knives and bruises a yuri x natsuki fanfic

Part 11

The hospital room was bleak, to say the least. All white and dull, except for a pretty bouquet of ruby roses in a little cerulean vase by the bed that Monika had brought after her first night in the hospital. Any other day Sayori would have tried to find some sort of symbolism in that, but...she was just too drained today. There were thin, weak ribbons of sunlight peeking through the strips in the closed blinds; she tried to peer through them to catch a glimpse of the outside world without much luck. She sighed inwardly and gave up, deciding to stare at the plain sheets instead, watching with false enthusiasm as her hand made soft crinkles in it. She missed sunshine.

An open book lay beside her on the bed. She had discarded it in frustration after scanning the same paragraph six times and taking none of it in. Some sort of stupid side effect of the medication they'd put her on, apparently. Yuri would probably scold her if she knew. Heh, she missed her.

The hospital food was fairly awful, too. All tasteless mush and no substance. Monika had even begun bringing her snacks to actually give her palette something interesting to taste. Perhaps Sayori could persuade Natsuki to make her something sweet? She missed her baking. And she missed her.

And then there was Monika. Her beautiful, dear Monika. She adored her so, so much, but often that only contributed to the problem. Sayori really didn't deserve her, she knew that rationally. Her girlfriend was pretty, popular, student body president, had a ton of skills and hobbies, always got straight As, had goals and ambitions for after high school...basically the complete and utter opposite of herself. She was also very much aware that a few of the other, better students had fairly large crushes on her, too, which only made her jealousy flare. Hah, yet another of her countless flaws. Monika could have nearly any guy or girl in the school, she doubted she would ever comprehend why she had settled for sad ol' Sayori. But, oh God, she still missed her. So much.

Sayori sighed again. Depression really sucked. She knew there had to be some logical reasoning as to why Monika loved her. She just...couldn't fathom any. At all. Even after being together for nearly two years. There was a knot of worry eating away at her reasonable mind that forced her to believe their relationship was all some huge plot to unearth her weaknesses so Monika could exploit them and influence people to hate her.

Well, more than some already did. Being a popular girl's girlfriend led to a fair bit of attention which she didn't always thrive in.

She was selfish. So, disgustingly selfish. She had this beautiful, amazing, caring girlfriend who had proved time and time again that she truly loved her and yet...Sayori didn't believe it. She wasn't fully appreciating Monika's capacity to love her, she knew that. But she wanted to, she honestly did. It was all her stupid, dumb, annoying depression's fault.

She was taking this bright, glowing angel and corrupting her with her own maddening darkness. It was truly a selfish thing to do.

All she truly wanted was to be content with herself and her relationships with her friends and girlfriend, but...she persistently had that nagging, mood depleting voice at the base of her thoughts, constantly reminding her of her fears and insecurities in hushed whispers whenever she attempted to enjoy herself. She had a driving desire to be happy but she didn't possess the motivation to work to get better, so instead she donned a false mask of cheeriness for security and pretended everything was perfectly fine. What a vicious cycle, right?

The years of numb melancholy had eaten away at her mentality and had left her weak and withered, and in addition to her recent suicidal tendencies she was currently left a hollow shell of the girl she had once been. The fight against her depression was tough and only becoming harder. Despite Monika's reassurance, she didn't feel strong or brave. In reality she felt...splintered beyond repair. So much so that anyone who were to come close to her would harm themselves on her loose fragments, and she didn't want her friends to have to take that risk. She didn't want to hurt her girlfriend any more.