悲哀
"I'm not going to help you in this."
Her voice is acidic, affronted, and it resounds in your head long after she's left. The screech of her chair against the floor fades to nothing, but the irritated stares persist, directed at you as though it's your fault your sister lost her temper and stormed out of the library. Aoba looks at you as though he's disappointed, as though you've hurt Mairu on purpose , and he goes after her before you can call out to him.
The tension diffuses, and silence hangs heavy in the air. The other students go back to work now there's nothing to see, and you're alone.
[You have been for a long time, if you don't count it .]
You can hear pages turning and pens scratching, and you want nothing more than the sound of Mairu's laughter to drown out the words throbbing in your skull.
It's a cacophony of severance, growing louder every day.
Final exams are drawing nearer, and extra curricular activities are cancelled in favour of study sessions. You don't really mind, seeing as you never feel well enough to play sport anymore anyway. The library is warmer than your classroom, so you spend lunchtime there attempting to study, but the letters and numbers dance on the page so much you never get anything done.
It's still there, even when you're working.
You throw your lunch away in the girl's bathroom — another futile effort at secrecy — and you wish you were friends with the other girls so you could ask them to do it for you when they throw their own wrappers away. Standing makes you dizzy after another missed meal, but you tell yourself you're just over-tired. Your locker is full of cereal bars, and you feel awful because you're wasting so much food , but Mairu still makes you lunch every day, even when you tell her not to. You love her, more than anything, and you don't want to hurt her, but you wish that she didn't bother. When you look at the photos and receipts and cinema tickets pinned to your notice board, you realise with dull eyes that they speak of a different time. They're tokens of another life, a life that no longer belongs to you. You're hovering somewhere in between, half-dead but too tired to let go. Suicide requires planning. It's active, too much of a choice, so you'll leave it to fate instead. You're not thin enough to die, and Mairu's wrong to send you links to stories of 'tragic teens' in baggy underwear with tubes shoved down their noses. It's the only time she speaks to you now, and you don't think you could miss her more.
||Un Fantasma Tra Noi||
"Mum's coming home tomorrow. She'll be here at six."
It's the first time Mairu's spoken to you in two days. On Wednesday evening she made omurice, and she told you that she wouldn't leave your side until you ate at least half of it. She'd clearly worked hard on the presentation, the omelette a perfect sunflower gold and the ketchup drizzled in the shape of a heart. She took a seat beside you and began eating her own with a hesitant smile so unlike her, so painfully removed from her usual arrogant certainty that the anxiety coiling in your throat made it hard to breathe. She told you how she'd seen Iza-nii and Shizuo-san talking, and it was the first time she'd ever seen them not trying to kill each other. She told you about her classes and Aoba, how she loves you, 'you're thin already', 'you don't need to do this anymore', and you stirred the rice around your plate, wishing you could eat for her if not for yourself, but you couldn't, you can't . All the blood rushed to your head and you were breathing too fast...and you can't, you don't know how to stop this.
Mairu threw the plate at the wall and didn't emerge from the bathroom until over an hour later, her eyes red from crying, and you wished that the ketchup staining the wall was your blood, because you can't take this anymore. You don't know how to tell her that you don't understand it yourself, that it's everything and nothing to do with your weight, that you can look at the TV or your homework and not really see it, that the only dim flicker of 'happiness' you feel is when you've eaten less than 300 calories.
You wonder if Iza-nii told your Mum about the counselling referral. The waiting list is eight weeks long, and it's been three since Iza-nii took you to the doctor, but things are getting worse and worse, and you're not sure how much more of this you can take. Your customary half a slice of bread a day (dry, of course), has been replaced with an apple, and you stopped sitting down weeks ago. You have to at school, but a vicious voice in your head tells you you're lazy, you're disgusting, and the guilt is too much if you don't stand when you have the choice to. Standing burns approximately fifty more calories per hour than sitting, and maybe that's why you started this peculiar habit, but now you're certain that you do it because it hurts to sit down. Your nails are tinged blue, your hair and skin are dry, and there's a soft brush of hair on the tops of your arms and the base of your neck. You can fit your hand around your bicep, and two hands around the top of your thigh. That's become a habit too, and you realize that you're constantly circling your hands around your limbs in sequence and pulling at the fabric of your shirt so that it doesn't cling to your stomach. You're wearing baggier clothes, and it's not to hide how thin you are like the internet says, but because you don't want anybody to look at your body. You're cold all the time, and sometimes your skin goes bright red from standing too close to the heater in your bedroom.
There's no joy when you see your Mum on Friday, and you find being around her and Mairu horribly claustrophobic. You excuse yourself to your room under the pretense of getting an early night, and you pray that they leave you be, even though your skin is crawling with loneliness and you're afraid of being alone. You lie awake most of the night, but on Saturday morning you awake to hushed voices in the living room, and you listen without really hearing from outside the door.
"Lots of teenage girls go on diets, Izaya-kun, it's a normal part of life."
"But Mum-" Mairu sounds exasperated, and Iza-nii cuts her off in a tone you've never heard him use before. He's angry, furious even, and it scares you because you know he dislikes Kyouko, but you've never heard him talk to her like this.
"I wouldn't have expected you to notice, but I'd think that with two of your offspring telling you there's something wrong, you'd at least consider the possibility that this is serious. If you actually took the time to look at her properly, you'd realize how sick she is, but I suppose you've been too busy with work to pay any attention to your own daughter."
You're torn between leaving the house and flinging the door open, and although everything tells you to leave and escape the scrutiny waiting for you behind the door, you find yourself opening it. Iza-nii is leaning against the table, as far away from your mother as he could possibly be, and Mairu is positioned between them, trying and failing to mediate. In the past she'd take great joy in riling them both up, but nothing's how it was since this came along. It's the first time that the four of you have been in a room together in years, and you can't help but lament that the reunion is every bit the portrait of a dysfunctional family. Iza-nii's jaw is tense with anger, and there's dark imprints beneath his eyes, attesting to lack of sleep. Mairu's hair, always neatly plaited, looks hastily done. There's no warmth in her eyes as she watches you step into the living room. Your mother offers you a forced smile, and shoots Iza-nii a wary glance.
"Kururi, darling, how are you feeling? You look at bit... peaky."
She looks so much like Iza-nii, and you wonder if this would have been the moment that they finally reconciled, if it weren't for you.
"Peaky?" Izaya scoffs incredulously, pulling his phone from his pocket as he turns to leave the room. "I'm taking her to a doctor."
You open your mouth to protest — you saw one three weeks ago, you don't need to go again — but this is Iza-nii, and when he speaks like this you know there's no way of winning. He leaves the room without so much as a glance at your mother, and there's silence again, loud enough to rival the noise in your head. Mairu frowns at you before staring at the floor, fiddling with the end of her plaits, and your mother looks at you searchingly, as though you can give her some sort of solution to this ever confounding problem.
"I don't know what I've done wrong." She says softly.
||When it's Cold I'd Like to Die||
"I'm not a paediatrician, but I'll see what I can do."
While you're having a cold stethoscope pressed to your skin and your blood pressure taken, you contemplate the differences between Kishitani Shinra's apartment and Iza-nii's. Iza-nii's is huge and somewhat minimalistic (if you don't count the enormous desk and heavy bookcases), while Shinra's is smaller and more homely. You think that you'd prefer to live in one like Shinra's, but the cold room he collects his medical equipment from puts you off. It's the sort of room where you'd expect to find body parts in the freezer.
Iza-nii doesn't look in your direction the whole time Shinra is poking and prodding you, preferring to look down on the the streets below. His hands are slung in his pockets casually, but none of his usual focus is there, and it isn't until Shinra announces that he's finished that Iza-nii takes a seat beside you.
"Well, Kururi-chan, I can tell you that your capillary refill is poor and your resting heart rate is slower than it should be for a person of your age. Your blood pressure is also low, and your weight is significantly lower than it should be. In fact, I'd say that if you were to remain at this weight or drop any lower you'd be putting yourself at risk of developing major complications. Izaya-kun tells me that you haven't been eating well, is there a reason for that?"
You don't know what to say, so you shake your head, even though it's a lie and you know it.
"Kururi was diagnosed with anorexia by the other doctor." Iza-nii says flatly. "If you don't tell Shinra what's been going on, he can't help you."
They're both looking at you intently, and you'd rather be at home faced with Mum and Kururi than them. You don't want to talk about this. It's not a problem, not really. You can't tell them the truth, you...
"Hmm, and you said that liver enzymes were also elevated, that can become very serious if left untreated. Kururi, have you been feeling sad?" Shinra's voice is gentle, and something about it makes tears prick in your eyes, because yes, you've been feeling sad, and this is the first time someone's vocalized what you can't say.
"It's okay to feel sad from time to time, but when we feel sad a lot it can make things very difficult for us, and we might need help to get through that. Do you think that feeling sad has made it harder for you to eat?"
You nod, and you want to tell him that it's not just that, but Iza-nii does it for you, and it makes your vision blur even more because you knew that he could see things in people, but you didn't think that you were one of them.
"Do you think that if I get in contact with one of my friends and they write you a diet plan to stick to, you could try it? We could give it two days, and if you can't manage we'll have to see about getting you some more help."
You nod again, and you want it to be true, but it's an empty promise and you know it.
||Isolate||
You haven't seen Mairu in two days, and it's been two days of Iza-nii cooking for you and sitting with you, the strain on his face showing more each day. You've never known him to take time off work — even when he got stabbed he was back to working within a day — but this time he only answers the phone to give a cursory apology and a promise to be in contact soon. It makes you feel burdensome, but you daren't say anything to him about it. He's given his secretary time off, so it's just the two of you, and although you're grateful it makes you feel as though the situation is more serious than you'd like to believe. You don't know what will happen now you've failed to stick to the meal plan, and you're afraid of finding out. It doesn't feel like winning when it's been 36 hours and all you've managed to eat is an apple. Iza-nii is trying harder than he ever has with you, and you feel ashamed that you've let him down. You know that you need to start eating properly, but you can't bring yourself to when even considering having an extra slice of bread makes you feel panicked and nauseated. Your head feels like a broken washing machine, heavy thoughts tumbling round and round with no way for you to turn it off. Your feet hurt from standing, and your whole being aches unbearably. The weight of it all is bearing down on you, crushing you, and you wish it would finish you off because you really can't do this any longer.
By the end of the second day, you find out that you're going to be admitted to a hospital ward, and Iza-nii takes you back to your flat to pack your stuff. You find yourself sitting on his lap, crying like you never have before, and he stiffens like he doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know how to console you, but he rubs your back and tells you that it'll be okay.
You can't say that you believe him.