Chapter Text
Shouto sits on his bed, head on his hands as he stares at his wooden floor. He’s not sure if he’s even blinking. His eyes feel dry and they definitely hurt… but what doesn’t ache on him these days?
These dark thoughts of his won’t leave him alone either.
He feels empty, lost, lonely, and tired. He’s tired. So, so tired. His body feels heavy, his brain no longer knows what rest feels like, what living without pain is like.
Pills don’t work. He swallows them dry, every day three: two in the morning, one before he goes to sleep, and he still feels hollow. It’s normal, he guesses, three tiny pills are not going to fill this vacant emptiness inside of him, this nothingness he has slowly become in his 24 years of pathetic life.
He’s the living proof that money doesn’t buy happiness. He has at the reach of his fingertips everything one could ever need or dream, and yet nothing fulfills him.
His body is a battlefield, physical and mental scars are all over him to the point he can no longer wear anything that isn’t long-sleeved.
His eyes finally move, lured to his night table’s drawer, the second one in particular. It’s empty except for two items: bandages and his beloved razor.
He looks away and clenches his fists, gripping his hair tightly. He can’t do that. He promised it to Fuyumi, he promised that he would try to not relapse again, that he would seek help if he felt the need call.
So he does, his fingers grip the bottle of wine he has bought along with his pre-cooked dinner and drowns his sorrows. Or at least, he hushes this ceaseless rambling inside his head to a point where he can easily ignore it.
The bottle is half-empty when he starts to feel sick. Oh right, isn’t one supposed to eat something before drinking, or did he make that up? Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters. Not anymore. He stumbles on his way to the kitchen, blindly seeking hold of his wall, but everything is spinning. He falls down, knees hitting his wooden floor before his torso does and he lies there, grunting nonsenses until he realizes he can crawl.
The journey from his bedroom to the kitchen seems like an epic quest, full of dangers and obstacles.
Exhibit A: there’s the danger that he might throw up.
Exhibit B: there are clothes lying everywhere and empty boxes of delivery food he has ordered and found no energy to properly get rid of.
Exhibit C: … he needs to take a break.
He lies on his cold floor, arm stretched towards the living room. He must look like a corpse.
That idea isn’t as scary as it should.
That makes him move. He needs to reach his kitchen. He needs to reach the kitchen. He needs to—
He does, and as he wobbly stands up, he wonders why. Why? Why was he trying so desperately to get here?
Looking around, he holds his head as it’s pounding. Water. His mouth is dry. He needs water. Maybe that’s why he needed to get here. As he drowns a glass of it, he remembers drinking wine and that triggers his common sense: food. That’s right, he came here to heat up his dinner. Now, where did he leave it?
Seeking over his counter and finding nothing —did he dream picking up his food?— he sees his coat tossed carelessly in a heap in one of the kitchen stools and beneath it, a plastic bag seems to peek. There it is. Picking a random fork he finds laying around, and without energy, he stabs a couple of times the plastic cover of his uh, rice with chicken and an undetermined sauce that looks like vomit and sets it in the microwave for a minute.
They say that one shouldn’t be too close to a working microwave, that it’s dangerous and not good for one’s health… His forehead hits the glass as his eyes cross, following the slowly spinning dinner. The scent is anything but inviting. Nothing from his dinner makes him want to devour it, not visually and definitely not the smell. Oh well, there you go, the reason why he barely eats these days.
“Fuyu, I’m getting thinner because this is unappealing.” He mumbles to the empty room. His sister’s words echo in his empty head, her worry, her pleas to him to get better.
Sitting on his kitchen floor, he eats. It tastes as bad as it smells. He tries to at least eat half of the box, but after the third spoonful, he just gags and drops it unceremoniously next to him, staring at the digital clock on his oven.
He closes his eyes for a second and when he opens them, the clock tells him he’s been sleeping for at least an hour.
It’s already sleeping time, yay! Standing up, he stumbles with something. It’s the remains of his dinner, well, they were the remains. He considers cleaning it up, but shrugging, he leaves it there. He’ll clean it tomorrow, when he’s not drunk. Or maybe the day after tomorrow, when he’s not hungover. Yeah, that sounds more reasonable.
He moves to his bathroom and robotically opens his cabinet seeking his magic pill number three, the one he has to take before going to sleep.
One pill or three per day, keeps depression away!
That’s not the ad, but in his opinion, it should be. It’s as phony as the rest of the advertisements he sees around. It’d fit perfectly. Rather than finding his pill container, he finds his wireless landline phone. What is the phone doing in his medicine cabinet? Picking it up, his brain tells him that logically, the pills must be in the phone’s charger base. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If the phone is where the pills are supposed to be, the pills have to be where the phone is supposed to be.
But they are not.
He finds a sock thrown over the phone base. Well, what now? Is he supposed to find his pills in his socks’ drawer? Does he even have a sock drawer?
He breaks down. Falling on his knees, he cries for who knows how long before he crawls back into his room. He doesn’t even think about it, he just moves to his drawer and picks the razor up. He needs it, he needs to stop crying, he needs to mutter everything. Just a scratch. Just a tiny little cut…
“Shouto, please, promise me that you’ll seek help.”
He throws the razor across the room and curses his sister.
Help? What help?
Wiping away his tears, he sees his stupid phone.
Help.
He has seen those posters in his doctor’s office. Crisis Hotlines, prevention lines. Specialized people whose work consists of listening to pathetic, sad people like him and trying to make them not do what he was going to do.
Trembling, his shaking fingers press the buttons. If he doesn’t remember wrongly, this is the number… he hesitates and his finger hovers over the green button. Fuyumi’s phantom voice makes the decision for him.
The tone startles him. He hasn’t called anyone in so long… is he going to be able to even talk, to even say—?
“Yeah?”
Shouto freezes. It’s a man, a man has picked up the phone.
He opens his mouth, but no words come out. He hangs up. Panicked, he curses himself and how weak he is. His sister must be so disappointed with him… His eyes fall on the phone he’s still holding and then move across the room, easily finding the shiny razor among the mess he has there. It’s calling him, luring him with bloody promises.
He hits the last dialed number button and the second the tone ceases as the man picks it up again, an influx of words erupts from his mouth. He spits them without a break, barely gasping for air between syllables. He has to let it all out, he has to, or otherwise the voices won’t shut up.
“My dinner. I stepped over my half-eaten dinner and I don’t have the strength to pick it up. I said to myself that tomorrow or maybe the day after tomorrow I’ll clean it up but I know it’s a lie because a week ago a sandwich fell too, while I was on my couch and now the reason I avoid sitting there is because the rotten smell makes me gag but I can’t do anything about it because I’m weak and I can’t clean it up.
“And the dinner was disgusting anyway but I forced myself to eat it because I drank a bottle of wine, well not a bottle per se more like half of it, because I promised to my sister that I’d seek help and I wanted to do it again but I promised Fuyumi that I won’t and I won’t… b-but the razor is calling me. It’s right there and it’s calling me, promising me that if I do it, that if I do it again, my pain will go away, that it’ll get more numb and my arms are starting to sting and they only do that when they know it’s time to add another one.
“And I can’t find my pills. I’ve sought them all around, but I can’t find them. If I’m depressed with them, how am I going to get if I can’t find them? The phone was where the pills, and I thought the pills would be where the phone was supposed to be, but they are not. There’s a sock and I don’t even know where socks are supposed to be in this apartment. Should I go out and buy more? I don’t think I can. I don’t have my receipt and if I go to the doctor and ask him for more, he’ll think that I’m trying to overdose and maybe he’s right… Maybe I hid the pills and once I get more, I’ll just drown them with the wine… or maybe I should just pick up my razor and do it. No more small cuts, just two big slits across my forearms and be over with everything and—”
“Don’t do that.”
The other voice startles him. It’s harsh and at the same time soft, and somehow he had even forgotten he was talking to someone, that there was a person on the other side of the line, listening to his ramble.
“W-what?”
“Hey, look, are you alone? Do you live with someone else?”
“N-no. I’m all alone.”
The man takes a deep breath. “Okay, you said something about a sister, right?” He nods and realizes too late that he’s calling this man, he can’t see him, so he mumbles a yes. “Okay, uh… You are calling me from a landline. Do you have a phone? A mobile one, I mean.”
“Yes?”
“Good, I want you to call your sister with that, okay?”
“N-no!” He starts to wail.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay. Uh, why can’t you call her?”
Shouto shakes his head. “I can’t. I promised her that I’d get better. B-But I’m not… I’ll only disappoint her.”
“Shit, fuck. Okay… uh, what’s your name?”
Shouto frowns. “Aren’t these things supposed to be anonymous?”
The man curses before he slowly tells him, “Okay, I uh, I want you to stay calm, alright? Promise me that you won’t freak out.” Shouto’s frown deepens, but he whispers a tiny okay, and only then does the man tell him the truth. “I think you accidentally confused the numbers. You were trying to reach a suicide prevention line, but ended up calling me.” Shouto gasps at that, and the man hurries, “It’s fine. It’s okay. I don’t mind, okay? Well, now—”
He hangs up.
He can’t believe this. He has just called a stranger and ranted for, crap, according to his phone, almost for eleven minutes about how sad and miserable he is and pathetic and—
His phone starts to ring. He eyes it, afraid. It’s an unknown number. Who can it be? He picks it up.
“Hey, please don’t hang up again, okay?”
It’s the man. The stranger he has vented to. Shouto cries. He sobs and hiccups into the phone as the man tries to comfort him.
“S-so-sorry,” he wheezes.
“Nah, it’s okay. Alright, my name is Katsuki. You don’t need to tell me your name, but I think it would help, so can you give it to me? Or a nickname, anything.”
Biting his lip, he considers it. A name is just that, a name. It doesn’t really matter, Katsuki won’t find him with just a simple name.
“S-Sh-Shouto.”
“Okay, Shouto. Nice to meet you. Okay, now your pills. You need to take those, right? For your depression?”
“Y-yes.”
“Okay. When was the last time you took one?”
“This morning. I need to take three. Two in the morning, one before I go to sleep… but the doctor said I can take two at night if the day is too bad.”
Katsuki hums. “Okay, then today I think you should take two, don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” he sighs, relieved.
“Do you want to tell me why today was a bad day? Did something happen? Come on, tell me why.”
Shouto swallows as he tries to recall why today has been so awful. He can’t. Nothing happened too out of the usual. That makes him realize how screwed he must be.
“Hey, hey, hey, shhhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.”
“N-nothing happened,” he explains. “Nothing. I’m worthless. I don’t even know.”
“No.” Katsuki’s tone steels. “Hey, no, you are not worthless, okay? You are totally valid for simply feeling like shit. Even if you don’t have a reason, it’s okay to feel something just because. I sometimes wake up and hate everything and everyone. Do I have a reason? No. But it’s just the way I feel, do you think that makes me worthless?”
“No.”
“There you go. You are doing okay, Shouto.”
The way Katsuki says his name makes him feel a little bit better. It’s almost as if he was human again, not a spoil, the empty shell of what he once was. Wait. Has he ever been a complete human being?
Katsuki interrupts his inner thoughts. “Okay, so you took your pills this morning, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good, good. Can you, uh, do you remember taking them? Can you tell me what you did this morning? Just your routine. If you feel weird, I’ll go first.”
“Okay,” he whispers, gripping the phone tightly.
Katsuki clears his throat and Shouto hears something in the background, like a train. “Okay, so I woke up and did my reps. I like to work out first thing in the morning. Then I brushed my teeth, took a quick shower and made breakfast. I live above my studio, so once I was done, I went downstairs and checked that everything was alright before I opened the shop to my customers. Your turn.”
He freezes. He feels weak in comparison to Katsuki, the man clearly has everything in order, while Shouto is a mess and—
Katsuki interrupts his dark thoughts. “Don’t overthink it. C’mon, just what did you do this morning?”
“I woke up,” he whispers. “I-it was dark outside, so I stayed in my bed, and then I fell asleep.”
“Okay, that’s good, Shouto. You woke up first in the middle of the night? Too early for even the sun, huh?”
He smiles a little. “Yes. I always wake up at 4. Sometimes I get back to sleep, other times I don’t.”
“That’s good. I’m glad you did it today. Do you remember what you dreamed?”
“No. I don’t think I’ve had a dream in a long time.”
Katsuki hums. “Well, that’s okay too. I didn’t dream of anything either. What else? You woke up again. Was it your hour already, or was it sooner?”
“No, it was late. I was late for work.”
“Did you hurry?”
“Yes… no. No, I didn’t. It doesn’t matter if I’m late. My job is useless. My father simply gave it to me as a favor. I’m not important.”
Katsuki grunts. “Stop that bullshit. You are important. Look, I don’t waste my time, and I called you back, didn’t I? Are you insulting me? Are you trying to tell me that I’m wrong? I’m never wrong. If I think and consider you are worth my time, then fucking take it. There. You are worth for someone. Now keep going. You were late, but you weren’t in a hurry, what else?”
He’s speechless. No one has ever told him that. That he’s worth someone’s time. A knot appears on his throat and he swallows, trying to get rid of it, but it’s useless.
“T-thank you. I, uh… I think I changed my clothes. Yes, I definitely tried that, but I had no clean shirts, so I looked around, trying to find a decent one.”
“Okay. Did you use the visual or the smell check?”
“Visual. No one comes too close to me to notice.” He replies automatically. He realizes what he has just said and rushes, “I’m clean. I promise, well, maybe my hair is a little bit too greasy today.”
Katsuki hums. “Okay, I believe you. What else? You found a shirt and I assume some pants… or did you go in your underwear to work?”
Shouto chuckles. “No, I didn’t. That’d have made my father even more disappointed in me than he already is. I had pants, just no shirts. Okay, huh, I think that then I tried to eat something, but I don’t have anything in my pantry, so I simply took my pills, and oh yeah, I had a half-eaten pizza from yesterday. I ate that.”
“A breakfast right out of a movie, huh?”
“Yes,” he whispers.
“Shouto? Can you go to your kitchen? I’ll stay with you on the phone. Just move there, okay?”
“I’ll try to… the floor is moving.”
“You drank wine. Fuck, wait. Okay, huh… I don’t know anything about antidepressants. Is it too bad if you skip a dosage? I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to take one pill if the room is still spinning. Okay, change of plans, are you still wearing your work clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Change. Put on your pyjamas, look, I’ll do it too, okay? I’m changing my clothes as well. Come on, you do it too.”
“Okay, Katsuki.”
He places the phone on the floor and seeks his pyjama pants and the hoodie he’s wearing now to sleep. He finds the pants in the pillow and the hoodie hanging from his closet doorknob. Changing into them proves to be a little bit complicated, but he does it.
Katsuki is already waiting for him on the other side of the phone. “I’m done.”
“Good, that’s good. Well done, Shouto. Okay, now, are you in your bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’m in mine too, let’s play mirror, okay? I’m going to lie on my bed and I want you to do the same, okay?” He does and tells Katsuki. “Good, good, okay, now I want you to listen to me. I like to read before I go to sleep, so from now on, you and I are going to be reading buddies, okay? From now on, you and I are going to share a book. I’ll read it aloud and you’ll listen to me. I’ll check it, okay? I’ll ask you questions about it, and I won’t read it by myself, only with you. You'd better pay attention.”
He hugs his legs, pressing them against his chest. A book. He hasn’t read a book in what feels like forever. “What book?”
“Oh, uh, I saw the cover and thought it looked cool. It’s called The name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It’s an epic fantasy, or so it says. Sounds really interesting. You ready? I’ll stop once you fall asleep and then tomorrow I’ll call you, or you call me and we’ll keep reading, okay?”
Shouto closes his eyes and the pressure on his chest tightens. “Why?” He whispers.
Katsuki clicks his tongue, “because now we are reading buddies, duh. Okay, prologue, a silence of three parts…”
When Shouto wakes up, his head hurts and his mouth feels weird, but he also feels strangely good. He flutters his eyes open and sees the sun is already up. He doesn’t recall waking up at four, like he always does. Oh, how weird.
He sits up, and his hand finds something hard. Picking it up, he sees it’s his phone. Why would he—?
Memories hit him.
Katsuki.
“Oh no. Oh, no, no, no, no.”
How embarrassing. Last night, he exposed himself to a stranger and wasted his time and energy on him, a pathetic, useless piece of shit that doesn’t even deserve the air he breathes. Tears fall down his face as he recalls Katsuki’s kind words:
You are worth for someone.
“Okay. Okay, I’m worth for someone. I’m Katsuki’s reading buddy.” It sounds stupid. He knows it’s stupid… but somehow it makes him feel good, so he holds on to it.
He stays on his bed, trying to remember exactly what happened last night when his eyes hyperfocus on the wall in front of him. He simply stares at it, blank mind, just observing the wall. He’s not even looking at it, his vision is unfocused, but at the same time, he can’t move his eyes from it.
The phone rings.
The spell breaks and he picks it up, wondering who it might be. No one ever calls him.
“Yes?”
“Good morning, Shouto! Did you sleep well?” It’s Katsuki.
Surprised, he gapes as he wasn’t expecting this. “Y-yes. I just woke up. I didn’t wake up at four,” he explains.
Katsuki laughs. “That’s good, that’s really good, man. Okay, listen, I need you now to go into the kitchen, okay? Can you do it, or is your hangover too bad?”
“No. I— My head hurts and my mouth is dry, but it’s okay. I can do it.”
Encouraged by Katsuki’s words, he slowly makes his way into the kitchen.
“Okay, according to what you told me yesterday, I believe your pills are in the kitchen. You took them and then you saw the pizza. Do you remember where the pizza was?”
“Yes. I’m seeing the box. No, wait. That’s last week’s box. Where’s the last one?” He rummages around and sees them. The container with his pills. Happy, he takes them. “I found them. I found my pills, not the pizza.”
Katsuki’s voice is a little bit strained. “Okay, uh, do you have food? Just anything is fine.”
Looking around, he sees last night’s dinner on the floor. Now it’s a glob embedded in his tiled floor. His mood sours. “I see last night’s mess. Katsuki, I can’t. I—”
“Find. Something. To. Eat. NOW.”
The barked order through the phone makes him stiffen and immediately seek around until he finds a couple of loads of bread. According to the package, it’s still edible. He tells Katsuki so, and the man grunts an okay. Shouto swallows the pills along with the stale bread.
“Okay. Now I want you to leave the kitchen and head to your bathroom. Take the pills with you. You need to place them where they belong so you can easily find them tonight.”
“Yes, good idea.”
“Shouto, I would like it if you gave me your phone number, the one from your mobile one. I’d like to text you and for you to text me. Just in case one day I’m working downstairs and I can’t take the call, can you do that for me?”
He halts. No. Why would Katsuki want that?
“Why?”
“Look, I’m not going to lie, last night you scared me. I freaked the fuck out, but I like you. You seem like a good guy who is going through a rough patch, and it’s obvious you need someone, a friend. I’d feel much better if someone I like didn’t die. If you killed yourself, I’d be very sad, Shouto. So, give me your phone number to avoid that. If you ever feel like last night, just call me. No matter the time, just fucking call me.”
The punch of honesty leaves him breathless. His sister said to reach for help and Katsuki is offering it… he recites his phone number and just two seconds after he’s done, it starts to ring. He follows its sound and sees an unknown number.
“Pick it up,” Katsuki says. He does and from that new phone, Katsuki’s voice doubles. “Hello, Shouto. You can hang up one. I don’t care which one.” He chooses to remain with his mobile one, since he knows that Katsuki needs to get ready for his day too. “Okay, well, last night you said your hair was greasy… I’m gonna hit the shower and so are you. I want you to do four things today. Can you do four things, Shouto? They are really simple.”
“I can try,” he whispers.
Katsuki hums. “Very well. One, I want you to take a shower. Take a short or a long one, that’s up to you, but take one. Two, I want you to look around for some clothes, and three, get out of your apartment and go to the closest bakery or coffee shop. I want you to eat a pastry: a muffin, a doughnut, a croissant, whatever you want. Eat it for my sake. And four, I want you to sit down and consider this: if you go to your work today, is that going to make you feel worse? If the answer is yes, then don’t go to work. Call in sick and walk around the city, visit a park or something. If the answer is no, then go to your workplace and do your thing… and oops, it seems that I lied. Fifth thing: call me at 18. I’ll be waiting. Shouto, can you do it?”
He considers it. It’s a long list, but at the same time, it’s not a complicated one. It’s relatively simple.
“Yes. I think I can do it.”
“I’m glad. You’re doing okay. Hey, if you can’t do something on the list, it’s okay, just sit down and relax and try again, okay? Don’t force it. Failure is okay. Nothing is perfect, we all need to fall to learn how to stand up. Have a nice day, Shouto. I’ll be waiting for you.”
He doesn’t realize he’s been crying until he tries to say goodbye. “B-Bye, K-k-ka-kat-kats-Kat.”
“Call me that. Kats, or Kat. It’s okay.”
“Kat. Have a n-nice day.”
He hangs up and cries. He has another breakdown in the shower, but at least he manages to do the first task on the list. Finding some clean clothes is more complicated, but he manages to find a clean t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Like in the shower, he stares ahead, too ashamed of looking at his naked arms, before he quickly slides on a jacket.
There’s a coffee shop in the corner of his block. His eyes fall on a cute muffing that has some chocolate on the top, making it look like a cat. He shyly asks for that one and pays for it. Seeing an empty table near the door, he sits there and, biting his lip, he takes a picture and sends it to Katsuki.
The message is sent, but not received. He’s eating it slowly when his phone beeps.
>> does it taste as good as it looks?
<< yes. It’s really good.
>> I’m glad
His fingers caress the phone screen and he feels a little bit better. Locking his phone, he keeps eating his muffin and looking through the window. Then he starts doing the fourth item on Katsuki’s list. He doesn’t need to think about it too much: he really doesn’t feel like going to work. His job is boring. He has too much time to think, and that always ends up being something bad, as his mind always takes not-so-pleasant detours.
Glancing out, he sees the weather looks nice. He could do it. He could take a walk and just wander around the streets. He could even try to find Katsuki’s book and read it along with him. Yes. That sounds good.
<< I’m not going to work
<< thank you
He adds the last message as an afterthought and quickly locks his phone, too afraid of what Katsuki might answer back.
Staring at his phone, he patiently waits for 17:59 to become 18:00. When it happens, his hand snaps into it, but he hesitates. Should he do this? Katsuki said to call him at 18 true, but if Shouto calls him immediately, won’t he look too desperate?
It’s what you are. A pathetic excuse of a man, desperate for a stranger to save you. You should just—
He dials Katsuki’s number. The man picks it up in the first tone.
“Hey, how was your day?”
“Fine,” he lies. Well, technically, it was an ok day until just now. “How was yours?”
“Not so good. A couple of minors came around, they faked their parents’ signature and tried to make a big deal of it.”
“Uhm… sorry, but, uh, what’s your job? Unless you don’t want to share,” he rushes.
Katsuki snorts. “Nah, it’s fine. I’m a tattoo artist. I’ve my own studio, I own it and work in it.”
Wow. He’s not sure, but he believes he has never even met someone with tattoos. When he tells this to Katsuki, the man laughs. “Well, now you do. I also have piercings.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Like a bitch. But I’d do it again. It also depends on the area. Ribs almost killed me, but my bicep? I almost fell asleep. Piercings are the same, I, uh… okay, maybe not the best to say this. I have some in private parts, and those hurt a lot. But I also got industrial piercings and on my left ear was fine, but the one on my right? I couldn’t avoid cursing the mother of the guy.”
Shouto is still trying to process what Katsuki first told him. “You have your penis pierced?”
There are two beats of silence before Katsuki bursts into laughter. Shouto wonders what’s so funny. “Oh no, please tell me you are not like 16 or something like that. Penis, did you seriously just say that? Are you like a kid? Say cock or dick. Yeah, I’ve my dick pierced and my nipples too. Feels fucking great when I fuck. Would recommend it to everybody.”
He combusts. It’s weird because he hasn’t thought about sex in such a long time, he can’t even remember when was the last time, but damn… Katsuki sounds like a hot guy and Shouto bets he is. He works out first thing in the morning, owns a business and has tattoos and piercings on his cock. He feels his face getting hot at the mental image he’s conjuring.
“Shouto? Shit. Did I just make you uncomfortable?”
“No, I just… It’s the first time I’ve thought about sex in— Pfft, I don’t even know.” He confesses.
Katsuki hums. “Well, glad to help. I guess it’s normal. So, how was your walk? What did you visit?”
He rambles about the city streets he has visited and Katsuki encourages him, asking him questions about random details. It’s nice, and Shouto has to stop and find some water to quench his thirst as his mouth is dry from talking so much.
His happiness quickly evaporates when he sees the mess he lives with.
Katsuki demands his attention. “Hey, Shouto, it’s okay. Baby steps. I think you should pick up last night’s dinner, okay? Do you have a plastic bag? Just the dinner. Just clean that up, okay?”
“Okay.”
He grimaces as the stain on the floor is going to be a pain to clean. It takes him almost five minutes, but he feels proud when he sees that now there’s no food on his kitchen floor.
“I did it! I cleaned it.”
“I’m glad. Hey, can you do a couple more of things? Easy stuff. I want you to open up all the windows in your apartment, let the new air enter. It’s a nice evening in here, is it too where you are? The sun is now painting the sky in hues of orange, golden and pink. How is your sky?”
Shouto walks to his living room and gags. The stench is bad. It’s so bad.
“Hey, open up the window. Come on, Shouto.” Katsuki encourages him. “You need to open the window, okay? Remember how happy you were when you cleaned the floor. Open the window and you’ll feel much better.”
“Okay,” he manages to say. The smell is so gross that he wonders how none of the neighbours have called to complain. The window easily slides open and Katsuki was right. He’s able to finally breathe. “I did it.”
“Good, now open the rest of the windows. All of them, and tell me what the sky looks like.”
The request is kind of strange, but he does it. He dodges all the shit he has around, feeling worse as he realizes the kind of life he’s been living these past months and feels so ashamed he has to mute the call so Katsuki doesn’t hear him having a mental breakdown. When the last window is open, he unmutes the phone.
“Done, uh, the sky is also orange. There are a couple of clouds, but the rest is clear.”
“You have all your windows open?”
“Yes.”
Katsuki congratulates him. Shouto is torn. He feels elated for having done it, but his brain points out the harsh reality: he’s a grown-up man who has simply opened a couple of windows, and what’s worse, he needed a stranger to tell him to do so. He truly is pathetic.
“Okay, the last thing I need you to do. Go back to your living room and get rid of that sandwich, Shouto. You need to do that. I bet you even have bugs. You need to clean that, Shouto. Then, take a shower and once you are done, eat something, take your pill and call me back so we can keep reading. Do you remember the name of our main character?”
He panics. He knows that Katsuki is right, he needs to clean that, but the idea is so disgusting…
“Shouto. Do you have a mask? Or something to cover your nose? Just, cover your nose, take a trash bag and don’t even touch it. Just put everything inside the bag and get rid of it. Don’t worry about the furniture or anything, just throw some bleach or some cleaning product and then go away. You can do it. Come on.”
Placing the phone on the counter, Katsuki tells him to hit the speaker so they can keep talking while he’s doing it.
Katsuki starts to tell him about this design he’s working on, while Shouto gags as he sees that, indeed, he has bugs crawling around. When he points this out, Katsuki asks him if he has some insecticide. He looks around and finds a can almost empty. Taking a deep breath, he ventures back to his couch and sprays everything until the can is empty.
He has to go outside, to take a couple of breaths on his balcony as the air in his apartment is too vicious and now is full of chemicals. His eyes sting, but he makes it back and does it, gagging a little bit more. He pours another bottle of something that is supposed to clean and almost ten minutes later, he finally sees the floor.
“Call me later, okay?”
“Yes, thank you, Katsuki,” he pants.
“You are welcome.”
Feeling more tired than he has ever felt, he drags himself back into his shower and starts to wash himself. He makes a terrible mistake: he stares at his arms. Then he finally throws up.
He’s been looking at his phone for the past hour. He hasn’t eaten anything. He doesn’t feel like it. The only contents his stomach has are water and the pill. Next to his phone, there’s his old beloved friend: the razor. It’s the only friend that never judges him, the only one that won’t ever leave him. Friends are supposed to be loyal… doesn’t that make it his best friend?
He wants to cave in and add another scar to his body. He’s already mutilated beyond repair. What is another one? The pain has returned, and this time it feels double. He needs an exit.
Now everything is worse. He’s not only disappointing his family, now he’s also wasting Katsuki’s time. Maybe he should have hanged yesterday. Yes, he shouldn’t have called Katsuki in the first place, he should have just ended everything and—
You are worth it.
Please, Shouto, seek help.
He bites his lip so hard he draws blood. Hitting his knees with his fists until the pain in there makes the one on his head seem nothing in comparison, he takes a couple of deep breaths and realizes he can do it easily. The air in the room is actually nice now, it’s not heavy or stale.
Katsuki. This is why the man insisted so much on opening his windows. He needed the clean and fresh air.
He stares at his phone, fingers twitching under his armpits as he considers whether he should call him or not. He doesn’t want to be an annoyance…
Almost an hour later, when the room is completely dark, he caves in and calls him. He waits for the angry words, the remarks, the laughter, anything except Katsuki’s soft and concerned voice asking him if he’s okay.
For the nth time, he breaks down.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Shouto. The only thing that matters is that you do it. Take as long as you need, take as many tries as you consider necessary, but keep fighting.”
His gentleness touches him. “Can we just read? I’d like to know what happens next.”
“Sure, what’s the last thing you remember?”