Wasting Your Love on Me(Sanegiyuu)

Eighteen

Giyu's always been a quiet person. He's enjoyed the silence his whole life, understands it, revels in it. Life is loud and overbearing sometimes, even his friends are loud, and so he's always sought comfort in the silence.

But nowadays it's stifling, void of the crackling of a voice over the phone or the warm feeling of ink on his skin. He doesn't know when the silence became just as overbearing as life, but he feels like he's drowning, scrambling to swim back to the surface to hear the sound of waves and boat engines, anything other than the empty silence below the surface.

And he's always been a strong swimmer, captain of both his middle and highschool teams before he quit, but he finds that he can't remember how to kick correctly, thrashing around desperately in the unrelenting current crying for air, but he can't make it. The surface is too far, and no matter how much ground he gains, it feels like he's sinking farther and farther.

He wonders when he'll hit the ocean floor, if he'll ever hit it at all, cursed to stay in a perpetual loop, hoping for rescue that will never come. And even if they did, they wouldn't find him, sunk halfway to the presumable bottom and barely holding onto life.

And so he stares, looking at his reflection in Shinobu's bathroom mirror. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registers that he's not really drowning, nor is he anywhere near the ocean, but at the moment it feels like he is.
His mouth presses into a line, and he turns his eyes down, unable to bear the sight of his disheveled hair and sunken eyes, his head light with lack of sleep. His eyes catch the clear, cool water spilling from the faucet, but the noise does nothing to quell the silence, the room cold and creeping in on him.

It's been a few days since Mitsuri's party, or at least he assumes it has. He hasn't really been keeping track, and with the little amount he's slept, the days have begun to run together.
It's all hazy, unclear in his mind, but he knows a few things for sure.

He knows he and Nemi haven't spoken since that night.

He knows he hasn't been able to get either Shinazugawa nor Nemi off his mind.

And he knows he's already texted Mitsuri an apology, as well as an excuse for leaving early.

After sitting on his kitchen floor until his ass was numb and his back ached from sitting curled up for so long, he'd finally gotten himself up as the beginnings of the morning sunrise began leaking through his half closed blinds.
He'd immediately reached for his phone, still open and running low on battery, messily typing in the best excuse he could think of at the time, his only thought was that he needed to apologize.

To whom and for what, his mind was blank, but he just knew if he didn't he may be completely engulfed by the treacherous guilt looming over him.

And although it didn't absolve him, and he didn't like lying(he couldn't exactly tell her the truth), an apology was delivered and he was now sick with a stomach bug.
It was a perfect excuse really, a great way to get out of whatever plans they'd made for at least the next week. She didn't respond quickly, but he knew she was probably still asleep, and most likely still drunk.

He doesn't remember getting up, or when he did, but he knows he at least made his way back into bed, not caring to shower the smell of alcohol, or Shinazugawa, off of him.

His only real indicator of the time that had passed in those days was Shinobu. She'd been texting him nonstop since that night, worried about him when he didn't respond, and she eventually ended up storming his apartment to bring him food.
He'd barely been able to get out of bed to answer the door, and by the time his weak, sleep deprived body had made it to his bedroom doorway, she was standing in his kitchen rummaging around for plates and forks.