I'm a horrible person and I know it okay? I hurt and maim characters that do not belong to me for pleasure. First it was Shuichi, then Hiro and now Ryuichi! I live in a f**ked up world don't I? This is a one-shot drabble esq piece, conjured by moi at 5am when I was lonely and hugging my teddy bear while my fiancée is working in another country. Now without further ado... Oh and please don't hate me.

Summary - Ryuichi relives the pain from his life before the band and shows how he has come to deal with what causes his split personalities. Ryu OOC. One shot. Contains adult themes. Please R&R!

Disclaimer – All things related to Gravitation (and some potatoes) belong to Maki Murakami.

Warnings – This fiction contains adult themes including language, self injury and rape. Intended for mature teens and over. You have been warned...


RYUICHI POV -

The florescent light shines down upon me in this white tiled cell, illuminating so many of my flaws. This bathroom has held so many of my most precious and incredibly personal moments. It is the one place where I know I can relax and be at peace with myself. My shrine, my home, my retreat. And just like a thousand times before, I find myself here, sitting upon the ice cold floor, naked save my boxer shorts leaning against the bath-tub, trying to persuade myself from an act that I know is inevitable. Just as usual Kumagoro, my candy pink companion, is sitting up there on the counter watching me. His placid and emotionless expression mocks me and his eyes shine deviously at me as he watches me torment myself, like he always has done. Of course it just wouldn't do to get blood on him now would it? It is almost as if he is protecting me from on high, like some guardian angel. But protecting me from what? I do not know, I have never known. And as much as I know he doesn't like this, I know one thing for certain. I do... and I NEED this. In a way that I know that no one could ever understand. Not even Kuma's crystalline ebony eyes can plead with me to do other-wise. My mind is set upon the task at hand and it is the only way that I have ever survived in this world. The only way that I can stop the pain deep inside me from spilling out and effecting the ones that I love. It is much like taking mood stabilizers. Except my tablets come in the form of razor blades.

Oh Kumagoro, my only confide. I do not want to hurt myself in all honesty. But at the same time I must in order to continue in this life. My heart tightens painfully in my chest at the thought of what would happen if the others, the rest of the band and my friends, found out about this disgusting, secret little habit of mine. Is there a word more powerful then shocked? Is there a word more emotional then horrified? I would loose them forever, wouldn't I? And that I think would finally tip me all the way over the edge.

It is why I continue to do this to myself, to ensure that they do not find out. I need to do this in order to let my other personality shine through and sparkle. It is the one that they know, love and have come to accept. The one that they perceive as Ryuichi Sakuma the lead singer of Nittle Grasper.

"Are you okay Sakuma-san?" they ask. And the same retort spits in the back of my head and the same meaningless phrase leaves my lips, "I'm shiny." Indeed one half of me does indeed feel shiny, if that is even a word. But the other feels desolate, depressed and alone. It wants more than anything to take the razor that I am holding right now and slash at the inside of my thighs in a vain attempt to carve a memory, that I do not want, from my mind. It is the only thing that is truly preventing me from being myself. I wasn't always as screwed up as I am now, I know that it is hard to believe, but it is true. If only I could break down this barrier and let my emotions flood through out. And let all of these alien happy thoughts over whelm me and drown out the sorrow that I have been feeling since my childhood. A childhood that I never had, parents that never loved me and a life on the streets of Tokyo, treated like nothing more than a diseased and pestilent rat.

Childhood is such a cheap word to people like me, people who were never given one. It is especially hard for those who were, let us say the runt of the proverbial litter. Childhood is a western thing, invented for and by people with more money then sense. My family was poorest that I knew. And I was the youngest child of three. I know I was never wanted. My parents would continuously tell me that I was an accident, racking me with guilt, a burden that I didn't deserve to carry. My elder brothers were all that my family could afford and as soon as I was old enough to fend for myself I was cast out onto the streets. At least my family saw fit to care for me until then. If by care you mean brutal and unprovoked beatings and continuous rape by my father. My mother would sit there and cry, cradling the worthy 'chosen' children in her arms as my screams were heard from the next room. So yes, most children I suspect had better upbringings than mine. But I cannot complain really... I'm still alive. Though sometimes I wish I wasn't.

I lean back against the edge of the bath tub, forcing its cold ivory edge into the base of my neck making it ache. I do not want to be thinking about things like that right now. Just before I...

Sighing, I give into the flood of emotions and memories that I try continuously night after night to try to block out and night after night I always seem to fail. I know from experience that there is only one thing that will quell the torrent of emotions hurtling around in my soul. One answer that I found one night by accident. On the streets I would always find myself in 'compromising' situations and from my experience from my father, I knew would be brutal, bloody and more then anything, incredibly painful. It was on such an occasion, I must have only been 11 at the time, that I had managed to slip from a man's clutches, only because he was incredibly drunk at the time and run. I ran as far as I could for as long as I could. For hours and hours it seemed I would fly through the streets, dodging others and slipping between buildings on the streets that I had come to know so well. I must have looked like a thief or something trying to escape the crime scene or something at the rate that I fled. I never once looked back and it was only when I could feel my legs giving way beneath me did I fall down into an alley behind a fancy restaurant. My legs screamed in agony and my throat was horse from panting. As I had fallen I had sliced my upper arm upon a shard of broken glass from probably a wine bottle sticking out from one of the nearby dustbins. The pain felt like nothing else I had ever felt before. Of course I had survived plenty of beatings and rapes but this pain was almost pleasurable in a deranged sort of way and I found my mind transfixed upon it, trying to understand it. Why wasn't I trying to make it better, to stop it bleeding? Why was I content just to sit here and watch as blood seeped through my flesh? It cleared my mind and it rested my soul, if only until the bleeding stopped and I regained my senses. That scar has never left me and I try ever so hard to hide it from myself with long sleeves and even Kumagoro outfits. But it is a constant reminder of my past. That I actually still running, albeit from different things now. But it is just the same.

The inevitable moment has arrived. I may not be harming myself with shards of unhygienic glass any-more but the pain is just as real and is needed more than ever as I try to escape all the trials and tribulations of being such a famous pop star.

The blade before me glints under the light. It is almost like a ritual to me now, to inspect the item of my release. Just as a heroin addict would inspect the quality of their needles to make sure that it would do the job right and release them from themselves, if only for a short while. One sharp movement and I would be able to sit back and allow the pain to flow within me. Giving me something else to think about, something to focus my mind upon.

Slowly I raise my boxers up towards my crotch, marvelling as with each inch of flesh that is exposed there are more and more thick ropey white scars mismatched all over me. I was too ashamed even as a street rat to cut in visible areas such as my arms, for fear of feeling even more like an outcast, so my legs are now my private heaven. A large area and easily accessible. I only have to pretend that I'm going to the toilet, where I can sit and pull my pants down to expose what is left of my thighs. I'm glad for it too now, as no one else knows. It's just my little secret, my torment. And I would like to keep it that way.

I press the razor against the marred flesh on my right thigh. There is no part of my leg that is unmarked by my years of self-mutilation and the ropey wide scars are tough to cut through and will require more effort to slice the skin. But with one quick slice my skin screams in agony and I feel my release, the buzz I was looking for all along. Somehow watching the first few seconds of blood trailing down my leg is always memorizing. It's hard to think that I just did that to myself and I feel no remorse, but all of a sudden my chest doesn't feel as tight, my hands have stopped shaking and I feel at peace with it all.

The cut is deep. Very deep. Probably so much so that it would need stitches. But letting people know about this was a definite no-no. What if the hospital told the press about this? It would ruin so my life, not to mention that of my friends and especially Tohma.

The flesh has been parted so quickly and efficiently (the joys of having such a sharp blade) that the wound hasn't yet started to bleed. I don't know the technical term but it's as though my skin has suffered some sort of shock. Just like when you don't realise that you have hurt your-self but suddenly feel the pain much later after the actual incident. It takes a few seconds for the blood to well up and burst out over the fatty ravine but when it does, it is beautiful. I finally understand why 'blood red' is supposed to be such a romantic colour. It is amazing. So many different hues as it pours out of me onto different surfaces and different depths of colour as it begins to cake over and congeal on the rest of my leg. And of course it is a colour that is essential in keeping you alive. For someone to cause it to flow they must truly love you or despise you with a passion.

I begin to fall into what can only be described as a coma type state as my body relaxes itself. It is a beautiful feeling and each time I inflict this torture upon myself I know that it will be there to comfort me with open arms. I slouch back even harder against the bath and my breathing is deep and easy, the air almost feels so thick that I could chew it. All in all there is only one way to describe such a feeling and it is complete and utter bliss. The second, third and fourth cuts are just as pleasurable, each one of them welling up like the first. The patterns of blood trailing down my leg and onto the floor, soaking my boxers, are mesmerising.

I find myself slumping to the side, lying curled up in a ball upon my bathroom floor. Blood everywhere. Kumagoro, from high on his perch, stares at me intently questioning as always: why did I do it? Why must I do it? Why didn't I stop myself? And the truth is I'm addicted and always will be.

I was curled up on the floor that night too when Tohma found me. Albeit it was a public toilet this time. The people using the facilities must have thought that I was drunk or something. Thank god though that night I was on the floor due to having passed out due to lack of blood in my system, thankfully Tohma never saw that. He only saw the forgotten lonely little street rat that was trying to escape its torment and he had taken pity on me and taken me in. He could afford to none the less but I still question why on that fateful night that he chose to. He didn't know me, who I was or what I was capable of. So Why? Why hadn't he left me there to die? It was all I was good for, though someone would have had to go through the hassle of removing my rotting corpse, but they probably would have got paid for it. If that blonde angel hadn't had heard me singing in my first proper shower in years though, at his home, none of this life that I have now would have ever existed. It was then and there that I decided to put on this mask to hide who I truly was in a vain attempt at being accepted by him. Not for him to realise who I truly was and be disgusted. In all honesty I owe my life to him. And because of that I haven't and I will not cut the deepest. I will not leave my wounds unattended to bleed me to death or let myself get infected. I will survive if only for him.

I'm so weak and pathetic and I know I do not deserve to live. And like always I try to wrack my mind around why I am indeed still here and my only answer is to let all of my pain and disgust at myself out by crying.

And just like every night - I am here, sobbing on my bathroom floor and surrounded by blood.

~FIN~


T_T Took just over three hours to do but the first few lines were screaming in my head to be written down, so here they are. Trying to fit everything in and make it flow was such a hassle and I have never written more than a few lines for Ryuichi before but there we go another suicidal angsty fic by moi. Surely youre getting fed up of all this angst now?

Just had a thought: Will SI fics ever stop being appealing to me? Will they ever be 'overdone'. I cannot believe that this addiction is a phase. It must be a bloody long one if it is... HA! I amuse myself sometimes with my own linguistic finas!


THIS BIT HAS BEEN MOVED TO MY PROFILE!