Chapter Text
Kazuha knew that he was sick. He knew it, but it did not matter to him.
Tomo was dead.
Tomo was dead, and nothing made sense anymore.
Kazuha knew that after a while he would have to mourn. His best friend had committed suicide more than a year ago, but Kazuha felt like his death was the day before.
Since Tomo had left, everything had frozen. Everything except Kazuha's own body, which was filling up with scars and losing more and more weight. He could see the concern of his mothers, Beidou and Ningguang, when they saw him floating in his overgrown clothes, when they heard him vomiting in the middle of the night, when his hair fell out and they washed his bloodstained sheets. But he couldn't help it. Everything around him reminded him of the emptiness left by Tomo, an emptiness he was desperately trying to tame. But nothing could be done. No matter how hard he tried, the emptiness was still there and Tomo's smile was still absent from his life.
Autumn was approaching, and with it the beginning of the school year and the memory that Tomo would be absent from school. Kazuha felt sick just thinking about it, even though autumn had always been his favorite season.
The summer had been hard on Kazuha, who had not jumped into short sleeves and had lost about forty pounds. He thought about all the fights with his moms, and how he had yelled at them not to be hospitalized. He pursed his lips; he knew he needed help, deep down. But it made things more tangible. It was dealing with the problem of his best friend's suicide, and Kazuha had no desire to go back to that. His fragile balance was not healthy and he was well aware of it, but how could he not let himself die when Tomo had abandoned him?
Because one day, Tomo just didn't come back to class and stopped answering his messages. Kazuha would never have suspected what had happened to the boy until his mother called him in tears. Even today, there were days when he could hardly believe it. He almost expected to receive a message inviting him to meet on a whim, as Tomo so often did.
Realizing that it was true, that his death was so real, was torture for Kazuha. But the whole world was confronting him every day with the harsh reality of things, as if every day that passed was a slap in the face.
The first day of school passed like a dream. Nothing made sense anymore. Kazuha stayed in his corner, and the whole world left him alone. And it was better that way. Heizou and Gorou were not in the same class as him and did not share any of his classes. All he had to do was avoid his friends during breaks, and everything was fine. He ignored their messages, spent his lunch breaks locked in the bathroom, and Kazuha could pretend, without facing the world, that the pain was a little less overwhelming.
He did not make friends immediately, nor afterwards. He remained deliberately isolated, under the illusion that the world had stopped with Tomo. So when his moms found him unconscious in the bathtub and he had to be taken to the hospital, no one got a message to tell them. And that was fine with Kazuha.
When Kazuha opened his eyes during his first day in the hospital, he didn't immediately realize that he wasn't at home and wondered what some nurses were doing in his room. They greeted him, took his blood pressure and informed him that breakfast would arrive a few minutes later, which made Kazuha gag. One of the nurses noticed it, and stayed with him while her colleague continued her tour of the rooms. She asked him some questions, which Kazuha did not answer, choked by the anxiety of the approaching meal. She stayed with him for breakfast, holding his hand when he started to cry. Then, called back by her duties, she left, and Kazuha's heart was torn a little more.
The days passed, and with them Kazuha took his marks in the psychiatric ward where he was hospitalized. Some of the nurses were nice to him, others were a little less so, but overall everything was going well. He saw a psychiatric intern every day and was soon diagnosed with anorexia and severe depression.
Kazuha didn't really know what it all meant. He just understood that it was serious, at least serious enough that he would not be going back to school anytime soon.
Almost every day he had his moms bring him books of poetry to pass the time. They informed him that the school had been notified and that someone would be coming by to bring him his homework. Kazuha assumed it would be a teacher and secretly hoped it would be his literature teacher.
When a young man with black, almost purplish hair and indigo eyes walked through his door, Kazuha understood that it would not be a teacher who would come to see him, and the slight disappointment quickly gave way to curiosity.
"I've come to bring you your homework."
The unfamiliar boy had spoken in a mumble, without greeting him. Kazuha could tell he was uncomfortable, but he didn't know if it was from his person or from the hospital itself.
"Thank you very much. It was nice of you to come by."
The young man grumbled something inaudible, then walked over to Kazuha and set his bag down next to him to pull out the papers to give him.
"What's your name?"
The boy looked up at him, surprised.
"We've been in the same class for two months and you don't know what my name is?"
Kazuha blushed in embarrassment, and shook his head.
"My name is Kunikuzushi."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Kazuha."
"I know, dumbass. We're in the same class, I'll say it again."
"Haha, sorry. I've been a little out of it the past few months."
"No shit. Well, I'll be back at the end of the week. Bye."
With that, Kunikuzushi left without a glance.
Kazuha shrugged his shoulders and got to work. He had a lot of catching up to do, but he especially wanted to resume his literature classes. For the past year, the subject was the only thing that kept the boy going, and he was especially passionate about poetry. He had stopped writing poetry since Tomo's death, but he had a secret plan to write a book about his best friend one day soon. He didn't have the energy right now, but it would come.
Gorou and Heizou finally passed by, after having pestered his moms to know why he didn't come to school anymore. And if Gorou cried in Kazuha's arms, Heizou took advantage of his visit to yell at him. Kazuha let it go; deep down, he knew that he deserved his friend's wrath.
When Kunikuzushi came by again on Friday night, Kazuha felt a touch of excitement. The boy with indigo eyes left him some work, grumbling, and went away without pushing the conversation. He was the only person who treated Kazuha like a normal person, who didn't care that he was sick and hospitalized. It was refreshing. For the first time in months, Kazuha felt himself smile when he thought of Kunikuzushi and his annoyed look. In the tide of despair that threatened to suffocate him every day, Kunikuzushi's behavior was a breath of fresh air, and Kazuha was secretly grateful.