Cut. Love.
The soap washes neatly down her bathtub drain, and the suds smell fresh even though they're tinged red, and she stares transfixed at the cuts on her legs that have finally stopped bleeding. She had only nicked herself shaving. It shouldn't have been enough blood to bother her, she had seen way more blood before than the few droplets that gather near her ankles and slide to her feet.
Perhaps that was the problem, not the amount of blood, but the fact that she had so much more left in her body to spill.
Anri steps out of the bath and avoids looking at her legs as she dresses. She doesn't look in the mirror either for the fear that her eyes will be red.
She wonders if they'd even understand if she told them. Kida and Mikado. Even if they knew about street fights, that was different. You fought them because they were on your turf. They fought you because they wanted your turf. No matter how brutal it got, at least you usually knew why you were there. It had taken her awhile to figure out where her fights had started: in between her parent's ruined marriage and down in the bottle her dad had loved so much.
It's like a sadistic little lullaby. It hurts and heals all at once and she doesn't know if it's worth it. Her parents were good people. They'd never hurt her. Never drink themselves into insanity or leave her alone to fend for herself. They would never leave nothing behind but blood and a feeling of abandonment and utterly worthlessness.
The lies felt silky and sweet out loud when she speaks them to her friends. They burn like coal in her chest when she tells them to herself.
Saika isn't really something she had ever wanted. It's unclean, demonic, and she knows how cursed she is to have it. All the slashers that had wrecked havoc over the city were under her control now and wouldn't ever hurt their loved ones. She convinced herself that she was doing the right thing by controlling those people. Maybe she was. But was a good deed done by a terrible weapon really a good deed at all? The blade was sinful. Frightening. Unnatural.
It was all she really had left of her parents.
He likes her, she knows that. Mikado is the head of the Dollars, an all around nice person, and someone she actually likes back. She knows she can never tell him. She's Saika. She doesn't love boys. Not shy ones that insist on finding her shoes when they get stolen out of her locker. Not boys that surprise her at times with their cleverness and passion. She does not like Mikado. She can't. No matter how nice he is to talk to. Not if his eyes are grey and honest, not if he smells good when he leans close.
They walk side by side. He laughs at something, and Saika is loud inside her head.
Cut. Love.
No. She won't cut him. She won't love him.
He insists on taking the subway home. She's strong. She has Saika and she runs fast. He knows that. Mikado won't let her walk home alone in the dark anyways. She can't decide if she hates that about him or not. A tiny part of her brain realizes she likes it. Likes having someone give a damn whether or not she gets home in one piece.
Home. She's never had a home. Not one where she was safe. Not one where she was loved. Not where anyone cared if she made it home safely or not.
"You look tired. It's only a short trip, but if you want to sleep or something, it'll be fine."
What would he do if she did sleep? Watch out with his grey eyes so that nobody bothered her? Wake her up gently when she got to her stop? She was so tired. She could rest her head on his shoulder and sleep, just for a while. Safe. Warm. Just for a while.
"No thank you. I'm fine. I'm not really tired"
"If you say so."
She's fine. She's always fine. When she's pushed down, when she's got nowhere to go, when the world is opening up beneath her feet and swallowing her whole... Fine. She's always fine.
"What's the matter?"
"I'm fine. Just tired."
"But Anri you just said you weren't tired. Besides that, you're crying."
Was she? She didn't cry, at least not in front of others or loud enough to be heard. She touches her cheeks and indeed, they are wet. How long has it been since someone saw her cry?
"Do you wanna talk about it?"
Yes. Tell me it's okay. Tell me you're sorry this happened to me and make all of this go away. Tell me it's not weird that so much as shaving my legs makes me think of my parents dying on the floor.
"No."
Mikado nods, pauses, then puts his arm around her. She wants to bury her head in his shoulder and cry and tell him everything. She wants him to tell her he forgives her for all she done and promise that it'll get better. He's good, he's smart, he smells good. He's warm.
Love. Cut.
"That's my stop up ahead."
The driver stops for her and she darts out. Her books are still on the bus because she left so fast. He'll return them before school tomorrow, so she's not too worried. That's how Mikado is. He's even nice to the people who run from him.
She won't cut him. She won't love him. She won't hurt him. Never ever.
Saika is loud in her head and she can still feel his arm around her.