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He closed the door behind him as he entered the cramped bathroom. There wasn't much space, maybe 2 feet behind him, a sink in front of him, 3 feet to his right before the small shower.
He began thinking to himself, as he always did in the shower. He quickly threw his clothes off, just wanting to get it over with.
He made the same mistake he always did in the bathroom, glancing in the mirror. His eyes travelled across every inch of his visible upper body in less than a second.
A feeling of revulsion overtook him, a scowl made it's way onto his face. He hated the mirror, how it reminded him of his own body. He hated his body, how it reminded him of how 'him' he was.
He wished he wasn't, wasn't ‘him'. He wanted to be ‘her’ or ‘their' or ‘it'. He hated ‘him' with every fiber of his being.
Yet he never complained aloud about that. Maybe it was a selfish desire, he wouldn't deny that. He imagined himself as someone else in his head, always hating how the mirror reminded him that he wasn't. He was ‘him’
He always struggled making himself shower. He would pick a time, a day, then he just couldn't bring himself to do it. It was kind of pathetic, and gross, but he did it all the same.
He stared at his knotted oily hair, it reached just above his lower back. He loved his hair, how it made him feel a little less ‘him'. Even in it's knotted dishevelled form, he still loved his hair.
He thought back to why he was in the bathroom in the first place. His mother had asked him to get a shower. He loved his mother, if he himself couldn't make himself get a shower, he always would if she asked.
Not in a creepy way, he just loved his mother. He would accept her advice to take care of himself. He hated himself, he couldn't convince himself to do so alone.
He thought back to society as a whole, he was a mere child—well not a child per se, but not an adult either.
He hated how he felt about himself just as much as he hated himself. The people around him loved him, he didn't burden them with his inner thoughts.
He wasn't one to speak much, he despised his own voice, especially in recordings. He thought to himself again—’That's what I sound like to everyone else. I hate that fact.’
He thought back to why he didn't think like this all the time. “Escapism” he thinks it is called, he was one to play video games a lot. But moreso, reading fanfiction, especially second person pov fanfiction.
It helped him escape his thoughts, insert himself into a new narrative. It was funny, he thought, he used fanfics of a game about escapism as a way of escaping reality.
Deltarune—the game he loved more than he loved himself. Deltarune had truly changed his life, even if his life was still a boring loop.
Undertale had too, but less so. He didn't get into Undertale until after he got into the Undertale AU fandom, ironically.
He resonated deeply with characters from these games and fandoms. He wished he weren't in such an unsavory body. He wished he were a monster.
He would rather have been born as one of those huge moths than his current life. He did enjoy it sometimes, but his hate of himself outweighed that.
He used to enjoy the beach or river a lot as a kid, now he despised it. He hated taking his shirt off, seeing the flesh underneath. He did rarely play in water sometimes, but he always kept his shirt on.
His family had asked him why he didn't enjoy the beach anymore. He always spouted a reason that he didn't truly care for.
“Oh I just don't like the sand”
“I don't wanna walk across the board walk like that”
“I just don't enjoy the water”
He did enjoy the water. Hell he loved the water. But the thought of ‘him' made him hate the water.
He thought something was wrong with him. He barely showered once a week, he planned out his responses to conversation instead of just talking. He barely talked at all, opting to instead hum whenever he could, oh how he hated the voice he spoke with.
He loved music, wished he could sing, wished he liked his voice enough to try. He loved fanfiction, escaping into fantasy whenever he could, at the cost of his physical health.
He couldn't even bring himself to brush his teeth without his loving mother reminding him. The thought of having to stare into the mirror made him shiver in disgust. He also just had a really hard time flossing, he had big hands.
He liked his showers warm, he liked the warmth, but he hated the way the water felt on his skin. He didn't hate the water, he hated the skin.
He wished he had fur, scales, feathers, ANYTHING other than his current skin. He hated looking at it, despite him seeing it daily.
He was rambling to himself again, he managed to distract his self loathing mind again. He just ruined that by acknowledging that.
There was one thing he loved about himself. His heartbeat. He didn't know if it was normal to always feel it, but it felt like a second person within him, reminding him that they were here.
It was a silly thought, but it brought him comfort. He would lay on his side at night—his preferred position—and he would hold his free arm on the wrist of the one under him, feeling his heart beat in his chest, under his head, under his hand.
He loved that feeling, the constant ‘ba-dump'. Like a simple up-down pattern. It reminded him to breathe. His heartbeat speeding up helped him keep breathing, reminding him to be in the ‘now'
He supposed his musing was over, as he was now in bed, typing away on his phone, hoping his friend would message him, he didn't like messaging first, it made him feel like a burden.
He thought again, mind more clear now that he had waited. Would there be a chapter break between his thinking of thinking? He didn't know, nor particularly care.
He was just thinking to think, trying to vent out his emotions without needing someone to talk with. They were asleep.
He thought inwards and inwards, his heart still beating, reassuring him of his thoughts. There was a pause in his thinking, what to think about now?
He had found it oddly difficult for him to hold a thought conversation in himself, usually it was easy as breathing. Maybe writing it out had helped, if not just tired him out more.
A pang of something rang within him. Maybe one day he would be free of his dysphoria. He knew he was trans—at the very least dysphoric about his body. Maybe his gender wasn't the issue, maybe he just wished he was less.. or something more?
No. He did wish he was less. Less ‘him’. Less human. But more than human, like a free fox or a bird, something less human shaped and more.. himself. Not the gross ‘himself’, but what he actually thought of his inner self.
He stopped his thinking again. He was hungry.