AN: Suicide warning.
"How could I have let this happen...?," he thought. Himemiya remained as still and silent as the two teenagers sleeping beside him. His eyes had stopped at the second word of Hase's suicide letter. It was dark and his eyes had adjusted hours prior to read it clearly- to worried to shut his eyes for one second. But there was something in him that wouldn't let him read further without bursting into tears yet again. Not after he just got his emotions under control. Sure, he was crying now, but it definitely wasn't the kind of tears that would make a person's vocal chords hiccup and gargle involuntarily.
He lingered on every word as if Hase had actually been dead. "If there was anything good about living..." But he couldn't do it. "I can't do this. This letter should've never existed in the first place!," he thought. "How could you have let her get to this point in the first place Himemiya?! I...I knew she was depressed but I didn't think..."
The edges of the paper scrunched up underneath his balled fists. And one after another, tears, like blood from an open wound, splotched the neat Hase handwriting. It would be next to impossible to read the final paragraph, although something told him that he didn't care because this wouldn't be the last of her existence.
"I...I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry Hase. I'm sorry I wasn't a better listener. I'm sorry I wasn't a better friend- I'm sorry for everything."
He raised his head. Him, Sorata and Mia, the hiking girl who found Hase when the rope snapped, were sleeping in a makeshift tent made of emergency thermal blanket sheets. They were large- enough to completely wrap two people side by side, and they came in packs of ten. Mia's actual tent was occupied by Hase and Aoyama, who had insisted that they stay together for a talk and or vent. Hase did find it easier to talk to Aoyama after all, but there was nothing to be heard through the thin 'walls' that night. Hase just went to sleep like nothing had happened, it seemed.
Until around three in the morning, but it wasn't voices he heard. Himemiya heard the quiet buzz of a tent zipper being unzipped painfully slowly. It got higher in pitch, followed by a bit of rustling that was inevitable with sleeping bag fabric, before the tent was zipped back shut. It was Hase, no surprise there, when Himemiya looked out the cracks of the edges of the makeshift tent with one eye- she was dressed in a oversized pink hoodie and sweatpants, and she was getting darker and darker as she walked into the forest trail.
And a few minutes later, Himemiya didn't hesitate to leave his own tent as quietly as she had, and to tail her so that she was barely visible in the foliage. It was a straight trail anyways, and more than likely she was having her own difficulty sleeping as he had and just needed a walk to clear her mind. More than likely, he hoped.
He recalled the first ever serious talk they had about her mental health.
"Actually...," she said. "I've been depressed for a good part of my life now."
Himemiya would respond with a mixed look of confusion and guilt and sharp pain once it all sunk in. "...you have?"
"Mhm. For the longest time, I thought that everyone was like that. Until I went to a therapist and she told me that it's not normal to be so sad all the time. And I don't think I have anything to be sad about anyways. I do well in school, my parents love me, I was never abused or traumatized. I have friends and I have you, Himemiya. But I just feel so empty. I shouldn't feel like that. I feel so guilty that I feel like that. I don't deserve to feel like that. Only people who actually have problems."
He remembered the confession clear as day. It was a Friday afternoon long after clubs had finished and Hase finished studying in the library, and the two were walking home.
"Are you hearing yourself Hase?," he said, firmly grabbing her by the shoulders. "People who actually have problems?"
"I-It's not me. I was given the perfect life, you know that."
"It doesn't mean your feelings are wrong though!," he yelled. "Why the Hell am I hearing about this just now?!"
"I'm sorry."
He hugged her tight and she couldn't help but cry. "Don't be sorry. You're a really good actor, you know that? You looked happy and okay but I didn't know how much you were hurting inside."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Please don't be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. You thought that you'd be burdening everyone by saying this but it's exactly the opposite. We all feel depressed sometimes and we get what you're feeling."
"...thanks."
It was such a relief to get it off her shoulders but the guilt persisted. She couldn't find one moment of peace without a voice in the back of her mind saying that she was a burden, and that she wasn't special for being in the exact same circumstances as Himemiya. Her legs ceased to function, and Himemiya crouched with her, so that she was a curled up ball on two feet, sobbing in the crook of his uniform.
"What's wrong with me Himemiya?," she sobbed.
"Hase. We're gonna get you help, okay?"
"I tried. Three months ago, I started taking medications. It was...God Himemiya, it was wonderful. I didn't hate myself. I didn't spend every waking moment nervous about what other people thought of me. I could actually function for the day and have some left over. I wasn't happy but I wasn't miserable. I was alive. But its gone now- it doesn't work. They kept increasing it again and again but its not the same anymore! I'm just an empty husk of a human being that can study and pass an exam!"
He stopped. The dirt trail merged into a semi-open clearing, a spot that was less populated with trees than on either side of the trail. The moonlight was brighter now, and Himemiya could make out a park bench here and there, as well as the glistening of the water from a small pond. Under the right context, this would've been the perfect place to have a picnic, if it weren't for the rope tied to the branch of a tree. His jaw dropped. And when Hase placed an old milk crate underneath it so that she can tie the two frayed ends of the noose together, his heart stopped completely.
He stood there and watched. There was no way she was serious? Hase was smiling ear to ear with hopeful eyebrows as she made sure the knot held her body weight by grabbing the noose and suspending herself from it. Without a second thought, she slipped her head through it and slid the knot down until it grimly locked around her neck- at this point, she was on her tippy toes on the edge of the milk crate. The sober, sane and lucid Hase really would've died a second time, if it weren't for Himemiya running up and lifting her legs up right as she tipped the crate over.
They both screamed frenzied cries at the same time. Himemiya, holding her up for literal dear life, while Hase was frantically ripping his hair and shoving him back, but to no avail.
"STOP IT!," Hase screeched. "STOP! LEMME GO!"
"I'M NOT LETTING YOU GO!," Himemiya screamed back. He was a different creature at that point, getting right back up after a well placed knee to the chin snapped his head back and sent him crumbling to the ground. He didn't know if it was accidental or not, but he didn't care.
The rope. 'Do something about the rope!', he thought, but it was a sturdy 6mm nylon rope and with the way it was buried deep in Hase's neck, she would suffocate long before he managed to undo the knot.
But when he opened his eyes, there was a glimmer of a pocket knife in the grass, which he immediately grabbed and cut the rope above Hase in one smooth motion, before falling on his back. The chaos ensued. She got up, and began beating Himemiya with every last fibre of her being. The first punch deterred him from getting back up again. The second and third hurt him even more. And when his grip on the pocket knife had loosened from the punches, Hase yanked it out with both hands and backed off completely, screaming incomprehensible words all this time.
"JUST LET ME HAVE THIS!," she screamed with cut up hands.
"HASE!-" He lunged forward but stopped when she held the knife to he throat.
"DON'T!," she yelled.
Her voice cut through the night like a gunshot.
"DON'T TAKE ANOTHER STEP!"
Himemiya froze- there was enough distance between them that Hase could slice her throat open ear to ear before he could even touch her. Lots of 'personal space', just how she always liked it. He breathed. "Hase- listen to me. You don't have to do this. It gets better. It always gets better!"
She pressed the knife against the skin so hard that blood was drawn. "Oh, I know," she smiled, gesturing towards the knife. Suicidal people are often happy before they die, because it meant that they would stop hurting. And Hase was no exception.
"You know that's not what I meant!," he yelled, angry that she could think to crack jokes in this tense situation.
She sighed and smiled wearily at her friend. "Himemiya. Please. Let me have this. I'm tired of all this. You're tired of having to take care of me. I've thought it through, I really have. For three-quarters of my life I have. This isn't some impulse decision!"
"I'm not letting you-"
"-STAY BACK!"
He realized he had involuntarily moved forward and quickly took two steps back.
"Just...stay there. Right where you are. At least let me say goodbye to you. Like I said...if there's anything good about living, it would be you."
"...me? What's so good about me, Hase?," he asked with hope in his eyes.
"...I don't know. I just feel less...shitty when I'm around you."
"Hase. Put the knife down. Please. I'll stay right where I am. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
She hesitantly lowered it, her eyes scanning every part of Himemiya's moonlit figure that he wouldn't try anything. As the knife came down, she noticed the sheen of blood dripping from the end of the blade- had she cut herself? Her right arm was now by her side, and she touched her neck with her left to confirm that while she was bleeding, most of the blood came from the deep cut on Himemiya's hand. Guilt punched her in the stomach- and gave her one more reason why she should go through with the act.
But she had to remind herself why there was such a distance between them, when she accidentally stepped forward to check his hand. "Y-Your hand. Wrap something around it," she cried. "God...what have I done? I just keep hurting people over and over and over again..." She muttered that last bit but Himemiya heard. "Making you all worry-"
"-we are worried Hase. And we want you to get better, isn't that obvious? You're not a burden. We want to help."
"I know y-you do. I-I'm glad you're here, Himemiya. I was really scared to die alone."
He may as well have already lost Hase the moment she held the knife to her throat. Grief overcame Himemiya, and he crumbled onto the grass so that he could sob on all fours. The pain was immeasurable. He had never felt the same crushing, ripping feeling in his chest before. Is this what losing someone feels like? "Stop...talking like that," he sobbed through clenched teeth. "It's not our last moments together. It's not!"
"But I don't want you to watch," she wept. "So turn around, Himemiya."
He shook his head. "We can get you some new therapists," he cried. "New medications- anything! We haven't given up and you shouldn't either Hase!"
"...giving up?," she repeated. "You think I'm giving up? I've been holding on for nineteen years. It never gets better. Medications, therapies, you n-name it. And it's not like I have anything to kill myself over anyways. But I just...can't...keep going on anymore. And if you haven't given up on me now, you will. Once you know the real me, you'll be sick of me! The sad, crying, drug-addict loner!"
There was grass between his balled up fists. "The real you? The loner...that wants to get better?"
She nodded.
"You know...I was depressed too," he admitted. "I stayed in bed most days. Nothing was meaningful anymore- not even eating or sleeping or playing video games. I just laid there and wasted away for weeks at a time. I couldn't handle the fact that I was fucking alive for no fucking reason whatsoever. Like I was just taken out of nothingness and given the ability to experience things. But then I would die in no time whatsoever?"
"It sucks."
"Yeah. I hated my parents. And I hated myself for hating my parents. And once you start hating yourself its not too difficult to start hating everyone else too."
She sat down, hunched over and buried her face in her thighs, so that Himemiya wouldn't have to watch her cry. Her arms were wrapped around her legs. And ever so slowly, he walked over to her and hugged her while the knife was still there, clutched with both hands.
"Hase, if you really were a bad person, you wouldn't care. About any of this. About what other people thought of you, about what you thought of yourself...but you do care."
She dropped the knife so that she could return the hug.
"You want things to get better. We'll get you through this. Promise. And then you won't feel like shit anymore, okay?"
And again, Hase was struggling to breathe. But in a good way this time. The best, one might say- she took short breaths and gasps from the overwhelming sadness in her chest while she sobbed and drooled on Himemiya's shoulder. He had both arms around her, and she was shaking like a cat left out in the cold. But as much as the depression over came her yet again, there was relief mixed in there as well. It felt so, so, so good to cry on someone's shoulder instead of in the corner of her empty room.
Looking back, Hase would probably find it to be embarrassing that she was losing it more and more every time Himemiya would say mushy things like: "It's gonna be okay" and "We'll get through this together". She had cried in front of others more times than she could count, but oddly enough, it seemed the only time she would believe those words, was when they came out of Himemiya's mouth.
"...look after her...!"
"...I did! She said something about...and I fell asleep!"
The distant male and female voices made its way into the sleeping girl's dreams. After how ever many times she had hiked and camped, this whole situation was the last thing she had suspected. These mountains were lush and cold and beautiful. Not once had she ever seen any kind of drama out here, only other people like her wanting to get away from it all. For a little while at least, before they are forced by society to go back to the daily grind. And while her weekend certainly wasn't a waste (she had saved a life after all), she definitely could allow herself to be annoyed at the fact that she was woken up at an ungodly hour. There was just the faintest ray of sunlight kissing their campsite.
She pawed the long oily black hair from her mouth and crawled out of her sleeping back. She didn't have to care about keeping the structure of the makeshift tent anymore, so she leaned her body weight against the aluminium flap and it was separated from the duct tape walls. And she was met with Sorata, Aoyama and the cold air on her face.
She yawned. "...probably went on a walk together."
"What?!," Sorata asked, confused.
"I said they probably went on a walk together," Mia repeated.
"How do you-"
"No other guy? Then he must've gone with Hase." The hiker girl began dismantling the makeshift tent and folding the thermal blankets into neat squares. "If he hadn't he would've woken us up to go look for her with him."
Their panic robbed them of their deductive reasoning and they suddenly felt like little kids next to their mom.
"Oh. Yeah. That makes sense," Aoyama mumbled. "Sorata." She looked at him, huffed, then crossed her arms.
"What? You were just as panick-y!," Sorata defended.
"No I wasn't. I was worried."
"Ach du meine Güte...," Mia muttered as she moved on to disassembling the other tent while the two strangers bickered. It faded into background noise like the TV-dramas she used to put on to fill silence at her home as she rolled up sleeping bags, slid tent pegs, ropes and limbs back into the one sleeve, and made sure that the camp site was clean. Normally, she would be thinking about what she would eat for dinner tonight. But like Sorata and Aoyama, she too was worried about Hase. She couldn't help but keep thinking of the worse case scenario. What if Hase woke up in the middle of the night to kill herself, but Himemiya woke up too, so she just told him she was going to the bathroom and-
She shook her head. "You've gotta get that image out of your head Mia," she told herself. "She's alive. Gotta be." She attached the rolled up tent and sleeping bag to her backpack with nylon side-release buckles and set off with Sorata and Aoyama.
"Hey, Mia?," Sorata said. He sped up so that could walk next to her, while Aoyama lagged behind.
"What is it?"
"I just wanted to say thanks. For saving Hase and for dealing with us."
She smiled. Her crystal blue eyes twinkled in what little light there was. "It's no problem. Has she always been like this?," she asked with concern.
Sorata's shoulders hunched ever so slightly in shame. "I...never knew she was depressed, let alone suicidal."
"I know what you're thinking," Mia said. "And it's not your fault. Humans are so good at pretending."
"But why hide it? Why wouldn't she just let everyone know that she was in that much pain?"
"My, you are young," she deadpanned. "Mental health has always been a very personal thing. Everyone thinks that what they have is unique to them- that no one else feels the way they do, so they're hesitant to come out and say they need help."
They arrived at the same clearing, but Hase and Himemiya were nowhere to be seen. Mia continued to talk idly while Sorata and Aoyama walked over to the tree where the cut rope was swaying in the wind. And below it were two things: the noose loop, and Mia's knife. "What would she say to you anyway? 'Sorata, I'm depressed, please be kinder to me?'"
"Mia!," Aoyama called. "There's...!"
She walked over. "Oh hey. My knife. Forgot about that."
"Why is there blood on it?!"
"It wasn't bloodied when I used it. Like I said, when I first found her, she was hanging so I cut her down with my knife, that's all. So I can only guess..."
"She came back."
The three followed the blood trail into another dirt path. By this time, warm orange were at their feet, and they could see the steam of the morning mist evaporate in the light. Birds started to chirp awake too. The farther they walked, the ground beneath them got a little more rocky and they had to be careful not to slip on the somewhat-wet cobblestone steps that were carved in masses of mossy stone. Following the blood trail, they continued to climb upwards. Mia's hands were on her backpack straps and Sorata and Aoyama's hands were using the guide rail ropes to help them up.
When they were at the highest point, they were greeted with the orange sunlight from the sunrise above the horizon. They could see it from here, from the stone mountain they were on that prevented any trees from blocking their vision. And on the edge of the cliff, Mia, Sorata and Aoyama saw the silhouette of a larger person.
But when they got closer, they could see that it was actually two people holding each other in their arms.
"Blood?," was the first thing Mia said to get their attention. Sheepishly, Himemiya showed the wound bandaged with a length of ripped-up pink hoodie. She didn't want to admit that she was secretly giddy that she could finally use her first aid kit that hogged space in her bag and that she brought along with her anytime she went out hiking.
"I...I can't believe you two!," Aoyama scolded. "Do you know how worried you had us?!"
"And why is there blood on this knife?!," Sorata added.
"It was my fault," Hase cried. She hadn't stopped crying ever since she was held in Himemiya's arms. "I accidently cut Himemiya."
"How did you-" But locking eyes with him, Sorata understood what Himemiya was thinking. "Don't make her relive it Sorata," he would say. "I'll tell you when we get home."
Sorata sighed. The three took turns hugging the warm-as-heaven's-backyard Hase, before letting their legs dangle off the edge so that they could watch the sunrise. Well, all but one.
"...argh...!," Himemiya winced as Mia doused his deep cut with disinfectant. But he smiled afterwards, much to Hase's relief, finding the physical pain to be a sight for sore eyes after everything he went through.
"So...," Mia began as she bandaged his wound with gauze. "There's a rest stop about 2 miles from here. Doesn't have reception, but there's an emergency phoneline there. We'll call ahead, hike back and have emergency services pick us up."
"E-Emergency services?," Hase stammered. "It's fine! I'm okay, look-"
She was met universally with glares that said she didn't have a choice. Her neck was still alarmingly purple and Himemiya's hand was still bleeding through the bandage. It definitely needed stitches.
"In the meanwhile...I've got enough food and water to last us if anything unexpected happens so-" She stopped when she heard Hase's hiccups, and it got the attention of the three people to her left and the one to her right.
"I-I-I'm s-sorry."
"Stop. You know you haven't done anything wrong," Sorata said.
"B-But I-I h-have."
"Oh, you haven't. You might think that you've burdened us, but the real burden would've been if you had died. And you...you're not going to die, right...?"
Hase nodded. "Y-Yeah."
"Promise?," Aoyama asked, extending her pinkie finger. "Do you promise you won't ever, ever try and do something like that ever again?"
She wrapped her pinkie finger around Aoyama's and nodded. "I promise. I promise I'll get better. I promise I'll keep trying and failing and trying again to get this...this stupid feeling out of me. I just wanna be happy."
AN: One more chapter for the Hase mini-series! Thanks for the review TheOriginalAmy1 and littleMaybug06, glad you're enjoying the story!