Haru hasn't slept in over two years, but every morning, every time the first flash of dawn filters in through his windows, he pretends he's just woken up from a dream. What the dream was about isn't important—he'll make it up, if anyone asks—what's important is that he can still pretend, for that split second, that everything is normal again, that everything is the way it should be.
Although it isn't, really. It can't be. Haru needs to remind himself to breathe. Haru needs to remind himself he's dead.
That thought, as old as it is now, still pains him; he reaches for his heart without thinking, the material of his thin shirt soon filling his empty hand, his skin pale and lifeless beneath his fingers. There's no sound, no tremble, not even a weak flutter—his chest is just empty, empty like a glass bottle bobbling along on the sea. Still, the ache in the back of his mind, that sense of loss, hurts. His heart had used to beat once, he remembers. Things hadn't always been like this.
Getting up from his bed is no different from lying down on it, but the sounds of the street outside, of the passing cars, of the morning birds, creates the illusion that time has passed. Haru hesitates with his hands on the blinds, staring out into the bright glory of the early dawn and wondering, as he does almost every day, why in the world he puts himself through this. He could keep himself busy, if he wanted; he could break into libraries and read night after night, or steal dvds from a electronics store and catch up on his favourite shows, but instead he lies on his tiny little mattress, in his tiny little room, and waits for this moment. This exact moment. Right here. This one. Right now.
When nothing happens, nothing he couldn't have expected from months and months of previous experience, Haru does what he always does-he shrugs his shoulders, scoffs at his own stupidity, and then shuffles off into the kitchen to make breakfast.
His fridge, dare he admit it, is filled with food he doesn't actually like. The bread, the eggs, the cheese, the fruits, all of it tastes bland to him now, as close to tasteless as tasteless gets without actually lacking the notion of flavour. It, just like most of the other things in his house, is part of the lie; it's a comfort, sometimes, especially when he entertains. At least, that's what he tells himself, and that counts for something, right?
His fridge seems to have an answer for him: Haru, the black and white magnets on the door remind him, normal people ask for the normal things other normal people have. Stop complaining.
The accuracy in that statement terrifies him, and for the next ten minutes all Haru can do is stare at the letters, each and every one, too angry at himself to mess them up but still angry enough that he refuses to do nothing. He finds relief in eventually taking his medication—the bottle, tucked in the back of the freezer, is cold enough to burn his hand, but against his skin the glass is almost warm, almost soothing. The pill, unfortunately, is anything but; the aftertaste is bitter and horrid, like some kind of poison, but the taste at least reminds Haru that he's alive.
Alive in the metaphorical sense, of course.
He passes the next few hours like this, standing here, standing there, making mackerel, throwing the mackerel out. In the end Haru just draws himself a bath, letting the water drip into his tub at a deathly slow rate, counting the ripples every drop causes, every wave. He puts his pinky finger in first, lets the heat climb his arm, until finally he just relents and all but dives into the tub, the water crashing around his body with enough violence to knock him senseless.
Yes, Haru will not be the first to admit his life is a routine. He does the same basic things every day, with little or no variation, and every day he's just as angry at the sameness as he is too exhausted to make a change. But for now, as he sits at the bottom of the tub, as his head rests against the ceramic and the world is hidden behind a beautiful, crystallized lens, Haru remembers why he still does this, why he even bothers pretending nothing about him is...different.
He does it for Rin.
