❝ 𝙉𝙤 𝙇𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙃𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 ❞ LONG HIATUS

: ̗̀➛CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."
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Coffee didn't taste the same.

She'd make a cup, pot fresh, warm, right off the maker and yet, it wasn't right. Too bitter, no matter how much sugar she added. Too sweet, no matter how much she abstained. Never quite right. She'd dump the cup, and the pot, and try again later, never learning her lesson, playing the same tune over and over again, wondering if the next time would be better. It never was.

She stopped drinking coffee.

The odor would cause her stomach to get knotted, and anxiousness would settle into her chest making her feel uncomfortable. Something that was so recognizable that it pained. However, she would always do the same thing: smile, wave her hand, and politely decline a cup, instead opting to drink water or wine. Other pots never tasted any better. Nothing ever tasted the same again. She wondered if more than a friend had died that day.

Then coffee became a commodity.

(Y/N) set fire to her clothes, burning everything from the neck of her shirt to the bottoms of her shoes. All of it was thrown away, abandoned, and treated as relics of the past that should never be brought up again. She ripped them into bits, tore them apart, broke them in every way she could, compensating for a feeling worse than death. She allowed her anger to show in each rip and tear, and she relished the feeling of satisfaction she had from throwing them into the fire after they were done. The blood had burned brightest. She threw the bandages last.

Never again would she bare those arms.

Getting used to a new home, a new life, was a challenge she knew well. And yet, it had never been harder. Some nights she didn't have a bed and instead slept on the hard floor, where she was only afforded the meager amenities of an infrequent pillow and a flimsy blanket for support. Some nights, she didn't have a heater and the room grew damp and the nights grew long and the days cold. Some night, she'd make friends with the wrong people and they'd repay her in blotchy bruises and broken bones. She didn't realize what a luxury she'd been living until she had nothing to live for at all.

Life was always cruel, and yet it had never been so crueler.

There were days when she wandered aimlessly, kicking rocks and herself, wondering what would have been different if she'd never asked for permission at all, if she'd just gone, disregarding Mori's authority in every right, to save her friend. She wondered if it would have been different, if she would have died instead, if Oda would have had the chance to live the life he'd always wanted. Perhaps, he could have been a writer still, perhaps he could have helped the orphans, saved people, like he always said he would.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

The worst of nights weren't the ones that were damp, or cold, or bloody, they were the nights when she remembered, when razor blades and bruised knuckles didn't snuff out the past. No number of wet t-shirts or fist fights could soothe the anguish she felt in her heart, and no amount of violence could cure the illness she called love. It was the most excruciating pain imaginable, insufferable and unending. Some nights she contemplated taking a knife to her chest.