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Nobody ever said it was going to be so hard.
Every time that it was supposed to get easier, it didn’t. Everything that was supposed to make it easier didn’t seem to. It never got easier, only more manageable.
Wasn’t love supposed to help? Surely, then, when Bokuto had met three people who he’d loved more than anything he should have gotten better. But he didn’t. It became more manageable, easier to handle when there was an option of having somebody to lie in the silence with him, burrowed under tens of blankets. Wasn’t success supposed to help? Surely, then, when they won games Bokuto should have felt better. Surely, then, when he got accepted to a college he’d wanted to go to and when he’d gotten a good job he should have felt better. But he didn’t, and it only became more manageable when he was able to remember that he’d accomplished things worth being proud of. And wasn’t happiness supposed to help? The days when he felt happy and the knowledge that he was fortunate should have been able to make him feel better. Having a good family, having a good job, moving in with the three people who he loved more than anything and doing well in his college classes—that should have helped, shouldn’t it have?
But it didn’t. And nobody ever said it was going to be this hard.
Bokuto still remembers, of course, days when it wasn’t hard. When he was younger and his brain couldn’t comprehend that anything was wrong, even though there was probably plenty of things wrong. When Bokuto was younger and the world seemed innocent enough that he couldn’t comprehend bad things. And he remembers all the moments when it occurred to him that the world was terrible. He remembers the first time his parents fought, and he remembers the jarring conclusion that everybody got divorced eventually. (Which wasn’t true, but it certainly seemed true when he didn’t know a single couple who had stayed together.) Bokuto remembers the stunning revelation that he wasn’t liked, that kids are cruel and that it’s possible to be hated. And Bokuto remembers the terrible conclusion that it’s not the other kids who are cruel alone, but he himself. They didn’t like him, but he wasn’t particularly fond of Bokuto Koutarou either.
And he remembers, much later on, deciding that his head was a mess. That the sadness and the hurting and the loneliness weren’t normal, that not everyone felt the urge to run away from it all or fall asleep forever. That not everybody dipped between feeling good and bad like the snap of your fingers, instantly and without explanation or reason.
Bokuto’s head is a mess, and nobody ever said it was going to be so hard.
When Bokuto was thirteen, he’d been sure that he’d feel alright by the time he started high school.
And when Bokuto started high school and his head was still a mess, he was sure that he’d feel alright by the time he graduated.
And when Bokuto graduated after a messy year of an attempt to stop feeling so messed up (read: trying to take enough medication to stop his heart) and the hardest year yet, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be okay at all.
(He’d been assured that he didn’t need to be, that they’d help him as he was and that it would be alright, but those weren’t very promising words.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bokuto was completely aware of the fact that it was tiring. If Bokuto was so tired that his body ached and all he was doing was shoving his face in a pillow and not saying anything, how tiring must it have been for Akaashi to sit next to him and try and come up with reasons that everything was okay? If Bokuto could stop feeling the way he did, he would. He would start feeling the way that everybody else did, steady and sure and good. If he could stop being a bother and work up the energy to pick himself up and put himself back together, he would. He wanted to. He wanted to stop making them spend time out of their days trying to put together a puzzle with too many missing pieces.
If there were words to express that, Bokuto might have said them. Instead he slowed his breathing the best he could and rolled over to face Akaashi, who sent him a small smile. And Akaashi, who probably had a lot of better things to be doing, offered out a hand instead of going to do those important things. (It was less suffocating than a hug, more manageable, just as grounding.)
“I would stop feeling like this if I could,” Bokuto promised. “I’m trying.”
“Then you’re trying for the wrong thing.” Akaashi’s voice was dry, but it softened when he continued. “You should try to feel content, first of all, not ‘normal’. Instead of trying not to feel upset, try and feel okay. Don’t go for ‘good’ or ‘happy’ yet, just try for okay for now. And then, when that gets a little more manageable, work up from there.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You don’t have to. And if you try and it doesn’t work—and it won’t always work—then you just try again later. And if you work backwards instead of making progress—which you’ll do—then you just try again later.”
There was a silence that hung over them, but it wasn’t heavy and it wasn’t awkward. From out in the living room the theme to a video game played and a clatter came from out in the kitchen.
“Alright,” Bokuto mumbled, shifting to place his face back in his pillow.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bokuto didn’t know why he hated the medication. All it did was make it easier to get through the day. But it was hard to swallow and tasteless, and maybe he hated it for what it represented. Maybe he hated it because if his goddamn brain worked the way it was supposed to work then he wouldn’t have to take it. Did anyone else have to take medication just to try and get through the day? Not anyone that Bokuto had met.
Scrunching his nose up, Bokuto eyed the medicine before he popped it into his mouth and swallowed it as quickly as he could. Did it even help? Did it even help when he still had to try so hard just to get from morning to night? Even when he felt okay, it wasn’t the same okay as everyone else seemed to feel. ‘Okay’ just meant that he was only a little tired, only a little sad, only visited by a couple of intrusive thoughts. On a good day, he was still so tired that he could sleep at any given moment, and he still felt like he could probably be talked into taking another inane amount of medication to stop his heart if someone tried hard enough to talk him into it, and he still heard his brain mumbling about every single flaw.
But he took it anyways, because he’d get in trouble if he didn’t.
(He knew this because he’d attempted, in the past, to see how long he could go without taking it. The result had been a pretty messy episode involving a mental breakdown and some broken glass and a little blood and an hour-long chiding from Akaashi. Bokuto only took it now because he’d disliked the way the bandaging felt and the injuries itched and the way Akaashi looked so disappointed.)
Setting the bottle back in the cupboard and closing it, Bokuto turned around to see Kuroo sitting on the counter and wagging his eyebrows up and down at Bokuto.
“Bro, it’s too early for whatever you’re planning,” Bokuto insisted, choosing not to question where Kuroo had even come from so quietly and grinning instead. “Save it until noon. We’ll get in less trouble if we don’t wake them up with it.”
“Noon,” Kuroo agreed, feigning disappointment. “But only because I’m gonna get them in on it too.”
“They’re not going to say yes, man.”
“Man, you don’t even know what the plan is.”
“I know they’re never going to agree.” Bokuto laughed, accepting Kuroo’s hand when he stuck it out and slid off of the counter.
“Good day?” Kuroo asked, hand squeezing Bokuto’s once.
“Good day,” Bokuto agreed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bokuto thought sometimes that the highs were worse than the lows. Because the lows, however painfully tiring and hard and impossible to get through, could only get better. And knowing that the good days, which were filled with energy and laughter and capability, were only going to swing right back into the bad days was harder to comprehend in the back of his mind. It’s how his brain works, always lingering on what it’s not rather than what it is. When he’s sad he thinks I’ll feel happy eventually, I’ll feel good eventually, it’ll all be over eventually, and when he’s feeling good he thinks I’ll feel sad eventually, I’ll crash harder than ever before eventually, it’ll all be over eventually. Even on a good day his mind was a little bit of a mess.
But it’s good that they exist, because they’re days when he can forget that anything was ever even wrong. His medication can just be for a headache and he can pretend like he never spent days at a time too tired to get up and too sad to comprehend waking up and too anxious to stop thinking about everything terrible. (He still hates his body, hates the way it looks, but his brain chides itself with happier thoughts whenever he was cruel towards himself.)
The good days were always good, because they meant that he could go out with Kuroo to grab coffee when they both got home from class, and they meant that he could sit in the kitchen with Akaashi before dinner and they could talk about whatever it was they felt like talking about, and he could join Kenma on the couch and they could try and beat whatever high scores they’d left on their games the last time they’d played.
And that was good. It was all good, and those were the days where he’d think that he’d definitely get better someday, the days when he’d recall what it was like years ago and how much better he’d already gotten. Bokuto could spend those days laughing with them, and making them laugh, and loving everything about them without anything to hold him back and without any part of him rejecting their love towards him.
They were good days, and Bokuto wished they’d stay that way.
The kitchen smelled like hot chocolate, the good homemade kind, and there was mugs on the coffee table with steam curling off of them. Blankets were discarded on the ground and piled on the couch, and they’d all somehow entangled themselves all onto one couch to try and keep warm. There was a movie on the TV that nobody was watching, something sappy and cliché, and it made good background noise in the otherwise quiet room. But it was a content quiet, punctured here and there by little bouts of conversation or commentary on the movie when one of them would tune in. From across the couch, Kenma had connected his game to Bokuto’s and tried to go about winning with tactical strategies and knowledge, which Bokuto somehow rivalled equally wish button-smashing and energy. Akaashi read a book for class and Kuroo did whatever it was that he did on his phone, and it was warm under all the blankets and crowded together.
(If he’d actually been able to do it his senior year, he wouldn’t have known this. He wouldn’t have known them the way he knows them now. It would have been easier for them, but…selfishly, Bokuto was so, so glad that he’d stuck around.)
Kenma won the round, but Bokuto wasn’t terribly far behind point-wise. Kenma closed his DS, putting it on the couch next to him and leaning over to grab his hot chocolate. He planted his head on Kuroo’s chest to make Kuroo pay attention, or maybe it was so that Kuroo would run his fingers through Kenma’s hair the way that he liked, and Bokuto leaned over for his own hot chocolate.
There were good days and bad days, and this was undoubtedly a good day.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It’s always true, every time, that good days end with him falling hard. To go from feeling so good to so bad was like having a huge weight lifted off your shoulders, only to have it thrown back at you twice as heavy as before. And sometimes it’s heavier than that and Bokuto goes crashing down so far that it’s like he hasn’t made any progress at all. His head isn’t just harsh, it’s cruel. It’s not his own thoughts, but somebody else in his head there, tearing him apart. It’s days like that when his head is so loud and he can’t breathe and he’s so desperate that he just wants it to stop.
Do you see the pity when they look at you?
Stop.
I bet they’d rather be doing anything else than be in the same room as you.
Stop.
I bet they don’t want to touch something like you…
Stop.
It’s gonna be a shame when they leave you, huh?
Stop.
All alone because you disgust them. Their pity will run out, and what then?
Stop.
Just you and this mess. You’re ruining their lives.
Stop.
You’ve ruined everyone’s lives. Everyone pities you because you’re pathetic.
Stop.
There’s always a fine line on those days between the point where he’s aware that it’s a bad day and the point when all he knows is that the thoughts are true. His head yells and yells and yells, and after long enough it argues itself out of order and shuts down. Dissociates. Singles itself out into a little world where Bokuto is, separate from the world of everyone else. And then it’s just Bokuto without Bokuto at all, just himself without knowing it. He’s always somewhat aware of that other world, always somewhat aware of the fact that in the real world he’s being hugged and somebody’s mumbling to him and somebody’s worried for him, but he hasn’t got a clue who it is or why.
And then there’s the point when he comes back, when his mind puts his brain and body back together and the peacefulness is gone and replaced with the yelling thoughts and the cruel voice and suddenly he’s not being hugged by a stranger, but instead he’s a crying mess in Kuroo’s arms and he hates it and he hates himself and he doesn’t want to do it anymore.
“Just breathe,” Kuroo tells him, and Bokuto’s head points out the absolute pity in his voice, and instead of breathing he suffocates faster. “Breathe, Kou.”
((He can breathe, he knows how to do that, his body will do that on his own if he just distracts himself.))
Kuroo starts to tell some kind of story, talking about something that happened in his day, and Bokuto listens the best he can. It’s a funny story, something that they probably would have laughed over like idiots if it wasn’t a bad day. But Bokuto listens, and his breathing returns to him, ragged and shaky.
“I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t mean to.”
“You don’t disappoint me, Kou.” The way Kuroo says it is hard, like he’s angry, and Bokuto fights the urge to curl in on himself. “You don’t—god, you don’t disappoint any of us. You couldn’t disappoint us. Okay, well, maybe Akaashi when we break things, but not over anything like this. I don’t want you to try and be okay if it’s just to try not to disappoint someone, because nobody’s disappointed or mad. I just…we want you to be okay, alright? I want you to feel happy, because that’s what you deserve. And if you’re not ever okay, then you’re not ever okay and it doesn’t matter because we’ll still be here. But you deserve to feel happy, and I’ll be damned if I don’t help you to get there.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
They have a cat.
Of course they have a cat, how could they not have a cat when they live with Kuroo and Kenma? The cat has a dumb name and a dumb face, but Bokuto’s not allowed to say so or they’ll try and fight him on the subject. Kenma coddles the cat and Kuroo treats her like a person. Akaashi is partial towards her, calling her ‘it’ and ‘that’, but always remembering to feed her.
The cat tends to be of help on days like this, when it’s not a good day or a bad day, but something in the middle. But it’s leaning towards bad in the sense that he’s tired. Bokuto slept for nine hours, and yet he’s so tired he can’t even imagine getting up right now and trying to go through a day. His limbs wouldn’t listen if he tried, anyway. His brain is foggy, but quiet, and he just can’t do it all today even with a quiet head. So he stays home, sleeping for hours, and the cat keeps him company. When he wakes up and can’t sleep anymore, even though his whole body aches with exhaustion, she makes herself comfortable on his stomach while he burrows under the blankets and tries to fall back asleep anyway.
The door opens from across the apartment, and Bokuto can already tell it’s Kenma. Kuroo opens the door more loudly than that, and he always calls a greeting. Akaashi opens the door more calmly, and always closes it and locks it first thing so that he won’t forget to do so. Kenma opens the door slowly, and then leaves it open while he takes off his coat and bag and hangs up his keys, like he’s already forgotten about shutting it.
And then the bedroom door is opening and the bed dips down on one end. Kenma’s weight presses into Bokuto’s side and he pets the cat, sighing heavily. Bokuto wormed his way out of the blankets, making eye contact with Kenma for a second.
The cat was always a nice companion, but Bokuto preferred Kenma over her any day.
Kenma made his way under the blankets, curling up against Bokuto and taking a long breath in. Bokuto was pretty sure there wasn’t any meaning behind the deep breaths; Kenma tended to do that all the time, but he got so absorbed in his thoughts that his brain would forget to breathe for a couple of seconds, then he’d have to take a deep breath in to catch up again.
“Okay?” Kenma mumbles, and it’s his way of saying what kind of day is it? Are you okay? Do you feel better? It’s only one word, but Bokuto appreciates it like it’s the world.
“Okay,” he replies, because his eyes still ache with tiredness, but he’s fine.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
There’s bad days, when he ends up on the bathroom floor and when somebody has to skip a class just to make sure he’s not going to try and repeat senior year all over again.
There’s good days, when he feels awake and when everything feels like hundreds of pounds have lifted off of his shoulders.
There’s days in the middle, when he’s tired but feels alright.
It may end someday, and he may feel fine every day. And it may never end, and he may lean on the three of them like a crutch for the rest of his life. For now, all he can really hope for is that there’ll be more good days than bad days. If Kuroo’s telling the truth—and he is, Bokuto’s sure—then it doesn’t really matter as much as it used to seem to. Nobody ever said it would be so hard, but nobody ever said it would get more manageable, either. Bokuto would take what he could get, taking the good days with the bad days and the love with the concern.
((It's harder than he thought it would be, but it's getting easier.))