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I zoom out. The pain is strong, but all I can think is: I want Kento. I want to disappear into him until there’s nothing left of me for the rest of the world to reach. I want to exist only in the space he makes around me, where nobody can touch me, claim me, or ask anything of me. I want to become something the outside world can no longer find, that only he can find.

Eventually Anton stops.

I lie there on the floor, breath sawing in and out too fast. He looks down at me one last time with a complicated expression, then he turns and leaves.

I drag myself upright eventually, using the bedframe because one arm protests when I try without leverage.

I cross to the mirror, then peel one sleeve back. I hate his marks on me.

I hate them in all their forms.

The drawer in my desk is still half-open, and the knife is still there. I look at it. Then I look at my forearm.

And I do what I always do when I cannot stand the idea that he left something on me I did not choose.

I take the pain back.

It’s not brave or clean. It’s just the old mechanism my body knows: hurt against hurt until one of them feels like mine.

Slash.

Slash.

Slash.

There is blood everywhere, and while I look at it, Kento’s face appears in the dark behind my eyelids.

Black eyes… I miss his eyes.

***

I give up on hiding in my room after a day. My father still isn’t home, and my sister comes and goes, which somehow makes it all worse, because now my brother doesn’t even have to worry about someone catching him maiming me. I end up loitering near the front entrance, caught between going back upstairs and simply walking into traffic, when the front door opens. I glance up and see Kento walk in.

He’s wearing black. His hair is pushed back from his face, and his eyes find mine. “We need to talk,” he says.

I glance around quickly, pulse spiking. “Not now.”

“Yes, now.”

I step closer and lower my voice, hating how desperate I sound. “You can’t be here—”

Kento’s eyes narrow. He takes a step closer, and I can smell him now. I know it’s only been a day, but I missed his smell so much.

“Why can’t I be here?” Kento asks quietly.

I shake my head. “Just go. Please.”

“No.”

“You don’t understand—”

“Then explain it to me.”

I open my mouth to answer, but footsteps echo behind me first. I don’t even have to turn around to know who it is. Trauma is remarkably efficient at pattern recognition. By the time I look, Anton is already standing at the foot of the stairs, smiling. It’s a very convincing smile if you’ve never met him before.

“Kento,” he says smoothly, like they’re old friends. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

Kento watches Anton with that unnervingly still expression of his, as though he’s looking at an object rather than a person.