Author's Notes: Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts, self blaming, self harm, harm to others. I do not own the characters except for Kitsuki. Not intended to make any profits from this story.
There were days when he was forced to relive what brought him to the point of being locked in a mental ward.
Those times were the times when he couldn't breathe. He stopped functioning. He wanted to die. He had tried numerous times to die. He'd tried in vain, only to rethink his priorities in the last moment, when a soft gurgle from the crib alongside his bed caught his attention.
He couldn't go back, but was too afraid to step forward into the future. He was a priceless painting frozen in the midst of a never-ending world. Each day he took a step forward, only to take three more steps back. He fought constantly to stay above the rain threatening to drown him in misery and hopelessness.
Fear tore him apart, more fear put him back together. He couldn't breathe, but he continued to inhale. All for the sake of those big blue eyes blinking at him from the crib by his bed.
After his third attempt at killing himself, and ultimately, to kill his only daughter, he found himself locked away in the bland, greyscale world of a mental hospital. He shuffled about each day, between the horrors of the ward he was in and the mental images of his husband leaving and never returning. He relived the pain of hearing his husband's final words every moment he was breathing...
"They're letting me off to come see our baby's birth, Hajime~! Tell her to save some of the kicking for me. I love you both! I can't wait to see you. I'll be home soon!"
Why wouldn't they let him die? Why wouldn't they let him end the torment and pain in his head? They called him irrational, they told him it was silly to want to die for such a reason. But they didn't know what it was like to live in his head, to wake up each day and roll over, knowing he wasn't there. They didn't understand the pain and horrors of raising a mentally handicapped child alone.
They didn't know what it was like to blame themselves for everything bad that happened to their only daughter. To hate themselves from the core for being the problem and causing something to be wrong with an otherwise perfectly healthy baby.
They didn't blame themselves for thinking that's why the Gods took away their husband, because they were the reason their daughter was messed up.
They didn't know how hard it was to feel that way and continue breathing...