Pain is something you may endure well if you know the way. That is how it works with me. The first time I realized it was sometime around an early stage of my life: pain is nothing more than a wretched state that cannot be helped. If I can make myself believe that, it is easy to sink into it and continue living this way. And so you survive tortures no one else does.
Still, your mind often tends to stick to the foolish knowledge that it could be better, if you had done something else; if you had not done so. Often, you wonder if it were better now if you had acted otherwise.
Brooding minutes like this simply drive you insane.
Accept pain, let it sink into your body; let it sink so deep it becomes natural, unnoticed, working its deadly way in the back of your brain. After this, you'll be invincible.
Pain is lingering in the back of my mind. I am somewhere close to it, too. Pain surrounds me. I sink into it. An unremitting shriek echoes around me, filling everything inside, outside.
A weak sigh whispers: it could stop finally… it's loud. Too loud. I want to sleep, and dream something peaceful, something eternal. I shiver madly, but it's hot like Hellfire at the same time, and the painful chattering won't fade.
To hell with all these. Give me a rest. My well-deserved rest. It would serve me right; after all, I've never thought about what ifs.
I never ever actually did anything against you or your team. Thought about it, yes; but that's something different. Different is that desirable fiction about sending Kuwabara to Hell with my own fists, and different is it when I restrain myself and settle for pissing him off to no end. Different is when I slip away from your newest mission against a powerful enemy, knowing well I will make myself get involved soon.
Why?
I never wanted to know the answer. It's too embarrassing. Disgusting. A weakness. And besides, it's no use to call someone a friend. You're allied as long as you have the same aims, same desires – but something like this is never eternal.
So what do we have in common that makes me act like someone called a friend would?
Well, I know we have quite much in common with the infamous Youko Kurama. But I also know that this is not the only thing; there are others I'll probably never find out. For example, I'll never be able to figure out what the hell is similar in me and Kuwabara. So I won't even try. I just drop the subject, like so many times before.
And that makes the echoing pain fade away finally. My mind sleeps away lightly, falling into welcoming nothingness, soon reaching a land of dreams: dreams of anguish and torture.