I couldn't in good conscience call Wyatt again, I had just attempted to convince him I was alright when he knew I wasn't. If I contacted him freaking out who knew what he would do… probably call my case worker or the authorities or something. That or try and find his way to where I was and end up lost or dead on the side of the road somewhere.

He didn't need to be worrying about me right now… he had his own shit going on that he was constantly ignoring because of me.

I was such a fuck up.

In all of my dreams and my flashbacks I was never fully able to tell what my mother looked like, it was just something that never seemed to work even if I saw photographs of her, the eerie silhouette always around to play it's part.

The idea that she had been pregnant in any of those fuzzy memories…

It made me feel physically sick…

I stood on the patio now, no longer even certain if I was alone or not. My surroundings were like a dream, existing in a realm outside of reality. I felt like a speck of dust drifting above myself, able to see my own physical body outside of my eyes. It was like I was floating.

Bits and pieces of the day made their way to me, I was able to answer questions even if I couldn't hear myself or anyone around me. I only knew when I spoke because I watched myself. Mostly there was nothing. The day had simply ended without me being present or apart of it and I was the only one who even knew. To be honest I wasn't even sure when the last time I had eaten or used the bathroom was.

Had I eaten today?

Now here I was…

It was past midnight.

I was out of bed.

I was raiding a liquor cabinet.

This was the point of no return my life had slowly been coming to. I was sitting hunched over in the middle of the kitchen floor at the house my father lived in with the family he had replaced me with. He had replaced all of us… I had already managed to make my way through more than half a bottle of something without even knowing or caring what it was.

It was potent, so who gave a shit about anything else.

Actually, I was pretty sure it was whiskey. It was absolutely disgusting.

It didn't matter.

It didn't make me numb enough. I wanted to black out, I wanted to remember nothing that happened this week when I woke up.

I don't think I even put the bottle away, instead just leaving it near empty and splattered on the ground. It's hard to say for sure what was happening when you were lost within your own mind, coming in and out of reality without any understanding of where your physical body may end up when you came to.

I was leaning over the bathroom counter now without the slightest idea how or why I was here. I think I had vomited at some point. Where was I? I knew where my body was, but where was I? I didn't recognize myself anymore, nor did I recognize anything around me. My senses were out of wack and I was startled back to what I would hardly call consciousness by the noise surrounding me. I had lost my balance and knocked a few things off of the counter and had accidentally spilled the bottle of pills I had been trying to open, hardly even able to manage a childproof lock at my current state.

I don't think I've ever been this drunk in my entire life… at least I finally had at least somewhat of an understanding of what exactly it meant to be completely wasted. My friends would be proud.

I had also taken one of the pills I had been trying to open, hoping it might knock me out. Or was I just about to take one? I wasn't even sure what they were outside of the fact that they were prescription.

Maybe they would make me sleep if I took a few.

They were probably sleeping pills, all adults seemed to have sleeping pills.

Just taking one or two wouldn't hurt me, I was pretty sure Wyatt popped pills sometimes.

Wait… Had I already taken one? I couldn't remember…

I just needed to sleep… to forget.

I no longer had recognition or understanding of the world around me. I didn't know how long I had been standing, hunched over the sink. Time was meaningless right now, all I could focus on was how dizzy I felt. How heavy my body suddenly was. I couldn't even see anything clearly at this point, reduced to merely tunnel vision that did nothing to help me register my current surroundings.

The spinning, the confusion, the sense of numbness that had taken over my body.

I felt nothing.

I was nothing.

Only blackness…

The harshness of florescent lighting blinded me without even having to open my eyes, adding a second wave of pain on top of my already splitting headache. The numbness I had once felt was now replaced with confusion, taking me over without even bothering to remind me of what had happened.

What was going on?

Where was I?

I had no strength to pick myself up, choosing instead to remain still and wish that someone out there would turn the goddamn lights off. Although my eyes remained closed it felt like I was staring directly at the sun with an ice pick lodged into my skull.

There was so much fucking noise surrounding me. I wanted darkness and silence, anything that could help me sleep off what was probably going to be the worst hangover of my entire life. Not exactly surprising considering-

A false sensation of falling caught me off guard, forcing my eyes open and my body forward. Every inch of my body hurt, my airway was on fire as though I had been vomiting Fireball for the past hour and I couldn't imagine there was anything in my stomach at this point because if there was it definitely would have come back up by now.

I had to shield my eyes partially in order to focus on my surroundings, I still couldn't see anything clearly.

"No, he woke up. I'll call you back." I could hear others in here with me, speaking noncoherently with one another. "Kai, can you hear me?"

"Give him a moment." Another voice. "He might not know where he is right away and you don't want to frighten him."

My eyes were adjusting slowly, causing me to be able to make out the people who were in the room or wherever it was that we were. I had recognized Ono-San when she spoke and was now able to point out the woman who had been at my last visitation with my father, the one who had talked me through my episode.

Although he didn't speak or look at me, my father was in the room with us too, slouched over in a chair with his face hidden in his hands, clutching tightly at his hair and averting his gaze in the same way I normally did when uncomfortable.

"I see you're starting to wake up." A woman I didn't recognize spoke, standing near the bed I lay in and keeping her focus on the set of machines and wires I hadn't originally noticed.

A nurse?

"Where am I?" I asked stupidly, the answer to my question felt clear at this point. It was uncomfortable to speak with my windpipe cracking. I sounded like a junior high schooler going through puberty. Jokes on them, I'm a regular high schooler going through puberty.

"You're in the hospital." The woman said, giving the answer I already knew. She began checking my vitals before continuing. "You gave everyone quite a scare last night. Do you remember anything that happened?"

My mind remained clouded, only letting in bits and pieces.

The photograph of my mother…

I had sat in the darkness of the nighttime kitchen draining a bottle of alcohol like a desert dweller finding a stream of fresh water. I hadn't snapped back to any sort of reality until I saw myself in the bathroom mirror, hardly even recognizable. I had been startled when I saw myself, I hadn't wanted to see myself. I hadn't wanted to be within reality.

I took a few pills…

"I drank too much." Was all I responded with, shamefully sweeping the reality of last night under the rug. "It's not my first time, I've been drunk before. A lot, actually."

Now I was just blurting.

The woman from my last mental break down had approached my side now, sitting cautiously in a chair so that we were face to face. She looked me in the eye somewhat harshly.

"You did." She said calmly. "That statement would be correct. You're going to be feeling quite uncomfortable for a bit, you needed your stomach pumped. You drank nearly an entire bottle on top of the bottle of sleeping pills."

"I only took two or three." I couldn't deny the alcohol, though. I remembered drinking until the bottle was empty, scarcely even stopping for air.

"You took eight prescription pills, Kai." She stated. "The rest had been spilled out and I'm concerned that if you had the remainder at your disposal you would have taken them as well."

"I just wanted to sleep. I couldn't sleep."

"You aren't in trouble. I'm just trying to figure out exactly what happened. I'm a psychiatrist. I'm just hoping to talk to you."

She already was talking to me, her mouth was moving and she said words I understood. That was literally the definition of talking. All I wanted was to black out. I wanted to find a way to sleep where I wouldn't remember anything in the morning. Now it was morning and I still remembered.

"I just wanted to sleep." I repeated myself. The truth was too confusing, none of them would understand.

"What about waking up? Did you want that?"

I didn't understand the question.

"What does that even mean?" I asked rudely.

No one else spoke anymore, merely focusing on what she would say to me and how I would answer.

"I'm going to be blunt with you, okay?" She sighed. "It's important you understand that based on the way you were found and the amount of substances in your system, the hospital currently has your case ruled as an attempted suicide."

"I wasn't trying to kill myself." My face heat up while I spoke, suddenly hyper focused on the amount of eyes that were on me. This wasn't lost to her.

"If I have everyone leave, would you be willing to talk to me about what happened? Explain your side of the story?"

I kept my focus on the bodies occupying the space, still. Other than my caseworkers it was only my father in here with me. Just every day people I had gone out of my way to terrify. Everyone now stuck here due to my own stupidity.

"Is Riku alright?" I asked shamefully, unsure if I was speaking to the psychiatrist or to my father.

"He's in the waiting room with Hana." He answered without uncovering his face. "He's shaken up. I told him you would be okay and fucking hell knows why. When I found you like that… I thought you were dead, you weren't breathing. I swear I fucking thought you were dead. I scared him, I had to tell him something to calm him down."

He was crying, that's why he refused to uncover his face.

Had Riku seen me like that? Had he thought I was dead and that he was staring at my lifeless body? Had I just scarred him for life?

Clearing her throat, the psychologist spoke again, more harshly this time and likely for my own benefit.

"I would like to speak to Kai alone, please." She said, ordering everyone out of the room outside of the nurse, who then left on her own after finishing with my vitals. "You're saying that this was not a suicide attempt? Can you tell me what it was that happened? Why you were so desperate to fall asleep very quickly?"

I didn't want to talk about any of this right now. I said I hadn't tried to kill myself, that should be be end of it. All of this was way too fresh and it was way too personal. I didn't even have time to process anything yet. I hadn't even told Wyatt anything; he probably had no idea I was even here.

"If we aren't able to rule out a suicide attempt, your ability to remain out of a one on one care setting is going to essentially be nonexistent. At that point, what happens to you will be out of my hands. School seems to be doing you very well and I don't want you to have to leave your friends behind because we can't guarantee you are not a threat to your own life."

She didn't beat around the bush like Watanabe-San did, instead making her point as clear as possible.

"I want my mom." I said quietly, burying my face in my legs like a shy toddler. If they wanted to treat me like a child then I can act like a child.

"The woman in the waiting room? I could get her if you'd be more comfortable."

"My mom is dead. I said I want my mom, I didn't say I had one."

She froze for a moment and I silently gave myself one point for leaving her speechless.

"I'm very sorry to hear that, I can imagine that's a hard thing for you to process."

Maybe I could get two points.

"She was murdered by the mafia while she was pregnant. I was only six I think."

Her lack of response that time seemed more intentional and less like I had just caught her off guard. She saw through what I was trying to do. That or there just wasn't anything to say, it's not like they make sympathy cards for that sort of thing.

Actually back in Russia it was very possible that there were "Sorry your mother was murdered' Hallmark quotes. "My father has been keeping it from me, I found out on my own. Like I said, I didn't want to die. I wanted to forget. I wanted to go back to when I didn't know."

"Kai," She spoke quietly while maintaining eye contact with me. Something I was less than fond of. "Have you ever been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder? PTSD?"

"I've never been treated for anything outside of maybe an ear infection. I don't take medication."

The fact that I couldn't even read the label off of the pill bottle I took should make that clear enough at least.

"I believe I may have a theory regarding why your body reacts to stress in the way that it does. You spent so much of your childhood in fear for your life and safety that your brain constantly needed to be on high alert. Once removed from the danger of your childhood your can't just turn off that programming. You react to minor threats the way that most people would react to dangerous situations; it's the way your body attempts to keep you safe. Everything around you is a threat for you to be wary of." She paused. "I would also like to look into the possibility of dissociative amnesia."

"Do I actually need to talk about this right now?" I asked.

"Not if you aren't feeling comfortable. Our goal right now is to relax your state of mind, not to further increase your anxiety. I think you've made a very clear point that this was not a suicide attempt, I can discuss that with your case worker so that we can get you ready to return to school with as little trouble as possible. Regarding the doctors and nurses you'll likely remain on suicide watch for a few days, meaning you'll be staying at the hospital. I also want you to understand that due to your admitting illegal activity within your family I will be required to report to the authorities who will likely question your father, meaning I will not be able to keep our conversation fully confidential."

"I don't give a shit about my father." I said bluntly. "Can I see my brother, though?"

She was smiling sadly at me, a face of true pity.

"Of course." She said. Standing up, she brushed the wrinkles out of her pantsuit, the clicking of her heels echoing as she exited the door.

Even when I was alone there was too much happening in the room for me to focus. Between machines beeping and the sounds of doctors and nurses talking among themselves it was all gradually driving me completely insane, not something that worked in my favor as they already clearly though I was insane. I needed a single sound to focus on, like when I listened to music.

"Nii-san!" Riku had pulled himself violently from Hana's grip on his hand and sprinted toward me, almost knocking a table over in the process. My legs hung over the side of the hospital bed and he now clutched them tightly as though trying to fuse himself with my body. He was crying loudly, face red and puffy from what I could only assume were hours of tears at this point.

Careful of the machines I was still connected to, I picked him up into my lap, hugging him to my chest tightly.

"I'm alright." Was all I said.

"Papa said you were dead." He cried, clearly awake and listening when my father had found me. He really had thought that I was dead on the floor…

I wasn't sure exactly what Riku believed to have happened that night, likely a story he had made up within his own imagination. When things had begun to settle and an ambulance had been called he had apparently been told by our father that I was going to be alright, even though he didn't know if I was.

I was such a fucking asshole… I had gone completely overboard. I'd gone too far this time. It wasn't the first time that I had involved people in my personal drama who hadn't deserved it, but that had never included a child.

What if Riku had been the one to find me? If he had gotten up in the night to use the bathroom and discovered me not breathing… What if I hadn't been found while still alive and he actually would have discovered me dead on the floor?

Hana sat on the bed next to me, brushing her son's hair back before pulling both of us into her, an embrace I awkwardly accepted seeing as my options were to hug him or to hug his mom.

"We're very glad you're alright." She said quietly while also hushing Riku who still sat on my lap crying. "It's okay," She comforted him. "I know that was scary but your brother is going to be alright. He just needs to stay here for a few days in order to keep him safe."

I was guessing based on how she spoke that she still believed I had been trying to kill myself and I wasn't going to correct her with Riku in the same room.

I had been telling the truth after all, I hadn't been trying to die.

That didn't change the fact that I knew I might, though… and that in the moment I hadn't cared…