Work Text:
On the outside, Mari Ohara was confident, not afraid to do whatever it takes to reach the outcome she wanted to see and yet here she was, sitting on her cold bathroom floor with a pair of scissors in her hands. The handles of the scissors were purple, a shade that Mari can't quite put her finger on but she loved all the same. She'd bought it on impulse while she was studying abroad, with the colour of it reminding her of a certain blue-haired girl's gentle eyes. However, that's hardly an important detail now with her back in Japan, together with Kanan again in Aqours.
Despite all that, Mari just can't seem to break the habit. She'd long since made putting puffy red lines into her skin a part of her daily routine, she'd do it when she felt lonely or upset, the temporary pain and burning giving her just enough time to stop thinking and fall asleep. She'd do it when she was happy or found new friends to bring herself back down before she got too comfortable and risked losing it all again. She'd do it when she was angry or nervous or annoyed or anything at all because whatever she was feeling, it helped her cope and at this point, she'd take any method of blowing off steam. It turns out, being separated from your best friends and the love of your life does things to you, the way you think, the way you act, it changes everything.
Mari opened up the scissors as far as it would go, feeling the cold metal between her fingers all while deciding where the blades will slice today, since rejoining Aqours, the options became more limited if she didn't want to get caught: nothing on the arms, nothing between where a crop top would end and a waistband would start, nothing below the bottom half of her thighs, which leaves the top of her thighs, her hips and her bust.
Once Chika asked about a few old scars that peeked out from under her skirt, Mari was able to put the blame on her homestay family's non-existent cat and back it with a few old photos of her friend's cat back in Italy but she knew that she had to be careful to not get busted. The blades wandered her thighs, waiting to be pressed and dragged.
Mari never cuts deep, and never with a proper blade, bleeding makes her panic and razors or box cutters go too deep, hurts too much even if the point is to hurt, sometimes she thinks about how pathetic she is, not even being able to do this right, has she ever done anything right? She can't tell you honestly anymore.
Finally, she settles on a patch of smooth, untouched skin, it bothers her that there even exists unscarred flesh when all the areas surrounding it have new cuts and old marks littered around. She presses hard on the blade and pulls the scissors towards her, quickening the pace of the pull as she goes. That's the only way to get this inefficient tool to break skin, it doesn't matter how hard you push, the only thing is the speed with these edges it seems. A pink line quickly appears where the metal had just traced and blood seeps out, forming little dots along the cut. Mari smiles and wipes the cut clean with a swipe of her thumb, watching the dots form once again over the just-cleaned wound. This continues until a dozen of these lines cover each of her thighs, overlapping each other randomly like a cacophony of scars and cuts.
If she were to be completely honest, Mari can't even tell you why she did it today, perhaps something happened that subconsciously bothered her, maybe it was just out of pure habit. Either way, she wipes down the blades with alcohol and places them carefully back into the drawer with all her other pens and supplies, ready to be used again tomorrow night.