Trigger warning : Suicidal thoughts and behaviour , read with caution. Or please skip to the next chapter.
His feet dragged behind him as he arrived from the dreary and wet outside world. Fully soaked throughout , puddles formed underneath him from the residue of the autumn torrent that came down still collected in his waterlogged clothing , skin and hair. His body felt cold and uncomfortably damp , yet none of that discomfort was apparent to him as his muted bronze orbs gazed down at the stony ground underneath him in fresh dejection.
Hazel hadn't been out again , and he spent all the time waiting outside after he was allowed, hoping that maybe she would come and prove those horrid words spoken to wrong. That he wasn't some abnormal being that was only meant to be hated. Because what they had been sharing between them wasn't any form of hatred.
Even if it wasn't with someone human , the fact that she and him shared such fun and memorable moments , that was proof that he wasn't just made to be hated, no? That was proof that he was capable of forming connections other than despise with others?
That's what he had been thinking to himself in order to quell the grim thoughts that were churning about in the depths of his mind after that horrid encounter from Marik and his clique again. Because when those kids left him after they had finished spewing their abuse over his heart , mind , body and soul , it wasn't just his skin that was left damaged and broken.
But everything else he seemed to know alongside that which also had turned upside down completely. His hopes , his dreams , his everything. All from being told this cruel realisation of what the answers he had been once searching for actually were…It's like life itself had completely turned on him somehow.
And he didn't know how to process it.
How could he?
What was one supposed to do when they were told that they had been condemned to hatred? Hatred that was only there due to his connection to the man they all truly hated? And because of that being marked with something irremovable so others knew he was tainted with 'devil blood' too.
It was so much for his brain to even begin to comprehend.
Simply for the fact that he had been misfortune enough to be born from a devil , every action of good and kindness he did was instantly invalidated in the world. All because his intentions weren't considered , or even existed over the importance of his label as a…Devil.
A devil who was an abnormality to the world and it's people. A devil who caused nothing but problems and could hold no goodness in him. A devil that was destined to be hated for no sin of it's own. And there was no other reason , other than that which he had no say in.
It was so unfair.
Tears dripped down his rain drenched face as he stared down at the dreary and darkened ground with burning sorrow dripping down his cold face. That was all he felt capable of doing in response to the cruelty against him , crying to himself and allowing him to feel the pain that was wrong for him to complain about.
Yet no one would even wish to listen to it.
No human.
Nor God.
All for the judgement that he had bad blood in him.
He had blood in him from an evil being.
And that was said to somehow make him evil too.
Regardless of what he stood for and wanted.
So what promises and privileges others had from those who were seen as merciful and helping beings , was all forbidden from him to begin with due to the fact he had been condemned to a life of hatred.
A life of remembering sin.
And that made him realise something just as gruesome.
That his dark thoughts had been correct.
He had been abandoned-
No.
Actually.
That wasn't it.
Because to have been abandoned , they would have had to been there for him in the first place. The gods. He never was abandoned , because they never cared about him to begin with. How could they when he had been tainted with devil blood since the day of his birth?
So much so he even resembled the damned bastard in his appearance.
The truth rang loud and clear for him now.
They never were there for him.
Not even once.
Despite all his efforts to connect with them and hope they would answer his sincere prayers to a better life.
It all held nothing in their eyes.
All he had been was a mere joke.
No wonder he never felt their presence like the people would claim. Even though he was willing to follow them blindly and accept their dominion over things despite the fact he had his own scepticism regarding them and their doings , now it all made sense why he could never truly connect to them.
All he had been fuelling himself off was false hope.
And delusion.
They had no interest in helping him.
They never did.
The bluenet fell to his knees with a wet smack from his waterlogged clothing , unable to keep his body upright as the weight of his mind made him succumb. Having felt so incessantly pathetic and weak and now finding out everything he had been doing truly had no meaning in it…It had been breaking him silently in a way he couldn't comprehend.
Or even stop.
His energy sapped away from him with each passing day since the encounter until he was literally a mere shell , just barely being able to do what was asked or necessary , and only allowing him the means to go out when the clouding thoughts got too much for him again.
Thoughts that had been ravaging his mind as the cruel truth he had been told started to make connections with all the other harsh things that he had been told. Told by the stone faced ladies , told by mere strangers , told by those kids , told by his mother…Told by the world.
The same message over and over again.
Different words but the same inference.
He was nothing but disgusting.
He was nothing but an eyesore.
He was nothing but irritating.
He was nothing but trouble.
He was nothing but a problem.
He was nothing.
These unwanted reasonings had been plaguing his mind for an innumerable amount of time now , day in and day out. To the point even the bare sleep he managed to succumb to would also be broken through insulting whispers that would invade his slumber and the pain and torment would erupt all over again.
He wanted it to stop.
He wanted it to end.
Some part of his mind thought that coming across Hazel again would be able to give him some space from those gloomy thoughts creeping beside him. However with the lack of presence from the small cat and her friends , he realised soon that even after all the time he had been waiting and even into the cold and biting rain.
She wasn't going to come.
And from that he started to swallow another ugly truth when it became apparent the cat didn't wish to see him anymore. The truth being…She probably had started to hate him too.
His only friend in the world.
And she most likely turned against him.
She most likely was now sick of him too.
Choked sobs wracked the bluenet violently as he wept on the floor from the bitter realisation. All the horrible things having been said to him springing up into his mind and taking him under once more , but this time he had nothing he could do to try and block it out.
His features scrunched tightly on themselves as his tears dripped thickly down the sides of his face. Burning him with a salty sear as his bandaged fists crumpled on themselves in desperation , his head hanging lower than ever with his wet darkened locks obscuring his despicable countenance as he looked towards the only thing he had been able to face since these horrid truths had come to light.
His small body wanted to slump on the ground , curl up in shameless patheticness as no one was there to watch him. His sorrow wished to be expressed in all it's measure and allowed to be sounded through unbidden bawling as no one was there to scold him. They were all doing their own things elsewhere it seemed , leaving him alone to cry into the cold stony ground without worry.
Though as he realised that.
Another thought came to his mind.
Stifling the majority of his rasps and sobs , he looked up from the ground with his reddened visage and focused his blurred vision directly on the bag that was left on the side of the threshold , near the stove.
And it still hadn't been emptied.
Without a word being mentioned , he swallowed the remaining misery that threatened to break out of him and started to hobble towards the rubbish bag with the bare strength that he had left.
It took him some time but he eventually reached his destination. No coherent thought really was in him at the moment as he fell beside the bag with the reserve of his strength coming to an end before he started to fish through the contents of the bag for what he was looking for.
And it wasn't long at all until he found it.
Spurned by nothing other than the thoughts that had been draining him day in and day out , his frail and shaky fingers grabbed the neck of an empty booze bottle. His dimmed and darkened bronze orbs looked down at the lone item with solidifying intentions before he did something unexpected.
He smashed the glass into the ground in front of him.
With one solid swoop against the dull stone , the sound of glass fragmenting rang in his ears loudly with the piercing crack. And immediately he saw the once intact bottle he had been holding by the neck , now shattered into a number of pieces , big and small. And scattered all over.
Some of the segments of glass flew into him , pricking him from the side , but he did not care as his eyes focused on the largest and most dangerous piece out of the lot.
Driven by questionable impulse , the young boy rashly picked up the largest shard broken away , which was made up from the middle segment of the decimated bottle. Fresh blood began to come forth from his fingers as new cuts formed with the reckless hold he had on the glass.
His palms started to bleed even through the gauze around them as his fingers commenced to enclose the shard with his strengthening intentions in mind. All the while doing so , his memories recalled the other times of when he had been witness to glass shattering , why it had happened and what had come out of it.
His heart grew heavier as he lifted the jagged shard towards his face with no care. His eyes became vacant as he looked at the wielded shard and remembered the other time he had seen something this shocking occurring.
His mother…She had been the one to hold something like this near her own face. After having inflicted her own body with a multitude of lacerations through her own doing , sitting in a pool of her own blood and having red flow down her like rivers. She had been the one to hold a shard just like he was , bloodied with determination to do something rash.
And he was the one who stopped her.
Stopped her from doing what she was about to do out of horror and desperation. Stopped her from taking her own life after she had broken away from her bounds and had literally gone hysterical in the process of wanting to do so. Stopped her because he didn't want to be alone…
Yet as he recalled that dreadful night. He also remembered that which ensued after. Those words painfully more vivid than anything else from the encounter. And those words were the ones that stuck with him the most.
Driving him to do what he was about to himself.
He swallowed thickly as he moved the shard down from his face and angled it towards the middle of his throat , the sharpest segment only a few inches away from his flesh as he could feel himself trembling from these foreign intentions. Trembling from the intensity of darkness that was blinding him as he looked on at the fragment with a still and weighted gaze.
She said that he was the one behind her suffering. The one stopping her from finally escaping hell. The reason behind her change , from the sweet and tender woman he used to know , to the vicious and bitter mad woman that shared his mother's face.
The only reason behind her being like this,
Further tears fell down his face with parts of his framing bangs sticking onto his shadowed face as his fingers tightened around the shard and brought forth more blood to stain the fragment as more horridly cruel thoughts resurfaced in his mind along with all the monsters preying on him too.
She said he was the reason behind her suffering. He was a mistake and the greatest one. The mere sight of him made her sick and she made no effort to conceal how much she utterly despised him. How much she hated him. Everything about him.
She made no effort to hide the fact that he was nothing but a problem for her.
A problem…
He started to inch the shard closer , his breaths scarce and deep as he kept looking at the bloodied fragment with pain swirling inside him. Unable to dismiss those harsh words from his mind , spoken by the one whom he only sought to love and be accepted by.
And alongside that , unable to ignore the callous sayings of those who insulted and rebuked him for similar things. Saying his existence was a burden. How much better it would be if the world had gotten rid of him. How he was nothing but a wretched being.
And how he did nothing but cause problems.
How he'd do nothing…
But cause problems.
Jellal closed his eyes in acceptance as he allowed his final tears to fall in their measure. His grip on the shard tightening dangerously and causing more pain to his already battered palms as his readying strength got prepared to do what he believed would make it all better again.
Because if it was the fact that he was the problem.
Would this then…
...Be the solution?
As the child drew back the angled shard from his vulnerable flesh and felt his muscles clenching as he slowly found the determination to thrust the piece into him and put an end to all the issues that existed , in that nick of time a door unlatched from nearby and he was greeted by the sound of a shrill voice that he truly did not expect.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Jellal was broken out of his intentions , his eyes flashed open as he was met with the look of horror on the woman that had emerged from the washroom. His still bronzed orbs could barely focus on the detail present on their faces , but he could feel the shock coming from both of them.
Irose and more shockingly the one who accompanied her.
His mother.
The young brunette was alarmed by the sudden rise in the drunken woman's tone , only to find that when she rushed out beside her , there was a sight she really did not contrive to witness. Her large blue orbs went wide in absolute disturbance , her hand gone to cover her mouth in pure alarm as she took in the details of that which was occurring from the young child's hand.
Blood was seeping from him , glass shattered in harmful pieces and surrounding his soaked being. The boy being close to the rubbish from his mother's room that was meant to be thrown out , and what made her most speechless was the fact where he had been holding one of those dangerous shards close to .
And what he was about to do with it.
His grip on the sanguine covered shard faltered entirely , the item falling from his hands and onto the floor with another diluted ring. His body turned unnaturally still as he was ripped out of those questionable thoughts and motives that were plaguing him and was left just as speechless as the women who were in front of him.
Because from the fact that his mother had screamed at him yet he could see her features being contorted with unhidden horror and even pain…
He really did not know what his answer was to her question.
He thought that ridding the world of his existence was going to make everything better for the world. Make everything better for everyone. Better for all those who had problems.
But most importantly.
Better for her.
But with the rigid look of absolute alarm plastered over her face , and the ripple of outrage that was beginning to surface from her.
He didn't know how much truth that train of thought held anymore.
He simply just sat there in a pool of pathetic wetness , unable to articulate anything and neither wanting to , with his fresh blood running down him , the scene reminiscent of that which he witnessed of her practically a year back. His glazed and wide bronze orbs were still just as him , staring distantly at the tattooed woman who was just as frozen as he had a stark realisation of just how unknown his intentions were to himself.
Having become blinded by his own weakness to such a point that he was doing something he didn't even understand.
He was going to do something he didn't understand.
And what he was seeing come out as a result of it.
He didn't understand even more.
He watched the midnight haired woman crumple upon herself , as if overwhelmed by something intense as she struggled to stay on her own two feet. The sight of this leaving him just as dumb founded as she soon started to shake violently herself as her long and thick hair obscured her features whilst she buried her face into her palms and sobbed.
The action truly shocked him , and he could do nothing but wordlessly watch as the maelstrom of emotions that had been driving him dissipated and left him in a blank state and having been absorbed into the tearful woman in front of him. Simply leaving him to observe that which was around him as his mother unravelled right in front of him and cried heavily into her shaking hands.
It was not clear to him what was causing her this sudden pain as all that she had been saying to him contradicted any sense of emotion that she was showing now. And even more so with what he heard her blurt out tearfully as her voice reappeared in the scene.
"Y-You w-want to d-die after a-all the p-problems you p-put me t-through?"
As the pale skinned woman continued to rasp such to the world , he simply listened with a vacant gaze , his presence barely there as he was stuck in his own shock. Unable to do anything but watch her emotions unfold as her words did have some effect on him , but this time it wasn't as unbearable as he would have imagined.
"Y-You t-think y-you can j-just get a-away and l-leave me o-on my o-own?"
"A-Alone?"
Her sobs grew with expressing those thoughts , the walls bouncing with the incoming hysteria and the storm he could see approaching from her irrationality. He watched as he saw her shaking body shudder even more , yet the trembles now were morphing into something else whilst he just looked on.
"A-After w-what y-you t-took a-away f-from m-me?"
Irose could feel another wave of intensity coming over the woman , one that was unwanted as her behaviour was once again turning unexplainable with what she was saying , denoting some form of grief and pain , yet she could see anger starting to writhe in the woman's veins as her limbs became increasingly rigid.
And her wrath would come to commence.
Whilst Kaileen's emotions continued to stir the others with confusion from her outbreak , another pair of footsteps entered the scene. Namely the noirette who was waiting for the woman's arrival back to her quarters so that they could get her ready for her next visit with the clients coming soon.
Though when she came to do so , she was greeted by a sight she wholly did not expect , and it did not take her long to be stunned by the same horror which had rooted into her acquaintance from seeing the dynamic unravel.
"Y-You w-want t-to l-leave m-me t-too?"
"Y-You w-want to d-die a-and l-leave m-me w-with m-more?"
Jellal had nothing to say to the woman's behaviour , dearly confused by the pain that was wrenching her tone and the sorrow that seemed to be present yet there was the grit of the mad woman there which existed alongside. He couldn't even process what was being said to him properly as he had become so lost in the moment.
Only coming back to reality when he felt that the brunette stone-faced lady had rushed to his side and was carefully lifting him away from the sight of injury before walking him away from the woman that was now being taken hold of by the other noirette.
His body just mindlessly followed the movements that was helped to assist him away , being guided back to his room and taken away from accomplishing any suicidal tendencies by the heavily distressed lady , whom was rushing him from the scene in hope to calm him down from that questionable mind space he was in.
"H-How c-could y-you d-do t-this t-to m-me?"
As he was being led away though , the sound of his mother's growing anger could also be heard as the sorrow in her voice melded into something else , and he could hear that she had returned again.
"Y-YOU S-SELFISH B-BRAT!"
But oddly enough the pain wasn't as sharp as the times before from hearing her outrage. Actually it was incredibly muted , if not even there at all. Whether that was because he wasn't facing her anymore or not in the same room as her , he didn't know.
"I-IF Y-YOU'RE SO A-ADAMANT T-TO DIE."
"W-WHY D-DON'T I K-KILL Y-YOU M-MY S-SELF!"
Yet even with the fact he could hear her raising her broken voice again with piercing octaves through her wails , intent on making him hear those dismal threats again even with the distance between them , even with the walls between them…It didn't feel as deeply afflicting.
"W-WILL Y-YOU B-BE S-SATISFIED T-THEN?!"
Rather the words just existed in the moment. And any pain that he would have expected from them seemed like it had been drowned out or disconnected in a way.
As the doors closed on them as she had him stand in the middle , getting prepared to strip him out of his bloodied and soaked clothes and inspect/tend to the injuries created , and muttering things to him in an effort to keep his mental state stable and unaffected by what was being said , but unknown to her was the fact that Jellal had somehow turned practically deaf to all that was happening and being said due to being so consumed by his own thoughts.
None of the bellowed harsh words were strangely capable of putting any heavy influence over him nor bringing any pain out of him or digging it deeper inside him as he just stood there vacantly , almost detached from life it's self.
Doing nothing but quietly ruminated over one realisation that had become clear to him in the midst of things.
Clear as he hit that rock bottom and the answer that he was looking for was finally found.
As now he knew ,
What he was about to do,
Wasn't the solution.
It wouldn't change anything.
But then the question that inevitably came after that,
Made him start to consider,
What actually would?
Soft weeps left the brunette's quivering lips as she sat alone at the table in the dark , sobbing into her damp napkin as she reminisced the horror that she never thought she would ever witness.
A child actually ready to take his own life.
A child.
Something she couldn't even contrive , but having witnessed it , the sight absolutely haunted her and it was an understatement to say it shook her up. The mere realisation of what the young boy was going to do actually broke her in a way that she was not ready for.
All protocol out of the window that she had been trained with , she couldn't let her soft and weak emotions be barred anymore. Because in that moment when she saw him bleeding , drained , aiming a glass shard to the flesh of his neck with intent to do irreversible damage , she didn't see the devil that everyone claimed him to be.
The devil spawn who deserved the hatred of the world.
She saw a child so lost in his own depths and darkness. A soul so drowned in misery , the only escape which seemed plausible was the eternal escape. Such a gruesome thought for anyone , whether they be young or old. And to see a child in the midst of such a crisis , she couldn't stop herself from wanting to shield him.
Going as far as taking him away into the comfort of his own room , getting him completely stripped and washed of any stain of the sin , and just staying with the boy to calm him down and tell him what he should have been hearing , rather than what the world wanted him to hear.
But even with that being done , it seemed to make no difference to the young child , he had gone too far into the void to actually consider anything other than pain , insults or complaints said to him.
And noticing that broke her even more.
Though eventually the child did fall asleep after being watched by her , she couldn't help but have her mind flash back to the dismal memory of the time she had came to feed him , and where that encounter had gone and what was asked.
A choke left her lips as the realisation hit her from why Jellal actually reacted to those words of her asking something so questionable. It was not because he denied the question , but he reacted because he actually had started to consider it.
She made him consider it.
And she felt so horrible for it.
She couldn't believe her foolishness in the matter and that she had been blinded to the signs of concern that the child was showing all this time. All because she was focused on doing the job that she was struggling with to a well enough degree.
The job was meant to keep her and her family well off and keep her good in the eyes of her family who thought she was good for nothing as she seemed to struggle with a great deal of things. Only because of her general of a father , had she been given the opportunity to be posted to such a critical yet bizarre duty.
Through doing such she would prove her reverence to the lands that raised her , prove her worth to the people who were losing faith in her , and overall proving that she was more than just a meek and bumbling idiot.
But with what this job was taking out of her…
She was beginning to believe that everything said about her must have been true. She had no resolve in these circumstances like others would have.
She was a failure.
She failed each time she saw the woman or child cry and it hurt her. She failed each time she was impacted by the pain of those condemned and wishing to lighten their load. She failed each time that she forgot the labels of such cursed beings and started to see them as more than just corrupt.
She failed when she started to see them as more than devils.
She failed when she started to see them as humans.
Something that had been stripped from them , and for some reason , it felt like it was being stripped away from her too. The repercussions of this job was truly eating away at her , more than anyone else and hence she was always under scrutiny , and it was getting to the point that she didn't know how much more she would be able to take until she did break.
She wasn't cold and quiet like Mika , she wasn't absorbed and bitter like Alika , she wasn't experienced and cruel like Vera. She was the odd one out and it was clear as day even when she did her best not to be.
She kept telling herself to get through it that it would get better and she would get stronger to their pain the more she was exposed to it , but that was seeming more and more like a pipe dream as she was the bystander for further trauma , and watched two souls completely becoming husks of themselves as their damnation dragged on.
The young brunette allowed herself to cry a bit more , only being allowed to do so in the comfort of silence and isolation , and trying to make most of her time to release her anguish , but as she was trying to do so , the experience had to be cut short as she heard footsteps entering the vicinity again , telling her time was up.
Rashly the woman started to wipe away any evidence of her weakness , using her damp napkin to cool down her blotchy complexion back to it's creamy rosiness , however her actions became less adamant when she felt a lone gaze watching her and hesitantly turned to see who it was.
Her colleague had come from the room she had been stationed in , her expression looking distanced as ever and her dark eyes seeming troubled. She felt the older woman take a glance at her tearful expression. She wasn't quick enough to hide and felt the air remain still.
Still as the both of them just shared wordless glances , nothing having to be said as it was clear what was on the both of their minds since the incident and how speechless they had become as witnesses.
Sharing the same thoughts , reminiscing about the same horror that hadn't been able to leave the both of them as they shared one last pensive and drained stare before the noirette walked away across the stony threshold and went to seclude herself in the designated quarters that were off limits to anyone but them.
Irose swallowed thickly as she put her dampened napkin down and got ready for her shift of looking over the woman for the evening.
Steeling her fragile heart for what she had to do with repeating the reasoning that had been burned into her conscience from how much she heard it.
The reasoning that should have assuaged her weakness and guilt , but instead left her horribly conflicted.
Because they're devils...
Author's Note:
Okay...that was a difficult chapter , and honestly this was the worst development for young Jelly as of yet. But now that has finished , now comes the true developments that i've been waiting for...and what a development that will be.
Let's just say that sweet and frail boy you've been seeing is not going to be there anymore...