Rin screamed. He threw his head back up to the clear skies and screamed, a guttural, wrenching cry that threw his head back, plunged him into sorrow, and left him breathless, and weak, and cold, and so so so very much empty. His eyes were red from the tears and his body ached from the sobbing, and the abuse he put himself through in order to improve his times.

His frustration itself aggravated him even more, and his steadily not improving times added to the weight of having to learn a second language on the fly, and the people in Australia didn't care if he was new, or Japanese, or young, or how hard he tried. There, in that school, the only thing that mattered was your grades, and your times, and how cool or smart or strong you were. He was a small Japanese kid, who could barely keep his times from dipping into the "novice" level. He punched the floor beneath him.

He felt trapped, scared, like he couldn't breathe. He felt like he was suffocating in his own misery, caged by it. The chaos inside of his head flooded into his lungs, forcing out all of the oxygen in a desperate, scream, like a wounded animal, and he was so so so very much scared.

And then there was Haru. Rin remembered Haru. He missed Haru. He wanted to hold Haru in his arms and never let go, but he couldn't because Japan was 4,255 miles away from him. And Rin new he would never be able to swim there, no matter how far he went (his max was 4 miles).

Perhaps that was where the cutting began. He felt completely out of control, worthless, so full of bottled up emotions that he couldn't bear it anymore. The only time he ever felt in control was with the razor on his wrist, letting out all of his anger and despair in a wave of blood and tears.

Sometimes he'd imagine how Haru would react to him now. A part of him thought he probably wouldn't care. Another part of him, the part wallowing in despair would imagine that he would laugh at him, think he was pathetic, and weak. It was the same part of him that taunted him, pushed him, the one thing keeping him going.

(And maybe there was a small part of him that silently believed that Haru would really care).

Once, he'd had an optimistic outlook on life. If today was bad, then tomorrow will be better. That's what he'd convinced himself, but even though yesterday was bad, today was bad too (although at this point, bad was almost normal).

Today though, Rin had broken. He flailed his arms in a desperate, panicking last ditch effort to pull through, but in the end it was useless, and Rin pulled himself up and out of the water in dead last place. And they'd laughed at him, pointing at him, and saying things he couldn't even understand, and he'd ran off, as fast and far as he could run until he collapsed on the ground on the side of the road, somewhere, and he was so so so very much alone.

He slammed his fist into the ground, cracking his knuckles and ripping the skin open, the blood gushing from the wound pouring out all of his despair, leaving him so so so very much at peace.

And then he'd imagined Haru kissing his fist better, and the emptiness, the fear, the loneliness, they all returned, and he let out a silent, choking sob.

(But he couldn't not think of Haru because Haru was simply Haru, and one couldn't ignore Haru because he was Haru.)

(Hey, hey Haru, could you come here please? I feel so so so very much empty, and scared, and lonely, and I miss you. I think I might evenmaybejustalittlebitlov-)

Rin screamed.