(no subject)
Title: Room 304, Cherry Blossoms of White Death
Author: diru69
Chapter: 1/(Around) 6
Rating: PG, will rise like toshiya after giving head
Disclaimer: I NO OWN DIR EN GREY, DIR EN GREY OWN ME!!!1!
Summary: Kyo goes mentally ill after experiencing tramautization, and wakes up in an asylum with no recollection of what it was that made him insane. All Kyo has left is a blank journal... And maybe the people that the doctors are having him meet.
A/N: Okay, I've wanted to do this for a while, so here it is. ^^ (psst... just forget the other fanfiction, I dont think I'll be updating it any time soon :0 ) Yeah, everyone from dir en grey is going to be in this asylum, so... have fun seeing what kinds of strange symptoms I'll be giving them. Oh yeah, and the song is "304 goushitsu, hakushi no sakura" (room 304, cherry blossoms of white death) Have fun!
1999, May, 26th
Dear Journal,
I absolutely refuse to call you a diary because I feel that would be very degrading to you. ...I can just see the people that run this place finding you and using you as further proof of my insanity, since I'm talking to you like a person... But it isn't my fault I've been literally isolated here... With no one in or out of my damned room except maybe the nurses and doctors who wear unbearabley bright white clothes that are very similar to the ones I myself am forced to wear. My food is brought to me, and there is a very small bathroom that is basically part of my room, since it has no door. They figure that with those two basic instinctual needs filled, (pissing and eating, that is) -plus the fact that this is (barely) a room, so it has a bed- I don't have a need to go out. If you want to view it that way, I guess you could say I have no real need to go out. But unfortunately for the people who established this fine place, (I make myself laugh.) I'm a human... Not an animal. Believe it or not, I do feel the need to talk with someone. Have some form of companionship. Go outside, smoke a cigarette, be someplace I could actually call a home. I wish I could live normally, like everyone that isn't living in an asylum does. But I'm not normal. I'm crazy, and I don't even know why. I mean... I know why. But I don't know what triggered it. I just can't remember... But enough about that. Maybe I should talk about something else, now that I've written a basic introduction. God, where do I start? Maybe I should start from today and work backwards. Well! Remember how I was just saying that I haven't talked to anyone but random doctors/nurses since I've been here?
They told me I'm going to be able to be in what's called a "group section" from now on. Basically, I still sleep in the same my same room-the dreaded room 304- but the sickos that run this prison are at least going to let me be in a room with four other people for eight hours a day. I asked why, but I know exactly why. They said it was because we all had common disorders and might work well on becoming better if we work with each other on our problems, but they knew exactly what I was talking about. And I know why they're picking me in particular. Because I attempted suicide. Yeah, it was absolutely fabulous going through all that "intensive therapy" when they found me with the rope around my neck. I don't even know how they found out I was there, doing that... When they asked me why I did it, they didn't get an answer. But some brain in the higher ups among them put together the pieces from my brief shizophrenia moment when I thought I was seeing someone I knew who was long gone from my life, and pointed out the obvious to all the dumbasses who couldn't figure it out. I heard the hushed whispers exchanged between a pair of men working on my "case". I suppose they figured being insane means being deaf as well, since they were right outside the damn door. "He just found out he has no one left. His memory is obviously coming back to him, and not in the way it normally does... It's coming from these..." he hesisitated. "These, nightmares. And now he's having hallucinations where the people he once knew are still.... alive. Only to recover from these episodes of shizophrenia and find out that they're dead. That's not the most pleasant way to remember how you recieved dissassociative amnesia."
"He doesn't remember he whole thing, actually. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he still hasn't completely forgotten what happened." "But he knows enough. He knows everyone he ever cared about is gone whether... they're dead, or they've just given up on him. If you were in the same situation, you'd consider suicide too..." "You're right. He's lost his will to live because he has no one anymore. We need to give him someone then." "Give him someone?" "He's been in solitary confinement since he first got here because we were worried that he might hurt someone while going through another manic stage... But he seemed to be extremely against any form of violence toward others, so we thought maybe we'd see his reaction to being outside before deciding to put him with the others and, well, you know how that turned out. But if we don't do something about this 'suicide thing', he'll find some way to pull the plug, and honestly, I don't feel like dealing with the authorities right now and explaining to them that one of our patients offed himself. There's too much going on right now as it is. We need to put him with a small group of people who are on the same level of stability as him. Even if you put dim light bulbs together, they'll light a dark room." I winced at their selfish words... I just close enough to hear them, seated in this creaky, scratchy office chair by a large desk. The good ol' doc had some pills in his duffle bag, I know, because I saw him taking some whenever he said he was stressed. I whipped open the zipper and felt around until my hand came in contact with a hollow, plastic cylinder. Found you.
Popping the child safety tab, I spun the white, thick cap to the left until it slid off the bottle and quietly poured a large quantity of tiny white pills into my dry and achey palm. I poured them into my lap as I closed the bottle and threw it into the doctors bag before zipping it back up with a zzzztt. I could hear the end of a conversation. The words "Let's talk to him now" floated from the hallway to my ears. I wouldn't have time to swallow them now, they'd just notice the lump of drugs sliding down my throat... And then they'd pressure my neck and pound on my chest 'till they came back up.... And then... I don't know what would happen, but I don't think the "treatment" for my actions would be nice. I panic and shove them into my pants, right where the thigh was covered. (You don't get pockets in asylums.) I clutched the lump through the cotton, and did the same thing with my other hand. They'd just think it was some form of anxiety. They broke me the news and I feigned happiness, like I wasn't about to spite the man who had "enough going on right now" and fork a fistful of pills down my throat. I clutched the pills as I walked out, back to room 304. I didn't want them to fall. But I'd grabbed too many... One of them slipped, making a loud TAK! sound that echoed in the empty, desolate hallways. My foot came crashing down on it to cover it up, just in time as I saw Doctor Takada's head poke out from the door. "What was that?" He asked hurriedly. "What was what?" I asked in return, playing dumb. "I swear I heard something fall. Something... tiny?" I laughed sharply. "Careful, doc. Don't tell anyone you're hearing things. You wouldn't want to become like one of us, would you?"
I cracked my neck so that it made a loud, almost sickening popping noise to emphasise my point. I knew Doctor Takada had a thing against joint-popping. He shivered in disgust and returned to his office with the other man. I sighed and kicked the pill aside. I know it was going to be used to drug myself to death, but hey, five second rule. And five seconds was way up. I got back to my room and hid the pills under my lumpy pillow. I'll do it later, maybe even time it so that I die right before Doctor Takada's eyes. How long does it take for seventeen pills to kill you again? Oh hey, I never told you about how I tried to kill myself the first time, huh? Well, I just got these precious little pills today... And I counted that as being exactly ten days since the first time. So I initially tried to do it May 16th. They've known for a while now that I'd never hurt anyone, not even to save my life. (Well, obviously, but you get the point.) They only recently decided to do that "See how well he does in the nature" thing that the doctor was talking about when I cured myself of my short lived schizophrenia... And as Doctor Kiyo said, the end result of me realizing I'd just been imagining everything was not so great. The entire time I was tripping out and I thought that I had someone there with me... And then I discovered it was all a lie, produced by my own reminescent mind. It hit me hard. They thought maybe the hallucinations of me believing someone who had been dead for over a year was living and breathing next to me was partially due to the fact I wasn't getting any fresh air...
They said if I didn't try to escape or anything, I'd even be able to talk to the other people trapped here. Fucking dumbasses... I'm crazy, not stupid. There's a fence surrounding the perimeter of the park outside the building, and not only is it all barbed wire, if you so much as touch it, an ear-blasting alarm goes off. Why would I attempt to escape? At least that's what I thought... Until on my third day, they felt it was safe to leave me out of sight for fifteen minutes. Just long enough for me to wonder off to the area by the right side of the building and notice a tall tree... By tall, I mean large enough to have branches stretching over the fence. And it just happened to be conviniently located an inch from that pesky little barrier. Okay, how did they not notice that? Shouldn't they have cut it down? Then again, everyone else was out in front of the asylum, under supervision. I don't think I was even supposed to be here, out of the watcher's sight. But hey, I wasn't complaining. I latched a foot onto something knobby at the base of the tree and reached upward at a weeping, lowered branch. I climbed it like a rope, and from there climbed the more steady braches that made up the upper half of the healthy cherry blossom tree. Only now did it hit me that this was the beautiful tree I always stared at so longingly and admiringly at when I was alone in my near-empty room. I smiled fondly. It was almost like a painting coming to life, just to rescue you. As I grabbed tightly to the branch that over-looked the very top of the dark grey, wire covered fence, I uttered my thanks to the elegant tree that helped me and looked at the other side that laid before my eyes.
It was a long way down... But I thanked God that they let you wear the shoes you came to the crazy house with, (very thickly soled platform shoes) squenched my eyes shut, and prepared myself for what I was about to do. As expected, the landing was rough and a dull pain immediatly ran up my body starting at my feet and ending at my temples. But at least the rubber chunks on my shoes absorbed some of the impact. This nut home certainly was in an odd location. It was by a small, strange mountain that had a lot of dead trees covering it, and there seemed to be a green-tinted mist running down it with the wind. I looked around me, relishing in the feeling of being out again. It wasn't the most lively secenery, but... lively. Alive. I thought about my life. I had escaped. But now what? Who would I go back to? My girlfriend who left me when taking care of an ugly, unhealthy man with an ill soul and mind became too much? My father, who I have nothing but hatred for? My friends who ran the minute they heard that I had disorders, and more than one of them? Or maybe the rest of my family, which I just remembered are all dead? Face it, Kyo. There's nothing to live for anymore. Everyone's gone. And the second you go back out there, some one will find you and send you right back here again. You're going to rot alone. All by yourself and no one will give a fucking damn. I looked at the loose dirt beneath my feet. It's all true. There's nothing left now. I no longer belong in this world. This is God's way of saying that maybe it's time to come back home, because I'm not welcome here. A tear slid down my cheek, but as soon as it was there, it was gone as I wiped it away on my long white sleeve.
I galnced around. After all, this was a mountain. There had to be a sharp edged rock or something around. I couldn't see any, so I started walking up the hill. It was a little steep and my leg movements were wide. I didn't see any rocks, or anything sharp for that matter. So I kept walking up, hoping to finally reach the top and jump over the edge. Walking, walking... Walking toward my death. I started to sing a song to calm myself, since that's what I've always done when I'm trying to feel. I sing all the time in 304... I keep my pace steady but the singing gets louder and soon, something catches my eye: A noose. This mountain... It got stranger and stranger. How did a noose get there? Who put it there? Not only that, it was perfectly tied, with no string coming out of the other end of the knot and done up in a neat ribbon where it was tied onto the thick, dead branch. Maybe someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder got up here and did it. Hey, that's all I can think of. I stared at it briefly. Is this what you really want? I thought just once more. After all, this was my life. I looked at it with sadness weighing heavily in my eyes. I can't remember much about my childhood. But the bits and peices I do remember are filled with me smiling broadly, laughing, hand in hand with my cute little sister and my sweet, beautiful mother, wondering through the quiet garden paths of Kyoto. It's all one big image that reminds me exactly of Heaven. When I think about that peaceful time, I wonder what it would be like if I just... went back in time to tell that child version of me...
That someday, everyone he loved and knew would disappear. And he'd be a psyco in an insane asylum, who would ultimately die alone, after hanging himself with a slipknot some OCD victim probably made. The horrified look on that innocent child's face is almost enough to send me over the edges, but what really gets me is a sudden flashback of the first time my girlfriend came to visit me here. She helped me get some of my memory back. She visited me every week with flowers and my favorite kinds of foods. She held me and she said she loved me and she said I'd get better and when I did, we could finally get married. I believed her. And just as I really was getting better... "I'm sorry... I just... I can't do this anymore. I can't wait forever." "Please... don't leave me. I'm sorry I'm like this. But I'll make up for it one day, I'll repay you and everything you've done for me. Please don't go." "I'm so sorry... But Kyo, you've been in here for five months... I don't know if you'll ever get better." "But you said I'll definately recover, and you'd be the one to help me through it." "I... I just can't do this. I'm sorry, Kyo. Please forgive me. It doesn't mean I don't love you anymore though... We can start a life together if you just get through this, but..." "You don't believe in me anymore..." I looked at the noose with a painful mixture of sorrow and anger now. I stepped closer and grabbed the stiff rope with my hands.
I needed something to stand on. Surely the person left behind a- There it was. Just barely visible behind the tree was a beaten crate that had seen better days. I didn't think much about whether or not it would support my weight or not, I only had one simple objective in mind. The imagery of the green-blue tinted sky and somber dark green mist fogging up the air around my feet and knees were what I believed would be the last things I'd ever see as I grabbed hold of one a potruding bar of wood, positioning it beneath the noose so that I could step on and push my head through the rope circle. I thought I heard the buzz of voices coming toward me and the sound of running feet crushing the long-dead leaves that were forgotten on the mountain's path, but I didn't dare trust my senses anymore. Not now. I pushed the teetereing box away with my feet, and before I had time to take in the bliss of escape from my torment, I was falling. I heard a voice very clearly now, and I could tell it was real this time. "NO!" It was a shrill shrieking noise followed by three sounds. The first one was the creaky noise of the rope being suspended and pulled by my full body weight. The second was my gargully choking noise that came from my mouth the second I realized I hadn't been killed immediately. The third was the swinging of a sharp, metal object whirling in mid-air. I could see my mother and sister before me, their bodies made out of the green mist and the sun's seemingly weak light. They both pointed at the rope around my neck, though somehow I knew they were pointing exactly at the spot near the tight knot. Someone had tossed a knife..... It hadn't cut completely through the rope, but it caught on it, and the rope was already thin...
The screaming rope gave up on holding itself together and split into twines before breaking altogether. I fell to the ground and wheezed in air as I lay pathetically sprawled. I looked up blearily at two figures that I had seen in the asylum before. One was a girl. She must've been the one that screamed. The other was a stern looking man in a white doctor's coat who looked at me with disapproval and fake sympathy. I heard someone behind my head too. I tilted it back to see a teenage boy with normal clothes, plucking his pocket knife from the ground. He must've been a volunteer worker. He looked at me, worried. It was sad that this kid's empathy was more genuine than that of this full grown adult in a coat who was glaring at me. "Sorry I threw the knife, man." He said. "I didn't think we'd reach you from where we were standing and I had to break the rope somehow..." I swallowed my bitterness and shame. I failed at everything in life, and couldn't do anything right. I even failed at taking my life. That's fairly ironic. I rubbed the rope burn on my neck. "Nice aim..." I mumbled. "Kyo, how could you do something so stupid?! You could've killed yourself!" The man growled. The rise of anger seemed to heat up my body and I could feel words building up in my stomach, racing toward my throat. I wondered which ones would cross the finish line first and make it's way out. Usually, I took the shit these guys gave me and gave them the answers they wanted, the answers any "good member of society" is supposed to give. I suppose I saw no good in doing that anymore. "That was the point, dipshit." I said in a dark, low voice.
He stared in shock at me. "Don't give me that look. If you didn't have to go through all the shit you do when someone kills themselves, I'm absolutely sure you'd just love to get rid of me." He narrowed his eyes. "Don't joke like that! Everyone who works here cares for each and every one of their patients, and you know it!" "Oh yes, because we're all treated so fucking damn well here! I was strapped into a straight jacket for the first month of me being here, I was ordered to stay in my wheelchair three months after I recovered from being paralyzed, and I've been locked in solitary confinement the entire long, depressing, horrible year I've been here! Have you ever thought that it'd be easier for us to get better if we were actually treated like people?! Not fed gruel and contamintated water, and forced to sleep on beds where the springs are literally busting out of the boxspring and through the mattress!? I'm being treated like I'm a mass murderer who had a metal rod shoved into his brain, and I've never hurt anyone physically in my entire life! And yet here I am, in the place that destroyed what little I had left of my life after my family was killed! I fucking hate you! I hate this PLACE! I hate this whole fucking miserable excuse for an existence I've been put through ever since I entered adult hood! So if I want to kill myself, why should you have the authority to take that away from me, the ONE thing I have left that's mine?!" There was a bout of silence and only when I saw the dumbfounded look on the boy's face did I realize what I'd just said.
And that's how I ended up in intensive therapy, being noted on every little movement I made. This doctor I yelled at told this shrink-guy basically everything I said, as detailed as he could remember it, and the shrink put it all on a pad in tiny quotation marks. It pissed me off to no end because every now and then, when I refused to talk, he'd whip it out and go "Now you said this this and this, so what exactly did you mean by that?" Annoying, persistent little bugger... I'm looking out at that cherry blossom tree right now... I want to die tomorrow. Before I do, maybe I should write a letter. I don't know where any of my so-called "friends" live anymore, but the girl that I loved... I know she lives in the same place. I guess this time around, I should think about leaving something behind. For her. She may have left me, but when I think about it, I'm suprised she stayed as long as she did. In my own twisted way, I still love her for keeping me alive as long as she did.
+-+Okay, I'm back. I stopped writing in this journal for a while so I could write her something. I put her address on the back of the paper, I hope the numbnuts here at least send it to her. I can just re-write the letter here... It was a poem.
"Room 304, Cherry Blossoms Of White Death
From the window the ever unchanging cherry blossoms
flutter flutter flutter flutter and dance in the breeze
today, too, my conciousness fades away
who are you? I cannot remember anything
my tears overflowed and fell
onto your hand clutching mine reassuringly
your unending stream of tears told me something
for some reason the scent of you brings memories...
surely I will lose my life all alone, in this room
these flowers that no-one can find...
the flowers fall quickly, swaying in the breeze this white hospital room blows with the breeze
the pain building up day by day
you held my thinning, ugly body close to you
at my time of death, there's one special person I remembered
tomorrow I'll become ashes, return to dust
from the window I can see the cherry blossoms beneath those cherry blossoms I want to sleep
wrapped in the warmth in your hand...."
I suppose this journal will be the last thing anyone hears from me, aside from that letter. I don't know what to say.... Tomorrow... When I'm sure no ones looking, that's when I'll take them.
Oka-san, Imoto-chan... I'm going to see you both again... But I have no one else here to say goodbye to.
1999, May 27th
Dear Journal,
I decided to wait to swallow the pills I stashed. I don't know why myself, I just feel like it's not a good idea for some reason. Not now, anyways. Later. So I guess I'll be writing to you a little longer. It's weird, when I was writing in you yesterday, it was because I was lonely and had no one to talk to. But today I'm writing because I wanted to tell you about these people I met and talked with. Funny how that works. The doctors weren't lying, they really did put me in a room with these other guys. And the room had a TV in it... unfortunately there was no cable for it. When I saw the people I was being grouped with, I vaguely remembered Doctor Tamada saying I was going to be with people who had the same level of "stability" as me. But looking at these young men, I wondered if we were just put toghether because we all had colorful hair... Mine was burgandy, one man's was blue, another's was purple-pink, another's was red-orange, and the last one's was bright orange. They all looked very sad, liked caged birds away from their home. But that wasn't too far off. The first one to greet me, and almost immediatly may I add, was the red-orange haired man. He bounced over to where I stood as soon as my escort closed and locked the door, and graced me with a beautiful smile. It was beautiful, yes. But very sad and questionable. I looked back at the others a second time, and I realized that the reason this man was smiling so brightly and warmly was because they couldn't. He was smiling for them... Even though he was in pain too, he had to be happy on the outside because if he didn't, what was left of them would break and disappear.
"Hey, you're the new guy they sent! I'm Daisuke, but you can call me Die for short! And I like it spelled in English so that it's spelled 'D.I.E'." He said, sounding out some romaji letters in English. "I'm Tooru... But I don't like my name much, so you can call me Kyo." I said meekly. "Hi." A deep voice said from across the room. The man with purple-pink hair. "I'm Kaoru. It's nice to meet you." Die smiled brightly again and pointed to the man with blue hair who was all the way on the other side of the room an curled into a ball. "That's Toshimasa. We all call him Toshiya though." The blue-haired ball unscrunched just a bit to look up at the mention of his name. I couldn't get a good look at him from here... I've been having eye-sight problems lately and I can't see anything if it's too far away. I'm supposed to get my glasses from someone tomorrow, actually. By any chance, all I saw was a blue and white blur. I could sort of see him give me a half-hearted wave. "That's Shinya." Die said, pointing to the man with light orange hair. He was very pretty... He also had really long hair. At least, I thought it was a he... Shinya was quite effeminite. "Hey." I said, forcing a smile. I felt bad, making Die do all the smiling. Shinya's light brown eyes darted from me to the floor. "He doesn't talk." Kaoru whispered in my ear. "Sometimes he'll speak with Die, but he only does it when no one else is around. He hardly ever said two words to me in the seven months I've known him." I nodded my head slowly. "Toshiya doesn't talk much either. But he talks a little more than Shinya."
"Actually," Kaoru said out loud now, no longer whispering. "You've caught me at a good time. I have bouts of shizotypal disorder. It's gotten better... And I'm able to control myself more. But I still have my moments. They usually make me seem sort of like I'm going through an extreme case of OCD." He said looking down. "What's shizotypal disorder?" I asked, sitting down on the rather junk-yardish sofa. He sat down with me, and Die took the other side next to me. "It basically means I have a very odd way of thinking at times. I'm improving on it, but I also have an overelaborate way of speaking as well. I can't help it, though I usually feel very afraid and paranoid about everyone I don't know very personally." I squiggled my eyebrows together. "You don't seem very afraid of me." He looked around, a bit uncomfortabely. "Too be honest, you're scaring the Hell out of me. I'm just getting better at covering it up." "I don't mind, I can take it." I said. "I keep thinking you'll beat me and then crush me under your huge boots." He said. Damn, guess he was a little off like the rest of us. But it felt kind of good, not feeling like you had to meet someone elses expcetaions of normality and conformity. I chuckled. "I know you can't help but think that, but if it makes you feel better, I'd never beat you or crush you under my boots." He nodded uneasily. "Another symptom I get is the need to have an odd appearence... They say that's probably why I have my hair dyed this way and when I first came here, I was wearing a rather... interesting outfit."
Die scoffed. "My hairs red and all I have is chronic ADD." I blinked. "Are you serious? You're here for ADD?" I asked disbelievingly. "Only because it's so severe it messes with my daily life. It didn't help that I said I saw a ghost and my sister took it way too seriously." So basically, Mr. Journal, Die is the most fucking normal person in this whole prison camp. "What about you,
Kyo-san?" he inquired. "Why're you locked up in here?" I looked out at the window as if there was actually something there to see. The TV room I was in has no view. "Dissassociative amnesia and bipolar disorder. With a side of shizophrenia." Die looked taken back a little. "I'm sorry to hear about that." I figured he was talking about the fact I had more than one thing eating away at me. "It's fine. It's sort of having like just one big mental illness, not three. And it's improved. So it's not too bad. It's just being in his place that I hate." Toshiya shuffled over to where Shinya was and petted his hair caringly. "Melancholic Depression. It's clinical, mostly." He droned. "Hm?" Toshiya didn't look up at me. "No, no. Not Shin-chan. Shinya has Avoidant Personality disorder. I was talking about me." He didn't say anything else. Slowly, I got up from the back-breaking sofa and walked over to the two. "May I see your hand?" I asked Shinya softy. He jumped and looked at Die for reassurance. Die nodded, so Shinya quivered and slowly inched a hand toward me with a lot of shakiness. He soothed a little when he felt the warmth of my hand on his. I inspected it closely, noticing that despite the fact that his nails were long and maincured and his fingers were actually quite graceful, the rest of his hand was just a little veiny and very masculine.
"You're very pretty. Feminine, but that's not a bad thing." He smiled very sweetly and for a second I thought he was going to say something. Toshiya pulled his own pale hands away to fix his own hair. Now that I was closer, I got a better look at him. His hair was dishelved and out-there, but it somehow just brought out his beautiful facial features more. And even with him sitting, it was easy to tell he had long legs. His eyes were dark and beautiful, they looked like a well of glistening onyx. It's too bad he didn't talk, according to that Kaoru guy. I love my silence, but I liked to have an interesting conversation at least every once in a while. Especially right now. I hadn't talked to anyone in seven months... I could listen to someone babble on and on about any shit at all right now, as long as it was directed toward me. Anyway, Toshiya is drop-dead gorgeous. I don't have any deep feelings for him, I'm just saying. When he was walking, he turned around and I mentally slapped myself for staring at his ass.... The last time I had a relationship with a guy, it was a disaster. Now I stay in my safe zone and only see girls. Then again, most my relationships with girls are disasters as well. I think all my relationships are disasters. ...But enough about disastorous relationships and Toshiya's ass.
Die did most of the talking, so it was awkward when he suddenly got distracted with a dust bunny that floated through the ventilator. Mainly because of the silence. Actually, I didn't know why he'd stopped talking until Kaoru pointed out the oversized bunch of dusty fluff. Die stared intently at it, and when it hit the ground, he crawled down on all fours to get a closer look. "Die?" I called him, trying to call him back to Earth. "Die...? ....Die?" Shinya looked up at me and shook his head, a silent message to tell me he wasn't going to answer anytime soon. I scratched the back of my head with my jagged, grown out nails. And looked at Toshiya. Maybe I could find out more about him. "So, um... Toshiya-san. Did you admit yourself here, or did someone send you?" Toshiya looked down, then away, at the concrete wall. Well, there was still Kaoru. "You?" I asked, sighing. "Sent." He answered shortly. I thought he was supposed to speak overelaborately... I was so glad when I saw Die snap out of his haze. "Oh, damn, I did it again. How long was I out?" I smiled at him weakly. Kaoru started scratching at his stomach. It was quiet and not too noticable at first, but as the first couple layers of skin broke and flaked off, a small scritching noise filled the room. His hand started moving faster and he looked like he was in a panic. "Kaoru-san?" I questioned him. "Get it off..." He mumbled. Die's eyes widened. "Oh no..." "Get it off!" Kaoru wailed. His hands began to jerk, leaving angry red welts on his milky white skin. He would've broken all the way through the skin and started to bleed if Die hadn't grabbed his wrist and calmed him down.
"It's not there, okay, Kaoru? It's all in your head! Calm down! You don't want the doctors to see this, do you hear me?!" Kaoru jittered and shook violently. "B-but, there's a hole... Die, it's sucking in my stomach, it's going to kill me!" Die pinned Kaoru's wrists above him so that he wouldn't scrape at himself anymore, but Kaoru's eyes kept moving around dodgily, like a deer being kidknapped and tied to a car. "It's all your imagination... Shh, c'mon, Kaoru, stay with me. I know it looks real, but it isn't there." Die said a little quieter. Kaoru took a deep breath, trusting in the red-head and grabbing the others hands tightly before returning to normal. He breathed in and out through his mouth for a few seconds, then turned to me. "Now you know what it looks like... Part of it, anyway." My eyes drifted down. "That's nothing... I completely destoyed my old house. Bashed in the TV, beat my dresser with a bat 'till it crashed in, took a sledge hammer to my walls and ruined everything... didn't even know why I was doing it, until I remembered something. It was a small flash of memory, but it stung my mind like an electric jolt. ....So my body went limp and I couldn't move. The neighbors heard the noise and reported it to police. They found me paralyzed and I was taken to the hospital. When they discovered I was an out-of-control bipolar with amnesia, they saw that as grounds to put me here. ....Afterall, it's not like my girlfriend could pay for a specialist, and she was the only one I had, so I had to be sent to an asylum."
"What did you remember?" Die asked gently. I shook my head. That's all I felt like saying, really. I didn't want to thow in any more details than that. I just wanted Kaoru to know there's bigger nut cases out there. "So what's this about a girlfriend?" He joked, trying to lighten the mood. I felt bad for shooting him down on his attempt a little while after he asked, but I twitched on impulse and it just came out. "Long gone. Just pretend I never mentioned her." It was silent for a while, but not for long. Die magically seemed to bounce back into it, like a hyperactive puppy. I respect a person who could act so happy all the time like that, but I just know that one day he'll crack. "What's the first thing you're going to eat when you get out of here?" Nice enough conversation starter. "If I ever escaped, I'd like to go to an expensive buffet. Just splurge and buy everything I see." If I ever go to Hell, I hope they at least have good food. Die did a little mini cheer and threw his fist up into the air. "That's what I'm talking about!" He laughed. "You?" I said, settling on the floor by him after giving up on the sofa. "A slice of pizza or twenty. Then maybe a huge breakfast with triple cheese omeletts and bacon. God, I wish they had that kinda food here. I don't even know what the crap they serve is called." I grunted in both disgust and agreement. "So tell me about yourself." I decided to be straightforward and put that out there. Die looked up it the gray, splotchy ceiling above us. "I like playing guitar and baseball. Before I came here, I had a really boring office job. I have a big family, too. Which has it's ups and downs." Kaoru put a finger in the air.
"Die and I are guitar buddies." I smiled a little. "You both really play? I wish I'd learned earlier, before I got tangled up in this mess. I always wanted to try it, y'know, as a hobby... But I never got around to it." Die smiled. "Toshiya plays something, maybe he'll tell you what it is if you're nice." Toshiya glared at Die. "Die." Kaoru warned. "What?" Die said, feigning hurt. "Don't be an ass." I looked from face to face. An inside joke, probably. I was a tourist in foriegn land. I want to stay with these guys just a little while longer. Maybe three days. I hope I can hide those pills that long. Doctor Takada isn't at all observant, I don't have to worry about him noticing his pills missing, even if it was nearly half the rest of the contents insde the bottle. He isn't the sharpest... How did he even get his degree? Anyway, the real problem is keeping them hidden. Maybe I should hide them somewhere else, all it would take is one nurse to decide it's time to clean the sheet, pull up the pillow and find a bunch of little tic-tac look-alikes. There's no where else to hide them though... Unless... Maybe I could find a pouch or something. No, tissue would do. I could just wrap them in tissue and put them in one of my shoes. In fact, let me do that now.
+-+Alright, I'm back. Not much else happened today, though. Die and I talked a lot. Sometimes Kaoru would join in. He twitched a lot, and I could tell that worried Die when he did that.
As Kaoru said, Shinya said nothing. And so far, while I know everything about Kaoru and Die from favorite foods to the amount of times they moved houses, the only thing I know about Toshiya is he has melancholic depression, he apparently likes long hair, and he does somewhat know Shinya. Oh yeah, and that his depression is mostly clinical. What does that mean, anyway? Guess that it was triggered by an actual event and it wasn't just random. All I know is that when I look at them... I know they're sad and they're going through so much right now, but they're doing it together. They're unconditional friends. I wish I had that so badly... I just want to see how that feels, just once. Just one time, and I'll be completely out of their lives, they won't have to be bothered with me ever again. No one will.
Today is May 27th. Three days from now... May 30th. ...Let the count down begin.