His body was the most purest and most fragile thing to exist. It was so fragile, that it wasn't enough if he himself looked after it. Others had to guard it as well, keeping the mind from terrible places and the rest from dangerous people, or so his father said. Everybody around him always tried to shelter the boy from everything that might hurt him, thus Lily started to never leave his side when he wasn't at home, distance limit aside.
But as much as they imprisoned him for the sake of protection, they couldn't protect him from himself.
Nobody thought much of it when the young master pushed his father and his servamp away, it surely was only a phase, the hormones were going crazy at that age. They pretended not to care but he could still feel their eyes on him with every step he took. Still, they never noticed the real problem, but Misono still made a huge effort to hide his secret.
A year later, after his thirteenth birthday, the young heir fell during gym class. Everybody at home noticed his bloody knee. So then why, asked Misono himself, didn't they notice the blood on his sleeve? Maybe this was okay, maybe this was the right thing to do. Nobody ever taught him not to, so it certainly couldn't be so bad. After all it made him feel a bit better. The dozens of eyes would never discover it. Never.
With the years Misono counted, he grew more and more tired of the constant shelter. He got to know a new world, one without filters. He learned what friends were and he began to understand what it meant to be alive. He found somebody who started to care about him on the first day they met. His eyes collected all the joy in the world and his nature was the most generous he had ever witnessed. But behind the strong walls lived so much pain. It wasn't long after they met that he discovered the reason behind it. The feeling of long lost moments of happiness in the boy's apartment felt like a heavy fog. Every time he visited him he felt like he was in one of the books he read.
Friends. He had a few of those now. It felt oddly good – he liked it. Still, the burden of the past was too big and the blood kept staining his clothes, no matter how many people made him smile.
He used to count them and give every one of them a reason, almost like a name. With the time that passed, they were everywhere, like a disease without cure, uncountable, not worth mentioning. He had learned from his mistakes and was now only doing it in places where nobody would ever look. But it wasn't like anybody had noticed them before that anyway, it was for his own good.
It wasn't until one snowy day when the simple boy and his lazy companion visited him that somebody noticed. They itched so much he couldn't help but scratch. But after one annoyance was gone, another one arose quickly in form of something sticking his light pullover sleeve and skin together. The fabric's soft violet had gathered all of the blood it could and was presenting it for everybody to see and be disgusted by it. Sadly, he didn't have any place to run to and no possibility to cover himself up either, so he swallowed down his panic and put on an extra dash of confidence to divert the attention from it. Nobody would notice now, not if they haven't noticed it in so long, right?
What he didn't expect though was for him to interrupt the conversation immediately after the slightest of glances in his direction. Neither did he expect him to take his arm and roll the sleeve up nor that brown eyes would fall on his, filled with all the sadness in the world. He heard everything as if he was on some kind of drug, complete numbness filling his body, making him unable to do anything but flinch at the sudden contact.
The worried boy in front of him sent the cat to get Lily. For a change the pet obliged, for a change his eyes were worried for him and not his master. Said boy took his arm and slung a hand over his back to his shoulder in a comforting manner. Together, lead by him, they sat down in the cold patio. The other closed his arms around Misono in a tight, careful hug.
Misono felt naked, like he had no more secrets to share. The words to explain himself and the apologise were lost in his unbearable fear of rejection. At the same time he noticed he could finally sit straight again without the sensation of two heavy rocks on each of his shoulders. He broke down in the other's warm embrace and found them to be as comforting as he had imagined. Misono had promised himself to never cry in front of anybody ever again.
But he couldn't keep that promise.
The pure white snow fell down on his bare skin, helping the pain vanish. A sort of reckless feeling traversed through his body thinking that they failed to protect him, even if it was an attack as little as snowflakes. He couldn't feel the eyes on him, maybe he had imagined them all the time up until now or maybe they were focused on somebody else now. Whatever it was, it didn't matter, because Misono was so, so happy.