worn out.

H for Hysterical

The food tastes off.

Off in ways Atsu can't really describe. He's tasted poison (he's taken it on purpose, he doesn't know why―maybe he was missing his sister too much―), and this isn't it. It tastes fake, off. Like plastic.

Everyone else is eating, so maybe he just isn't hungry. Atsu doesn't know, not really―to be honest, he doesn't know much other than what he had to learn.

"Hey, Atsu-chan!" Karma calls him. He looks back. "Why aren't you eating? If it's not to your taste I'm sure I could make it spicier―"

"No, I'm not hungry." He says. "It's weird."

"What? Not being hungry? I've never seen you eat all that much."

"No, the food. It tastes weird. Try it." He takes a spoon of curry and turns it to Karma, intending for him to take it from his hands. He doesn't expect Karma to eat it off the spoon when Atsu's holding it.

Atsu narrows his eyebrows and watches Karma swallow it with no problem. "Does it taste weird?"

Karma's face shifts to something Atsu can't quite place, his cheeks are flushed, but he doesn't look sick. He takes a bite of the food, his face is still flushed but its fading. Strange. That's not a symptom of hunger that he remembers. "Uhm, uh. No. It tastes pretty good."

"Maybe it's just me. I'm not very hungry." It tastes like something gone sour, Atsu thinks, pennies in his mouth and fruit peel in his hair.

"Ah, then. Uh. See ya!" Karma says, voice a little higher than it was before. He's acting strange, Atsu thinks. He wonders what's wrong, what he can do. He decides on nothing. He doesn't know what the problem is or how to solve it, so he doesn't linger on it. He pushes away the curry and soda.

His mouth feels like sandpaper anyway. He's not very hungry.

There's a party downstares that everyone is going to tonight, but Atsu would rather stay home or in his room, playing solitaire. The thought of those bright lights and loud noises make him nauseous. Makes his throat feel like that sandpaper is scratching against him harder. Nacchan would have loved it. She loves the fireworks from the festivals. Maybe he should go, for her, so her spirit can see it if she's folling him, like she always did. Bandaged like he was. 

He was perfect in their game. 

Repress. He thinks. Repress, lock it away into a box, throw away the key, don't thnk about it, she's —

Atsu thinks he might be some sort of dreamer, he's made it to this point. He's just waiting for the carpet to pull, for the mirror to crack, skinned knees and scraped hands are the only things he's familiar with. He made a smoke filled building his home for a long, long time and he can find a home here. 

In his sandpaper throat and his glass-shard hands. He can make a home in healing wounds and Irina's clemintine house. Mold himself to the edges and grow up from there, he can be better. He can smile now, he can learn how to be happy. 

Atsu isn't going to be though. 

He doesn't deserve it. Not what with he's done. He messed up one too many times, burnt down so many bridges that his whole stomach collapsed into the ocean his sister drowned in. 

(He should have drowned then was a thought that occured so often he always had it close in his mind, it crept, silent like a wave and took im under when he was at rock bottom.)

__

"Hey, uh, Atsu, you in there?" Someone is knocking at his door just as he finishes his game.

"Come in." he says. "I'm done playing anyway."