It's been three years since I left middle school. It's been three years since I stopped playing with him. It's been three years since we stopped going to the same classes. It's been three years since then, but it's also been three years since we started keeping our own secret. It was ours and no one needed to know. At least that's what we agreed to back then, but I just can't do it anymore. I have to tell someone. I need somebody else to know. Not just somebody, everybody. But to do that, I need to start by letting my family know.
I've been planning this moment in my head since forever. Everything I will say, every reaction I will get, how things will develop from this moment on; I've seen it in my dreams and in my imagination so many times, sometimes I would feel like it had actually happened. But that feeling wouldn't last long before I realized nothing had actually happened or changed. But today will be different. Today will definitely be different from all those times. Today I will actually say those words I've been planning for so long. I am prepared. I am more than ready for this. Everything's ready for the worst case scenario. My bag's upstairs with the most necessary things. I also left a bag for him. I hope neither one of them will be necessary, but I need to be prepared.
I wait until dinner to speak. My mother and father are watching television while I prepare everything. The food's almost ready and I start to feel the pressure on me. This is so much harder than I thought it would be. I start to lose my appetite quickly. There are butterflies and knots in my stomach and I start to panic. What if things don't turn out the way I expect? What if they don't accept it? I have thought about it during the past months and just thinking that my thoughts would turn into reality freaks me out like nothing in my life. I've gone to national championships on more than one occasion, but it cannot be compared to what I'm feeling in this moment.
Once the food is ready, I serve it and call my parents for dinner. They take by far less time than I expected to sit on the table than I expected. We sit down and start eating right away. Nobody says anything for a while and the silence starts suffocating me little by little.
"Tetsuya, are you feeling right?" My mom asks concerned after a while. I don't know if that makes me feel more relieved or just adds to the pressure, but I try and answer as politely as I can.
"I'm fine, Mother. Nothing to worry about."
"Are you sure? You look pale. Almost as if you've seen a ghost."
I have to do it. I may never get another chance like this one. It's perfect. We are finally talking over dinner and this is the perfect cue to get to the topic.
"I'm a little concerned about something, to be honest" I say as I look down and stare at my food as if it were the most puzzling thing in the world.
"What is it, dear?" Mother asks with more concern than before while putting down her chopsticks.
"I have been struggling with something for a while now, and I want to tell you about it, but I don't know if you will accept it or not." I still cannot look at them in the eyes. It's not like I'm embarrassed about it. If that were the case, I would never even dream about telling my parents about it, but I'm still so afraid of what they will say that I cannot find the courage to say it directly, let alone see their face when I do.
"Son, you know you can tell us everything. Right, dear?" She asks my dad, who simply nods without stopping his eating.
I take a deep breath and find all the courage I have in me before I continue speaking.
"I think I like someone. As in the way you two like each other." I struggle to find my words, but it just gets harder and harder with every sound that comes out of my mouth. I finally look up and see their confused expressions, like they don't seem to understand why this would be so important and hard for them to understand. "I'm positive that my feelings are reciprocated. In fact, we have been dating for a while now. I don't know what I would do if that weren't the case." I smile just by thinking of him and all of the things we have gone through together. Every fight we've had, every make up that would follow them, every smile we've shared, every little thing flashed in front of my eyes in just one second.
"That is amazing. So, when are you going to introduce us?" My mom, still doing all the talking as expected, asks more excited than I would have ever imagined.
"That's the thing." I take a couple of deep breaths with my eyes closed before I speak my next sentence. "You have already met him."
I see their expressions change as if I were watching a video in slow motion. First comes confusion. Then, realization of what I have just said. After that, they look at me expectant of my next comment saying it had all been a practical joke. And when that doesn't happen, I wait with my hands sweating and trembling under the table. Everything can change with this simple expression. Things will go smoothly or not depending on the following expression. Time seems to stop at that moment. I prepare myself, but nothing can ever prepare you to seeing both your parents look at you like you are some despicable being mixed with a disappointed one.
"What did you just say?" My father asks with his teeth together. I suddenly feel like going back in time and not tell them, just like I had planned three years ago. But now there is no going back. What's been said has been said and there is no going back. I cannot deny it. I said it and now I must face the consequences of it.
"I said you have already met him. He's come home quite a few times." My voice lacks the strength I have always thought I would have in this moment. I guess things never go the way one plans them.
"Are you trying to tell me that my son is gay?" Father asks and this time the anger he is feeling is truly coming out.
"I'm sorry, father. I didn't choose this. I promise." I say, staring at my food once again. I cannot face them anymore.
"That's what they always say. 'I didn't choose it,' 'I was born this way.' Well, guess what? I didn't raise you to be like this. I didn't pay for your education to come and tell me all this bullshit, so if this is what you have decided you wanted to do for the rest of your life, then do me a favor and leave this house. I'm not spending any more time in a faggot."
His words hurt a lot more than I had imagined in my mind every time I pictured a bad scenario. But I guess that it's just because he was really saying it, as opposed to my imagination, when it was just that, my mind thinking and everything will go back to square one when I stopped thinking about it. Right now, no matter how bad I want him to not have said those things, he had, and there is nothing I can do about it. I look at my mother for some kind of back up, but I can see in her eyes that she thinks the exact same way my father does. In her eyes, I'm a failure, something she doesn't want in her family…something she doesn't want in any family at all.
I look back down and for a while the room is completely silent. We can hear everything that is happening outside. Every car that goes down our street, every dog that barks while being walked by their owner, everything. I try to keep my mind busy with the sounds of the street, but it isn't long before my father gets up.
"If you have already made your decision, then I think it's time you left the house. I expect to not see you here when I wake up. I'm going to sleep." And with that said, he turns around and leaves the kitchen. I am left with my mother in silence, but before five minutes go by, she stands up and without uttering a word or even looking my way, she leaves through the same door my dad did.
I stay sit down for a while, expecting everything to be a nightmare or just another one of my fictional scenarios. When I realize that isn't the case, I get up, go to my room and grab my bag. When I leave the house, I think for the first time that I have never given a thought to what I would do if I were in this situation. I start walking down the street without a particular destination and before I realize it, I'm standing in front of the Teiko entrance doors. I remember everything I have gone through in this place. My first time in a basketball court, my first class, my first game, and most importantly, my first encounter with him.
I go through my bag looking for my phone to call him and tell him how things have turned out and in doing that I find my razor. I can't remember when it was the last time I used it or why I hadn't thrown it out after he helped me quit cutting myself, but right now I can only see it as some sign trying to tell me this is what I should do. I remember the bag I left on my bed and everything clicks. I already knew things would turn out this way, I simply did not want to accept it, so I stopped myself before thinking this far. But this is the way have to turn out. There is no other way. I keep looking for my phone and when I find it I go through my contact list and call him. He has to get that bag no matter what. I want him to have it.
"Tetsu? How did it go?" I hear his voice and tears start forming in no time. I have already made up my mind, there is no going back now, but somehow hearing his voice makes a little part of me want to not do it. But even if I don't, nothing would change: my parents have still kicked me out and I still have no place to go.
"Aomine-kun, there's a bag on my bed. It's for you."
"A bag? Tetsu, I don't understand, what is going on? Why can't you give it to me personally?"
"I won't be there, but please tell my parents to give it to you. I want you to have it. I don't want anyone else to get my basket uniform. It's only because of you that I could play, after all, so please keep it."
"Your what? Tetsu, I don't understand anything you are saying. If you could just explain from the…" I cut him off before he even finishes the sentence.
"Goodbye, Aomine-kun."
"What do you mean…?"
I hung up before I hear anything more. It's better this way and I can't think of a way that wouldn't be the case. He will get over it in no time, I'm sure. This wasn't supposed to be known by anybody, after all. This is what I get for breaking my word.
I enter the school and sit down in front of the basketball court. I pull of my sweatshirt and look at my arm. I can still see the scars left from years ago and I instantly feel Aomine's hands on them with that gentle touch of his. I see his worried eyes, the same ones I saw when he found out about it. It was because of him that I was able to stop. It was only because of him. I know he will never talk to me if I don't do this, so there is no point in not doing it. No matter how I look at it, things will never get better. Not for me and certainly not for Aomine, but for some reason it is still hard to do it.
I close my eyes and pull the razor to my wrist. It hurts at first, but faster than before I start feeling a feeling of satisfaction. I know I have done wrong and this is what I deserve. Everything will be better once I do this. Everything will feel fine, just like before. I keep pulling the razor and at a point I can't find a place to cut in my left arm. I look at my right wrist and without a blink of an eye I'm holding the razor with my razor with my left and pulling it to my right arm. Soon, that is not enough any longer, so I pull my pants up and start with my legs.
I start to see black, but that doesn't bother me. It has happened before. I know what comes after this. Peace. Calm. Quiet. And then everything feels better. I keep going farther and farther until my hearing is weak and my vision is almost completely gone. I have a hard time keeping myself sitting straight, let alone awake. And that is when I realize it: this is what I have always been too scared to think of but always knew it was going to happen.
I close my eyes and feel my head hit the ground with a big thud.
A/N: So, first fic I've written in a while.
Hope you guys liked it (or cried while reading it while swearing at me, either way is fine). Story behing this fic: I actually came up with this story while thinking how my family would react when I told them I'm bi. Don't worry, I only came up with such a dramatic scenario once.
Comments are much appreciated, either here or on my tumblr .com
Hopefully I'll keep on writing after this (and hopefully I will write sum fluffy stuff next).