IMPORTANT WARNING: Please do not read this if you have any triggers relating to self-harm, suicide, and/or extreme homophobia. I like to share my stories with people, but I also don't want any of you getting hurt because of it.

If you don't have any of those triggers, keep reading, and enjoy!


For Tsukishima Kei, life kind of sucked, at least at the moment.

He was close to the end of his third year of middle school, with only a few months until graduation, and he was ninety-eight percent sure he had a huge crush on his best friend.

Now, normally, this wouldn't have been a problem. That is if his best friend had been a girl.

He had heard all the lectures his mom gave Akiteru about his gay friends, which he was quickly forbidden to talk to (though he did so anyways).

So when Tsukishima realized that he was looking at Hiromi the way he was supposed to be looking at a girl, he wasn't really sure what the hell he was supposed to do.

Maybe if he told Hiromi he would be fine with it, that is if he were lucky.

When he finally got the nerve to tell Hiromi that he was gay (he figured he should leave the crush part out of it) behind the gym after practice one day, Tsukishima was the opposite of lucky. At first it might have seemed so, Hiromi had him shoved up against the wall, and he looked up at Tsukishima with fire in his eyes.

But it was all wrong. This wasn't what Tsukishima had dreamed of.

The fire in his eyes was angry, and malicious, and his forearm rested on Tsukishima's chest, except it wasn't just resting there, it was continuously pushing him into the wall, shoving his shoulders against the concrete.

Tsukishima could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he had no doubts that Hiromi could feel it too. His breath quickened, and he pushed himself farther against the wall in an effort to get away from Hiromi.

He waited for Hiromi to say something, anything.

"I don't know what you wanted to get out of this by telling me," Hiromi glared up at Tsukishima, and it seemed like he had more to say, but for whatever reason, he didn't say it.

"I-I..." Tsukishima's voice shook, and he couldn't seem to make his voice work correctly, "I-I'm sorry..."

"Yea, I sure hope you are," Hiromi gave him one last shove into the wall, causing his elbows to scrape painfully against the rough cement.

"Honestly, if you ask me," Hiromi crossed his arms across his chest and glared at Tsukishima, "People like you shouldn't exist. You're better off dead."

Tsukishima suddenly found himself stifling a chuckle despite the situation, "People like me? Five minutes ago I was your best friend, and now I'm 'people'. What happened?"

"You decided to be gay," Hiromi responded simply, "That's what happened."

Tsukishima watched as his friend turned around and walked away, still attempting to hold back his laughter at the situation.

As soon as Hiromi rounded the corner, Tsukishima slid down against the wall, tears quickly pooling in his eyes and pouring down his face.

He was so wonderfully fucked.

The one person he had been counting on to be there to support him had just told him he was better off dead.

Tsukshima thought that maybe his mom was right, and being like him really wasn't right, and Akiteru was the wrong one, but who was right didn't really matter at the moment because his best friend hated him, and told him he was better off dead, and Tsukishima had never even told him how he felt.

There at that moment, Tsukishima really felt like taking Hiromi's advice.

It had been about a month since he had spoken to Hiromi, and Tsukishima still hadn't managed to get over the loss of his friend. A friendship of multiple years didn't necessarily go away after a month.

Due to his frustrations about various things, mostly Hiromi and his sexuality, Tsukishima had developed a bit of a habit. A terrible habit that involved taking a kitchen knife to his sides when he was home alone, and since he was alone often, his sides were littered with cuts in various stages of healing and scarring.

He was sitting on the floor next to his bed doing just this when his phone went off. He stood up and pulled his shirt back down over his torso, and put the knife in the nightstand drawer where he kept it, shoving a few notebooks and other things over it just in case somebody would open up the drawer.

By the time he was able to pick up his phone, there were four messages, and when Tsukishima saw who they were from he was honestly shocked.

It was Hiromi.

Three of the four messages just read 'kei' and the fourth was asking if he was home alone.

Puzzled, Tsukishima answered yes, and sat down on his bed.

As he waited for Hiromi to respond, watching the three little dots on his screen pop up and disappear a few times.

When the message finally sent, it was riddled with typos, but Tsukishima got the general gist of it.

As he stood up and tossed his phone on the bed, Tsukishima checked his sides one more time, and ran down the stairs to the front door.

When he unlocked the door and opened it up, Hiromi was standing there, just like he had said he would be.

Before Tsukishima could say, or do, anything, Hiromi's arms were wrapping around his neck, and his hands were holding onto the back of Tsukishima's shirt, and Hiromi was shoving their lips together clumsily.

At first, Tsukishima wasn't sure what to do. Hiromi was clearly drunk, Tsukishima could taste it on his lips, though he had heard mentions of a party a few days ago, so it wasn't all that surprising. But nonetheless, taking advantage of Hiromi while he was like this was a pretty crappy move. But then again, Tsukishima figured he wasn't going to remember anything anyways. If he was drunk enough to go to Tsukishima's house and kiss him in the doorway, he was too drunk to remember the night.

So Tsukishima shoved the door shut with his foot, and locked it with his free hand, using the other to pull Hiromi just a bit closer, fully aware of the fact that he was basically digging his own grave.

As he pulled away just slightly, he heard Hiromi say exactly what he had been about to, his voice barely more than a breathy whisper, "Upstairs?"

Tsukishima nodded, and miraculously, the pair managed to make it up the stairs and to Tsukishima's room without falling.

As they stepped into Tsukishima's room, Tsukishima pulled the door shut and switched off the lights, blindly feeling along the wall for the light switch as he did so.

Once the lights were off, Hiromi wasted no time in shoving Tsukishima down and onto his bed, and kneeling overtop of him,

Tsukishima pushed himself into a bit more of a sitting position in response, leaning back onto his elbows momentarily.

He felt Hiromi pull back slightly, and Tsukishima leaned into his lips as he did so, trying to avoid breaking the kiss.

But Hiromi put a hand on Tsukishima's chest and pushed him back, pulling his glasses off with the other.

As Hiromi leaned over him, setting Tsukishima's glasses on the nightstand, Tsukishima could see his vision starting to go double and fuzzy, so he did what he could to fix it. By the time his vision was mostly back to normal, Hiromi was sitting back on Tsukishima's hips, pulling his shirt over his head.

Tsukishima watched as Hiromi stretched his arms above his head and tossed his shirt to the side, looking back down at Tsukishima, giving him a look that was somewhere between terrifying and arousing, and damn, Tsukishima didn't think he'd ever been as attracted to someone as he was in that very moment. Even if that person had just told him he was better off dead a month ago. Though when that thought surface it kind of killed the vibe.

Tsukishima sat up slightly, and brought his lips back to Hiromi's, only to be pushed straight back down onto his elbows, with one of Hiromi's hands on his chest, the other resting on the bed next to him.

He felt Hiromi's lips leave his, and instead they traveled down the side of his face to right underneath his jaw, where he lingered for just a moment.

Tsukishima knew exactly what was coming next, but he still let out a sharp gasp as he felt Hiromi's teeth bite into his skin.

Hiromi stayed like that for a moment, and as he did so, Tsukishima exhaled shakily.

He felt Hiromi's lips move to another spot, closer to his collarbone, but that wasn't what Tsukishima's focus was on this time.

Hiromi's hands rested on his hips, and Tsukishima could feel them slipping under the hem of his shirt and sliding up his sides, right where all the cuts were.

Tsukishima quickly grabbed Hiromi's hands and pulled them away, he didn't want what was happening to be ruined by his own stupidity. Especially if they started bleeding again.

Hiromi, however, persisted, and Tsukishima sat up slightly as Hiromi pulled his shirt over his head, and tossed it aside, like he had with his own not even minutes before.

Tsukishima felt Hiromi's gaze traveling down his torso, so in an attempt to distract him from the gashes on his sides, he pressed their lips together again, but Hiromi pulled back and sat back on Tsukishima's legs.

He reached his hands out and touched Tsukishima's sides gently, and when he spoke it was barely more than a whisper, "Is this because of me?"

The softness was such a sudden change from what had been happening just moments before, and Tsukishima wanted it to go back. The roughness was easy to deal with, but soft, and tender? Tsukishima couldn't deal with that. It resembled actual trust and care, which was something he wanted so badly with Hiromi it hurt.

Tsukishima didn't want it, because he knew when they woke up the next morning everything was going to be gone, because Hiromi was blackout drunk and if Tsukishima told him Hiromi would hate him even more.

He shook his head, and leaned back in to kiss Hiromi again, dismissing his concerns as he did so, "It's nothing, I'm fine."

Hiromi quickly placed his hands on Tsukishima's chest, and pushed him away gently, "No, you're not, answer me. Please."

"I said I'm fine," Tsukishima answered quickly, "Can we please just forget about this and go back to what we were doing?"

Hiromi, however, didn't listen, "It's because of me, why the hell are you doing this with me?"

Tsukishima saw tears forming in Hiromi's eyes, despite the darkness, and he couldn't provide an answer.

Why was he doing this?

He felt Hiromi's hands clench into fists, still resting on his chest, "I'm really really sorry Kei."

As he spoke, he leaned his head forwards and rested it on Tsukishima's chest in between his hands.

Not sure of what to say, Tsukishima wrapped his arms around Hiromi's shoulders, and pulled him a little closer.

He knew that in the morning this would all be gone, Hiromi actually caring about him, and all the other stuff, but he managed to find some comfort in holding his ex best friend to his chest as he cried his apologies.


Tsukishima was the first one to wake up that morning, and he thanked god that he was, because if Hiromi had gotten up first Tsukishima probably would have gotten punched in the face.

He was laying on his bed, half covered by the blankets, with Hiromi laying on top of him, his head resting on Tsukishima's stomach, his arms wrapped around him.

He knew he had to get out of the bed before Hiromi got up, but he wasn't sure how to do that without waking Hiromi up himself.

With much effort, Tsukishima managed to slip out from underneath Hiromi without waking his sleeping sort-of friend.

He found his shirt on the ground next to his bed, and wasted no time in pulling it on.

Now that he was moving around, Tsukishima was sure Hiromi was going to be up soon, and he wasn't sure he wanted to be in the room when he did.

Tsukishima figured Hiromi was probably going to have one of the worst hangovers in the history of mankind, so he assumed that it would make the chances of Hiromi murdering him much lower if he brought him something to help with it, so that's what he did.

Tsukishima pushed his door open and shut it gently, not wanting to wake Hiromi up, and crept through the hall and down the stairs to the kitchen, not sure if his mom was home and up yet.

Sure enough, she was, and she was sitting at the dining room table with a cup of coffee, "And the dead rises."

Tsukishima jumped slightly at the sound of her voice, and turned around to face her, "Morning mom."

She chuckled lightly, and looked at Tsukishima, "Jumpy much?"

He shook his head gently, "Sorry, wasn't expecting you home yet."

She laughed in response, and shook her head, "So anyways," she set down her mug and pointed at Tsukishima, "What did you do to your neck?"

Tsukishima began panicking internally, though he did his best not to let any of it show on his face, though he subconsciously reached up and covered the incriminating red spot under his jaw with his hand. He had completely forgotten about it, "N-nothing."

His voice shook as he spoke, coming up with an excuse on the spot, "Hiromi invited me to a party last night, there was a girl. Nothing really happened cause Hiromi puked and made me take him home. Speaking of Hiromi by the way, he stayed here last night, he's still here."

Not giving her a chance to respond, he walked over to the cupboards to grab a glass to fill with water, "And I think he might kill me if I don't hurry up and get him something to drink."

As he was filling up the cup at the sink he heard his mom laugh from the table, "And here I was afraid I was raising a social recluse, but I guess I was wrong."

Tsukishima tensed up slightly as she spoke, since she was completely wrong, but he forced a laugh in response, "I wouldn't count on that, I kinda hated it."

His mom frowned, "Well, at least you kissed a girl. Finally."

She added the last part with a bit of a malicious, yet teasing tone in her voice, and Tsukishima began walking up the stairs as he responded, "I guess, yea."

The way his mom said what she said felt like a knife to the gut. It made him realize that he would never actually be able to tell his mom about the first time he kissed someone, he wouldn't even be able to tell the person who he had kissed.

As he stepped back into his room, he picked Hiromi's shirt up off the ground, and walked over to his bed, where Hiromi laid, hugging a pillow with his face buried in it.

He frowned and set the glass of water on his nightstand, nudging Hiromi's shoulder, "Hey, Hiromi, get up."

Hiromi groaned and shoved his face farther into the pillow, ignoring Tsukishima for a moment.

But as he was probably realizing where he was, he lifted his head from the pillow and looked at Tsukishima.

"God, what happened last night?" Hiromi groaned and brushed his bangs out of his eyes, squinting against the dim light that was filtering through Tsukishima's curtains, "I feel like my head's gonna explode... and why am I in your bed, and where the hell is my shirt?"

Tsukishima dropped Hiromi's shirt on his shoulders, and sighed. He really wished he didn't have to explain everything away, "You threw up last night on it so I washed it for you. You were completely wasted last night, and my mom wasn't home. You passed out pretty much right after you got here."

As Tsukishima explained, Hiromi pulled his shirt over his head, and to his relief Hiromi seemed satisfied with the explanation.

Hiromi sighed and rubbed his eyes, "Ugh, alright. Can you go get me some painkillers or something before my head explodes?"

Tsukishima nodded, and grabbed his glasses off the nightstand, "Yea one sec, I'll be right there."

He turned around before Hiromi could respond, feeling tears welling up in his eyes.

Tsukishima refused to cry in front of Hiromi, he wouldn't give him that.


Tsukishima wasn't quite sure when things had gotten as bad as they did. A little over three weeks had gone by since Hiromi showed up at his house that one night, and his mental state had quickly began going down the drain. He had grown to resent Hiromi, because of what he did, and making Tsukishima keep quiet about it.

He knew it was really his fault though, Hiromi had been drunk, and Tsukishima had welcomed it.

Since his mental state had began spiraling, that meant he hurt himself more. He quickly ran out of room on his sides, so he stupidly made the choice to move onto the front of his torso.

He knew he had a problem, but it was impossible to stop, so he started skipping practice. Getting hit in the chest with missed receives was a risk he couldn't take, because if he did he'd get found out.

So he only went enough so he wouldn't get rusty.

Of course, one of the few times he actually went to practice, it was a day for working on their receives.

So inevitably, he had gotten hit square in the chest with a spike, sending pain exploding through his chest.

He felt tears welling up in his eyes, and as he held his hands to his chest, he heard a jeer from Hiromi a few feet away.

"What are you gonna do, cry?"

He was really, really, sick of Hiromi and the crap he threw at Tsukishima.

So Tsukishima figured it was time to throw back.

He picked up one of the volleyballs that sat near him, and served it with as much power as he could, straight at Hiromi's face.

A satisfying crack rang through the gym as the ball miraculously hit its intended target, and a cry of pain from Hiromi quickly followed.

Before he had a chance to react, Hiromi was throwing himself at Tsukishima, grabbing his upper arms, attempting to shove him over.

Taken by surprise, and still weak from the blow straight to his chest, Tsukishima was knocked backwards by Hiromi.

Next he knew, they were on the ground, and Tsukishima was attempting to hold Hiromi's arms back as he tried to attack Tsukishima, blood pouring out of his now crooked nose onto Tsukishima's chest. He was thankful for at least that, the blood from Hiromi's nose would hide the blood from Tsukishima's own wound.

And just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. The coach and one of the other third years pulled Hiromi back and off of Tsukishima, holding him back by his arms as he struggled against them. With much less struggling on his end, Tsukishima felt a pair of hands under his armpits pull him into a standing position.

When Tsukishima looked back over at Hiromi, he was bent over with his face buried in his shirt to stop the blood pouring from his nose.

His coach placed a hand on Hiromi's shoulder, and guided him over to the door, pointing Tsukishima towards it as well, "Both of you, go get your stuff and call your parents. You can come back to practice in two weeks."

Obediently, Tsukishima followed Hiromi out the door, so he could get his stuff from the locker room.

It was as they walked together that Tsukishima realized it was the first time he had been alone with Hiromi since that one night.

The words lingered on the tip of his tongue, and he was so close to saying them.

"You don't even remember. Do you?"

Tsukishima was finally able to make his vocal chords work, and as soon as he spoke, he regretted it.

Hiromi looked over at Tsukishima, and stopped walking, "Remember what?"

His voice was weird, due to his busted nose, but it wasn't like it was impossible to understand him.

Tsukishima followed suit, and turned to face Hiromi as he spoke, "You remember that night you showed up at my house, completely wasted?"

Hiromi raised an eyebrow at Tsukishima, "I remember going to a party and waking up at your house, if that's what you mean."

Tsukishima took a deep breath before he spoke, steeling himself for a reaction from Hiromi that was sure to be violent, "Ok yea, well what I told you happened that night, it was all bullshit. I made it up so you wouldn't kill me, because you kissed me, a lot, and I don't know why you did, but I went along with it. And then you saw all the cuts on my sides, and it all stopped before it could go any further. You cried, and apologized. Then you fell asleep on top of me, which was why you were in my bed. You cared."

To his surprise, Hiromi's face was void of emotion. He didn't seem angry, at all. Then he broke into a grin, and chuckled lightly, "Damn Kei, didn't your mom ever teach you not to lie to people?"

Tsukishima frowned. This was just great, "Why would I lie to you about this? What motivation would I have to do that?"

Hiromi started laughing harder, which Tsukishima supposed was how he was dealing with the news, "I don't know, why would I believe you? Why would I do that?"

Tsukishima didn't know how to respond to that, mostly because he didn't know the answer to either question, "I don't know, you're the one who showed up, drunk off his ass, and kissed me in the doorway! I'm not the one who decided to get that drunk in the first place, and if you think for an instant I wanted that, you're completely wrong, because that night, has screwed with me, for so long! Do you realize that?"

Hiromi glared at him, his laughter ceasing, "You can stop now, I don't believe you. You're a pretty great actor you know, forget volleyball, you should consider a career in that."

Tsukishima really wasn't sure what to do now.

All he could really think of to do was kiss the guy standing in front of him, even though his face was caked with blood, even though he would almost inevitably get punched in the face, and against his better judgment, that's exactly what he did. Some irrational part of his brain thought that maybe it would make Hiromi remember.

The instant their lips touched, Hiromi did nothing. It was the instant after that everything happened in. Tsukishima felt a pair of hands on his chest that pushed him away, and down onto the ground.

He landed hard on his butt, and his elbows collided painfully with the ground as he tried to stop himself.

"I fucking hate you!"

Hiromi's voice was loud, really loud. And when Tsukishima looked up at his face, there was desperation in his expression, clouded by the tears pooling up in the corners of his eyes.

"When are you going to get the message? I hate you, I hate you, I fucking hate you!"

Each word was like a knife, being deliberately stabbed into his stomach, and he could do nothing to stop it. Because he had brought all of it upon himself.

If he had never told Hiromi that he was gay, it all would have been fine, and he wouldn't be in this position right now, sitting on the ground, looking up at someone who was dead set on killing him with each word he yelled.

He watched as tears began dropping down Hiromi's cheeks, balling his hands into fists at his sides as he yelled more words, more knives to the gut for Tsukishima.

That was what had finally broken him.


Hiromi was sitting in the emergency room, texting someone on his phone, when he heard the sirens.

He wondered what the poor guy in the ambulance was being rushed to the hospital for.

He was lucky enough to only be there because he passed out from the concussion Tsukishima had given him earlier that day, but that guy had probably gotten put through the ringer.

Soon, however, Hiromi's wonderings were cut short, because he heard the paramedics shouting orders to the doctors waiting by the doors for them to rush said poor guy into the emergency room.

Everything seemed to stop when he heard the words 'Kei Tsukishima' and 'Multiple stab wounds to the stomach'.

He watched as doctors swarmed around him, giving orders, yelling words he didn't know, and before he knew it he was watching Tsukishima be rushed away.

As he looked at the doors that they had disappeared into, Hiromi heard a vaguely familiar voice.

"Please, that's my little brother, you've gotta let me see him!"

As he looked over, he realized that the owner of the voice was Tsukishima's older brother.

That was somebody Hiromi really really didn't want to have to talk to at the moment.

"Sir, please calm down, we'll help him, please just calm down."

He watched as one of the doctors attempted to console Akiteru, placing his hands on the taller man's shoulders.

Akiteru seemed like he was trying to listen, and he sniffed as he attempted to get his sobs under control.

The doctor smiled gently, and placed a hand on his shoulder, leading him to the bed right next to where Hiromi was sitting to calm down.

Hiromi had just been sitting on his phone when he heard the sirens, he was texting a cute girl.

Now his phone laid on the ground, where he had dropped it, and his ex best friend seemed like he dying in the next room, with each doctor fighting to do what they could to save him, and the dying friend's brother sat right next to him, and he was sobbing. Shoulders shaking, breath gasping, sobbing. Hiromi had been texting a cute girl and being annoyed that someone wasn't getting his nose fixed sooner and now someone he knew personally, someone who he had been telling he fucking hated just hours before, was dying in the next room.

Akiteru was so busy crying, he hadn't even noticed Hiromi.

He wondered if he should talk to him.

"Uh, hey, Akiteru," he spoke nervously, and waved at him, "Its uh, Hiromi."

Akiteru quickly looked up at the sound of his voice, and before Hiromi knew what was happening, Akiteru was grabbing the front of his shirt, and yelling at him, "What the hell did you do to him?"

Hiromi was startled by this, and before he could respond Akiteru continued yelling.

"Kei stabbed himself Hiromi, he fucking stabbed himself! I came home to pay him and mom a surprise visit, and I find him on the bathroom floor, bleeding out. What the hell did you do to him?!"

As Akiteru yelled, Hiromi felt tears starting to drip down his face for the second time that day, and as he watched the doctor who had been consoling him earlier pull Akiteru away, he started mumbling his apologies.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry Akiteru," he repeated the words over and over, as if it would make it better, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

He couldn't seem to stop saying it.

I'm sorry.

But all the being sorry in the world wasn't going to undo what he did.

He was sorry anyways.


When Tsukishima woke up, it was to a throbbing pain in his stomach, and a rhythmic beeping in the background.

It was dark in the room he was in, lit dimly by only a lamp.

The last thing that he remembered was sitting in the bathroom, almost positive he was home alone, when he heard the door open, and Akiteru's voice announcing his arrival.

Speaking of Akiteru, he was sitting at Tsukishima's bedside, head resting on the bed, grasping Tsukishima's hand tightly.

His shoulders rose and fell gently, rhythmically. Like the beeping of the heart monitor in the background.

There was a needle in his arm, and he realized he was wearing a hospital gown now, instead of the battered old t-shirt that had eventually ended up glued to his torso with blood, the original color of the fabric completely gone.

A slightly scratchy blanket covered his legs, and the bed was less than comfortable.

As he went to move his arm that did have the hand Akiteru was holding onto with a death grip, it felt heavy. Really heavy. He supposed that was usually what happened when you came close to bleeding out on a bathroom floor.

He gently shook his older brother's shoulder, not sure he could muster the energy to do much more than that.

"Teru."

His voice was weak, and came out quieter than he was expecting.

"I wanna go home Teru."

This time when he spoke Akiteru's head shot up, and his face broke into a grin wider than Tsukishima would have thought humanly possible.

"Oh god, oh my god, Kei, you're okay, thank god."

He dove forward and wrapped his arms around Tsukishima, holding him just a little too tightly, and Tsukishima could feel the pressure in his stomach, which he assumed was a stitched up mess.

"Ow, ow, Teru!" He shoved Akiteru away gently, "Stitches!"

Akiteru quickly pulled back, and apologized profusely, "Crap! I'm sorry!"

Tsukishima chuckled gently, for once, his brother's volume wasn't annoying.

"Wait, shit!" Akiteru stood up quickly, "I'm supposed to tell the doctors that you woke up, be right back Kei!"

Tsukishima watched as his brother rushed out of the room, and he was really happy that his brother had decided to make that day the day he stopped by for a surprise visit.

If not, he probably would have died in that bathroom.

And he was honestly grateful he hadn't.


It was actually a surprisingly short time before he was allowed to be discharged from the hospital. A few days of twenty-four hour suicide watch, and a few tests to make sure he was healing properly, and then he was back at school.

He had actually only missed two days, so if it hadn't been for the ease that rumors spread around, it would have just seemed he had been sick.

But instead, people whispered.

He heard them whisper about him, they stopped when he walked into the room, but they whispered.

People stared as he stood at the teacher's desk before class, quietly explaining the situation. He had been expecting the stares and whispers, but it didn't mean he liked it.

What he hadn't been expecting however, was Hiromi stopping him in the halls. He had a huge ugly bandage over his nose from where Tsukishima had broken it, and it made his voice come out weird.

"You weren't lying, were you?"

He turned around at the sound of Hiromi's voice, and glared down at him, "Well people don't usually try and kill themselves over made up stories, so what do you think?"

"I... I was in the ER that night," Hiromi sounded legitimately apologetic, "I watched as they rushed you into that room, and I watched your brother break down. I just wanted to say... I'm really sorry. I'm sorry for everything."

Tsukishima scoffed. He was really apologizing, after the hell he put Tsukishima through. Like apologizing could undo the mess Hiromi had made, like apologizing could erase the scars, could make the mess of stitches in his stomach disappear.

"You really think you can just say you're sorry and we'll be on our merry way?"

"No, uh, not really..." Hiromi looked down at the ground, then back up at Tsukishima, "But if there's anything I can do to make it right, I want to do it."

"Well you could start with leaving me the hell alone," Tsukishima stepped closer to Hiromi, reached his arms out, and pushed him down to the ground, hard.

He felt something pull on the skin in stomach, and then when the pressure was relieved, and a few moments later he heard shocked gasps from the people around him.

"Kei are you alright?" Hiromi had jumped up almost immediately, "You're bleeding, a lot."

Tsukishima looked down at his stomach, and sure enough, there was a huge red spot blossoming on his shirt. He had torn some of the stitches in his stomach, the one thing he had been told to be careful of. He reached down with his hands to cover it, applying pressure to attempt to slow the bleeding, "I said leave me alone Hiromi, fuck off!"

He clenched his jaw as he bent over slightly, the pain too much for him to bear, and he could feel his heartbeat over the cut, blood pumping out steadily.

"Shit, I've gotta go call Teru..."

Things started fading to black, just as they had in the bathroom that night, and he felt a few pairs of hands catch him while voices yelled for someone to call 9-1-1 and to get a teacher.

Then it was all gone.

The next thing Tsukishima knew, he was in an ambulance, with someone's hands pressing down hard on his stomach, stopping the bleeding.

There was a hand holding tightly onto his, and he didn't want to look over, because he knew who it was, but he didn't want it to be him.

"Kei."

Tsukishima pulled his hand from Hiromi's, and turned his head away from him, "Why are you here? I don't want you here. I stopped wanting you here months ago."

He heard Hiromi sigh, and though Tsukishima couldn't see his face he was sure he was frowning, "Because I don't want to be responsible for someone's life ending, especially not yours."

"Well you should have thought of that before you told me to die, multiple times."

Tsukishima was getting angry, and he looked back over at Hiromi. He wanted to see him miserable.

"You should have considered that my life would be on your conscience before you told me you hated me, before you attacked me, before you made me want to die in the first place!"

"Kei, please calm down," he felt the paramedic pressing down on his stomach place a gentle hand on his chest, "You'll bleed faster if you're agitated."

Realizing this, Tsukishima quickly tried to slow his breathing back down, and he looked to the paramedic as he spoke, "Sorry."

"Don't be," she smiled, and went back to using both hands to press down on Tsukishima's bleeding stomach.

"Just, when we get to the hospital," before he said the next part, he looked back at Hiromi, and glared at him, "Can you make sure he's not anywhere near me?"

She nodded in response, and smiled gently, "Of course, I'll make sure for you. Just try to relax, we'll fix up your stomach."

After they got to the hospital and Hiromi was sent to the waiting room to wait for his mom to pick him up, Tsukishima wasn't really sure what happened to Hiromi. Tsukishima couldn't go to practice due to the trauma, and Hiromi was in a different class, so he didn't see him except for when he passed him in the halls and tried to pretend he didn't exist.

They graduated barely weeks later, and went off to separate high schools.

Tsukishima wasn't sad to see him go, and he was ready to move on. Part of moving on included a suggestion from Akiteru, something he had seen online. It was some sort of suicide prevention project, a tattoo.

It was a semicolon, right at the end of the scar of the cut where the stitches had torn. Akiteru said that it signified something that could have been ended, but didn't, because the author chose to continue on. It made sense to Tsukishima, he kind of liked it.

He had no idea how good for him it was to continue on and not end the sentence that was his life until he met a boy in a flower shop after his first year of high school with a similar tattoo, who was just as messed up as Tsukishima, who helped finally erase all of what Hiromi had done to him, and allowed him to really love, and be loved, for the first time.


A/N: There it is, Tsukki's backstory! This is something I've been wanting to write out for a while, mostly because I wanted to make some more sense of exactly what happened to him that put him in such a bad place that he'd hurt himself as much as he did. It is a little different from what's originally written, but it didn't make much sense to me for why he was in such a bad place. So I upped the severity a bit. I may do a similar thing for Yamaguchi, but his issues run much much deeper than simply betrayal from a close friend, so I'll have to see.

But for now, hope you enjoyed another taste of this au that I still can't seem to let go of, even three months later.

~Niki