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There’s something seriously wrong with Airi.
She’s known it for a while. Really, nothing else is wrong with her; she’s perfectly fine other than the fact that she cannot stop drinking.
She doesn’t remember when exactly this started, but it began when she was in middle school, sneaking sips of her parents’ drinks. Then it just escalated, and now she’s here.
She’s kept her issues inside for so long, pushing them down constantly. No one could ever know what was wrong with her.
She still can’t call her problem by its actual name. Ena, on the other hand, has no trouble saying the a-word. She had no trouble saying it when she confronted Airi about her issues, and she still drops it whenever it’s relevant. Ena knows everything. She was there for everything. She’s the only person who knows.
Ena has known since that day in September; it was two years ago. Airi had an awful day at school. Once she got home, she did her usual routine of locking herself in her room with a couple bottles to drink, but through her daze, she had forgotten that Ena was supposed to come over.
When Ena walked into her room after calling for her, and saw her half-conscious on the floor laying next to a few bottles, she screamed.
The minute she got done sticking her fingers down Airi’s throat, making sure she wouldn’t have to go to the hospital, Ena sat her down with a solemn expression and had a talk with her.
By the end of it, Airi had made a promise to Ena: to try and get better. The key word there was try.
She wants to keep holding it inside. She wants to keep repressing it for the rest of her life. But it hurts; it hurts so badly.
Airi looks over at the small token on her nightstand. She had received it last year after Ena convinced her to go to one of those twelve-step programs. She bought a coat, mask, and sunglasses to make sure no one would recognize her; and to top it all off, a wig. She even disguised her voice, speaking in a lower pitch. The only time she spoke was to say her name (Miyu. She’d pulled a random name out of her ass upon realizing she would have to introduce herself) and how many days she had been sober (One. Pitiful). Other than that, she remained hunched in the back of the room, praying no one even had an idea of who she was.
The wig still sits in her closet. It was an incredibly hideous wig, a long, neon purple thing with uneven streaks of black. She’d shoved it in the back the minute she returned from the meeting, swearing to never wear it again; after all, she wouldn’t need to return. She could handle herself.
Right?
As it turns out, she cannot handle herself.
She really thought she was getting better. She didn’t even think about it most days (really, only once a week). So why was it that it was the first thing that popped into her mind the minute she was home alone?
Her siblings weren’t home; her older sister was away at college and her younger sister was at a friend’s house for the week. Her parents were on their respective work trips. The whole household was empty, eerily silent.
They wouldn’t know that she just tiptoed downstairs to the liquor cabinet; a habit she’d gotten into before, as she had to be quiet so no one would hear her. They wouldn’t know that she just sat in her room drinking all night. They wouldn’t know, because she’ll just hide it like she always has.
She sits in her room and repeats the all-too-familiar mantra to herself:
Nobody is going to know.
They can’t know.
They’ll never know.
Well, they certainly know now.
“Hello? Earth to Airi. Come back to us.”
Haruka is waving her hand in front of her face. Judging by her frustrated expression, she’s been doing that for about a minute. Airi wouldn’t know.
“Huh? Sorry. What did you say?”
“I was asking you if you would be okay with an impromptu practice tomorrow. Minori and I feel like we all just need a little more time to go over some parts of the routine, and I—”
“Do you think I suck or something?” she blurts out without even thinking.
Haruka looks taken aback. “What?”
“I mean, by ‘we’ you mean ‘me,’ right? You all think I suck, don’t you? You do. I can tell.” It comes out a little more slurred than she would have liked it to be, but it doesn’t sound too bad.
Is it obvious? Please, god, don’t let it be obvious—
A look of realization crosses Haruka’s face. “Airi, are you drunk?”
Ah. There it is.
There’s really no point in denying it, so she just shrugs. After all, they know now.
Shit. They know.
She looks around at her groupmates, taking in their faces. Shizuku looks confused, but worried. Haruka just looks disappointed. Minori, though; Minori looks heartbroken, like her image of Airi has been shattered into pieces.
She can’t handle this.
Without a word, she turns around and runs, ignoring Minori’s panicked shouting after her. All she wants is to go home.
The minute Airi gets home, she runs up to her room, slams the door, and flops onto her bed. Thankfully, she’s still home alone, meaning no one can hear her scream into her pillow.
She’s slightly comforted by the fact her being home alone means she can have another night like last night. If she was truly better, she’d be calling this mindset absolutely pathetic. But she’s not better. Airi hurts, and she burns.
There’s a knock at her door.
“Airi? It’s Ena. Are you in there?”
“No.” Whether this response is due to her physical or mental state doesn’t matter; Ena still takes notice.
“I know you’re in there. Can you open your door?”
“Mm.”
Ena sighs, a long-suffering and exhausted one. “Airi. Open the door.”
She pushes herself off her bed, stumbles to the door, and unlocks it. Behind it is Ena, looking disheveled as if she had just sprinted to her house.
Had she really been that worried about her?
Ena sits down on her bed, and Airi follows, taking a seat next to her. “Shizuku texted me like 500 times. She sounded really worried. She said that you were acting weird at practice and you just ran off?”
She doesn’t respond, choosing instead to stare straight ahead at the door.
Ena turns around to face her. “Did something happen?”
“No.”
“Did they say anything to you? I swear to god, if they did anything to you, I’m going to—” Ena stops herself mid-sentence as reality dawns upon her.
She looks like Haruka. Airi mentally steels herself for the oncoming lecture.
“Is it bad again?”
Well, that’s not what she was expecting. She opens her mouth, ready to lie: yes, I’m fine, it’s nothing. Don’t look at me. Please don’t figure it out. Please.
“Don’t lie to me, Airi.”
Fuck.
She crosses her arms, hugging herself tightly. “Yes,” she whispers.
Ena swears softly under her breath. “Okay, it’s okay. Look at me. It’s okay.”
It isn’t okay. They know, and they’re going to kick her out, and they’re never going to talk to her again, and everyone is going to know because they’re going to tell everyone, and oh, she can’t breathe.
“Airi? Oh, fuck.”
Her breath is coming in short, fast gasps. It hurts. Her chest is burning, and her mind is burning, and everything just hurts.
“Okay, just breathe with me. In for three seconds, hold for three seconds, and out for three seconds. Got it?” Ena instructs.
She’s shaking violently now, and she tries to nod her head, but her neck hurts so badly, so she just inhales sharply.
“No, take it a little easier. Slowly.”
Airi complies. After about a minute, she sinks down into Ena’s lap, twisting her shirt tightly in one hand. Her breathing speeds up again, sharp and painful.
“Can I touch you?” Ena asks, hand hovering above her.
She nods. Ena rests her hand on the top of her head, and with that, the floodgates burst. She’s crying now, gasping for air; all the while, Ena shushes her, her hand running through her hair and down her back.
When Airi’s breathing finally returns to normal and she’s stopped shaking, she sits up, still crying.
“They hate me.”
“Who hates you?”
“The rest of my group. Shizuku texted you so many times because she doesn’t like me anymore, and Haruka is so disappointed in me, and Minori is going to hate me for the rest of my life. I ruined it. I ruined everything.” Her breathing picks up for a second again, but Ena puts a hand on her arm to calm her down.
“Start from the beginning. What exactly happened?”
As she explains to her the events of the day (and yesterday), Ena nods along, but stops her when she gets to the part where she ran off.
“And you think they hate you because of that?”
“…Yes?”
Ena sighs again, but this time, it’s more of a concerned sigh. “They don’t hate you, Airi. They’re worried about you. That’s why they reacted like that.”
“Why would they be worried?” she asks.
“Do you seriously think that they wouldn’t notice that something was wrong when you showed up to practice smelling awful—don’t look at me like that, Airi, I can still smell you—and zoned out the whole time before exploding at them?”
Airi pauses. “Oh. I guess that makes sense.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Ena parrots. “Of course it makes sense! They obviously care about you.”
“But then how do you explain their reactions?” She couldn’t forget the disappointed expressions she saw on their faces, no matter how hard she tried.
Ena sighs for the third time. “Okay. Shizuku was confused because she’d never seen you like that before; that’s why she texted me so much. Haruka—well, I don’t really know what she was thinking, but I think she was really just concerned for you. And you didn’t ‘break Minori’s heart,’ she was probably terrified for you. None of them really want to see you suffering like this.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Now come on; let’s get to the bath. You still smell.”
As she follows behind Ena, for the first time in a while, Airi thinks things really might be okay.