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Cater walks around the school halls, walking towards the Pop Music Club while idly scrolling and liking posts he saw on Magicam. It has been an exhausting day like the others—separating a fight against the freshman and Riddle early in the morning, watching boring classes that kept going on-and-on and taking pictures with some students was already a part of his routine, but he was fairly tired of it by now. He hoped that spending the rest of the day with Lilia and Kalim would be somewhat way more fun than whatever he did the whole day.
While turning to another hall closer to the freshmen classes, he couldn’t help but hear his name being loudly mentioned by a group of students of his dorm talking cluelessly in front of the class. It wasn’t rare to see people talking about him—he was the people-pleaser, after all. Of course people would talk about the boy who was constantly taking selfies and pictures of the prettiest things he could find.
But how loud they were was what actually got him a little off guard. Curious, he rushes to hide inside an empty classroom to listen.
“You guys have seen this page on Magicam, right?”
“Oh, I think I did. What was the name again?”
“nrc.roasts! It’s everywhere, I swear!”
His eyes glint with a certain curiosity. Such a juicy suggestion of a profile on Magicam and he, the one who was always on his phone, didn’t see it. Funny.
“Do you think it was Cater who did it? I mean, this profile is alwaaays online”.
“Cater? Nah! Why would he make a post for people to roast him?”
…What?
Cater feels something in his chest aching, a small feeling of panic and tension building and weighing heavily on his shoulders. Clueless, he reaches out for his phone once again, quickly opening Magicam and searching for the page they were talking about. Finding it easily after only typing ‘NRC’, he opens the profile with a certain rush.
It was a new profile, created probably one or two days ago. With more than two thousand followers, there were a few posts with pictures of other students, asking for the student’s opinions on them—and he was there. On the pinned post, like a ‘question of the day’ on fandom pages. Gulping, he clicks on the post, opening the comments almost immediately.
Once he started to read them, he felt a certain warmth of anxiety taking over his body, and his stomach sank.
“he’s super annoying. i’m tired of pretending he’s not lol”
“I don’t think anyone likes him”
“tick kind of guy lol. he only lets people go after they agree to his boring selfies”
A small chuckle comes out of his throat, but not because he thought it was funny. It was a sorrowful laugh, something that could be mistaken with a sob. He knew having a public account with daily posts would certainly attract some kind of hate, so he couldn’t exactly blame them—but he couldn’t act like it didn’t hurt either. Not when it pierced right through the sadness and stress he’s been building up inside for so long.
He couldn’t break that mask, though.
“Oh, he’s totes annoying! Absolutely #hate this guy!” He comments with trembling fingers, trying not to mistype anything. Despite trying to act like it didn’t affect him at all, a certain emptiness fills the space where it was supposed to be his fake happiness—not entirely sure if it became sadness, anger or a mix of them both. He just knew the feeling was stronger than he trained it to be.
Watching the students finally leave, he gets out of the room, but makes a quick turn to change the direction he was originally going to.
He had other plans now.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ⎯⎯⎯⎯
The boxcutter’s blade runs cold through his skin, a small cut going deep into his wrist and being met by another cut before it even had time to open up and bleed. It was his ‘emergency exit'. It wasn't something he did pretty often, considering it wouldn’t be the best view if he acidentally showed his scars on Magicam, but once the feelings buried deep under cheerful smiles and pretty pictures started to become too much to handle alone, he always resorted to self-harming. It's a thing he's been doing since his early teenager years to relieve all the build-up stress—and out of all things he kept as a secret, this one was the best hidden so far. It relieved the tension of his troubled mind and just needed a little cleaning after, then he could pretend everything was alright again. What more could he ask for?
But Diamond never started going easy on himself. It always started agressivily, running the blade swiftly where he knew there weren’t veins, slash after slash on his already wounded wrists. He would keep the violent-pace untill it ached too much to keep up—which was usually the time his hidden feelings were already well-controlled to bring his cheerful mask once again. But this time, something in his mind kept telling him to do more, that it wasn’t enough relief. And he did.
He kept slitting over one cut in particular, making new cuts on top of it untill blood started to soak out. Making one last cut that went deeper than the others due to the extreme amount of adrenaline, he quickly stopped when he felt that one hurt a tad too much from what he was used to, opening up a white wound on his wrist.
Cater brought his face closer to his wrist to examine the injury. The wound, which was still white some seconds before, started to gush out blood more than any other cut he had done. He mumbles a small ‘Congratulations, Cater!' trying to make himself calm down after the sight, but it only made the anxiety and panic rush inside his veins again, and he falls to the ground in horror.
He crawls towards his cabinet, grabbing a face cloth he kept as an alternative in case he didn’t have any towels or papers in easy acess to control the blood and wraps it on his wrist, applying pressure and praying for the seven it would actually be enough to make it stop bleeding. Normally, he wouldn’t feel scared by the blood—but it was way deeper than anything he had done before, and his chest tightens with fear.
Not being exactly able to think straight, he misses when a small knock came from the other side of the door. He noticed, however, when a too-familiar voice started to speak.
“Cater? Are you okay? Kalim and Lilia said you missed club activities today, so I came to check on you”. Says the voice, sounding too gentle and rather concerned.
It was Trey. No—he couldn’t see whatever was happening right now. People shouldn’t be able to witness his fragility, even if it was the person he considered himself the closest with. He couldn’t know.
The lack of an answer makes Clover’s tone tenser than it was before. “…Cater?”
Diamond tried to answer back, anything that could be of use—say he was filming something for Magicam, just shake if off and pretend he’s fine, anything!—but his voice refused to leave his throat. He chokes on his own saliva and sobs that kept trying to come out, letting out a small cough out instead of anything he wanted to say.
“…I’m coming in, okay? Sorry”.
Before he could even think and shout for him to wait, the green haired boy immediately opens the door, meeting Cater sitting on the floor teary eyed, holding something into his arm he couldn’t really see what it was since the ginger boy was hiding it behind his back. Trey frowns, looking at him with a certain worry in his eyes.
“Cater? Are you okay? What happened?” He asks, still standing in front of the open door. His voice sounded scary, like he knew something was up but didn’t really know what.
Cater gulped, his voice being mixed with an evident panic he couldn’t swallow down. “A-ah, Trey! I-I fell after waking up f-from a nap…! Totes embarassing, isn’t it?” He manages out, lowering his wrist more to hide it from Trey, forgetting the face cloth he wrapped was completely soaked with blood.
“Really…? Do you need help getting up?” Trey asks, not convinced by his excuse.
“N-no! It’s fine, rea—"
Before he could finish, Trey was already rushing towards him to help him get up. When he got closer, Cater could see his otherwise ‘calm’ expression being replaced by shock in less than seconds, the yellow eyes behind his glasses widening with the view of the face cloth and some blood slowly dripping on the floor. The orange haired boy tried to hide it once again, but he knew Trey was smart enough to catch what happened.
And with it, he trembled. Tears started to fall from his eyes, making the drawn diamond on his cheek slowly smudge as the tears kept rolling down his face. People weren’t supposed to know about his secret—especially someone he wanted to be so close with. His friend. It was supposed to be hidden behind happiness and smiles. His mask shouldn't break, not in front of him.
“Cater, you—” he gulps and kneels down closer to the other male, trying to make whatever fear reigned inside him go away to help him properly. “Here, here. Take the face cloth out. Let me see it”.
Well, there was no use hiding it from him now—Cater knew he already screwed up the act he was trying to make Trey believe. Shaking like a leaf, he weakly takes the bloody face cloth out of his arm and reveals his wrist, red with the amount of cuts and still bleeding with the one that was too deep. Trey gasped and carefully grabbed his arm, scared that if he went any faster it would hurt him more.
His eyes narrow, analyzing every detail with a concern that almost made Cater break into a full on sobbing. “Cater, this is really bad. We need to get you to the infirmary, now”. Trey says, trying to keep a calm tone to not panic him even more—didn’t work, it seems.
Cater’s eyes widened with the prediction, quickly pulling away his wrist from Trey’s hold and covering the wound with his other hand. Fear took over his green lifeless eyes, and he almost shook his head. “No, i-it’s fine, Trey, really! I can take care of it myself!” He says as his voice cracked at every word.
Trey answers back, a small hint of anger on his voice, not noticing if his tone sounded too rude because of the panic taking over him. “It’s not fine at all. It’s too deep. It needs proper care to heal, let me—"
“No! No!!” He shouts, getting up in a rush to get away from Trey, still grabbing his own wrist to make the blood stop. Cater sobs, panic taking control twenty times stronger than before as he now knew that if he went to the infirmary people would be able to see the hidden side of him. “They can’t see! Don’t make me go to the infirmary! They’ll know!!”
He couldn’t actually believe he was really crying in front of Trey. Crying was supposed to help—but it only made things worse. The carefully cultivated mask. The lack of friends. The comments. It all made him sob harder, crumbling in place.
Trey watched him with a sorrowful expression, still dazed and slightly confused by the situation, not used to seeing Cater ‘opening up’ with such strong emotions and resorting to such violent methods to control himself. He knew he never revealed what was really troubling him and would hardly reach out for help, but seeing him taking it to this extent at the point of making such a deep wound took him by surprise. And it hurt him—deeply.
Troubled, the green haired male gets up and slowly walks towards the smaller man, rubbing small circles on his back and muttering almost inaudible “it’s okay’s” untill he made sure Cater finally calmed down, staring at him with a comforting expression even though the orange haired man didn’t look back.
After a few minutes that seemed like hours to Diamond, he finally managed to make the wave of tears that seemed infinite stop falling from his eyes, and he looks down, refusing to meet the taller man’s eyes. They kept on the same position for a while before Trey came closer and started caressing his hair delicately, and Cater didn’t escape from it. “…'M sorry”. He whispered, voice so low he wasn’t sure if the other teen actually heard it.
“Don’t worry”. Trey smiled softly, yellow eyes still filled with a fair concern. “If you don’t want to go to the infirmary, can I atleast try and patch this up? It can get infected, and it will be way worse if it does”.
Cater trembled, still looking down and staring at his own feet. Sometimes, he hated Trey for acting so much like a mom—but for the first time after cutting, he could actually feel some consolation and comfort the wounds and blades never really gave him.
“…Fine”.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ⎯⎯⎯⎯
Trey delicately cleans the bleeding wound with a wet towel, stopping everytime he saw Cater grimacing or heard him whining from the pain, even if he never said anything when it hurt too much. Once the wound was properly cleaned up and stopped gushing out blood, he slowly patches it up with adhesive plaster, using enough to cover all the scars from early. They were silent, comfort and care being shown in small actions—but the green haired man couldn’t help but wonder what exactly made him break like that.
“There it is”. Trey says, smiling gently, but still too worried to act calm. “I’ll leave these with you. Make sure to tell me if it starts bleeding again”.
Cater forced a grin to form on his lips, but his tired eyes and the redness on his nose didn’t really agree with the expression he was trying to make. “Thank you”. He says, not looking at his eyes. He wasn’t ready to.
Before Trey could ask what happened, the orange haired teen turned to the side, hugging his own knees and lowering his head to hide his face with such a fragility he was sure he never saw it coming from Cater before. Carefully, he moves closer to the smaller man, far enough to not bother him. As much as Diamond seemed to prefer being alone now, he didn’t say anything to make him go away. Maybe there was still hope in knowing what lead him to this, after all.
“Cater, talk to me”. Trey speaks softly, being able to pretend he was calmer now. “What happened? You can tell me”.
Diamond didn’t feel like responding. With seconds of searching on Magicam, he could easily find the reason behind his sudden and humiliating crash-out—but Trey was so patient, almost like a real friend. Maybe he could talk to him, just a bit. Even if that meant having to go through all the bad feelings from before once again.
In a sudden moviment, he grabs his phone that rested on his side and immediately clicks on Magicam and goes to the gossip profile, redirecting to the post with his face that was still pinned. He hands it to Trey and points to the comments, sinalizing him to click on it.
Clover held his phone, and reading a few comments, he couldn’t help but feel the anger building up inside his body. He couldn’t believe how such shameless people could put someone down like that, especially Cater, who was always trying to act nice towards the students. He puts the phone down, trying to hide the obvious irritation and guilt on the back of his tone.
“This—Who would do such a thing…?” He mumbles, upset. “I will report it to Crowley before they keep up with this”.
The orange haired teen pushes his phone back, and Trey gets up from the bed, irritated. He knew it could be stopped if someone reported to Crowley when the profile was first found, but they just kept going for the easier targets and everyone seemed to like it. He knew it only served as a breaking point for Cater, and ‘pissed’ was the only word that could describe what he was feeling right now.
Before he could even start to walk out of the room, Cater’s voice came small inside his ears, still avoidant. “…I’m so tired”.
Trey looks back, staring at the male’s curled up position that begged for some warmth. He walks back to the bed, sitting by his side again. “Of what? Tell me how you feel, please”. The green haired man says, trying to sound as gentle as he possibly could.
Silence takes over the room again, and Cater slowly reaches out for one of the plushies on his bed and hugs it, hiding his face on the fur. Trey almost didn’t catch it—but he saw how red his exhausted face was starting to turn, like he was about to cry again. He moves closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. Diamond didn’t refuse the touch.
“Just tired. Tired of pleasing people. Pretending I don’t care about what they say. It’s exhausting”.
Trey caress his shoulder. “You can always reach out for help. I’m here, too. I’ll always be”.
Cater feels the rivulet of tears forming on the corner of his eyes once again, and he just let himself cry, body shaking at every sob. He knew it wasn’t enough for him to open up more. He knew that tomorrow, he would wake up in the same time and keep with the cycle untill his mask broke again. But deep inside, maybe, he felt Trey’s comforting words hit him, and it was more than enough.
Trey moved closer and embraced his shoulders, mumbling small “shhh’s” to calm the smaller boy down. Cater threw himself onto his arms, resting his head on his shoulder untill the tears finally ceased and he eventually fell asleep.
And Trey never left.