Bad Habits - (Shouto x OC)

Destined With Fate

Trigger warning for su*cidal ideation

*

Lani POV:

~ One Year Ago ~

It's always amazed me, how silence can be so loud.

I thought I'd grown used to it, but I guess, every now and then...the weight of it still crushes me. It sits on my chest until I can't breathe, and when it suffocates me like that, I honestly wish I'd just be dead instead.

Because there's no way to escape it. It's something I've experienced my whole life, and it seems to follow me everywhere I go. There's no reprieve because the ones who are supposed to love me the most are the ones who cause me the most pain. And if I think about all of that for too long, I'll lose all the courage I spent so long building—the courage that is more fragile than tiny eggshells.

So I continued counting the snow flurries dusted atop the car window instead, desperately trying not to drown in my own thoughts. It was something I've done since I've been a child, whether it was snow or rain, I'd always find little ways like this to entertain myself, little ways to escape reality because dreams were always so much better than waking up.

And this moment in time was no different as silence consumed the space in the car. I felt hollowed, but these days, I usually did. It always felt as if someone had carved my soul like a pumpkin, taking out everything that existed within it until I was nothing more than a lifeless shell. It wasn't all bad, I guess. I didn't react to much anymore, and I'd grown numb to words that used to hurt me

But, sometimes, feeling nothing hurts most of all.

I pressed a finger to the passenger window of the expensive sports car, feeling the icy glass prick my skin. A foggy line followed my finger, and I glided it along the window, looking with a lonely smile at the tiny heart I made in the corner before the disappointed voice next to me broke my thoughts.

"Well? You gonna say anything?" My boyfriend uttered lowly, filling the silence with the same weighted questions.

It's the same conversation, just a different day, and my head fell back against the seat without a single ounce of will to fight. It had gotten to the point where even something as simple as breathing or blinking fatigued me beyond belief.

Time was relative as I kept my finger pressed to the window in silence, watching my foggy heart slowly fade away. "I still don't know what you want me to say, Eiichi." I uttered emptily. "I'm sorry that another man was staring at me, okay? I'm dating you, so what does it matter?"

He scoffed and gripped the steering wheel of his Ferrari tighter, making a sharper left turn than necessary. "I'm just saying, your parents would be pretty devastated if I dumped you. It's not like you're gonna pull another celebrity athlete. I'm already way out of your league as it is."

I tutted at his statement, but even so, it wasn't anything I hadn't already heard before. It's always been a fact to everyone that Eiichi was out of my league. That I was just lucky he decided to spare me a glance one day at Raiga's snowboarding practice.

It's been the story of my life—always the last choice. Always the one in the background that nobody paid attention to—and listen, I was okay with that.

Look, I learned the hard way as a child what it means to get attention from people. Those were the times I only wished I was invisible. So, yeah, I'm fine being forgotten. If they don't pay attention to me, they can't hurt me.