Chapter Six- The Loneliest Number

Matt sat in the bathroom on the floor during a period of temporary insanity. He was ripping apart one of his father's razors in an attempt to get the blade out. A mirror had been set down on the floor and he stared into it.

"I hate you. Look at those eyes. Your eyes can be so cruel..." Matt spoke softly to his reflection and yanked the blade out of the razor. He stood up and leaned over the bathroom sink.

The metal cut into the skin on his arm like a tiny knife, slicing it open. Barely enough to hurt, but enough to make it bleed. He sliced his skin again, a bit harder this time, and blood oozed out of the two wounds. The third slice was the last and the hardest, he did it quicker than before to create a deep but even cut.

Again, there was a mirror in front of him. The young man he had been looking at in every mirror he saw lately seemed less and less like someone he knew and more and more like a terrible stranger. This stranger was his worst enemy, he hated him, he hated himself.

"Your eyes can be so cruel...." Matt even began to feel sorry for himself for hating to look in the eyes he had been told were beautiful by so many people. His blue eyes, that once sparkled in the sunlight but were now crying in darkness.

He ran water over his arm to wash the blood off and kept it under the stream coming out of the faucet. More blood kept coming, but the wounds slowly started to seal up. In a few minutes he dried off the cuts which had finally stopped bleeding. He wrapped a bandage around his arm and pulled his sleeve back down to cover it up.

For some reason he felt very satisfied with himself. In his bedroom the clock read 1:00. He sat down on his bed in his pitch black room and thought. Time passed, it felt like minutes but had actually been close to an hour.

The clock read 2:00 as Matt slipped his shoes and coat on and quietly closed the door behind him and went outside into the night.

Tai was currently in his own bed, sound asleep. Meeko was curled up on his legs, managing to ignore Tai's ever present snoring. Her ear perked up when she heard a soft click and the sound of someone moving around outside Tai's bedroom. She was wide awake now, facing towards the bedroom door with the hair on her back standing on end. She hissed loudly at the intruder who stepped into the room.

"Shh... Meeko, it's just me."

Meeko continued hissing and then darted out of the room.

"Heh, I guess she knew it was me. I wonder why all cats hate me?" He smiled to himself.

He moved over and looked down at Tai, sleeping soundly. He stepped over him and lied down on the other side of the bed. He slid his arms around Tai, but in the process woke him up.

Tai shot up in bed. "What's going on!?" He said in a frightened whisper.

"Tai, settle down, it's just me."

"Matt? What are you doing here, it's two o'clock in the morning! How did you get in?"

"Through the front door, where else? I used the key you gave me."

"What the heck are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you."

He laid back down in bed and Matt rested his head on Tai's chest.

"You're crazy."

"Mmmhmm...."

Tai twirled a piece of Matt's hair around his finger and stared blankly ahead.

"Matt, do you really love me?"

Matt sat up a little so he was leaning over Tai and looked down at him.

"Of course I do. I love you more than anything. I love you more than the moon and the stars and the whole universe put together." Matt brushed Tai's messy hair out of his eyes and off his forehead. "What about you, how much do you love me?"

"I love you more than a million ice cream cones and a billion cupcakes. I love you more than every piece of pizza and every riceball and every sushi roll all mashed up into one giant lunch!"

"Tai do you ever think about anything besides food?"

"One other thing."

"Yeah, like what?"

"You."

Matt leaned down and pressed his lips against Tai's. They kissed a kiss so loving, not passionate, just with their lips locked and filled with love and they kept kissing as if they would both die if they stopped. Matt moved on top of Tai without taking his lips away.

Matt cried for probably the hundredth time since he had returned home because he loved Tai so much, and they still kept kissing. And Tai cried because Matt was crying and he knew his best friend was going through some kind of pain that he couldn't understand, and they still kept kissing.

At last Matt lifted his lips away from Tai's. Neither of them said anything, nothing needed to be said. Matt rolled off of Tai and closed his eyes. He pulled the blankets up higher around them, and they both drifted off to sleep together for the second time that day. They didn't care what the morning might bring, as long as they were together.