A/N:
THINGS ARE HAPPENING! I'm getting really excited about the next chapter. I'm hoping to release it before I travel back to Japan because when I get there I have AnimeJapan and manymanymany cherry blossom viewings planned and I know I won't be able to focus for a while. If I don't end up putting it out within the week it'll probably be beginning-mid April after I've settled back in.

Also, I'm not blind to how forced chapters 12 and 13 are. I'm going to keep editing and editing until I like it, but for the sake of progress I'VE JUST GOT TO POST THEM in order to get to the good stuff. Thanks for your patience and thanks for the new follows!

DISCLAIMER: This story will contain mentions of abuse, self harm, and suicide. It will also contain mental health issues involving anxiety, depression, PTSD and other mood disorders. This fic is largely based off of my life experiences and I hope to do justice to what I and so many other people have gone through.


Chapter 13

I Made Her Sad [I Knew it Would]

I weaved my way through the flock of students. Lunch was coming to a close and the mass influx had begun. Going against the flow of traffic was difficult and agonizingly slow. I just wanted to leave, desperate to be alone with the crushing feelings wrapped up within me.

Keeping my head down lest I be stopped by someone I knew I finally saw the courtyard exit. I quickened my pace, freedom was so near, and collided with a body I hadn't noticed, falling to the ground. Momentarily, the sticky black ink that consumed my thoughts abated and I looked up to see Yamada-kun staring baffled down at me.

"Ah!" He suddenly shouted and scrambled to help me up. "Nakahara-chan I am so sorry! I didn't see you running, you were so fast!"

His hands were still holding mine from pulling me off the ground and we looked down at them together. Retreating from me quickly he stepped back with a blush on his face.

"I'm sorry Yamada-kun, I wasn't looking where I was going."

My fingers curled and uncurled. Holding hands with Yamada was somehow dissatisfying, uncomfortable even. I could feel the beginning stages of depersonalization in my bones. My time was running out, I had to get home.

"No, no, it's alright. You were running the wrong way though. It's time to head back to class."

While he was talking I was being dragged deeper under the surface, ink oozing into my vision, my lungs. Unable to concentrate I couldn't stop myself from giving in to the familiar magnetic pull, realizing too late where I was looking. The doors to the cafeteria were unforgivingly placed adjacent to my exit. In the opening stood Oikawa with an irate looking Hajikun by his side. One of our classmates was talking to him animatedly, blushing as she spoke and receiving an encouraging grin in return. I was still staring as my next words tumbled out with little thought as if they weren't my own.

"Yamada-kun I'm not feeling very well."

He leaned down for a picture and whispered something in her ear and she giggled. The flash of the phone camera brought me out of the numb trance I felt watching them.

"I'm won't be able to make it after school."

I knew the girl.

"O-okay- hey! Nakahara-chan!"

I pushed passed, ignoring him, fleeing. I needed to leave because I knew the girl. Her expression next to Oikawa was soft and vulnerable, a far cry from the hateful glare I'd seen in the bathroom. 'Well she got what she wanted. Oikawa is laughing with her and she got what she-' I compulsively swallowed, trying to rid my throat of the large lump forming. When I reached the door, ready to push it open and be free, a hand held me back gripping my arm.

"Nakahara-chan, are you okay?"

An unwilling, quiet, sob passed my lips. It was Yamada's voice, his hand, and I realized there had been hope in my chest that it might have been Oikawa. But it wasn't, of course it wasn't. By body forced me to exhale as my lungs began to move in time with my emotions, erratic and urgent. I just wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to go home. But, despite my desperation, my eyes moved past Yamada to the crowd behind and found Oikawa-kun. It seemed that, although the pain I was feeling stemmed from my emotions toward him, the urge to take in his features once more was too great. He was looking at me, they all were, Yamada's shout had called their attention.

His mouth was open, shock or disbelief on his face, still leaning slightly for the picture he had taken. The girl next to him just barely hid a smug smile; would I ever learn her name? My eyes stung with tears and I decided I didn't want to know it. I didn't want to think about anything anymore.

Something in me clicked, fight or flight possibly, when I saw Hajikun move toward me. Like the coward I was, I ran. My arm tore away from Yamada's grasp and threw myself into the humid air of the courtyard. I didn't stop for a moment as I ran to my bike, fumbling with the lock. I had a moment to recognize the light drops of water falling onto my skin. The first rain of the season.

"How fitting." A voice spoke. It may have been my own.

It would do well hiding my tears.


The journey home passed in a blur. I moved on muscle memory alone as I struggled to stay present, my mind was racing and my brain refused to focus on any one thing. Bursting through the battle to stay aware of myself was the insidious feeling of being hurt. No, more than hurt; downtrodden; trampled. My skin crawled as everything underneath began to feel unnatural and I flexed my hands on the handlebars of my bike. It always started in the hands.

As it switched stations rapidly, my mind came full circle to one simple thought: Why? Switch. Switch. Switch. Why? Why was I feeling so deeply, so severely? Was it merely caused by the rejection, or the knowledge that the events of the day had completely severed my only ties to Oikawa? Or was it, perhaps, that the girls who'd initiated the threat would now be in closer proximity to him than I? Perhaps it was all three. Each question was malformed, just a simple, vague mass of emotions to portray the ideas. It was so consuming that I didn't realize I had arrived home.

My bike was carelessly left where it fell, my concern elsewhere. I stood in the entryway, damp from the light rain, at a complete loss. I was home, but then what? What did I do then? Call my parents? Go to sleep? Eat something? The thoughts hit me rapidly, bombarding my brain in an attempt to short-circuit itself. But there was something that always helped when I couldn't think.

'Yes. Medication. Medication. Medication.'

Looking through my eyes as if it were a dream I saw my hands fishing around blindly for the pill case. I clutched at it as I was similarly grasping for one coherent thought. I held the small case with both hands, I needed to do something with my hands so they remained my hands. I stumbled to the kitchen with purpose but stopped. My eyes darted around the room, too many things to see, too much to process. What had I been looking for? The plastic of the pill case dug into my hands.

'Medication!'

Scrambling to the sink I turned the faucet on full blast before I could forget what I was doing again. Shaky hands flipped open the case and carefully retrieved the promising little pill. I shoveled water into my mouth with the pill and clamped shut. My throat hurt, I had swallowed incorrectly in my urgency, but I had swallowed all the same. I closed my eyes and leaned against the counter, waiting for my thoughts to clear.

If I had had the ability to discern time I could have measured how long it took for me to calm down. As it was, I used the beating of my heart instead. It had been beating painfully fast from the emotions, from the bike ride home, and when it began to slow I felt the tension in my muscles subside. Slower still and my breathing regulated. Finally, even through the pounding headache that formed between my eyes, I could think plainly.

In my clarity I realized I had left the sink running and turned it off with a guilty wince. I looked around the kitchen at the small mess I'd left behind. My pill case, tossed down with haste, was sideways on the counter, thankfully with only a few loose pills that had been thrown out. My bag was still slumped in the entryway; I had no memory of removing it. The worst of it seemed to be the wet shoe prints from the door to the kitchen. I looked down at my shoes glumly and pushed them off, readying myself for the cleanup.

With the simple task to keep my body occupied I was able to focus on what I should do next. I'd have to tell my parents about my absence from school. They would be insanely worried but perhaps if I embellished a little bit about being sick they would refrain from hovering. I also decided on calling my therapist. I was out of my depth emotionally and I couldn't navigate it myself. If I was lucky he would be available within the week, if I was unlucky, well, Sunday was only a few days away.

I procrastinated, putting away the cleaning supplies slowly before reaching for my phone still in my bag. The screen was inundated with notifications. Aoi had tried to contact me through every conceivable form of social media and messaging app. Hajikun had as well. Most of the messages were sent before lunch but after my departure they had begun again. I thought only of deleting them, avoiding the anxiety of reading anything, starting with the oldest. It was humbling to think of how worried my friends were and I felt as much comfort as I did guilt.

Skipping past a text from Haru and another from my mother I found two texts from a number I hadn't saved in my phone. I left it alone until I deleted the rest of the texts, the most recent being from Aoi just five minutes ago. Haru had messaged about visiting soon and my mother had asked if I had talked to Haru recently. I smiled and just barely refrained from rolling my eyes. After another message from Aoi came in I finally responded.

Mari-chan

Aoi. Please relax. I'm at home and I'm fine. I've already called my parents.

It wasn't a complete lie. I did intend to call them, just not quite yet. I paid no attention to the immediate response I got from Aoi-chan and scrolled back down to the unknown number. The preview of the message only said, 'You may not have my number sa…' giving me no clues as to who it was other than what I already knew; that I hadn't saved the number. Sighing, I resolved to read the message.

XXX-XXXX-XXXX

Naka-chan, please just let me know if you're okay. Do that at least?

XXX-XXXX-XXXX

You may not have my number saved. It's Oikawa. Please text me back.

My stomach rolled. The time stamp was just a few hours before, prior to finding me, prior to the dismantling of our friendship. I sat down where I was and closed my eyes to stem the tears that pricked there. 'Not now.' I took a deep breath and called my therapist's office. Iris at the front desk scheduled me as soon as she could, exactly one week away. I would have to miss most of my classes but the only time available was midday.

With that responsibility settled I called my father. Between he and my mother, he was bound to be the more level-headed. His work line rang until the last possible moment and I couldn't help but feel disruptive.

"Nakahara." He greeted, the weariness apparent in his voice.

"Hi, papa."

"Mari? What's the matter?" The change in tone was immediate.

"Nothing is wrong, I just wanted to call and let you know I'm feeling sick so I came home."

I was lying through my teeth and doing it terribly. My feeble, sheepish attempt at placating him would certainly not convince him. The line was silent for a moment and I could hear uneasy disapproval in the quiet.

"I'm trying to trust you, but you need to trust me too."

As always, my father knew the exact way to express his emotions with the fewest words possible. And, as always, his words were deeply effective. He and I both knew, as well as the rest of our small family, that I preferred to hide my wounds if it would spare someone else. Secrecy begets loneliness, there has never been an exception to that, and when I felt alone I hurt myself and the ones I loved.

Depression, anxiety, PTSD. You can understand that you have them and still fall into the same patterns of destruction. I was lucky to have parents who understood the signs.

"I had to leave school because I was starting to spiral."

My voice was weak. I still held back much of the truth but as important as transparency was to my mental health I need to have a few things just for me.

"So, I made an appointment with Dr. Stayer for next week and I'm going to take the rest of the day to calm down."

"Good girl. I appreciate you telling me." He said after a pause. "Do you want me to come home early?"

"No, no, I'll be fine, I promise. Just, could you maybe help me with mom?" I was still apprehensive about telling her.

"Of course."

"Thank you, Papa."

"Take care of yourself."

"I will."

We both paused for a moment before ending the connection. I hoped he understood how grateful I was to him. Before the attack my mother had been the leader, the one who handled everything the family needed and more, but something shifted that night and she wasn't as independent as she had been. She might have blamed herself, everyone found a way to blame themselves, and despite her best efforts the family dynamic was never the same. My father filled in the gaps to help in ways he had never needed to before. His efforts created enough balance to prevent our family from shattering.

After we hung up I clutched my phone and looked around the empty house. It would not do to stay inside at a time like this. I learned that nearly every time I wanted to stay inside, my body really needed to go out. That's how it was with depression and paired with anxiety it was sometimes impossible to make an effort to leave the house. But I didn't need to go far.

In our backyard I laid on the ground looking up at the sky and thought over some of the first words Dr. Stayer had ever spoken to me when I began therapy. He told me to accept my feelings, live in them, understand how I was affected by them and how I reacted because of them. It took hours upon hours in the beginning to understand what he meant. Accept my feelings? Okay, I'm sad but how does accepting that make me better? It wasn't until much later that I discovered that the more I feel something, the less likely I was to act irrationally because of them.

On the ground with my eyes closed I regulated my breathing. Meditation was a large part of discovering my emotions and I hadn't thought to do it in so long. I had made myself comfortable in the distance I kept between myself and others. Without many feelings to work through I had forgotten the necessity to take time to reflect on the turmoil of my mind. I took the few hours I would have alone to go inside myself.

At the heart of the emotions I had been feeling over the previous two months was fear. The driving factor behind nearly all of my actions in recent days had been fear based. I was afraid to get close to anyone, especially males, because the idea that you could never know what went on beneath the surface was scary. I had been attacked by a man who might have had a family. Might have had close friends. Might have been loved by someone. It was terrifying to get close to people, what if they were hiding something too? But, while that was a possibility, the likelihood was so small that the fear was irrational. It prevented me from making any relationships that had meaning, let alone one that held attraction.

Oikawa's face filtered through the blackness of my closed eyes and pulled my phone to my chest, remembering his messages. I wanted to push away the feelings, they rattled me and confused me but I couldn't. I saw his face and I let it stay. I couldn't run from it anymore, I was attracted to him, and in many ways. His personality challenged mine in a way that was always sort of thrilling. Often, our banter back and forth made others feel left out because we were so absorbed in the other. He was largely unapologetic for his actions which was both irritating and somehow endearing. When he addressed me I felt like his whole being was concentrated in me.

It was easy to work through those feelings. They were safe. It was monumentally more difficult to accept the physical attraction I had for him. His effortless hair, expressive eyes, the way his mouth moved as he spoke even when he was whining. His height, his athleticism, his walk. His strength. My whole body shivered and goose bumps covered my skin. Oikawa was the first man whose strength excited me instead of making me think of ways I might have to escape him.

The realization that I was physically attracted to someone was the like a powerful bomb dropped on an unsuspecting landscape. At the point of impact was a large crater and the biggest fear: carnal attraction. Outside of that were trees that were blasted to bits, the disgust in myself for wanting to be with a man after what happened to me. Farther out had scorch marks from the edge of the fiery blast but not all was destroyed. That area was the fear that I was too tarnished and dirty to ever be desirable. The last area held the flora that had survived the blast but had been so pummeled by the force that everything would then exist at an angle, remaining in the ground but forever leaning away from the destruction. It was the fear of not having my feelings reciprocated, hearing a true rejection of my affection.

Each of these was painful to think about mentally and physically. The anxiety of having to deal with it all had sent me into panic before, causing a spiral of self hate at my uselessness. It had prompted me to try and run from the person at the heart of all of the feelings but I failed in that. Laying in the dimming sunlight, in the proper frame of mind, I forced myself to feel it all. 'I like someone, and that is okay. It's okay. I'm okay.'

It was bound to happen eventually, I couldn't go my whole life avoiding the human experience. Even if it was scary the feelings would not simply go away if I ignored them. I had to face them as they came and look into the eyes of the fear that sought to control me and hurt me. In doing so I looked deeper into myself. I learned how resilient humans are to experience trauma and still be able to feel normal emotion. To be haunted by the past but still have the will to go on. Like new life emerging from the earth that had been ravaged by an explosion.

Tears stung my eyes and I realized that that was me. I could be the flower that made its way passed charred ground to blossom, defiant of the conditions I was formed in. I could never go back and change anything, the soil was absent of nutrients, but I had other tools to survive. I had the warm sun in my family, giving me light to feed off of. I had the cool rain in my friends, giving me water to keep me fresh and strong. With those all I had to do was exist in a way that honored them for all of their love and support.

If I continued to let fear consume me I would die. I would be rejecting the efforts of people who cared about me and forcing myself to suffer. Fear would always be a part of life, fear of my past, fear of the unknown, fear of myself. But to live by it was not truly living. To accept it for what it was and to thrive in spite of it was living.

So, fear would live in me; a dark, bottomless lake that wanted nothing more than to pull me under the surface. But that's not all that lived in me. I had meadows of happiness, shelter of strength, rains of sadness or joy, scorching sands of anger, fog of jealousy, mirages of desire and want, a stream of spontaneity, and more all brightly lit with a sun that contained all the love I felt for and from others.

I was a world of so many things and so much of me was beautiful. I let the tears free, excising the despair and hurt and fear in each drop. I cried until I had no more tears.


"You're the biggest idiot I've ever met."

"What? Iwa-chan I didn't even do anything!"

Oikawa and Iwaizumi were, habitually, the last two remaining in the club room after practice and the latter slammed his locker shut.

"Don't get cute. You know what you did."

The playful outrage on Oikawa's face faded under the gaze of his friend. He turned away.

"There was nothing else to do." He shut his locker quietly and made for the door.

"'There was nothing else to do'? Only you could possibly come to that conclusion. Did you take a moment to think about what you did? What you said?"

Iwaizumi was strained and was doing a spectacular job of keeping himself controlled. If he hadn't grown up with Oikawa, if their bond hadn't run so deep, he would have left words behind long ago and opted for physical communication. He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut tight as a headache formed.

"Iwa-chan, I-"

"I should never have helped you."

"... What?"

"I should never have helped you get closer to her. I knew you were lying that day, when you pretended to be joking after confessing your feelings. I knew it was a lie but I thought that being friends would be fine while keeping her from getting hurt. I thought if she wasn't in a relationship with you there would be no reason for her to feel pain.

And she was happy. She doesn't open up to anybody but for some reason you were different and if I didn't know any better I would think that she-" he stopped and took a breath. "Do you know how much pain she must be in now?"

Oikawa leaned away as if the words were forcing him back. Iwa-chan had always been volatile and surly in their interactions, particularly when Oikawa had angered him. Seeing him so controlled have him the nasty feeling of being wrong. He was so rarely wrong.

"Why would she be in pain?"

The question was honest for Oikawa really didn't understand. When he had seen her departure from school he was shocked and concerned but he assumed the ordeal with her tormentors had been the cause. Iwaizumi sighed once more.

"I keep telling you, you don't know her like I do. The fact that she trusted you, clung to you like she did, it means something. And you threw it away so easily."

Oikawa's bag dropped to the floor.

"That wasn't easy!"

The shout was sudden and jarring in the empty room. Iwaizumi managed to close his mouth quickly after it had opened in surprise.

"How could it be easy? I had to leave her there like that! I had to pull her hands off of me!"

His fists clenched and his teeth gnashed together. Heat rose within him as he recalled the face she had made when he pulled his hands from hers. Every part of him objected save for the small idea that if he went away, so too would her troubles. He hadn't been deaf to the desperation in her voice when she had claimed to be fine. When he turned away to hide the agony on his face he never thought she would experience it as well. Never knew that his friendship meant something to her.

The only sound in the room was their breathing as they each recounted the words they'd spoken. Slowly, each relaxed and the tension between them faded. Oikawa slumped down onto a bench, resting his arms on his legs, and looked at the floor. Iwaizumi sat on the bench opposite him.

"Then why did you leave? Why did you say what you did?"

Oikawa looked up at his friend with a melancholy smile.

"You know why. You said as much a month ago. Why would I let her continue a friendship with someone like me if it would cause her so much grief? When I said it wasn't worth it, I guess what I really meant was I wasn't worth it."

They stared at each other, considering. Iwaizumi was stunned. Even though the decision to walk away from the friendship was bad, terrible even, he knew his friend well enough to understand that he was trying to put someone above himself. He was a narcissist who had found a person he was trying to be selfless for. Iwaizumi laughed.

"You really are an idiot."

Taken aback, Oikawa scowled.

"I'm trying to be serious for once Iwa-chan!"

"I know dumbass," he chuckled again, "you're just so clueless. You can't say stuff like that with no context. To everyone but you it sounded like you were saying Mari wasn't worth it."

Oikawa's eyes widened for a moment before he recovered but a light blush remained on his cheeks. His features arranged themselves into his signature pout.

"I'd never say something like that."

"Then why don't you tell her that?"

Oikawa scoffed.

"The whole point of ending the friendship was to prevent those girls from spreading rumors. If I approach her or apologize and try to repair what happened today it will just cause trouble for Naka-chan."

"You're telling me that, with a few well worded sentences, you can't stop your fans from following through with that threat?" Iwa-chan challenged.

'Where is this coming from?' The turnaround Iwa-chan had done confused him. Not three minutes prior he had been all but shaking with indignation. The ghost of a smile on his face almost looked like approval, like expectation. Oikawa felt excitement well up within him.

"Calm down." Iwaizumi glared. "I still don't think she could handle anything more than friendship with you. But I do know that you mean a lot to her. You shouldn't let things get in the way of that. It isn't like you to be a quitter, Captain."

Oikawa couldn't bring himself to give in to the taunt. He was only thinking about how he needed to fix the damage he'd done. Her exit that afternoon was clouded with the information that Iwa-chan had given him. In hindsight he could now see that she had fled because of him and it made his stomach roll. He spent the entirety of the walk home obsessing over how to approach Naka-chan. For the sake of his sanity and her emotional well-being he would have to do it soon.


The Oikawa portion of this chapter is dedicated to LilweenGalatrass because we are so on the same page. It's like you read my mind (or hacked my documents XD). You have NO idea how much I wanted Iwa-chan to just go off on Oikawa.