A/N: This story features lyrics from Lindsey Stirling's song "Shatter Me" featuring Lzzy Hale. This is me going back to my roots, children! Long Live The Character's Death, High Queen of Angst!
Thick lashes fluttered into slow awareness and opened onto a world of darkness. Beautiful amethyst eyes took in the small, quiet room through a sideways view. Slowly raising himself from the bed, the world righted itself as a gentle sign slipped through his nose.
Sitting on the bed, his knees drifted to his chest as he wrapped his arms around them to steady himself. Yuki stared off into the darkness, attempting to ready himself for the day. Another day. One more day of pretending...to be perfect.
I pirouette in the dark
I see the stars through me
Stepping lightly to his closet, he chose from one of the many identical uniforms. Crisp. Clean. The same as every day. Perfect.
Tired mechanical heart
Beats 'til the song disappears
Gathering what he needed, Yuki quietly made his way to the bathroom. The house was still so quiet. Dark. Like a tomb. His gaze hardened for a moment at that thought as he tailed the halls in silence.
And he wondered...just like every morning...when the darkness might end.
If it would ever end.
Turning on the light of the bathroom, his eyes painfully adjusted and constricted against the harsh intrusion into his world of darkness.
Somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me
His weary gaze caught his reflection for a moment. Only a moment. But in that moment he saw everything.
Everything he was.
Everything he wasn't.
Everything he had wanted to be.
Could have been.
But wasn't.
Somebody make me feel alive
And shatter me
Turning away, he set himself with the task of dressing for the day. His slender fingertips slowly trailed along the fabric of his shirt as they gently tended to each button. Fixing each one perfectly in its place before moving to the button above.
So cut me from the line
Dizzy, spinning endlessly
He focused on each and every step of dressing himself. Of making himself perfect. Flawless.
...on the outside...
In order to ignore and violently shove down the truth he was expected to hide.
Carefully constructing the mask of ice and beautiful perfection before glancing at himself once more in the mirror, he offered himself a hollow smile.
Perfect.
Somebody make me feel alive
And shatter me!
Turning away from himself, Yuki left the bathroom in complete silence. Silence that would continue to follow him through the day ahead. Leaving behind a message written to himself on the mirror before he lost himself...as a reminder of the truth. The only honesty he would be leaving behind.
A silent scream written in violent black sharpy across the bathroom mirror.
'SHATTER ME!'
Walking down the hall into the kitchen, Yuki's appearance was calm and soft. Gentle and charming like always. Perfectly flawless as he greeted those around him.
He wore this perfection like a second skin. Sometimes it was so completely seamless that even he momentarily forgot himself. The truth. But there were always the reminders. The little fractures no one else could see.
But...he wished...
He desperately wished that someone would notice.
Say something, maybe.
That somebody would see the truth. That behind this second skin was something perfectly imperfect.
Somebody make me feel alive
And shatter me!
As he moved through the halls of the school, he could feel himself growing colder. Distancing himself from those who adored him. Who only thought they adored him.
But they didn't really love him.
How could they?
If only the clockwork could speak
I wouldn't be so alone
When what they loved was only a lie. A beautiful lie of flawless perfection set apart and placed on a pedestal to be idolized and adored from afar.
We'd burn every magnet and spring
And spiral into the unknown
He knew they could never love him. Who he really was. Because he would never allow himself to show any of them the truth.
Because he knew...
Yuki knew that if he did that...they would all hate him.
So he let them love a lie.
Somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me
But as he walked through the halls of his school, he could feel himself crying out from the inside.
Somebody make me feel alive
And shatter me
For someone to notice. Anyone.
So cut me from the line
Dizzy, spinning endlessly
Just one person. That's all he wanted. Just one person to actually understand.
That behind the flawless perfection was desperation. That he was caught between two wolds and being violently ripped apart from the inside.
That all he really wanted...
Somebody make me feel alive
And shatter me!
Was someone to break him completely so he wouldn't have to work to hard to pretend that he was anything other than broken.
Shatter me!
On the inside...he was screaming. Screaming for somebody. Anybody to listen.
Somebody make me feel alive
And shatter me!
But he wondered if he really could. If he could actually shatter his mask. Shed his skin.
If I break the glass, then I'll have to fly
There's no one to catch me if I take a dive
I'm scared of change, and the days stay the same
The world is spinning but only in gray
What would it feel like if he could only show them the truth.
If I break the glass, then I'll have to fly
There's no one to catch me if I take a dive
I'm scared of change, and the days stay the same
The world is spinning but only in gray
...if only he could...
Only...
As the bell rang to signal the end of another day, Yuki gave another gentle sign from the seat of his desk. Standing from his seat he dismissed himself from the class, feeling the eyes of his peers watch him from afar.
What did they see?
What did they really see?
Something beautiful.
Something flawless.
The perfection of the 'Ice Prince.'
Somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me
Somebody make me feel alive
And shatter me
They didn't see him...
So cut me from the line
Dizzy, spinning endlessly
Somebody make me feel alive
And shatter me!
None of them saw the truth.
Me...!
But...they would.
Shatter me!
Trailing through the halls, he didn't intend to go back home. The truth was...he was done. There would be no more living in ambivalence. He was finished living the lie of perfection.
Walking the stairs up to the top of the school building, he remembered the last time he had been here. In this place. It had been to hide. Like always, he had chosen to hide...from everyone. But today would be different. Today, there was no more hiding.
Stepping to the ledge, his amethyst gaze took in the people below. He took in the sensation of the afternoon breeze as it tenderly caressed him. Running itself through him like a lover. Closing his eyes to absorb this sensation, a smile crept along his lips at the beauty of this moment.
Beautiful in its honesty.
A single tear trailed down his cheek at this thought. That the world would finally see him. Not the perfection. Not the lie. But him. Even more beautiful in his honesty.
Somebody make me feel alive
And
He leaned into the breeze as his feet left the ledge.
Shatter me!
The End