His relationship to his body was… strained.
It was odd, having to constantly exist. He hadn't before. He'd lived through dreams, through memories, through anger and fear and pain and hatred. He existed through not existing, stolen moments and thoughts and emotions. No one knew, so he could survive. And then one did, and then they all did, and they only cared enough to hate him as he lived and died and lived again.
So having to simply be was odd and not quite real, most days. He'd been given a body. One that twinned Malik, and he kept his hair up to not always see him in the mirror.
He wasn't sure he was real, if he was honest with himself. Wasn't sure this wasn't some trick of the shadows, some fantasy that could be pulled away that he had an apartment, food to taste, water to wash with, and skin to touch whenever he wanted.
He checked, if it was real. Quite often, really. He scratched at his wrist, messy, half-bitten nails drawing blood or purpling the soft- soft, too soft, he needed armor, not silk- skin when he pressed hard enough to finally feel it. This body was fragile, and he needed and didn't need confirmation of that. He was afraid to die again but tiptoed and walked towards and sprinted around pain because he didn't see himself living either.
He snapped with rubber bands just as often, or scraped teeth until it scratched or dragged the flat edge of a utility knife against his fingers until one bubbled red and ached for days.
It was just to feel something, to know this was real. The little lines and ovals and misshapen scratches that looked like bruises but with dots of red, like lava bubbling under dark skin.
It took four months to be found out, and he'd thought Ryou had wanted to kiss when he was shoved to the couch but found his sleeves being dragged up.
It was just to feel something, but as Ryou ran his fingers over them, slender hands looked and felt like ghosts and he felt more than ever.
He tried to explain, that he'd always liked pain, that it was better than nothing, better than numbness, that he was made of pain and fear and anger. Ryou ran the pad of his thumb over a particularly large bruise.
He tried to explain he never left anything permanent, just marked for each day he wanted to feel more, but Ryou shook his head.
It's not about the permanence, it's that you're hurting yourself at all. You survived. You're here. Feel through ice cream, movies, static from holding hands. You're not just pain, you're a whole person. You can be better, he said. You can be more than what they made you.
He rolled his sleeve down, catching Ryou's hand. And if I'm not?
Then I'll teach you. Ryou held up a hand with a star-shaped scar on the back, then set it on top of his, to feel the bumps of the imperfection, the proof of surviving terrible things. We can be better together, if we try.
He still struggled with existing, but for once, someone knew and cared at the same time and maybe that would be enough.
A/N: It's… interesting, writing about your own experiences told through a different character, and in a way trying to comfort your past self through it.