The Sharpest Shards of Glass

Prologue

Eicca sat in the coffee shop. In the corner with a sheet of unfinished music in front of him. Alone. His way-too-long blond hair was pushed behind his ears as he bit his lip in scathing concentration. The constant conversation and shuffling and music and noise around him was drowned out simply by his will to finish this music for his orchestra teacher. He was first chair, so a lot was expected out of him. Especially this paper.

He wished that he was in his dorm for this, but fucking no - his roomate decided that he was going to hook up with someone early in the afternoon. And he needed his cello for this, just to see if sounded right. But no he couldn't have that either because his cello was also in his dorm.

Eicca bit his lip harder. God, he was so close to finishing this, yet so far away. The awareness that he was in a cofee shop slowly started to sink in and the more he tried to push it away, the more he became aware.

He grunted, just wanting to crumble his paper, knowing he couldn't. He simply stuck down some notes that had been stuck in his head for a while and sighed as he looked down at it. Looked legit. He just hoped his conductor approved of it.

Approval. That was all he ever wanted from people. For them to like him or to leave him alone. He'd never had the perfect life, but a little judgement and extra comments didn't hurt, right?

Wrong. It hurt a lot. Nobody on campus weren't too fond of him or his presence. He was simply an...outcast to the people around him. And the sad thing was that he was the center of attention without really getting any attention.

Eicca let his bottom lip slip from within the clutches of his teeth as he linked his hands together in front of his mouth. Just like that, he was lost in thought. It happened a lot quite a lot, actually.

He started to think of his family at home. Were they doing well? Were the bills getting paid? Was anybody sick? Did anybody-?

And that was where he stopped himself. He constantly had to remind himself that he didn't care whether they were doing well or not because they hated him. They hated him with every fiber of their being. At least, that's what they said to him when he came out to them.

Yes, he came out as bisexual right when he entered college. They disowned him a few weeks after he got settled and had made it clear that they regretted paying for college for him by sending him hate mail every day. Nope, his family never let him forget that he was to blame for their poverty and unhappiness simply because he liked both girls and boys. They even threatened to take his cello away.

That was when Eicca got really protective. He remebered that the last few things he'd told them was that they were never allowed to touch his dear cello because that was all he had left. After that, he never spoke a word to them again.

But every day, he found himself asking those same questions and found that he was reminding himself that they didn't care. That nobody cared. And then he felt that numbness nibble and claw at his chest and he no longer felt anything and sat there with a dull face.

It was like this every day. His cello was his only light and happiness.

Just as he thought that, his attention was caught by the door opening and bell ringing above it. Surprise surprise - it was the infamous Perttu Kivilaakso.

He tried to stop himself from rolling his eyes, but he just couldn't help it. Perttu thought he was just so threatening and tough and hard as a rock whereas Eicca didn't believe that for a second. It was a shield - everyone had one. Eicca stayed as far away from Perttu as possible and avoided him anytime he walked in his direction.

He wanted to sigh heavily as he heard a hush go over the entire shop. Everyone, literally everyone, feared him and his long black hair and tattoos. Eicca was rather umimpressed.

Perttu shot a nasty look to eeryone in the shock and Eicca could see the cashier visably shaking as he approached her. He asked for something that Eicca couldn't make out, but he didn't care.

Eicca looked around the shop and saw that everyone was staring at the back of Perttu's head as if he somehow had eyes back there. He was getting real tired of everyone's bullshit. He grabbed his papers and headed for the door, leaving a five dollar tip for the waitress even though he didn't purchase anyhting. He ignored the disbelieving looks everyone gave as they gawked at him when he left. 

Eicca didn't give a fuck. He wasn't going to be scared of someone who tried too hard to be a threat and he wasn't scared of anything in general. As he stepped out the door, he turned and caught Perttu's eye. Dark and simply filled with hate. It just made Eicca hate him more.

You see, Perttu had the perfect life. The perfect family, the perfect house, the perfect car, the perfect everything. Except he wasn't perfect. He was so far from it. He acted like his life sucked while people would kill to have it. Eicca strongly believed that he had no right to act like a fucking grumpy and spoiled bitch. 'He's probably like that because he didn't get what he wanted.'

He turned away, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. He often worried about their generation because of Perttu, wondered what they were turning into. 

Then he remembered that they were fucked up from the very beginning, just like he and Perttu were about to be.