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It’s actually shockingly easy to hide depressive episodes. Easy to the point where it would be a serious problem, if the unchallenging nature of keeping them a secret wasn’t a huge convenience for Shuichi.
Shuichi never goes to breakfast. (Sometimes Kaito will show up at his door and drag him out to get sustenance, but often he doesn’t. This isn’t something that Kaito is doing wrong. He shouldn’t be expected to police Shuichi into eating three meals a day, every day, like he’s some kind of toddler who doesn’t know how to take care of himself. Even if perhaps one of those qualifications is met.) He never goes to breakfast because he never gets hungry in the morning, and because he’s up until three in the morning on a good night even if his phone is charging across the room and his bed is warm and comfortable. He likes to sleep in for as long as he can before classes start. Everyone knows that. They think it’s because he has irresponsible sleep habits, and they aren’t wrong. So if he stays in bed fighting the urge to go back to sleep all morning… people don’t typically think anything of it.
He’s not a very loud person on the best of days. Sometimes he’ll lose his temper and shout, but that happens in short bursts. Usually Shuichi is fairly composed. Subdued, even. Maki told him once that he looks like a member of an American emo band. All sullen and withdrawn. The remark made him smile at the time, because she was just teasing him-- in that blunt, huffy way that she always does-- but it works in his favour on days when he really feels like that. Sullen and withdrawn, that is. Nobody thinks anything of it if his responses are delayed, or if he sleeps through morning classes, or if there are dark bags under his eyes. He’ll do those things anyway.
Tone is a bit more of a conscious effort, but nothing that Shuichi can’t deal with. He spends a lot of time listening. Enough time listening to know the lilts of people’s voices, where all the proper ones should go and on all the right words. He knows the lilts in his own voice. If he’s a little bit flat, usually it’s assumed that he’s being sarcastic, and then there’s laughter. And it’s… difficult. Laughing, that is. When he’s having an episode. But it’s nothing he can’t handle.
There are a lot of stories Shuichi has read about depression. Stories online and within books and printed out in his uncle’s gossip magazines. (He gets them for cases but Shuichi detests them regardless.) Stories about masks and walls and sudden declines. Everyone around them being worried. And Shuichi’s not good enough to fool his aunt and uncle. But maybe he picked something up from his parents, because the people around him at Hope’s Peak Academy, most days, they can’t tell a thing.
It’s awful, though. Sometimes.
Most times the thought of even hearing the word depression in application to himself makes him want to tear his own skin off. He really doesn’t think he can be blamed for that; it’s an ugly word with ugly connotations. An all-encompassing, pitiful word. People with depression are… pitiful. That’s the truth. And Shuichi knows that he falls into that category but a part of him believes that, well, if he doesn’t tell anybody, then perhaps he is less. At the very least, people don’t know how truly pitiful he is. He thinks that perhaps he would rather die than let someone else know that.
Other times though. Rare occasions that are few and far between. He feels… lonely. Lumps form in his throat without permission as he listens to Kaede and Kaito laughing, watches Kokichi bouncing up and down and heckling Kirumi as she washes dishes, bares his teeth to show that he’s enjoying himself too, that he’s happy. He’s not happy. He’s rarely happy, even when he’s not episodic. And that’s just it, that’s the kicker, the real salt-in-his-wounds addition. No matter how much he’d like to he will never to be like his friends. Never be happy and normal and carefree. He’ll never get to laugh it off when he spills drinks or sigh and shake his head with a promise to do better when he fails an exam.
To… to be a normal person, to be happy, it… it is unfathomable to Shuichi. But so utterly lonely that he isn’t. He wishes that he could be shallow and naive, bright-eyed and unknowing. He’d take total ignorance and insensitivity over misery in a heartbeat. Sometimes on the bad days he has to excuse himself from class and lock himself in a supply closet to hide his tears, all because Gonta gently touched his shoulder and complimented him, or else Angie beamed at him when he walked into the room, giving him a bright and genuine and warm greeting.
(Kindness is his kryptonite on those days and unfortunately his class has more than enough to go around. Happiness just brings on the sadness even stronger.)
And Shuichi doesn’t… look down upon, other people who are like him. He knows on some level that Ryoma has depression, bad depression, the kind that had Gonta and Rantaro breaking into his dorm last year because it was that kind of bad depression, and he knows Himiko’s laziness is actually lethargy and Maki’s constant hostility is defense, but the thing he desires least in the whole wide world is a conversation with one of them. Just the mere thought of, of saying the word depression out loud, it’s… absolutely horrifying. How people can be okay with it, with talking about it, even with showing it off to the world at large like he’s seen online and in books… completely unthinkable. Shuichi could never imagine such bull-headedness.
Or such courage.
Most days, on his better days, Shuichi likes the sound of his friends’ laughter. It’s a comforting, familiar sound. Kaito’s is full and warm and low, scruffy on the edges (like he is) but full of… joy. Kaito is a very joyful person and it is the thing Shuichi admires most about him. Maki’s is derisive and she very rarely puts her actual voice into it. Snorts and scoffs, that’s what she gives. But her lips twitch at the corners and her eyes sparkle for the briefest of seconds and that means more than a belly laugh, from her. Kaede’s is a twinkling bell in the way that birds are the musicians of springtime; light and melodic and beautiful. Everything about Kaede is beautiful, actually, but her laugh most of all. Clear and sweet like water in a trickling creek.
He loves that laughter, craves it, most days. Smiles when they play off of each other, make jokes, mess around. Kaito is so physical with his happiness, hands on the shoulder and elbows to the side. His smiles light up his entire face. Kaede is about nose tapping and cheek kisses, tender brushes of hair out of someone’s eyes. Maki rarely touches anybody at all, but her gaze can be heavy sometimes, like a caress, and once, a very long time ago, she clutched Shuichi’s hand like it was a lifeline. Neither of them spoke about it. Shuichi thinks that he might die if they did.
Today, though, each little chuckle, each snort, each giggle, it piles up in the back of his mind like a teetering stone tower. His heart feels stiff and thick and heavy, and Kaito is telling an amusing, fictitious story about a trip he took to Egypt, and Kaede is covering her mouth and muffling those melodic giggles and Maki is sighing, gritting out sarcastic remarks and giving Kaito very, very flat looks. Shuichi’s eyes are burning and the edges of his mind feel fuzzy. The pit of his stomach is weighty but numb. Perhaps he will vomit, right here on the tiles of the courtyard.
It’s such a nice day today. The sun is shining and the sky is a deep azure. Not a single cloud in sight and yet there’s a gentle, ticklish breeze. Sunday. No classes anywhere. All around Japan students are bathing in this delightful weather, laughing and joking and eating ice cream and being fully, unabashedly happy, and Shuichi wants to curl up into a ball inside and cry until he prunes, shriveling up into a curled ball on his mattress. There’s a ringing in his ears and his eyes are glazing over and he knows, his friends are observant enough to notice, but he can’t find it in himself to care all that much until an elbow knocks its way into his side.
It was Maki, actually. It might’ve been Kaito, but Kaito is on the ground in front of the bench. He was resting his head in Kaede’s lap. No longer, though. His eyes, a warm, pretty lilac colour, like melted flower petals and vast supernovas, are ringed with concern, and Shuichi has spaced out for far too long.
He meets the cavern between Maki’s eyebrows with an apprehensive raise of his own, his lips quirking in what he hopes is a sheepish smile. “Ah, s-sorry, I spaced off,” he excuses, and the chuckle comes naturally, not by force.
Maki is… skeptical. Her red eyes tell him that she doesn’t buy it, that his depression was written on his face like a children’s storybook, the metaphors all low hanging fruit and the imagery comparable to firetrucks and zebras, but after a while she only says, “You space out a lot. Get more sleep,” before turning back to Kaito and gesturing for him to continue talking. There’s a lull, a definite lull, but then Kaito plows on as before, his bright enthusiasm returning to his voice full-force.
And god, Shuichi wishes she had pried. He wishes she had opened him up like the children’s picture book he just was, stating cold and true that he’s depressed, that he’s borderline suicidal, that he couldn’t even get out of bed this morning until eleven because he lacked the structure of class days to motivate him. Maki is so sharp and so observant and so blunt, surely she would state such things, remark upon them. She would call them out if she saw them. Right? She sees no reason for discretion in these areas. That’s the way Maki is. She called Kaede out once on bottling up her emotions in front of the entire class and it turned out for the better, so…
So maybe the problem is that Maki trusts Shuichi. And maybe the problem is that Shuichi is a liar and a coward and he hides and he hides and he hides and nobody here, not a single individual soul, knows what he is. Some weak person who keeps things like this to himself. Pretending is so easy, just a nod of the head and a twitch of his lips and it’s over and done with and they believe him. Well and truly and good. Because they trust him here and they respect his boundaries. They don’t know because he doesn’t want them to know. They respect him too much to dig into information that isn’t theirs to receive. Even pushy, pushy Kaito, knows a sore topic when he sees one. Even Kokichi turns a blind eye to secrets that he doesn’t think should be unearthed.
(Or maybe Kokichi just hates him too much to care. He’s always saying how much he hates liars, after all.)
The problem is that Shuichi does want them to know. Kind of. Some bitter, self-destructive part of him wants them to know that he can never be happy like they are, never laugh like they are now. All he can do is force these twitchy, unreliable little smiles and nod his head and show his teeth when he makes eye contact with people. He can never linger in hugs because the warmth, the intimacy, it always makes him want to break. Shuichi’s not even a human, really, he’s just some defective set of parts that lost the ability to function properly. And the rest of them, they don’t need him here, ruining their good moments with his empty sorrows.
He stands a bit too abruptly and pretends he’s gone deaf when Kaito’s voice asks him what’s wrong. And then Kaede’s, and then Maki’s, and a hand curls around his wrist but he yanks himself away, snapping something, maybe it’s don’t touch me or maybe it’s utter gibberish, and when Kaede recoils maybe it’s confusion and not hurt that flickers across her features, and Shuichi doesn’t run across the courtyard but he walks like each one of his steps could penetrate the concrete, like if he stomped hard enough he could get down to the very core, the very center of the earth.
Y’know, he’d really like that. To just sink down through layer after layer after layer until he melts into nothing, becomes a part of all the sediment. That way he doesn’t have to feel anything at all. Or hate himself when he doesn’t.
There’s something satisfying in the sound of a slamming door. He slams the entrance to the dorms and then his own bedroom too, and it feels so good to vent that frustration, he slams himself against the door, just once, for the hell of it. It hurts but pain is sort of envigorating in that way where you know, you know your loved ones would hate it if they knew you were doing this, but you’re not going to stop. And you’re not going to tell them, either, because just knowing that maybe they’d be upset, that’s validation enough. It’s vindictive, actually, and sadistic, but Shuichi feels like stealing a car and driving into the ocean so this is fine for now.
He deadbolts and locks his door. Manages to drag himself over to the bed and slump down into it face first. His sheets smell like laundry detergent where they smelled like sweat this morning. Kirumi moves fast and silent, slipping in and out of the shadows like some kind of vigilante-maid-type-person. Shuichi ought to thank her later, only, there might not be a later, because he just snapped at Kaede of all people and now he can never leave his room again.
Shuichi wants to cry. But crying feels ugly and smells like rotting, fermented vegetables, so he closes his eyes and sleeps instead.
He wakes up at some point, six, seven in the evening. The numbers all blur together and he forgets them every time he checks, but the sky is dusty blue and the clouds are back so Shuichi calls it the evening. He has eight unread text messages on his phone, and isn’t it just wonderful, that his friends care so much?
From Kaito, there are five.
[Dude, you okay?]
[Akamatsu’s not mad you shouted at her]
[We’re all just worried]
[Did something happen? You know I’ll kick anyone’s ass if you just say the word. Gotta have my sidekick’s back!]
[Call me when you feel up to it :(]
From Kaede, two.
[I’m very sorry, Saihara-kun. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that]
[Is everything okay? Momota-kun is freaking out but I’ll tell him to leave you alone if you need space.]
Just one message from Maki.
[so who do i need to kill? give me a name and you won’t have to worry about them anymore. call me.]
God. This is so stupid. Shuichi turns off his phone (powers it all the way off, watches the screen go black and taps the power button a couple times for good measure) and throws it against the room. It makes a satisfying, angry thump against the closet. He curls his hands into fists, grabbing tight hold of the comforter and pressing painful little smiley-curves into his palms, and hopes that there’s a big, ugly crack across his phone screen. He won’t ask his uncle to get a new one. Or Miu to fix the screen. (She’d probably do it. She likes doing favours for people.) He’ll just keep the crack there as a reminder of why he’s an awful, awful person.
And he’s hungry, too. He missed breakfast and ate half a sandwich at lunch. The feeling of his stomach churning, empty and resentful, is somewhat pleasurable too. He’s so… twisted. Fucked up in the head. Maybe he needs to go to Gekkogahara, but instead of getting therapy maybe she should just lock him up.
Maybe he’s doing this for attention. They all obviously know that he’s depressed. Shuichi’s an open book. They say that all the time. He gazes up at the ceiling and feels hot tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. This is so, so fucking stupid. He’s probably just making all of this up. He’s absolutely fine. Upset over nothing in his privileged, wonderful life. Surrounded by amazing people. Comfortable. He’s never gone hungry a day in his life unless it was by his own hands. Shuichi thinks he recalls Kirumi saying she was going to do hotpot for dinner tonight and shoves his comforter against his mouth to muffle the sob that bursts its way out.
At one point or another there is a pounding on his door. Kaito, from the yelling from outside, and Shuichi fantasises about going out to greet him and being pulled into the warmth of his embrace. Kaito’s care is so compelling, so unrelenting. It would be easy to accept it. But he doesn’t. He just lies there, muffling sobs into a duvet that smells like fresh laundry and faintly of dark chocolate, like the girl who washed it. Is it even possible to be more pathetic?
He hears the faint sound of Kaede’s voice after a while, and then the knocking stops, and Kaito’s yells do too. They probably walked away. Kaede probably told him to give Shuichi space, just like she promised that she would. Shuichi wishes that they would’ve broken the door down, like they did for Ryoma. Burst in here with blazing concern and raised voices and taken Shuichi into their arms, all his melted, broken pieces, and made him better again. But they would never do that. They don’t even know what’s wrong. He’s hidden it away from them like a squirrel preparing for winter. A prisoner of his own defense mechanisms.
An endless loop of self-deprecation serves as Shuichi’s lullaby, and he drifts off again. He dreams of nothing, just empty, echoing caverns and his own voice. Stuttery and reluctant and ever-so-quiet. Too weak to say anything of substance. Just what people want to hear. That’s all he has the courage to say, anyway.
In the morning Shuichi wakes up long before his alarm goes off. The digital clock on his nightstand tells him it’s just past five in the morning. He stares at it for a long moment and numbly gets to his feet, retrieving a clean change of boxers and the Hope’s Peak uniform and shuffling into a bathroom. After a hot shower and a brush of his teeth, Shuichi feels… like a person, somewhat. His room smells good. Some pine-scented air freshener that Kirumi used. It makes Shuichi think of the park near his uncle’s house. A place he hasn’t been in a very long time. He’ll go to the dining hall and thank her soon.
First, though, he grabs his school bag and slips out the door, walking across the dormitory to Kaito’s room. He only has to knock twice before the door swings open, revealing Kaito. Shirt unbuttoned, tie loose around his neck, a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. His entire expression brightens when they make eye contact, and he puts up a hand to tell Shuichi to wait, taking out his toothbrush and spitting into the garbage can Shuichi knows he keeps near his door.
His voice is slightly gruff when he exclaims, “Bro! You’re up early!”
Shuichi manages a sheepish smile. “Ah, yeah. I got a lot of sleep last night.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Uhm, listen, I’m… sorry about yesterday. I was stressed out over a case but I shouldn’t have taken that out on you and Harukawa-san and Akamatsu-san.”
“A case, huh?” Kaito leans against the door frame, eyes crinkling in sympathy. “Wanna talk about it? The Luminary of the Stars is always happy to give feedback!”
“Uhm, I think I should probably keep the details confidential,” Shuichi rolls his shoulders. “But it’s very kind of you to offer, Momota-kun, thank you.”
“Anything for my sidekick! Hey, why don’t you do a lap around the school with me when I finish getting dressed? Since you missed training last night, and all. Don’t sweat it--” he adds, before Shuichi can apologise for dipping. “Things happen. I get it! Harumaki and I had a fine time.”
Of course. Shuichi’s presence is never really all that needed, for things to be enjoyable. He’s kind of just there. Kaito goes on his runs by himself. But he’s offering because he is kind, and Shuichi would be a fool to reject the offer. “That sounds fun. I’ll wait for you to get ready.”
“Feel free to pop a squat,” Kaito nudges the door open further, allowing Shuichi entrance. “I’ll be like ten minutes, and then we can go.”
Kaito’s sheets smell like old spice deodorant and axe body spray. An awful combination most times but comforting in Kaito. Shuichi’s friends are all like that, though. Comforting.
It’s just too bad that they’re so easy to lie to. But maybe that’s Shuichi’s fault.