Work Text:
It’s easy to tell someone you can’t hang out because you’re busy, but Shinsou’s version of ‘busy’ is less like working, and more like laying in bed for hours on end. The lights aren’t on because there isn’t a point. He doesn’t want to move because there isn’t a point. He refuses to talk about his issues with anyone because there isn’t a point.
There’s not really a point to anything, he thinks. No reason to wake up, really. What’s there to do besides breathe? Who in their right mind looks forward to twenty-four more hours of respiration?
(Okay, maybe everyone. That’s not the point.)
He knows that he’s being completely irrational, and maybe he’s just being confusing and overly-complicated, but he thinks that ‘not believing’ and ‘knowing for a fact’ aren’t mutually exclusive. He might know that he’s irrational, but he doesn’t really believe it at the same time.
Well, maybe that’s poor wording, but Shinsou’s not up for writing a full-on analysis anytime soon. He just knows that recognizing the cause of a situation doesn’t make the situation go away.
It seems that all these diagnoses have done nothing for him, that’s for sure.
Midoriya texts him to make sure he’s alright, and what kind of a friend would he be if he said no? A shitty one, that’s for sure. He can’t go bringing his friends down with him, or making them feel guilty for leaving him alone.
He tells Midoriya that he’s working hard on an essay and can’t be distracted.
It’s only true if you think that a goodbye letter counts as an essay.
Alright, so he’s not going to kill himself anytime soon. Don’t go calling the police (or even worse, his parents). He just likes to think about what would happen if, maybe, he did. Who would care?
How much would they care?
How long would they mourn for?
It’s hard to believe they’d care at all. He’s frustrating to be around, because all he ever does is complain. He whines and bitches and moans and takes every single fucking thing he has for granted. He doesn’t give a shit about the roof over his head because it’s not like he deserves one, anyways.
It’s kind of like his brain has a filter that tells him to only remember the bad things he experiences.
What’s funny about that is that he has a pretty good memory.
Psychology has always interested him, so he knows that anxiety and depression disorders can be caused by traumatic experiences, especially during childhood. He only wants to know which specific traumatic experience caused them to cling onto him like fucking Venom from Spiderman 3.
Maybe it was more like a steady growth, or an evolution?
A tiny pebble of shittiness that kept growing moss until, eventually, it was more like a boulder?
It doesn’t really matter how it got to this point, though. Not really. What matters is that it’s here now, and it intends on staying.
He has a lot of responsibilities that he should probably be getting around to doing. It’s just that… doing things takes effort. It doesn’t matter that he’s going to fail math if he doesn’t start turning in homework and studying. He doesn’t want to have a future, so he doesn’t know why he should plan for one, or work hard to have a good one.
He’d rather lay in the comfort of his bed, far away from all the scary things like socializing and expending mental effort. The room is empty and dark, where no noise can hurt his ears and no light can hurt his eyes. The blanket is a soft barrier between him and the world, so nothing can hurt his skin.
Why would anyone leave such a peaceful cocoon? What kind of a shitty reason is “life?” Living is awful and Shinsou doesn’t know why anyone would want to do it.
His friends would worry, though, if he never left. So he goes to his classes.
They would be concerned if he didn’t eat. So he eats a meal now and then.
If he was filthy, they would know something was wrong, and they might try to help. So he takes showers and brushes his teeth.
He’s really only living for them at this point, in every sense of the word.
Being concerned about their concern has only made him sneakier, if he’s honest. He figured out how to be more discrete about his suffering, for better or worse. It’s no longer grand gestures of self hatred, but smaller acts, things that can be hidden or brushed off.
Shinsou doesn’t put on a jacket or sweater when he gets cold. Even if he starts to shiver. He likes to see just how icy his limbs can get. He wants to know how long he can withstand it, so he makes a game out of it. Every time, it’s a new record he has to beat. He has to stay goosebumped and shaking for just a couple seconds longer than before.
He used to hurt himself in obvious ways. He would scratch and cut and punch at his fragile body, hoping each mark to be more permanent than the last.
Quickly, he learned that it wasn’t a sustainable form of suffering.
He’s gentler about it, now. It’s no longer a punch, but a slap or a pinch. The scratches and cuts turned into snaps of a rubber band.
One day, he put rocks in his shoes and walked for as long as he could (literally) stand it. The unconventional, he discovers, is often the unnoticeable.
His friends think he’s healing, and that’s when he starts to feel a little guilty.
He’s tricking the people that matter most to him into believing he’s someone completely different than he actually is. They think he has a personality .
Not that he would ever tell them otherwise, though.
His friends stay oblivious, and he stays broken.
Maybe one day, he’ll have the confidence to tell them that something is wrong. He could get help. Be happy again. Wake up feeling alive, or at least like he wants to be. Throw out that old notebook he has that’s filled to the brim with rough drafts of different ways to say goodbye.
Maybe one day, he’ll be able to look in the mirror and see his whole body, instead of taking a looking glass to all the parts of him that are too soft, too curved, too feminine. Better yet, he won’t be feminine in the first place. He’ll learn to apologize to his mind and body, as well as accept the apology. He’ll learn how to grow and move on.
Maybe one day.
But not today.
Today, he’ll stay in bed with the lights off. Today, he’ll set his phone to silent and ignore all the pleading messages from his friends to join them. Today, he’ll think about all the things tomorrow could hold (but doesn’t). Today is the same as yesterday, and yesterday was the same as the day before.
He supposes that killing himself would probably take effort, and he doesn’t really want to do anything that requires effort; so, he’ll stay alive once again in hopes that tomorrow is the ‘one day’ he's been waiting on.