"It" Can't Be Helped (Revised) | ✔️ | Blue Exorcist

55

It'd been hard to tell if he was pissed or not. Given the circumstances, he had every right to be. Yet, here we were, sitting cross-legged on the bed as we stared at the opposite side of the room, bodies parallel and just barely keeping the tension at bay.

"I already heard Bon and Izumo's side of things, but I want to hear yours, too." He was calm, not a single hint of nervous energy around him.

I was the exact opposite, fiddling with my cuticles as I tried to keep my eyes focused on every part of the room that he wasn't in. "Before we start," I began softly. "Where did they go?"

"They're in class," was all he said. My eyes widened at that. The two of them had spent the late hours here instead of sleeping, they were probably exhausted beyond belief. The inside of my ribs flared with emotion and I sighed.

"I was fine the last couple of days. Everyone was being so nice to me, because, you know..." I trailed off, sinking back and leaning against the wall before continuing. "Monday night, I wanted to cut myself. Thought about texting someone, but I ended up not needing to; I just went to bed." My fingers trailed up to the bandages on my forearms, my short sleeve shirt covered my bicep dressing, but the loose edges at my wrist were tempting to pick at. "Yesterday felt hazy. Like I was overwhelmed and stressed all day, but nothing really happened in class. But then in therapy..."

"What'd she say to you?" Yukio finally spoke.

"It was about Dad, it always is with her."

He was silent for a few moments. "Do you want a new one?"

"...Yeah, that'd help."

The awkward air continued between us before he drew in a breath, "We can handle that later. Keep talking."

I nodded, "I was so mad when I got back here that I couldn't calm down. Took a cold shower with my clothes on and everything. Didn't help, if you couldn't tell." I gave a brief pause, hoping for even the slightest huff of laughter, but continued when I was met with dejecting silence. "Dad's death is a touchy subject." I swallowed hard, "even just mentioning it makes me tense up. So everything was all raw and shit still. It's like my head was buzzing and I kept hating myself and everything around me. Took it out on the room before losing my self-control and just deciding that bleeding would be better than just stagnating with my anger."

I'd been hoping my simplistic answer would be enough, that all he'd been wanting was confirmation on what the other's had told him. Yet, this clearly wouldn't be an easy conversation as I felt him readjust on the bed. My eyes stared aimlessly at our closed bedroom door. "The broken mirror?"

I stretched out my arms in my lap before settling them against my knees to lean against them. "Bit through my lip on accident, so I looked to check the damage. Didn't like what I saw and broke it on impulse. I'm sorry about that."

He hummed, "Don't worry about it, it's just material. We can just take one from another bedroom. I would've been more concerned about your hand, to be honest." Reminded of it, my gaze flickered down to my knuckles, purple scar tissue marked the small punctures from where the glass had been forced through my skin.

Recalling something, I closed my eyes. "I punched the shower first. That's when I initially busted my knuckles. I saw the blood and got even more stressed, which is probably why I punched the mirror when I bit through my lip."

"So you were trying to fight the urge to self-harm, at least at first?"

A breath left my nose in a vain attempt at laughter, "All of it was an attempt to calm down, but I kept failing and stressing myself out worse until I finally couldn't take it anymore."