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He loved water.
It was the one thing he would never get tired of. The feeling of it rushing in between his finger, surrounding his body in a way to protect him. Gliding through his wet hair onto his scalp, carresing it in way too gentle for any person to ever describe.
Too often, he would find himself sitting in the bathtub until the hot water had gone cold and his skin wrinkly.
He wasn't a good swimmer and didn't enjoy bathing in locations with lots of people.
Years ago, he had always assumed that he didn't like the water in the swimming pools. The way it would go up his nose or get stuck in his ears just wasn't pleasing.
Only much later did he realize that he actually liked it more than he would admit. He loved the feeling of the clear liquid being all around him, being the only thing he would be able to feel.
He didn't mind not being able to hear well or having an itchy nose, as long as it meant he would be able to go underwater again and again.
At 14 years old, he started dreaming of the ocean.
Its depth, unknown to the human kind. All the creatures no camera had ever been able to capture, the pressure too strong for his limbs to move. How he couldn't see anything either because he was too deep down for any light to follow, or because the water had so much sand in it that he had to keep his eyes squeezed shut.
He didn't mind not being able to see. The wrinkled up soles of his feet would sometimes graze the slimy ground, his hands flowing weightless on his sides.
Not once would a single muscle move to bring him back to the surface. He wanted to sink, deeper and deeper until dry land was way out of reach. There was a pressure on his chest, pushing him further down.
Sometimes, it felt warm and comforting like nothing else could be. Like a warm blanket made of everything good, curling around his lanky body tightly. Filling his loungs, the sudden weight of it being unfamiliar to his organs.
He didn't need air, and neither did he want it. He only wanted the water.
Other times it was icy cold. Piercing through his bare skin, the pain of it scratching at the back of his throat and his legs feeling like they were dying. It hurt so bad, so bad, but at the same time, he didn't want it to stop.
He wanted more. More than the land could give him. To not be able to think of anything else, to let the painful sensation take over him.
It was where the body of a baby was built. Well, not in water, but in liquid. It felt the same to him. It was where he came from. So he wanted it to be the last thing he would ever get to feel.
He would rather drown in water than his feelings.
One perticular night, he finally gave in. He didn't see the point in continuing, it was nothing but an ongoing string of stress, boredom and pain.
So when even his last resort of comfort, a long bath, couldn't pull him out of his misery anymore, Tooru decided to let his legs take him to a bridge.
The concrete beneath his rough feet felt more unwelcoming than ever. The cold river far underneath it seemed to be calling out to him, begging the young man to come and exchange the air in his lungs with its water.
His shoes and socks were neatly stocked away on his side, next to his phone and wallet. The hazel coat he had been wearing slumped somewhere on the road behind his back, ready to be run over.
One of his legs was swung over the railing. He didn't spend a long time in this position. It was uncomfortable, but more important, he really didn't want to hang onto life longer. His other leg followed.
His mind kept telling to rethink. To at least look up one last time, to admire what the humans had made out of the planet that once was nothing but wildness.
But he had stopped listening to his mind. He didn't listen to anything anymore, he only followed his body's needs.
As his eyes trailled over his bare feet swinging with the water beneath them singing, crying, he took one deep, deep breath, ready for it to be his last one.
