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The night is cold.
Tonight, the moon is dimmer than usual. To most of the people living on Momosu Island, this did not make much of a difference. At the dead of night, most of them were sound asleep, tangled in the web of dreams or nightmares.
The loudest noise was truly the crickets chirping and the soft whispering of wind or the susurration of the large body of water surrounding the Island. The night was not very different from most.
In fact, this night was so quiet you could almost hear the stars twinkle. As they seemed to flicker in the night sky, blinking on and off, if one listened close. they could hear the sounds. The lights all over the Island are shut, for some, curtains are drawn. For others, windows remain wide open. But they all rested well. No matter what awaited them the next day, whether they were aware of it or not, they were asleep. Almost no noise other than the peaceful tranquility of starry night could be heard.
Almost.
One sound can be heard, from the highest dorms in Momosu Island hostel. It was quivering and soft, muffled by fabric, but it was a noise.
A teenage boy is curled up in that room. His lights are not off, unlike all others. But even the dim glow of what was his tableside lamp was overwhelming to him. It blinded him. He wished to reach out and switch it off, but his hands trembled far too much. His body was weak and strangled of what once was a child's happiness. His breaths are choked and painful.
He breaths deeply. His main goal now was to turn the light off.
His mind was disoriented and blurry, his vision clouded with tears. Every noise was like a screaming shatter through the mess of his thoughts. When the fabric of his shirt shifted up against the wall as he tried to move from his curled up position, he winced. It was like a burn to his skin. Every touch hurt, like it drove needles through his skin.
His hand is frozen in place. He can barely muster the strength to lift it.
The light.
Turn it off.
Turn it off now.
Do it.
He shakes again. Whenever he brushes against the surface of the wall, when he exposed his skin to the wind that was once cooling and fresh, now painful and piercing, it hurt so badly. It hurt so badly.
He tries to lift his hand. It barely shifts and turns on one side. It feels numb, almost as if it was already disconnected from his body.
The wind is already stinging at his wrist. Where the fresh wounds lay. The sleeve of his shirt rolled up when the arm moved, and a hateful agony filled him at the sight of the burning red slits. Some blood still leaked out as his hands shook, staining the floor's carpet a bright auburn. The skin near the cut is inflamed and swelling. He hadn't washed them. Would he ever
It burns as well, the cut of a blade. It hurts him physically. But he prefers it, he prefers it so much more than the churning exhaustion and self-loathing inside. Emotions hurt much more. What he feels inside is nothing compared to the comparably relaxing sensation of the sharp metal slicing through his skin and reaching tender flesh. The drip of blood is more satisfying than everything he'd ever done.
He wants to try again.
He hurts inside.
He does try again. Who knows how long later, who know how much more blood fell, who know how many times he died inside over and over again., but he tried again.
He lifts his shivering arm again. This time, it reaches the socket switch.
He can barely flick the switch off before his hand collapses. But it worked. The light went away. It disappears.
Silence.
The screams in his head aren't stopping. The vomit-inducing pain in him isn't quelling. It doesn't stop its violent rampage.
It grows worse.
The absence of the light only makes him worse.
He clings onto the painful sensation of his wrists more. It was vaguely distracting him from everything else. Everything else was much worse. The pain spreads through him as the blood turns darker and dirty, the dust from the carpet burning and swelling the wound even more. Blood started to leak out in clumps. The wound wasn't healing. It was getting deeper.
Stop.
Stop.
Stopstopstopstop
STOPstoSTtospSTopstop
Tears slide down his face, The internal pain won't alleviate. It keeps on burning, growing worse and worse.
His hair is soaked through with sweat and tears. The warm water is dripping down his face faster, dripping onto his clothes, the carpet, everywhere. His eyes sting.
He starts to cry. It's messy. It leaks over his wounds too. He pulls his legs closer to his face and buries his head in them, letting the tears be muffled.
His breath becomes more uneven and ragged, breaths coming out in short, sharp sobs and gasps of air, driving pins into his throat every time he did so.
Sobs resound through the room, echoing loudly though they started soft. He feels his headspace fill again, with horrible thoughts like poison.
He wants to lie down and just buckle, but he can't more an inch. Everything is numb and he can't control any of his actions. His hands move without his will. His body is not his own.
He can't think straight. His thoughts are all a jumble of incoherent hatred. Every word that they say only drives that pain inside him crazy, drive that blade deeper into his back.
Why can't I just...
Please
just
let
me
do
it
Let me end it
end myself
it would feel so good
so good
so much better than
everything now
I would do anything
to
just
let
go
He wants to escape.
The carpet and his sleeves were getting moist. One of his hands lay slumped on the carpet while the other was wrapped around his legs. Both were dripping with red, the liquid sliding over his fingers and covering his palm. The sweat that beaded out of his sensitive skin made his clothes cling tightly to his figure. It felt suffocating.
He wants to vomit.
The liquid in his stomach isn't just a feeling. It's real.
It hurts.
The nausea builds.
Bile gathers.
He wants to vomit all over the carpet.
He first takes a feel deep breaths, trying to regulate his pounding heart.
It doesn't work. The more he thinks about it, the more it burns and squelches and-
His throat seizes.
His breath hitched once. Then again. And again. It starts to sharply convulse with the feeling that prickled up his throat.
He throws up.
The thick green liquid spills out of his mouth, chunks of half digested food still mixed in. It's slimy and it drips onto his fingers and down his chin, well mixed in with a strong tinge of brown from all the coffee he'd been drinking. If was bitter and putrid. The bile starts to turn yellow as it comes in contact with the cool air.
It mixed into his wound, seeping into the sliced skin and burning the area more. The bile entangles with the red to produce a sticky substance that leaked over his palm and fingers, leaving sticky strands between them as it dripped onto the floor, mixing up with all the other liquid messes.
The liquid stains over his pants, causing a smelly black patch to appear. It leaves blobs of food stuck onto his clothes.
It sloshes all over his clothes, gathering up in his lap. Sticky. Gooey. Acidic. Strings of it cling to his lips, coating them in a layer of slime.
His lips still feel the taste of it. Bitter, sour, tingling. A revolting mix of half-eaten food and blackened coffee, filled with droplets of blackened blood. He feels foam form on his lips. bubbling through his mouth and hands.
The opens cuts on his wrist hurt. They really, really hurt. With all the digestive juices and dust that was forced into the bleeding slits, he was sure there'd be an infection. the surrounding skin swelled with red, irritated and dirty. There would definitely be an infection in that area. If he lived
Spots of black float all over his vision, covering it with pretty patterns. He can barely see the vile liquid dripping down his chest, that swirled around his mouth and forced him to gag repeatedly. The red is spouting from his lips now, in short bursts. It sprouts out with every sudden gag, filling the air with both a warmth and an acidic, metallic scent. It entranced him to some extent.
A mist hazes over his thoughts. They weren't they any more. They weren't there.
He felt relived for a moment. The thoughts were gone.
He got what he wanted.
Then they came back. Louder. Worse.
Like dark tendrils in his headspace.
He almost screams.
He feels like bursting.
His grip around his legs would have tightened. but he didn't have any strength in him remaining. His limbs were almost nonexistent, he couldn't feel them anymore, let alone use them. The world around him swirled into a blur.
His body was twitching uncontrollably. He couldn't control his movement. Or his breathing. Or his the thoughts. Or anything.
His gagging couldn't stop. It came out quicker. The bursts were more prolonged. There was barely any time in between for him to gasp for air. And the air hurt too. Its taste was mixed with the iron-like taste of fresh blood and the churning remains of bile and puke all lingering in his mouth as he gasped uncontrollably.
The thoughts yelled at him. They all weren't his voice. They were other's.
Which only made it worse.
End it
end it
end it
please
let
me
fall
away
His tears haven't paused either. They fall harder than before. The only touches he felt were the feelings of liquid seeping through the fabric of his clothes and the sticky strands on his chin and between his lips.
His head hurts. A headache builds, piling on top of every other begging ache in his body.
A tingling feeling runs through his body, like it's anticipating something. His skin grows more sensitive by the moment, every droplet of sweat and vile liquid on his clothes seeping deeper into his skin and feeling deeper embedded into his flesh as seconds ticked by. He'd never find out what his body was anticipating. Maybe it was pain. Maybe it was pain. Maybe it was relief. He didn't know
All he knew was that the thoughts were returning, even worse.
He gasps and the breath he inhaled would have made him scream in agony if he had any voice left.
His hand is just able to grope around the floor and touch a smooth wooden surface. He wraps his fingers around it and pulls it close, holding the shining blade up. His eyes can barely make it out as he's half-blinded by pain and with the surrounding darkness, but he tries to feel out the blade area, sliding his fingers all over the surface. His finger suddenly slips and something sharp slices through his skin, almost reaching bone.
He brings the sliced finger up to his eye. The pain is there, but it's dull and numb. The bloody red flesh inside the finger was exposed, too. He could see some of it starting to drop out in small clumps.
He's found the blade.
Why am I doing this?
Can't I just end it
fast
please
He presses it to his wrist, savoring the sensation of it barely cutting through his skin like foreplay. Anything to distract himself from those thoughts.
Anything would be better.
He shoves the blade down and almost shrieks in pain as it cuts deep. It cuts into tender flesh and he almost flinches. Blood spills out, deep red, coating the already wet skin of his palms with even more liquid. His hand are already sticky and the bile is starting to dry, forming a crusty layer of thick goo over his hand.
The red droplets splatter onto the ground, creating a beautiful scene of red and black.
It hurts too much. His throat is too dry for him to scream. All that comes out is the bare scrapings of a sound, high-pitched and crackled. His body convulses and shakes as he drives the blade deeper. The thoughts won't leave.
More
more
more
leave
me
alone
PLEASE
The blood gushes out in streams.
Gion isn't sure of how he's not dead yet.
He wishes he was.
His body is filled with static, buzzing that was barely even a feeling. His mind zoned out completely. His brain barely had the capacity to think, but he was mostly glad about that. The only things that ran through his head then were the horrible thoughts.
For a good while, he doesn't move at all. His mind is still and he doesn't even twitch. He doesn't think.
For a good while, the only noise he heard was the thumping of his heart, the static in his mind. Nothing was real.
Then, it all fell away.
His door creaks open. He can hear it far too loudly.
A silver haired boy rushes in. His footsteps are loud in the small enclosed room. Gion can't see his face, but he knows who it is.
Gion tries to swallow, but the taste of all the putrid juices in his mouth makes him gag again. He forces out a word. A single word.
"Livio?" He croaks, softly.
The silver haired boy turns his head to the prince. "Yes, it's me." the smile on his face is full with concern, but it reassures Gion.
Everything was going to be okay.
The smile repeated the sentence again and again without saying a single word.
Gion stopped and glanced at his aide's face. The smile was comforting. It was ethereal. Gion wished everything would stop in time, then and there, so that he could look at that smile forever and admire it in it's beauty.
Livio moves forward immediately with a towel in hand. He grimaces at the scene, but he doesn't take a step back or show disgust. The only expression that appeared on his face is worry. Worry for Prince Gion. Worry for his prince. His.
His eyes glow so bright in the darkness of night. Ice blue glances up at sky blue. Livio raises his hand and grabs the towel, then gently wipes all the sticky liquid off the prince's body. Gion watches as the towel grows dirtier and Livio's hand turns stained with juices with every wipe. Livio's every touch is kind and caring. It isn't rough wiping. He slides the towel across the surface carefully, removing all excess liquid while not applying too much pressure so he didn't hurt the prince.
He takes another packet of tissue and cleans the drooling mess of the prince's mouth, being careful to trace both of his lips. Strands still hang when he pulls the tissue away. Livio shows no signs of repulsion, though. Through the whole process, he watches attentively and focuses only on removing as much liquid and goo as possible from the prince's body. He didn't draw away though the smell of bile for horrible. He was only there, comforting Gion. Making Gion feel better. He wouldn't be repulsed by Gion.
Gion, for the first time in his life, felt like he could trust someone. To not abandon him, to only watch over and care for him.
"Your highness..." He starts.
Gion only grunts softly.
Livio softly sucks in a breath, then hand Gion a glass of water. Gion gulps it down and swallows. His throat finally experiences some relief, loosening up enough for him to speak again. Everything is blinking back into focus. He feels some sort of relief again. His breathing slows down and his heart rate doesn't, though it's mainly because of happiness.
Livio was here.
Gion cracks a strained smile. His breath suddenly grows dry again. Like he hadn't even drank water.
His limbs are still rather weak. They can barely move, and so he musters up the strength to take on of his arms and wrap them around his aide's waist and pulls him just a bit closer. Livio understood what Gion wanted from the small action and moved closer himself. He presses a hand onto Gion's chest, feeling his heart thump.
A sugary liquid feels like it's filling his heart full. Sweet like honey. Gion can feel his body calm down and it's shaking grow softer. The thoughts, they're gone. Completely. Gion can think straight. His thoughts are coherent.
Gion is startled when he feels a hand run its fingers through his hair. The sensation of a convulsing warmth on his head calms him down. He slumps against the wall, drained from the ordeal.
He feels a fabric, like a gauze, wrap around his wrist. Livio's bandaging his cuts. He look down at the bruised, dirty red still pouring out of the slit areas. But the bandages don't sting. They stem the blood flow. They make it hurt less.
Livio's gaze is solely focused on wrapping the bandages neatly. His hands make quick work and soon all the mess is almost gone. Blood still leaks out, but less.
Livio.
The only one that ever cared about him. enough
Elation bubbles inside him and a small smile finally breaks out on his face.
It's a sweet moment.
Gion feels some serenity in all his mental chaos for a bit.
"It's all going to be okay...your highness." Livio wraps both his arms around Gion's chest as well, and hunches him over in a gentle hug. Gion shivers and his body tenses, but it quickly relaxes and melts into it. Gion savors the warmth of Livio's breath, the touch of his fingers stroking Gion's hair, running his fingers through Gion's hair again and again. Gion clung on to the feeling.
Gion can forget everything. He can forget all his worries, all his responsibilities and problems, as long as Livio's here.
The world comes to a peaceful stop as the two of them embrace each other, holding on to each other like their lives depended on it. Gion can feel Livio's grip strengthen and he draws himself closer too.
Gion felt happy. He felt at peace. For a while, he felt that everything was going to be alright.
Gion can speak. He remembers he can.
"Livio?" he asks.
"Yes, your highness?" Livio responds, tightening the hug.
"Would you every leave me?"
"Well, I've left this earth long ago...but I'll always be with you."
"So...you'll never leave me...?"
"I may leave this earth but I'll never leave you, your highness."
"You'll never leave me? Ever?"
"Never. I'll always be by your side."
A moment of silence fills the room.
"Livio...I love you."
The room is still. For a moment, Gion think he's said something wrong. He freezes up in place and his heart rate quickens. Then, he sees Livio's expression, a bright smile. One of relief and appreciation, and all his worries fade away into nothing in that moment.
Livio leans in and presses their lips together, keeping a hold on Gion's waist with one hand and kept his other hand reassuringly on his back.
He didn't even care that his clothes were drenched through with grime, and his skin was peeling with the same substance. Nothing else mattered anymore, except that singular point of contact between their lips.
"I know, your highness. I'm glad you finally said it." he pulls away gently, letting a string of saliva hang between their lips. Gion knows Livio can taste the bile and all the other substances. He knows it tastes disgusting. He expected Livio to withdraw suddenly, even grimace.
But Livio wasn't showing disgust. He was grinning widely, and leaning closer again, his breath hot on Gion's cheek, making him shiver.
"Though..." Livio continues, his smile faltering slightly.
'I wish I could have heard it sooner..."
His grips softens.
The night is still quiet. It's later than before.
But now, everything is truly quiet. Not even the sobs of a teenage boy are present.
In fact, he is silent now. He is simply gone.
His lifeless body lies on the floor, slumped against the wall. A knife is shoved deep into its chest, puncturing his heart and tearing through flesh.
A mixture of bile, fresh blood blackened with dust, coffee, and saliva drips from his mouth and gathers in his lap. Almost his entire body is drenched from head to toe in the disgusting mixture. The room reeks with the metallic smell, entangled with rotting food and flesh alike.
Not a shred of him was recognizable. His perfect persona was torn apart to only what his mind molded him to become. A skeleton of sanity. Full of doubt, self-hatred, exhaustion, and hurt.
The deep cuts in his wrists still spurt out blood, albeit at a slower pace. It flows out in a steady stream, covering everything from his clothes to the ground again. If he were alive, he wouldn't have been happy with such a large mess. But he didn't mind anymore, lying in a pool of blood, bile and food. He really didn't.
The knife is covered in blood from his torn open chest cavity, but the handle is dirty as well. A crust of the revolting mixture also coats his hand and glues onto the knife handle. The same mixture is slicked all around his mouth.
If he could see it, he'd say it was...beautiful. The way everything seemed like it was all set up and planned, even though it was really impulsive, He would have liked that.
His window is still open and the wind is still blowing in. Now, the only difference is that his light is off.
But even if someone were to walk up and look at his face, they'd see a smile. They'd see the happiest smile he'd ever shown in his entire life.
Because, when he left, he was the happiest he'd ever been. He'd seen the one he loved most again, that he'd never thought he'd be able to meet again. Without Livio, his life held no meaning. He was only happy as long as he was with him.
He doesn't breathe anymore, doesn't think. He is completely at peace now. Gion is happy. Gion is still the happiest he's ever been.