a/n:: i have been very hesitant on uploading this. i write suicide/self-harm fics sometimes, but i am not sure how well it would go over with my readers. for now, i can just warn you that is exactly what it is. it is a bit... triggering, and i do not think those who are fond of the subjects should read it.

anyway, i hope anyone who does happen to read it enjoys.

Romano was hiding. Not in the typical sense of hiding, but he was hiding all the same. Romano was hiding behind himself. He was hiding behind a mask of himself he had made to mask insecurities built ever since he was child. The child that was so very small and nothing, nothing compared to his ever spectacular brother who could do everything better. He was nothing, worth nothing. He seemed to not be able to surpass adequacy at even the most mediocre of tasks. Domestic chores did not even suit his tastes. He could not even smile; his fair face was always wearing a frown curtained by his typically dishevelled chestnut hair. Why take pride in his appearance? No cared about him anyway.

Today was a usual day in his life, he would wake up to the sound of his alarm clock ringing. His brother would cheerfully tell him it was time for school before jumping out of bed ahead. Romano, in his routine manner would just roll over and not get up. He saw no point in getting up. He tugged the coverlets over his head intent on his dreams seeing school as a bunch of people who did not care for him and who he did not care for in return. He typically had his head bowed not to meet their judgemental stares. They were always staring, waiting for the next moment when he would mess up. Romano wished Feliciano would just leave him alone for once and go to school without him. Of course, this did not happen, and he was met with a face that was nearly identical to his own as the dark green sheet and red blankets were pulled down bringing a loud curse on his part. "Fine. I'm fucking up," he said sitting up straight to prove his point swatting away his brother. He did not want to headbutt him because that might lead to a disaster due to previous circumstances he did not wish to think about.

Feliciano grinned happily at his brother as he seemed to be waking up, Romano only glowering in return. Romano did not appreciate it at all. Feliciano just could not understand why Romano did not hold no enthusiasm for school. The slightly younger Italian twin liked flirting in the halls and socialising with his friends, yet here his brother was being no fun at all. It worried him how he sulked. He wanted to cheer him up somehow, but he knew of no idea how. He could only sense the sadness, the sorrow clawing at him as Romano climbed out of bed and walked to the shower. His brown eyes watched worriedly as he bit into a piece of toast. Oh no. He could nearly taste it like the butter on his toast, yet he could do absolutely nothing about it.

The water was not refreshing. It was cold, the way Romano liked to have his shower, but quite suddenly with a flick of his wrist he switched it to the hottest he could have it. He hissed in pain but refused to jump out. It was scorching, blazing heat. The steam rose around him in a thick fog and blocked his vision, blocked out everything, for a moment he could think that nothing was there. Romano sighed. He could take a hot one today. He let the hot water beat his skin, slumping until he was sitting on the shower porcelain. He rested his wet hair back against the wall and let his eyes close still breathing in the intoxicating steam feeling relaxed from the heat as it beat his skin. It hurt, but he did not mind. Something bit the back of his mind telling him that he was not worthy of being knowledgeable of pain. The worries of the others at school gone and only this pleasant feeling was there. He was not worthy of anything.

Suddenly there was an anger. It was raging, it was more bitter than anything Romano ever felt, it was everything Romano had ever felt. It was the pain of hiding in your brother's shadow, of being second best. It was being told "you are not good enough." It was the personification of vomited affections. They were tired of being held inside of the walls of a caged heart, and this steamed shower was running out of heat. This pain was suddenly not enough. He suddenly wanted more. He was not sure what he wanted, but was a maddening crave brought on by a trigger he could not explain. Nothing could be explained except the need to not stop. No. He could not stop. A stumbling foot carried him from the shower with the water still running and crawling, slipping to his feet. He was clumsy, and he found this even more a reason to continue as he found his way to sink. Blind fingers searched across the sink and then the bathroom cabinets and drawers despite the matted, dripping hair blurring his vision. He needed something, but he did not know what he was looking for. What? What...?

He found solution in an accidental slice to his finger on one of Feliciano's forgotten art razors. His brother used them for watercolours, but had forgotten a pack of them in the bathroom in his typical ditzy manner. Romano stared at them wide-eyed, not sure what he was doing, not even sure if he was in his right mind. In fact, he was sure he was not. No one in their right mind would pick up a pack of razors and tear it open with his teeth. No. He was not sane. He had lost his mind. That was it. That was why he took the razor in his mouth despite the pain and watched the blood pour pass his pale lightly chapped lips. He choked on the blood but put another one in there, tears in his eyes. He was ugly and had no voice. He was mouthless and blind. He did not deserve to try and scream about it. He would cut out his tongue, make himself voiceless just like everyone around him did. They always did, choking him. The blood was choking him. He coughed it on the marble sink gripping it, but kept going. He raised a shaky razor before lowering this one to his thigh, he would make himself uglier. Unseeable. He sliced and cut. First his thighs then his arms. All the time he was choking on the ones in his mouth blood mixing with his saliva and down with throat. It was disgusting. He was disgusting. He was taking a razor to his face, blindly, despite still wet, slippery hands from his shower. He could not hear the banging on the door or the violent vain turnings on the knob.

Feliciano was worried, there was steam pouring from beneath the bathroom door. How long had his fratello been in there? Forty-five minutes? An hour? Eithre way, Feliciano had been finished with his breakfast for a long time now and idly playing with his phone. He had texted his friend Ludwig back and forth a few times, but now Ludwig had went ahead to school leaving the Italian bored with nothing to do. He had thought of texting Kiku but thought checking on his brother be better. He only discovered this to be true when finding the steam pouring from under the door and loud noises that sounded too much like things being knocked over for his liking. He tried the knob only to discover with a dismayed look it was locked. Who would have thought that? He attempted to knock, but maybe the shower was too loud? Romano was not answering him. He screamed his brother's name still to no avail. Nothing seemed to be working, and he was panicking with transparent steam packing around his feet. He decided to try Ludwig, deciding just maybe the German teenager had not stepped into school yet.

Nervous fingers dialled the number as his panicked voice breathed into the receiver. "Ludwig! Please pick up! Please! I'm worried about Romano!" Feliciano yelled into the receiver impatient to texting at this point. He also did not think his hand could handle it; he could hardly dial his friend's number, much less send a text. He was near the point of tears at this point, sniffling as he began banging once again on the door. He was weak although, slumping against it in his efforts as he screamed his brother's name. He was sure something awful had happened. The sorrow had swallowed Romano, he was sure of it. The steam whispered it to him as it took his ankles in. The twin bond they shared was weakening slightly, Feliciano could feel it. This time he really did begin to cry, sobbing his brother's name and screaming as he banged fiercely on the door to wake his brother up as if the other had simply just fallen asleep in the shower. Yes. That was it. He had fallen asleep in the shower.

Romano dropped the box and it clattered. He went with it, a crumpled doll. He had lost much too much blood and was vomiting even more on the floor, each time a shot pain entering him as he landed on a discarded razor he had happened to slip on. This hurt. He was in so much pain he was crying, yet he could not tell his tears from the blood. The bathroom was wet with all of it: his blood, his tears, and the water from the shower. None of it could be told apart in his blurred vision nor did he really care. All he could feel was an intense pain in his chest. His heart hurt, his mind. It was a pain he had been trying to ignore for so long. The numbness he had been hiding had came out, and it was much too painful, much more painful than these cuts. He thought they would help, but they had not at all. He now could hear sounds. The banging on the door, his brother's screaming, but nothing mattered. Life simply did not matter.

Not even when the door was finally tore open by a distraught looking Feliciano who immediately began screaming, screaming at the top his lungs as he stared at the floor before him. The diluted blood was the pale red of watercolours. Puddles of it spread around the floor of the bathroom and on the sink, even on the toilet. It had painted everywhere, the bathroom a canvas and the barely breathing boy in the centre of the floor the artist who had done it all. He was defeated, broken, and staring with glazed green eyes at the wall a razor still in his hand. He did not even move to look at Feliciano or Ludwig when they burst in, not because he did not register, simply because he was not there. Romano was gone. The boy he had been hiding behind had eaten him alive before he could escape the place he had been hiding in much too long.

("take a razor to my neck. take a picture, tell me if i bled.")