Bffimagine: I love this fic now! I hope it's long and beautiful and really angsty and sad… prays to fic gods

Ken knew he didn't wake up that morning. He knew this because he never fell asleep.

He spent the whole night staring at the ceiling, replaying what Ran said over and over again in his head…

While it was peppered with the words of the man who raped him.

He had never been more thankful than when he was sure Ran couldn't have seen his face in the dark.

Otherwise he would've seen the paleness from blood loss, the slight dark circles from insomnia… or refusal to sleep because of the nightmares, the involuntary replays of that night… and the almost unnoticeable gauntness that had begun hollowing out his once full cheeks due to his self-denial of food.

Ken was running. Strangely, he didn't feel tired, even though he was running as fast as he could, and had been running for a long time. He stumbled as he tripped over a jet-black cat.

The feral grin of the man above him sent shivers up his spine.

"I had you first."

Shiinji's smile never faltered.

Ken tried to scramble back, fear making him clumsy. He backed into a wall.

It was like a sick sense of déjà vu. He knew this had happened before…

Shiinji tore into him, the feeling entry similar to being ripped apart from the inside was painstakingly familiar…

"NOOO!" Ken screamed, trying to fight off the attacker as his thrusts became more insistent.

The tears refused to cease, staining silvery lines on his cheeks that glinted in the moonlight.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Hidaka Ken awoke to banging and yelling on his door, and the lingering sound of his own scream. He scrambled out of bed, clambering into the washroom and promptly throwing up.

"Ken-kun! Are you alright?"

"Yes, Omi," Ken started, his voice weak and raspy.

"Ken-kun?"

"I'm fine, Omi. Just a nightmare," Ken shouted again, his voice nearly cracking.

Wiping his bangs away from where they were plastered to his forehead. The cold sweat was numbing against his fingers.

"Are you sure, Ken-kun?"

"Hai, Omi, I'm okay."

Ken heard the retreating footsteps and released a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He stood and washed his mouth out thoroughly with water.

That had been the first time he fell asleep since that night.

It had been a long time before Ken left the washroom. He stood, looking in the mirror, contemplating.

Should he run or should he hide?

Simply a sick game of hide and seek.

He would hide.

The nightmares would seek. And find. And tear him up within.

There was no escape. No sanctuary.

Sanctus. Credo. Crucifixus. Safe. I believe… Crucifixion.

Whenever Ken believed he was safe, the memories hunted him down and ripped him to shreds and shattered whatever he was holding onto.

Shattered it into so many little pieces. Ken would cut himself up trying to put it back together, only to have it shatter again…

And cut himself putting it together…

Until he broke, shattered just like the deepest recesses of his mind that he desperately clung to so he could keep his sanity. His fingers bled as he scraped together what he could, what he was trying so desperately to salvage, putting the pieces together before they could shatter again.

The soft, sweet memories of playing soccer with children, the kind Kase, the first time he saw Ran.

It all changed and twisted into him being framed, Kase betraying him, and the ruthless words that came from Ran's lips.

You don't love me. I never want to hear you say those words in my presence—or ever—again.

Merging pictures and voices, Ran's face and Ran's voice and those lips he so wanted to kiss forming words he wished he never heard—

No one will want you.

I don't want you.

A soft, sad, wanton smile graced Ken's lips as the tears streamed down his face.

'I don't want me.'

The thing with Ken was that he never felt special or interesting in any way. Brown hair and eyes was such a common combination. Soccer was such a mundane sport. Working with flowers was so ordinary.

Truthfully speaking, Ken was normal.

As normal as an eighteen-year-old assassin could be.

He cooked and cleaned and worked every day.

He scraped blood off of his clothing everyday.

When one of his comrades was sick or injured, he was there day and night to nurse them back to health.

When Omi had a test he made the kid study and dragged him off the laptop so he could get decent sleep.

When Yohji had a rough day he would buy him a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of something insanely strong and probably illegal.

When Ran was being colder than usual he always let the ice-block know he was there in case he was tired of being stoic.

Overall, Ken was just Ken. Altruistic, friendly, soccer-playing, children-loving Ken. Pure and simple and innocent and kind.

Who or what could've changed that?

Yohji banged his fist into the counter, making Omi jump and Ran look away from the orders for a second, training his eyes on the wire-wielding assassin.

"Ken's slowly killing himself, and here we are arranging flowers," Yohji shouted, his nerves raw and relentless questions plaguing him.

'We all want to help Ken, Yohji. I want to help Ken.' Ran sighed mentally.

"There's nothing much we can do about it, Yohji. If Ken won't talk, he's stubborn enough to keep quiet." Ran shook his head sadly, even though he wanted to cry or grab Ken and force the brown-haired fool to spit out whatever was bothering him or even just strip him and—

'WHOA, Ran, getting a little carried off there!' Ran chastised himself.

"He woke up screaming this morning." Omi's ocean blue eyes never left his coffee.

"Nande?" Ran and Yohji asked in unison.

"He had a nightmare."

"What kind of nightmare?" Ran inquired, brows furrowing in concentration.

"I don't know. He said he was 'fine' and told me to leave."

"He's obviously not 'fine'. We have to figure this out." Running a hand through his hair, Yohji sighed.

"What could possibly hurt Ken-kun so much? When did it happen?"

"I think it has largely to do with guilt," Ran suggested, tugging on an ear-tail in thought.

"He didn't come back that night, I was so angry at him…" Omi's eyes widened suddenly.

"D-Do you think—could something have… happened to Ken-kun? And that's why he didn't come back?"

"The bruises… Oh God… the bruises," Yohji held his head.

"What bruises?" Ran asked more eagerly than he intended.

"I-I lost my temper with Ken," he confessed, "And I punched him. He put on some sort of powder to hide some bruises on his face…"

"Bruises on his face?" Omi looked horrified.

"I yelled at him," Yohji admitted as well.

"So did I," Omi nodded.

Ran looked sick.

"What could he be going through? Something happened… and now it's gotten worse. It was bad to begin with, and something's made it worse, so much worse…" Yohji cradled his head in the crook of his arm on the table.

"If he was in pain already, I think we all did something to tear him apart more. We opened the wounds farther—"

"He told me he loved me." Both Yohji and Omi looked stunned as Ran said this.

"I told him I didn't love him back." Ran dropped his gaze so his blood-red bangs covered his face.

'And it was a lie.'

Silence settled heavily over the shop. It had been a slow morning anyway, so no customers drew the boys' thoughts away from their bugnuk-wielding friend.

When had sweet, cheerful Kenken become a nearly catatonic shell that was basically in a coma? The brunette's mind was drifting farther away from reality, and none of them were aware that it was to block out an immense pain Ken didn't think he could handle on his own.

Before any of them knew it, the afternoon shift started and Ken bounded down the stairs.

"Konnichiwa, minna—"

Ken stopped, looking from one teammate to the next. He smiled uneasily at them.

"Why are you all looking at me like that?"

No one said a word for a long time.

"Ken," Ran finally said, "We all need to talk."

bffimagine: YEAH! I'm on a roll…

Ran: Reviews are greatly appreciated. If not… SHI-NE!

Bffimagine: -.-" Anyways, 3 reviews update!