handful of friends we're planning on hanging out after school. Wanna come?"

Atsu rolls the thought over, weighs the pros and cons, the consequences. He worry's his lip for a second. Then stops, he has her face, to some extent.

"I've got something to do."

Shiota's eyes are this awful color of blue, Atsu thinks. Like pure water and the sky, like hypothermia and sea foam.

"Oh," With the way he says it, Atsu wonders if Shiota's been scrapped from the inside too. If he's hollowed out like Atsu is. "okay. Well, see you in class."

"Yeah." Atsu mutters, holding his tongue. "See you."

D is for Detached;

My feelings have met their match.

That match would be part of me,

If not for its self destructive tendencies.

My emotions have kicked me down, and ruined my day

Made me happy and warm and awake,

Quite bipolar, wouldn't you say?

But, I do not care for those feelings at all, the feeling of joy and the fear of a fall.

The taste of fire is not burning tall,

It is nothing but a candle, in a nonexistent hall.

I can still feel the greed the lies the sin.

But why do I feel regret from a time I'm no longer in?

It does not matter, for it is all now gone, I haveve found something, that is bigger and better and strong.

Who knew it would be this easy all along?

So instead of feeling now happy or sad

I have chosen to feel nothing at all, is that bad?

That I've turned down the emotions in my head

So now I just feel empty instead.