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nutteu · 7 months

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the almost under your skin

[AO3]

There was something morbidly funny about avoiding bananas so vehemently, in hiding the tremble of his fingers, in covering himself in as many layers as possible in the summer. There was something devastatingly quiet in breathing in the air of repressed memory and fear that never quite made it into the surface, forever trapped under his epidermis. [Sykkuno-centric; because sometimes we ignore warning labels; published 2021-10-14; word count: 13,090]

It started out innocent enough, so easy. Sometimes it was laughably simple, to pull on the loose string of a stitch and watch as the tangle of yarn unravel.

One moment Sykkuno was wearing the same shirt five times in a week. Because he had three shirts with the same color, with the same pattern; because he had a washing machine. His friends had jokingly complained about it. Change your shirt, do you really like that one, did you shower, and he would laugh in high-ringing laughter that fit in with the rest of them. He liked his shirts, and then he didn’t.

The next moment, Sykkuno was wearing a thick sweater, with another shirt underneath, and another undershirt beneath it. Sweat was beading down his neck, and there might be something melancholic in being baked alive and listening to sweet acapella songs in the early evening. He didn’t really know, never bothered to check. There weren’t many things he looked into these days. He wondered when he became so stagnant, so stranded.

“You’re going to die from heatstroke,” Toast said in a low voice, and put a finger on the bead of sweat. It jolted Sykkuno into action, and the man frowned. He removed his finger. “Just shed off the sweater. We don’t have air con out in the open.”

“You’re exaggerating,” he said, and forced out a laugh because there had to be something said and done, lest someone looked past his bravado. “I’m fine. The breeze is enough. It’s going to be cold soon.”

“You’re soaked in sweat,” Toast deadpanned.

Sykkuno smiled and pretended that the conversation never happened. If he believed it enough, it might be overlooked and they never had to talk about this anymore. He discovered recently that he was a big fan of ‘not-talking-about-it’. When he didn’t say anything for another two minutes, Toast averted his eyes to their group of friends, and he let out a sigh.

Lily’s sweet voice blended in with Corpse’s low timbre, and Sykkuno wished everything could feel like this all the time. The soft breeze that didn’t quite manage to dispel the heat underneath the layers of fabric, the twang of the guitar, the crackle of the campfire they had painstakingly built, the soft hush of conversations that lulled them away from the fact that it was mere seven hours away from Monday.

Brodin took pictures of their outing, and Sykkuno wasn’t fast enough to cover his smile when the man directed the camera at him. He scooted over and showed the picture to him. Sykkuno looked serene, and nothing at all like the low simmer of nausea that consistently resided in his gut.

“You look relieved,” Brodin said, and Sykkuno looked at him through his bangs. Brodin had this knack of seeing things beyond what people put on the table, beyond what they had guarded so closely to their hearts.

Sykkuno swallowed and politely asked him to delete the picture. It felt like a lie, and so, it shouldn’t exist. If he believed that it was a lie, then it wasn’t real.

Out of everything his friends had said to him, he remembered vividly what Rae had said. She said, he was too nice. She said, he should be careful, because there were a lot of people with a penchant for abusing people’s kindness, and if he wasn’t careful, then he might find himself in a world of trouble.

He didn’t know how to tell her that she was right. Usually, Sykkuno wasn’t afraid of admitting his mistakes, never shying away from apologies. But this time, he felt the burn of embarrassment over admitting that it was his fault to begin with. That it wouldn’t happen if he was careful, if he had seen it sooner, if he just stopped being nice for a moment.

He was terrified of the fact that he had made a mistake, and that it could never be fixed with simple apologies. It was his fault, and he kept it closely within the calluses on his fingertips.

Sometimes Sykkuno looked at himself in the mirror, looked at his hips, and his neck, and the shape of his face. There were the ghosts of fingers placing bruises on those places, and it wouldn’t happen if he weren’t so nice. So he rubbed on his hips, his neck, his face; rubbed them so harsh his skin was red and bruised by the end of it. But the whisper of the fingers was still there, and he had nowhere to run from his skin.

He was trapped underneath the epidermis—like his mistake, like his fear, like the fingers that gripped him so tightly and never let go.

He wished he was a little bit less nice, and a whole lot stronger. He wished, and before long, he realized that he had stopped picking up people’s things when they dropped it, had walked away from people asking for directions, had turned down a lot of invitations, and looked away when people aimed a smile at him. If he were a little bit less kind, he could stop the touch of the fingers from haunting his nights.

(But he knew that all it did was alienate him from everything else in his world, and left him stranded and alone with the fingers gripping his hips, closing over his neck, cradling his face. It was another mistake he wasn’t willing to say, and he kept it close within his fingertips, along with everything that had happened, and had never happened. Because he refused to believe it, and so, it wasn’t supposed to be real.)

His friends didn’t understand why Sykkuno started picking up cigarettes, and he never told them why either. It felt too much like opening a can of worms he wasn’t ready to deal with. So he stewed in his silence, and his friends chalked it up as something that would inevitably happen. A lot of people smoke, there shouldn’t be anything strange if Sykkuno started doing it, too.

If they noticed how his fingers trembled each time he held a cigarette between them, he certainly never heard anything about it.

The thing was, Sykkuno didn’t even have the intention to smoke. He wasn’t curious, nor was he interested in smoking. The acrid taste stayed on his tongue like a cloying nightmare, and he hated how hard it was to properly learn how to suck in the smoke before releasing it in an exhale. He learned quickly, though. He smoked a lot.

He said that it was just a habit he picked up along the way, and his friends reluctantly believed it. They didn’t ask where exactly he picked it up from. His friends smoked, too. But he spent years with them and he never even tried one to humor them. But Sykkuno had always been adamant in keeping his feelings inside a box with a tightly closed lid, and everyone learned to never pry him for something he wasn’t ready for. It took him a while to realize that he was treated like something fragile. He didn’t know what to feel about that back then.

But now, all he felt was fear. That he would be treated like glass, like a ticking time bomb if they ever found out that what Sykkuno didn’t say was that cigarettes felt like safety. That it was the painful drag of unfamiliar substance over a cold night in December, that it was the fumble of badly shaking fingers as he tried to not cough or choke on the smoke. What he didn’t say was that it wasn’t the cigarette as much as it was a chance to run away from a memory he tried so hard to forget.

So he stood next to Peter while their friends chattered away in the diner, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it up with a practiced flick of his fingers. He had a gross amount of practice. Because it was almost August and it had been eight months since December, and he still didn’t know how to run away properly. He was stagnant, stranded, trapped in a night when he made the biggest mistake of his life; a shame he could never erase.

Peter never asked, though. Sometimes he offered the lighter, and sometimes he offered his cigarettes when Sykkuno forgot to bring his own. There were moments when he looked at Sykkuno as if he wanted to say something, as if he knew about something. But those moments went away as quickly as the smoke that dispersed in the early autumn night.

The closest thing to truth that Sykkuno had ever said was that one time they went to Peter’s place, and he leaned on the railing of the balcony, taking a drag of nicotine into his lungs with Peter standing close next to him.

“I hate smoking,” he said, and Peter nodded. Maybe they all had just tried to be nice and let Sykkuno go on with his façade. “I hate remembering even more, though.”

Peter paused, and looked at him. There was a question waiting at the tip of his tongue, but Sykkuno didn’t look away from the night view of the city, and so the question never met the cold air of the night. They stayed in heavy silence.

Peter stopped smoking after that.

The thing was, in a way, Sykkuno had let it happen.

See, it didn’t happen in the blink of an eye. It happened in slow motion, and God, how he felt stupid for not seeing the looming danger on the horizon. The thing about humans was that they never realized their blind spots, and most of the time, they didn’t have anyone around to point it out either. So Sykkuno was blinded by a sweet smile and easy conversation, and awkwardness that slowly seeped out of his veins. He had felt comfortable, he had talked out of his own volition, and he was the one who sat there, long enough for his mistakes to catch up on him.

His t-shirt was thin, because he had left his jacket in Toast’s car. Because clubs were supposed to be packed to the brim with people, and not even the cold air of December could penetrate the thickness of sexual tension and frustration that people brought into the establishment. This time, the bouncer didn’t refuse Sykkuno entrance for wearing a t-shirt while his friends were dressed to the nine. He probably couldn’t be bothered, or maybe he just wanted to get it over with, because the cold air was biting and he had been standing there for too long to manage the people trying to get into the club.

Either way, Sykkuno was grateful that he didn’t have to borrow his friends’ clothes anymore. Perhaps, he should have. His friends liked dressing him up in intricate layers that fit to a certain stylish standard that he could never see the point and appeal of, could never understand the formula of putting on several different things into a complete attire.

But Sykkuno's t-shirt was thin, and he wasn’t shivering because the air in the club was dense and stuffed. He said, he didn’t really like drinking, because he didn’t particularly like bitter alcohol. The man had laughed, and Sykkuno remembered he had been mesmerized by it. When he looked back at it, he almost cried from laughing too much.

Because the nicest and the worst thing that the man had done for him that night, was ordering him a Dirty Banana.

It was sweet, and palatable on his tongue, and he smiled as the man paid for his drink. Oh, God, he was so handsome, and Sykkuno couldn’t look away from him. It wasn’t the kind of attractiveness that Sykkuno was familiar with, but he welcomed it nonetheless. He made another mistake of not looking at his drink when it was served.

But it was Dirty Banana, and it was sweet, and he laughed at the flirtatious joke the man had thrown his way. There was a slice of banana on the rim of the glass, and the man had taken that, pushed it into his mouth with tantalizing slowness that made Sykkuno's throat dry. Oh, God, he was so handsome, and Sykkuno was so, so stupid.

When the world spun around, he staggered to the packed bathroom. He saw Brodin, thought of calling out to him, because Brodin would always be willing to take Sykkuno home early. But his gut was churning, and the sight of people pressing against each other had become so blurry, and he had to lean on the wall to support himself.

And then there were fingers, pressing into the side of his hips, an arm around his waist, and Sykkuno leaned heavily on the hard chest behind him. He said, he wasn’t feeling good. He said, maybe he should go home. But his words fell on deaf ears, and Sykkuno wished that he had screamed instead. Because his world had zeroed in on a handsome face and charming smile and easy conversation, and it made the stench of his mistakes all that sharper on his nose. Because his world wouldn’t listen, so perhaps somebody else would.

But nobody could hear him here, in the empty alleyway where the cold brick wall dug into his back, and the cold air of December night made shivers break out all over his skin. Nobody could hear his softly whispered ‘no’, not even himself.

Then there was a leg shoved between his, and his body was unbelievably hot and weak. Like a liquid, like the worst of time to make a mistake. There were fingers, cradling his face gently, whispers of how pretty he was, how perfect, how he’d make Sykkuno feel so good, how he was a fucking dumb bitch for trusting a stranger in a club. His t-shirt was thin and it easily made way for strong hands pressing bruises on his hips, on his neck, a thumb pressing against his lips, and Sykkuno gagged from fear and shame.

He didn’t think that something so horrible could feel so gentle. Because he was kissed as if he was a lover, he was touched as if he was someone beloved, he was called with a sweet voice as if this wasn’t forced and he was instead in the embrace of someone he wanted. But Sykkuno had wanted him, hadn’t he? There wasn’t any world out there that didn’t spell out that this wasn’t his fault, from the beginning to the end.

And so Sykkuno swallowed back his scream, his shame, the churning nausea of his stupidity. This was his fault anyway, so why didn’t he just accept the retribution? He deserved this for not listening to his friends, for being too nice, for a t-shirt that was too thin, for a tongue that couldn’t handle bitter things, for laughing at goddamned distasteful jokes and a slice of banana.

“That’s right, darling,” the man whispered, and ran a hand through Sykkuno's hair so softly, like this wasn’t a wretched version of an embrace. “You want this.”

No one heard the ‘no’ he uttered; not the man, not even Sykkuno himself.

He wondered, if his friends were to find out. Would they be angry? Sad, on his behalf? Disappointed at his mistakes, be ashamed because he wasn’t strong enough to defend himself? Would they try to fix him, or try to forget that it happened altogether? Because Sykkuno didn’t feel broken. He just felt fractured, and there was no one to blame for that but himself.

The night was bustling, and Sykkuno had hickeys all over his neck, and he felt so sick that he wanted to throw up. The fingers on his hips were the only thing that wasn’t gentle, and he relished in the reminder that this was unwanted; stewed over the roiling pain that this was his fault.

But then those fingers were gone, and there were screaming and the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and Sykkuno was hauled into another set of arms as he stumbled through the alleyway and into the bustling streets. There were people there, but he could no longer scream, and he knew that no one would take a second look at him. He wondered briefly, that if he were to scream back in the club, would this still happen? It was too soon for him to be hit with another bleak possibility.

He was seated in a circle of people. They all looked ragged and carefree, and they laughed at Sykkuno. He felt like crying. He didn’t know where he was, and he still felt the taste of banana in his throat, and God, was there even a universe out there where he wasn’t an idiot?

But they laughed, and they asked if Sykkuno was dumb, and they pressed cool clothes on his skin, and gave him a bottle of water to chug on. He spilled water all over himself and a girl tsked in irritation. He tried to apologize, but his throat was parched and his tongue felt numb.

He was leaning on a ratty car seat that had been pulled out of its original place, and there was a small campfire that they all huddled together around. He watched the flicker of fire and the crackle of the burner, thinking of life after this night. How could he pick himself up after this? What did people even do in this kind of situation? Did they scream and cry? Did they brush it off and continue as if nothing amiss had happened in their lives? He didn’t know the correct protocol, and the girl with orange hair was right, he was too dumb to think straight.

Someone was shaking him, and he blearily tried to open his eyes. Someone was talking to him, but he couldn’t make out the words. He was too drowsy, the press of wet cloth on his neck calming and offering him a respite from the turmoil inside his mind. His body didn’t feel like it was his own; too numb and uncoordinated to properly move.

There were groans of irritation, and then he was hauled into someone’s arms. They said, they were going to help him. He didn’t know whether he should believe it or not. He didn’t know whether help meant something better or worse. There were a lot of things he didn’t know about tonight. Whatever might happen, he was too powerless to stop it.

But then he woke up in a room where everything was white, and there were three unfamiliar faces staring at him. He didn’t know them, but they seemed to know him. One of them grinned and said that he was down several bucks for the medical treatment, because they didn’t have money to pay for it after paying for the taxi fare. They said he had been sleeping for a day straight, and that some evidence had been collected from his body, in case he wanted to press charges.

Sykkuno was far too disoriented and nauseous to even think properly. All he wanted to do was to go home, curl up on his bed, and die of shame. The nurse gave him his clothes and phone, and told him to wait several hours more to see if there would be any health complications. He listened to him while Tetra, the girl said her name was, helped him drink some water. His throat was sore and dry and he tried to push down the memories surfacing onto his mind.

They were rebels, they said. They weren’t exactly homeless, but they didn’t go back to their families. They hung out with their friends, and sometimes they met someone like Sykkuno. They were ruthless in saying that he was an idiot, but Nicholas, the guy who had spotted him in the alley, said that his friends were just joking, that it wasn’t his fault. Sykkuno had stopped and threw up on the sidewalk upon hearing that.

It was nighttime, and they rubbed his back as he threw up whatever he had in his stomach. When the bitter taste of stomach acid hit his tongue, he was crying. Nicholas whispered something in his ear; something gentle, something Sykkuno couldn’t believe. They didn’t take him home, because he didn’t say he wanted to, and he told Toast that he was alright. He was just meeting some friends. He ignored the phone calls afterward.

When he sat around the circle of Nicholas’ friends, they all laughed at him again, but they also offered to hunt the bastard down and he laughed because he didn’t even know what he wanted. So they gave him a weird vegetable smoothie that tasted horrible, and taught him how to inhale smoke properly from the cigarette that Tetra had offered to him.

He choked and his eyes were watering, and they all laughed. But Nicholas offered him a bottle of water, and they all got into the bus and walked him home. He thought that it was laughable, how these strangers knew what happened to him, and he couldn’t even pick up Toast’s phone calls. Between the ten of them, they only have two phones that they used interchangeably. They gave Sykkuno both numbers and gave him a pack of cigarettes. They said they couldn’t give him nicer things because they were broke. So Sykkuno accepted it and didn’t tell them he wasn’t a smoker. Everybody could be a smoker, and he could start becoming one.

Cigarettes made his throat dry and his mouth felt like something had died in it. But he had been taught how to inhale two times before letting the smoke settle in his lungs, and exhale it through his mouth and nose. He didn’t like the taste, but he liked the feeling of knowing what he was doing, of being steady on his feet after the spectacular shitshow he had set up for himself.

Nicholas said that it wasn’t his fault, and Sykkuno nodded as they walked away from his front door, singing love songs in the wrong tune. He curled up on his couch, and cried until he fell asleep. He never told anyone that it had been his fault—every single thing. He didn’t think he could handle the shame and guilt.

So he didn’t press charges, and the hospital kept the DNA, and he started smoking in December, and he made friends with ten punks who only had two cellphones between them and harsh jokes that they all laughed at as if Sykkuno was a part of it. He thought that he might just be the biggest joke that had stumbled into their lives.

They all were huddled up in a diner booth, and Leslie ordered a banana smoothie, and Sykkuno clenched his thigh so harshly. He didn’t say anything, but Brodin put a hand on top of his and held his hand through the chattering. He thought that maybe Brodin knew, somehow; that maybe the odor of his shame was so strong, wafting off of his skin in roiling waves.

He excused himself to the bathroom, and threw up his meager lunch. His mouth felt like it had a cotton ball in it, and he sat on the toilet seat afterwards. His body wasn’t trembling, his fingers were. Sometimes he looked at them and thought of cutting them off. Because what haunted his nights weren’t the gentle whisper of wretched things, weren’t the kisses on his lips and his skin, wasn’t the bleak promise of something worse. It was the fingers, on his hips, digging in until they broke the skin barrier and made a home in the cradle of his bones.

Sykkuno threw out all the bananas in his fridge, avoided the rows of them on the supermarket aisle, and vehemently denied that he was scared. Because it was ridiculous. Out of everything that had happened, he decided to be traumatized by a goddamned banana. It was funny, and he cried about it for two hours until he had to run to the bathroom to throw up.

“You’re not okay,” Brodin said, pressing fingertips on Sykkuno's temple. His voice was low, even if they were away from their friends. “You look like you’re constantly being chased by something.”

He was frozen in place. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know how to say it out loud. It was something so simple, but it weighed like a stone in his chest. He didn’t know what was worse—being told that it wasn’t his fault, or being looked at with pity. He didn’t think he was ready for either of those.

Logically, he knew that it wasn’t supposed to be his fault. But how could he believe it when he had been the one wearing a thin t-shirt, had been the one sitting there talking and laughing with him, had taken the drink with his own hands, had wanted him in the first place. He was dumb, dumb, dumb. He couldn’t have known beforehand how hard it was to admit that.

So he didn’t, and let Brodin hold his hand as if he was breaking apart. Sykkuno liked to think that he was alright, that he was only fractured. There should be a big difference, right? A fracture wasn’t something to worry about. It would heal over time, and if it didn’t, then he should have been able to handle it. He couldn’t possibly be that useless, could he? If he had endured that mistake he made in December, he could deal with the fracture that he had made with his own hands.

He looked in the mirror one day and the words he had said echoed in his mind. Pretty, perfect, dumb. He wondered how exactly he looked like to other people, people like him. If he were taller, bigger, rougher around the edges, would it still happen? If he were stronger, wasn’t so polite and delicate, would he still be approached by him?

His skin was pale and unblemished, but Sykkuno could see the stark bruises that had faded for months. For the most part, the only thing he felt was disgust and shame and guilt. But sometimes, he felt so angry and he didn’t know whether it was directed at himself, that man, or the world. He supposed it was all three of them. He punched the walls in his bathroom until his knuckles bleed, until he was breathless from exertion and tears. He would stare at his messed up hand and went out for a smoke, letting the air bring a new wave of pain over the broken skin. He wished he could be like his hand; if he was wounded it would heal eventually, and there would be no sign left of previous atrocity but scars that could barely be seen.

He didn’t heal. His fracture didn’t close up, and the invisible bruises always felt fresh every single day. Sometimes Sykkuno thought of the cause. Fractures didn’t just come up out of nowhere. But he found out that it was just as hard to admit that something had happened to him, that he had been knocked down and touched with strong fingers. That he had been fractured. It didn’t feel right to cry out about something that was his fault to begin with.

So he called one of the two new numbers he had in his phone, and they all merrily walked him to a hairstylist. The customers and the staff gave them a dirty look for being so loud and ragged, but Sykkuno liked their presence. They said that Sykkuno would look cool with an undercut.

“Like that one model in the magazine!” Cherry had exclaimed, and then laughed when Tetra reminded her that she had stolen said magazine.

Sykkuno came out of the place with ten not-quite-homeless punks, sporting lavender hair and an undercut. He felt fresh, felt new. He felt like his throat was clogging up because he knew this was just an act of running away. Nicholas put an arm around Sykkuno's shoulder and said that he was the Boss man, that he looked dandy as fuck.

He didn’t know what kind of things they had seen, but the moment Sykkuno said that he wanted to get a piercing, there was a look that crossed their faces and for a second he was paralyzed in fear. He felt like they knew exactly what he was doing, could read between the lines, could see the tremble of his fingers even if he hid them in his pockets. But they just jostled him and said that he was becoming a rebel like them, and pointed him out to this tattoo and piercing parlor that they said was nice, but too expensive for them to actually go into.

He had two piercings on his left ear, one on his right, and a small tattoo of lavender on his hips. They said he looked good with it. They said it suited his hair. He didn’t tell that it was because he wanted to see something else on his hips other than the invisible bruises.

His friends were shocked, but they all looked happy enough. Corpse was practically vibrating in his seat as he ranted to Sykkuno about earrings and having matching tattoos together, said that he was so cool and it fit him so well, and would he like some of Corpse’s chains and rings to complete the look?

Toast ran a hand through his hair, and didn’t say anything. Sykkuno let him; let the soothing motion lull him to drowsiness. When he woke up, everyone was gone, and there was nothing left but ladened silence in their wake. Toast had always been close to him, closer than anyone he had ever allowed to. He thought that maybe he could finally say it, if it was Toast. But his piercings felt new and aching, and the studs caught the shine of the overhead lamp, and his tattoo felt like it was burning on his skin. So he kept his mouth shut, until Toast sighed, as if Sykkuno had hurt him.

“Do you really want this?” he asked instead.

“Maybe, I don’t know,” Sykkuno answered, as truthfully as he could. “I feel like I had to.”

Toast’s lips pressed into a thin line. But he didn’t push, just ran his hand through Sykkuno's hair. It still smelled faintly like bleach and hair dye. “You look good,” he finally said, and closed his eyes.

Sykkuno lay there in silence, and stared at the lamp above them until his eyes watered. If he was crying, he told himself it was because of the harsh glare of the light.

Sykkuno didn’t wear chains or necklaces with pendants. Instead, he bought a bunch of chokers and put them on and relished in the sight of something else wrapped around his neck. He went back to the tattoo parlor with Nicholas and had a constellation inked alongside his lavender, had smattering of lilies on the other side. They looked like they were cradling his hips, and he pressed on them from beneath layers of fabric. They gave him a sense of safety; that people could still press bruises there but it wouldn’t show from beneath the starkness of his inks.

Rae said she liked this new look on him. That he looked more confident now. That he looked so chick and pretty with his new earrings and choker, and Sykkuno didn’t throw up. It had been more than a year, he wasn’t healing still, but he taught himself how to hear the same words without breaking out in a cold sweat.

Peter didn’t smoke, but he still stood next to Sykkuno in silence when he did. Brodin held his hand when they sat next to each other in cafés and diners and restaurants. Toast still looked at him as if Sykkuno was breaking his heart.

He took everything in stride and told himself that this wasn’t denial.

Cherry and Tetra and Nara taught him how to layer himself in clothes that wouldn’t suffocate him so much in the summer. So Sykkuno was down several thousand bucks from buying a whole set of new outfits for his wardrobe. The girls liked dressing him up, the way his friends did. They left him detailed instructions on how to mix and match the outfits. He remembered the formula, and when it didn’t feel right, he fell back on the assurance that he was clothed in at least three layers of fabrics. They wouldn’t give way so easily, not anymore.

Sykkuno didn’t go to clubs anymore. Whenever his friends invited him, he said that he was hanging out with the punks, and he spent the night pretending that he wasn’t five seconds away from throwing up, that his fingers weren’t trembling so badly that his cigarette fell. Reuben laughed the hardest amongst them all, and he slapped Sykkuno's back so hard, and they all pretended that the cigarette fell because of it.

Once, Cherry laid her head on his lap, and smiled at him. It looked a little bit sad around the edges, but looking away from it would be too rude. Sykkuno wasn’t so nice anymore these days, but he learned to prevent himself from being outrightly harsh and cold. She traced the line of his choker; suede, with a small pendant. “Pretty,” she whispered, and closed her eyes as if everything was alright in the world. Maybe it was, in hers.

Cherry was all giggles and fearless remarks upon her petty crimes. She was this kind of pretty with heavy make-up and an abundance of jewelries and a smile that looked too sweet amongst her ragged companions. She was an airhead that sometimes didn’t get the jokes her friends threw around, but she laughed anyway because she liked them. She was someone who stood at Sykkuno's chest, and twice as brave as he was.

“I was like you, once,” she said. “I cried so much, and I thought, how can I live with my mistakes?”

He looked away. He never talked about it. Not even after a year. He thought that it made him into an even bigger coward. But he curled up in the safety cocoon he had made for himself, all the chokers and piercings and tattoos and smiles that now felt a tad sharper than before. He wasn’t healed, still as fractured as before, but he learned to pretend better.

“It took me a long time to convince myself that I can be free from my shame and guilt,” she continued. “If you want to run away from it, that’s fine too. Maybe when you’ve run enough, you’ll stop and realize that you’re in a new place that you’ve built for yourself. It can be filled with things you’ve changed, things that still contain the memories and nightmares. But you’ll see eventually that it’s okay to stop and be alright.”

He looked at her, and she smiled at him. She reached out to hold his hand, and he gripped it tightly. He whispered, “I don’t know if I can ever run away from him.”

“Well, that’s okay, too,” she said cheerily. “Maybe he runs away from you too. Just because you two exist in the same plane of existence, doesn’t mean that you have to trap yourself with him. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re standing on your own feet, have made decisions for yourself, and you can be okay. If you can’t accept that yet, it’s okay. I’m sure I can remind you every day; I’ll borrow the phone from Nick and text you!”

He laughed and nodded. He couldn’t bring himself to believe everything she said completely, not yet. But he had run so far, and his feet were getting tired, and maybe it was alright to stop once in a while and breathe in the heated air of June.

He didn’t throw up so much from bananas these days. He simply ignored them and looked away when someone ate something that had bananas in it. He still thought that it was hilarious, that he was traumatized by a fruit. It was a sort of hysterical, morbid hilarity. But sometimes, when he was particularly so deep in his head, he could still taste the Dirty Banana on his tongue, could still see the slow drag of tongue over that one slice of banana. He didn’t think he could hate something as much as he did with it.

But it wasn’t the banana, was it? It was everything that preceded it and everything that happened afterwards. But his mind was left in scrambles, and it latched onto the safest and most dangerous thing from that night. If he didn’t drink that beverage, he wouldn’t be pressed up against cold brick walls, getting fingerprints all over his skin to be remembered a year later. If he wasn’t so caught up in the curl of his tongue over the slice of banana, he wouldn’t want him so much. He wouldn’t get—get—

He looked at his reflection in the mirror and the gaunt eyes stared back at him. What was the word? It wasn’t the right word, the one ringing in his ears. He didn’t get—he didn’t. And for some reason, it made everything that much worse. Because worse things had happened to people, things like what he had promised Sykkuno. It didn’t happen to him, and yet here he was. His piercings and tattoos felt like they were mocking him. It didn’t happen, and yet he was still fractured.

Maybe if it happened to him, all of this would feel justified. Everything he did would make so much more sense. Maybe if he had another dosage of trauma to complete that disastrous night, he would be allowed to feel this shaken, this hollow.

But it didn’t happen. It was an almost that ate him away, lingering under his skin and reminding him that it didn’t happen, and yet he was still left in shambles. It made him feel even weaker, that he didn’t get the worst of it, and still felt the need of running away, of changing, of forgetting.

Sykkuno didn’t cry much, now. He used to cry a lot, like Cherry said she did. He guessed that maybe his tears had run dry, and he was forced to deal with his emotional turmoil with vacant eyes and anxiety that weighed his stomach like a stone.

And yet, it was an almost, and Sykkuno had never felt as sick as he did right now. So he cried, clutching the sides of the sink, and thought that no one told him that it was so fucking hard to admit that he was stupid, that he was scared.

Sykkuno changed his hair color in the autumn. Nicholas and Cherry were the only ones with him when he came out of the salon with pink hair. For some reason, he never brought his friends when he got his hair done, when he had new piercings or tattoos, when he bought new outfits. He thought that it made him a bad friend, to keep this side of himself only to people whom he had known only for a year. But these people had seen him, had known what happened to him, and it was easier, somehow. It still took him a while to settle with comfort instead of unfairness.

Nicholas was the closest with him amongst the others. Sykkuno figured out that Nick was the one who told the others to never touch his hips; that they should only offer him a drink where he could see it, or the ones they had drank first beforehand; that they shouldn’t eat or drink anything with bananas near him. Sometimes they said something that made him tremble and nauseous, but he learned to swallow it in. He couldn’t keep shying away from words, no matter how much they made him feel the bruises all anew on his skin.

Nick said that he was pretty, and he said it so earnestly that Sykkuno was stunned for a moment. It was so different than when he called him pretty; it had been condescending, obscene. He had tried to run away from that word for a long time, now—had tried to change himself into something that wouldn’t conclude into that word. But Cherry looked at him with such wonder, and she called him pretty, and it was easier to stomach, then.

On Halloween night, he came to the party at Edison’s house dressed as a punk. Nick had lent him his jacket. It was endearing to see the man giving it to Sykkuno with embarrassment all over his face. He said that he had to wash it beforehand, didn’t want Sykkuno to smell his sweat all over it. It now smelled like Nick’s cologne and the stink of cigarettes.

He didn’t drink. He never drank anymore ever since that night, almost two years ago. But he felt pretty drunk still when Toast pulled him into the bathroom and asked why he chose to dress like a punk. He laughed and took a drag of smoke, and said that it was because it felt safe. Like the cigarette, like the tattoos and piercings and chokers and layers of clothes.

There was momentary blankness on Toast’s face, and Sykkuno looked away with a bitter smile. Toast had always been the smartest out of them all, and he knew Sykkuno well. Not well enough to know everything, but enough to read between the lines now that he was presented with clear clues.

They sat inside the empty bathtub, and Sykkuno looked up at Toast, who was sitting on the other end of it. The bathtub was too small for two grown men crowding in it, but it didn’t feel suffocating, somehow, when Toast surged forward and held Sykkuno as if he was the one breaking apart, as if he was the one carrying a fracture for almost two years.

Toast, too, felt safe to him. He trusted him, and he knew that Toast would handle it in ways that wouldn’t make things worse. But Sykkuno was—he was—scared. Oh, God, he was so scared, and he felt undeserving of sympathy and safety; of explaining himself and exposing his mistakes, his shame. He thought that time could make it easier, but it had been going on for long enough, and his fingers still trembled as badly as the first time.

“Don’t—“ he choked out, because he wouldn’t cry. “Don’t say that you’re sorry. It’s never been your fault.”

“I won’t,” Toast promised, but the way he cradled Sykkuno's face and pressed their foreheads together felt like a thousand apologies.

It made him feel so, so much worse, and so, so much better. He felt like he could breathe a little easier, the weight on his chest let up a little, and he wondered if soon, once it was completely removed, truth would pour out of the emptiness it left behind.

They didn’t go back to the party, and Edison let them sleep in the guest room. Sykkuno didn’t shed his clothes, Toast didn’t either. It was as if there was an unspoken pact between them; as if he had uttered an unsaid permission for Toast to see him clearly after nearly two years of hiding, of running away. The closeness didn’t bother him, it never did. His fear manifested in a million other things that caught him off-guard and stranded, scrambling for purchase. It wasn’t the way the media and articles had portrayed it to be, and yet it was. Sometimes there were some lines in-between left undisclosed, hidden from the light of the day, and yet felt so, so real.

It was the first time he had acknowledged it after so long. That it happened, that it existed; that the bruises he felt on his skin felt real, that the words were still ringing in his ears, that the taste of banana and his tongue were still vivid in his mouth.

He closed his eyes and Toast held his hand. He wanted to say, don’t let go, I’m so scared. Oh, God, Toast it was my fault. I was so stupid, I’m so scared, don’t let go. But he didn’t, couldn’t. He was unable to let it out of his throat, the way that word couldn’t make way past his fear. It wasn’t—it wasn’t that. It was less than that, and it was so much worse because it was an almost.

Toast held him closer anyway, and Sykkuno clung onto his shirt until his knuckles turned white. In the morning, he asked if there were things Sykkuno didn’t like. He swallowed and said, “Banana.”

Toast liked bananas. But he never ate it in front of Sykkuno anymore. In a way, it made it easier. In a way, he felt like he was even more fragile than before. Delicate. He tried to believe that he was anything but that, and it was easy enough to do because Toast didn’t treat him like a glass, or a ticking time bomb. He hurled insults and inappropriate jokes at Sykkuno all the same, leveled him with a flat look when he thought that Sykkuno was being particularly dumb, and didn’t hold back at all in knocking him down when they were wrestling around.

But sometimes, Toast was quiet, and he stood next to Sykkuno alongside Peter when he smoked, and he held Sykkuno as if he knew that he was trying so hard to be alright, to run, to hide. He bought chokers and earrings for Sykkuno, and snapped at the others when they commented on how many layers Sykkuno was wearing. It's winter, Tina, what the fuck do you care?

Sykkuno would smile and laugh and let Brodin hold his hand as Toast got into an argument with Tina. He thought of Cherry, of her sad smile, of being alright and stopping to see that he was standing in a place he had built for himself. He didn’t think he could be there, not for many years, but he could allow himself a moment of respite.

It still felt like pretending, like denial, like hiding his mistakes and shame, but he swallowed it down and convinced himself that he could pretend to be one more thing: to be alright.

Sykkuno changed his hair to electric blue in February. He took Toast with him this time. The punks had a great time trading insults and banters with him. They were in awe because someone like Sykkuno could have a friend as savage and hilariously tired of everything like Toast; they adored him and demanded why they hadn’t been introduced to him sooner.

“Someone like me?” he had asked jokingly.

“You know,” Tetra said, shrugging. “Soft and delicate and so smart it hurts. Actually, it’s not that surprising. You’re a sadistic bitch underneath all those sweet smiles, aren’t you? No wonder you got boytoy over here.”

“I can hear you,” Toast said through gritted teeth.

Sykkuno paused to contemplate her words. Even after more than two years, after every change he had undergone, there were still some things he couldn’t run away from. He was still undeniably, inevitably, himself. He supposed it should make him feel bad because it meant that he was still the same man who got—got. But… in a way, it also made him feel a little bit relieved, that he was still himself and more.

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked again. “To be all that?”

Tetra laughed and slung an arm around his shoulders. “No, dumb bitch,” she replied. “You’ve never been at fault for being you, for all that. Sometimes the world is just cruel, and there’s that. It’s a simple fact that you should try drilling it into that thick head of yours.”

It would be easy, to put the blame onto others. But Sykkuno had borne the burden for so long that he didn’t know how to do anything else. It was pathetic, and it felt safe for all the wrong reasons. Sykkuno was fractured in all the wrong ways. He didn’t like bananas, he covered every place he had touched with everything else he had chosen for himself, he wasn’t as kind as before. But his fingers still trembled, and he still stared at himself in the mirror and saw the man from two years ago, and he was afraid of being called pretty.

He had been himself and it had been a mistake. But now, no one touched him like that anymore—no one even approached him like that because Sykkuno had never let them. He turned them down flatly, and walked away with Nick’s arm around his shoulders. He was himself, too, now, and Tetra said that it was alright. He had changed, and he was still himself, and it was okay.

It felt pretty anticlimactic, but he would take it regardless.

“I feel like I should cry,” he said with a soft smile. He rarely ever smiled so softly anymore. He looked at himself in the mirror and practiced until his smiles held an edge to it, more guarded and less jovial. He practiced until he could send people scurrying away instead of getting closer when they saw his smile. It made him feel safe, made him feel like he was less likely to be pressed against cold brick walls in an empty alleyway.

“So cry, soft boy,” Tetra said with a bright laugh. “Cry until you’re breathless and curse at everything you’ve ever scorned. Cry until you feel like you don’t want to cry anymore, and then cry some more just because you can. Who the fuck will stop you? I might even join in.”

So Sykkuno cried, in the diner booth they visited, with Toast’s arms around him. He cried until the waitress threw him a concerned look, and cried again until he was all snot and blubbers. Toast didn’t say anything about it, just held Sykkuno close with one arm, and ate his lasagna with the other. Tetra cried with him and he kept laughing between his sobs because she complained about capitalism and the cage of society’s norms that was forced upon them.

The waitress came over with a gentle smile, and placed a banana smoothie on the table. It was on the house, she said. If there was anything else she could get him, just called for her, she said. Her name was Janice, and Sykkuno burst out into a hysterical laughter after she left. Because it was the motherfucking banana, and the world was fucking cruel for placing such a coincidence on him.

He took the smoothie and downed it in one go, and went to the bathroom to throw up. The taste of banana was replaced with the bitter tang of acid, and he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and saw that he was such a mess. His new hair was bright and soft because they had put so many products to prevent it from getting more damaged, and his choker was sitting tight and pretty on his neck, and his nose was runny and he looked disgusting, so to speak.

But God, he had never felt so fucking pretty than he was in this moment.

He went out and Toast dabbed his face with a napkin. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Fucking dandy,” he answered, and Nick laughed so hard he keeled over.

Toast grinned, because he liked it when Sykkuno cursed, and held his hand throughout their meanderings.

In spring, Sykkuno shed a layer off his clothes, and still felt safe. It was less stifling that way, but he kept his jackets and sweaters all the time. He laid his head on Brodin’s lap and felt like he was a tad softer around the edges when Brodin ran a hand through his hair. He said, “I think I can be okay,” and Brodin nodded.

The punks loved the spring. They brought so many flowers for Sykkuno and made a circle to learn how to make flower crowns from Cherry. Reuben ate a bunch of sunflower petals and pelted the seeds at the rest of them. It was weird and slightly violent, but it made him smile. Nick gave him a bouquet of yellow roses, and told him what it meant. Cherry kissed his cheeks, because Nick was too embarrassed to do it, she said. So, Sykkuno leaned down to kiss Nick’s cheek and felt like it was alright. It still felt safe.

“What kind of cottage-core scenario did you just come from?” Toast asked when Sykkuno came to their outing with a flower crown and a bouquet of yellow roses and lavenders and chrysanthemums in hand. He thought he must have looked ridiculous; with his piercings and tattoo on the side of his neck, with heeled boots and leather jackets, surrounded by flowers.

People stared and Sykkuno held his head high. He said, “They helped around this florist shop, and the owner gave them a lot of flowers.”

“I’m sure Cherry stole some of them,” Toast said. He had known them for a few months, and he already knew how to read each one of them perfectly. Sykkuno felt a sense of pride at that.

“I want some flowers, too,” Corpse said, so Sykkuno gave him some. He looked incessantly happy about it.

When they went home, and Toast walked into Sykkuno's house with him, he threw the flowers around the living room and walked in circles with Toast holding his hand. The man shook his head and went along. This should feel alright. This should feel like a change and a part of himself. This should feel like taking a breath and dropping his pretense for a second.

Toast put a hand on his hips, and Sykkuno's breath hitched, fingers curling around Toast’s shoulders imperceptibly. But they were dancing to a song inside their heads, and he wasn’t being pressed against the cold brick wall, and it was alright. It was still safe.

They danced, and Sykkuno stumbled because despite his changes, he never did stop being so clumsy with his feet. Toast laughed and held him tighter, and it didn’t feel like a searing brand; it didn’t feel like a bruise. It felt like he was being held so he wouldn’t trip and fall. It made him feel delicate, but delicate shouldn’t be accused of being something so bad.

They fell into the bed and Sykkuno was breathless from laughter and a sense of relief. He was barely holding himself together, but he had pretended for more than two years. He was goddamned amazing at it, and he could pretend that he was alright a little bit longer. Maybe if he did it long enough, he could actually be alright.

They didn’t kiss, and Toast didn’t ask, but Sykkuno placed a soft kiss on his cheek, and slept with Toast’s arms around him. The punks might be onto something. Sykkuno fucking loved spring.

In October, everything fell apart.

Cherry called him, frantic and on edge. Sykkuno listened with a frown, and then stood up from the couch when he heard that Nick was detained. There was a fight, and the other guy was in bad shape. Brodin drove him to the police station, and he felt like he had just gotten a sucker-punch to the chest when Nick looked down and said in a soft voice, “It was him. He tried to do the same thing, and I punched his face.”

Sykkuno wobbled on his feet. Brodin steadied him and guided him to sit on a bench. Nick said that the police were on him, that he would be questioned and detained after he was patched up because he was caught in the act. This time, the victim was pressing a charge.

Everything came back to him with a vengeance. The sweet smile, the easy conversation, the taste of Dirty Banana, the fingers on his hips and neck and face, the cold brick wall digging into his spine. His head was blank, the stone in his chest felt like it had consumed him whole and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, and oh, God, he was so stupid. Oh, God, how did he let himself think that he could ever run away from this?

Brodin rubbed his back as he threw up in the bathroom, wiping the cold sweat on his temple and the traces of vomit on his lips. He trembled, now, all of him. It had been nearly three years, and everything had finally caught up to him.

Toast came over an hour later and bailed Nick out. He said, he’d hire a lawyer if Nick ever needed one. When Sykkuno got close enough, he heard Nick talking to the police. He had been released from the hospital and was on the way to the police station to be questioned. Samples of DNA had been taken from his victim, and Sykkuno thought back of his own samples that he had left at the hospital on that night of December.

Toast took one look at Sykkuno and sent him home with Brodin. He stayed with Nick at the police station. He clutched his jacket close, and felt so, so dumb. He didn’t shed his shoes, didn’t move away from the couch. He felt so vulnerable and exposed, even with his layers of clothes and his tattoos and piercings and choker. He felt like he was back to three years ago, laughing and wanting and it had been his fault all along.

Shame churned in his gut, words he could never bring to let slip past his lips. Words like scared, words like my fault, words like—like—

Toast came to his house a little before midnight. Sykkuno had been isolating himself in the backyard, smoking frantically with fingers that shook so badly he dropped several cigarettes. He sat next to Sykkuno, and didn’t say anything for a long time. He didn’t check to see if Brodin was still there. His head was too noisy and too empty at the same time. He wanted to claw his skin off, to uproot the bruises that feel fresh all over again beneath his tattoos.

Brodin joined them after some time, bringing a cup of tea for each of them. Sykkuno didn’t touch his. Toast spoke for the first time to him that night, then.

“They asked me if you want to testify,” he said carefully, cautiously, and Sykkuno hated how fragile, how delicate it made him feel. He was a glass, a stone away from breaking apart; he was the ticking time bomb, seconds away from exploding and hurtling debris all over his surroundings.

There were fingers, placing a soft touch on his hand, and Sykkuno flinched from it. He bit his lip until he could taste blood and buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

It should feel like truth, but it felt like a confession of sins instead. It felt like waiting for judgment and retribution. They said that he might feel better if he talked it out. But shame burned on the back of his throat, and the world seemed like it was watching him fall.

There were footsteps walking away, and he thought that they had finally left him after knowing the truth, his mistakes. He deserved this. He had wanted him, he had been the one who stayed and talked and drank that stupid Dirty Banana. It was all on him.

But then, there were fingers prying his hands apart, and Brodin was looking at him as if Sykkuno wasn’t a sinner. He looked at him as if he would be willing to take the burden with him. He said, “Toast thinks that you need some space. He’s waiting inside, for whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and it felt weird that it wasn’t Toast that he told this to, but Brodin felt like an encompassing blanket in a winter when he held Sykkuno's hand and sat in front of him. “It was my fault. It was all my fault. I made a mistake.”

Brodin nodded. “Maybe you did make a mistake. But it wasn’t necessarily your fault.”

“I was the one who stayed and talked to him,” Sykkuno said, and then laughed and laughed and laughed. He sounded like he was on the verge of losing it, on the verge of tears. “I drank that fucking Dirty Banana, and he brought me to the alleyway, and I told him no, I swear, I told him that.”

He was crying, he realized. He was crying so hard that his words were barely audible, and for the first time since it happened, Sykkuno felt like he was broken. There wasn’t any fracture, he was split apart and tattered at the seams. He was so weak—with his thin t-shirt and kindness and pretty smile. He was so weak, for being so charmed and mesmerized. And it had been his fault all along, because he had invited him, didn’t he?

He wasn’t aware that he was saying everything out loud until Brodin’s hands tightened around his. He swallowed and laughed bitterly. “I tried to change myself, to erase the marks he placed on me. I smoke because it was the first sign of safety I had after—after that. I put things in places he had touched me. God, I can’t believe I’m still so afraid of being called pretty, because he had called me that. Had called me pretty, called me perfect and dumb because I trusted him. I said no, and he still touched me. If I had fought, if I had screamed, maybe I wouldn’t get—get—“

He swallowed, and looked down at his shaking knees. When he whispered the world out loud, it felt like a millions different fractures on his fragile glass.

“—assaulted.”

He wiped the tears with the sleeve of his jacket and smiled. “I wasn’t even raped, you know? He didn’t get to do it before Nick found us. I was just assaulted, and I wasn’t raped, and yet I carry around a fracture for three years. I changed myself and I tried to forget and I keep thinking that I can run away from this. But I can’t, and I’m still as weak as I was before. It was my fault, and I don’t know how to live with that.”

Sykkuno understood, then, why Toast looked at him like Sykkuno was breaking his heart. Because when he looked up, Brodin looked the same. He let go of his hand, and sat next to him, and put his head on his shoulder. Sykkuno grasped his knee to stop the shaking. It was futile.

“It wasn’t rape,” he whispered. “It was an almost, and I feel so sick because I shouldn’t have felt like this. It didn’t happen. But why do I feel like I’m breaking apart?”

Brodin held him in silence, and Sykkuno cried until his eyes hurt. “It’s not your fault,” he said after a while. “I know you might not be able to stomach it right now, but it’s the truth and sometimes it’s harder to acknowledge it. That’s alright, too. If you can’t right now, I’ll keep it for when you’re ready.”

He didn’t believe it, couldn’t. Cherry said the same thing, Tetra said that too. But it was so hard to dispel a narrative that he had believed in for so long. It had been so hard, keeping it inside, and Sykkuno felt like he shouldn’t forgive himself so easily because of it.

“Sykkuno,” Brodin called out. He lifted his head a little to sign that he was listening. “Just because someone is shot with an arrow instead of ten, doesn’t mean that their pain is invalid. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t justified to cry and feel hurt because of it. Pain isn’t about a competition where you determine who deserves to feel it more than the others. An arrow can still kill someone; an almost can still break you apart.”

Sykkuno felt sick to the stomach, but he also felt like he wanted to cry and be held for a long time. Brodin shifted to look at him. He said, “Just because it wasn’t rape, doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to feel afraid, to feel anything that you’ve been keeping for the past three years. It’s okay, to say it, to be scared. You’re allowed to.”

He was tired of crying, but there were tears clumping in his eyes and he held onto Brodin so tightly, afraid of being alone in his head again. “Oh, God, Brodin—“ he choked out. “I’m so scared, I’m so scared—I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what I should do. I was so fucking dumb—God—“

There was so much he wanted to say, to tell, but his throat was clogged up and he couldn’t stop crying. Brodin held him, didn’t let go, and for a while it felt alright—to be scared, to finally think that it wasn’t his fault, to be an almost.

He was brought back into the house, and Toast was so silent as he swaddled Sykkuno in a blanket. He gave him a cup of herbal tea that Rae liked to give to him so much. He sipped on it carefully, and felt numb all over. Brodin lay down on the couch, and Toast wiped Sykkuno's face with a wet tissue, brushing over his tear tracks and snots and traces of shame. He took away the empty cup, and took off Sykkuno's boots and socks. He helped him up and guided him to the bedroom.

“We have time,” Toast said, brushing a hand over his now mint-green hair. “You don’t need to say everything. Take it at your own pace, I’ll still be here.”

Sykkuno nodded and held his hand. “Can you- can you stay?”

Toast nodded and took off his jacket, put it on the hanger, and walked over to the bed. He was cautious still with Sykkuno, but he lay down next to him. “I’ll take care of Nick and the allegation. It’s okay if you don’t want to testify, they’re looking for similar victims. They told me the court will be held in more or less two weeks from now.”

“Is Nick okay?” he asked.

“He was threatened to be detained again, because he punched that bastard again as soon as he saw him,” Toast informed, and it brought a small laugh out of Sykkuno. He looked at him, and took a deep breath. When he reached out a hand, it was trembling. “I was so close to committing a crime, you know? I don’t think I’ll regret it.”

“I don’t want you to get into jail,” Sykkuno said, and held the trembling hand tightly in his. They both were shaking, for different reasons. But he found kinship in it, and scooted closer to Toast. “I’ve thought, for the longest of time, that I can pretend to be okay.”

Toast rubbed his thumb gently on the back of Sykkuno's hand, and whispered, “You can be.”

“I don’t know how to believe in that,” he admitted, and felt the prick of tears in his eyes. He was so tired of crying, of everything, of this.

“I’ll remind you,” Toast said. “I’ll remind you of that, everyday. I can help you, if you’ll allow me to.”

“You sound like Cherry,” Sykkuno smiled.

Toast smiled back. “And she’s fucking right in doing so.”

Sykkuno didn’t take off his jacket as he fell asleep. He didn’t feel like he was safe enough to do it, but Toast didn’t mind. He just wrapped his arms around Sykkuno and held him until they fell asleep. He was so scared, God, he felt like he wanted to scream and rip his nails out, but it was alright to be afraid. Brodin’s words echoed in his mind.

He was allowed to be scared, to feel vulnerable and weak and hurting. He had been shot with an arrow, and it might not be ten, but it was alright to acknowledge that it broke him apart all the same. It was alright, even if it was an almost, lingering under his epidermis, the most taunting omen that had chained him down for three years.

He was allowed to be an almost.

In November, Sykkuno testified in the court against Bryan Algere. He spoke with stuttered words and occasional pause in-between, but the judge was ever-patient in waiting for him to finish his testimony. The police had gathered three other men and women who had fallen into the same trap. They contacted the hospital Sykkuno had been brought into, and used the sample of DNA that was still stored there. He had a sudden thought that it was hilarious, that this happened now instead of a year later, because they told him that a DNA sample could only last up to four years.

He didn’t look at Bryan the whole proceeding, and he allowed himself that, too. He might not be brave enough right now, but that was okay. He retold the story, and kept words like ‘it was my fault’ and ‘I stayed and talked and I didn’t scream’ under his tongue. He said that he had said no, that he had said it twice. Sometimes, he had to look down and thumb the pack of cigarettes in his pocket because they didn’t allow him to smoke inside the courtroom. He said that it wasn’t a penetrative rape, but he was assaulted nonetheless, and it was one of the hardest things to say in his life.

“I’m a case of almost,” he said, and looked at his trembling fingers instead of anyone in the room. “But it doesn’t mean that it’s not a horrible thing to experience. It doesn’t mean that I’m not scared for the better part of three years of my life, that I don’t fall apart because of it. It was an almost, and it still fractured me.”

He didn’t know what he was trying to say, but it felt like relief, saying it out loud. It felt real, it didn’t feel like a lie. It existed out in the open air, for everyone to hear, and there was nothing that could erase it. It made three years of emotional turmoil and sleepless nights spent crying and throwing up in the bathroom, changing himself and pretending to be something that wasn’t pretty, wasn’t weak, wasn’t someone who would have this happen to him, a little easier to bear.

Because it happened, and no one could take it away from him, and maybe it made it so much harder, but it also meant that he was allowed to feel like he was breaking apart at the seams. It made him feel like he was deserving of help, of being heard. Even if it wasn’t rape, even if it was an almost.

He stayed throughout the whole thing, and Toast held his hand. The whole gang of the punks was sitting on the rows of benches to show support for Nick and Sykkuno, also to give their own testimony of Sykkuno's story. When the judge finally decided that Bryan was guilty of the charges against him, it almost felt like the first taste of air after being held underwater for too long. His chest was burning, and he was heaving for air, but God, it felt fucking good.

Toast held him close to his chest as the punks cheered and hollered, staring coldly at Bryan as he was taken away by the police. Sykkuno was still convinced that Toast would contemplate murder anyway, even if the whole thing had been taken care of legally. It felt new, this vehemence of protectiveness. The punks had taken care of him in their own way, but they were also understanding of Sykkuno's reluctance to talk about this. Toast was unforgiving and uncompromising in his anger.

Cherry kissed his cheek and gave him a jacket with patches and spikes on it. They had been making it for weeks, to give to him because he was their yellow rose, their forever friend. He thought that despite their gruff appearance and their personal view of the world, they were people with innocence still held tightly intact with bleeding fingers and torn nails.

He wore it alongside his three layers of clothing, and tried to teach himself to feel safe again. He still smoked as much as before, but sometimes he allowed his hand to be held by his friends so he’d know that someone else was there for him; that cigarettes weren’t the only indication of safety.

In January, he changed his hair back to black. Cherry put on a plastic flower crown on his head, and twirled around him. “It suits you, the black hair,” she said softly. “But then again, everything you choose with certainty suits you well.”

It took him months before he took off a layer of clothing, and Nick threw him a party for that. A party meant that they were eating pizzas and drinking coke until they barfed, because now Nick had a part-time job and he wasn’t as broke. Toast stopped them from earning a noise complaint by throwing them all out before nine, and cleaned up the mess as Sykkuno thumbed a new tattoo on his wrist. It wasn’t to cover up the bruises, this time. He inked a tiny yellow rose there because it meant something to him.

As spring came around the corner once again, Toast gave him a bouquet of yellow roses with tufts of astilbe around it, and a single red rose in the center. Sykkuno took it and held his hand as their friends chattered. Cherry had finally worked in the florist shop they liked to help around with in spring. Reuben still ate sunflower petals and pelted them with the seeds.

When Sykkuno allowed someone to touch his hips again, Brodin took him by the waist and they danced to a soft love song. He tripped over his feet, but he was held in strong arms. Lily’s voice blended in with Corpse’s and it was familiar, it could be safe, too.

He pierced his lower lip, and when Toast ran a thumb over it, Sykkuno didn’t feel like he would be left with invisible bruises. He just felt like he was breathless, like he could fall at any moment and be caught. He trusted that he would be alright. If not now, then it was alright; his friends would remind him, everyday. Or, at least, his therapist definitely would.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror, and still saw the man who had been so afraid, so frantic in covering up his shame and fear. But he also saw the man who had allowed himself to be helped, to be okay. He practiced smiling again. He kept the smile that made people afraid and wary, but he tried to remember how to smile softly, gently again. If not for himself, then for the people he held dear.

Almost was a word he remembered for years after that night in December, and on some days, he still felt the ghost of bruises on his skin, the press of cold brick walls behind him, and he still woke up feeling disoriented and afraid. But he wasn’t alone, and he had people who understood that almost had made a fracture in him, had knocked him down and held him underwater for so long. Almost could be as dangerous as happened, and he was allowed to acknowledge that, too.

So Sykkuno had changed, and was himself still. He had multiple arrays of outfits that he now knew how to coordinate; he had three piercings on left ear and two on the right; he wore chokers and necklaces because he liked how they look on him; he wore layers of clothing because it felt safe and it was dandy as fuck; he had tattoos all over his body, to cover the invisible bruises and to remind him of good things in life.

When Toast kissed him, it didn’t feel like terror. It felt gentle and too much and not enough, and he was worshipped in a way that made him boneless with affection. He called Sykkuno pretty, that he was perfect, that he was everything Toast could ever want, and they didn’t feel like words that he had to stay away from. When Toast held him close and left his marks all over his skin, Sykkuno pressed on the bruises to remind him that they didn’t always mean a bad thing.

Toast taught him how to file restraining orders, because even if Bryan Algere wouldn’t be getting out of jail anytime soon, it was okay to be prepared. Toast still held grudges, and Sykkuno sometimes caught him making what he had dubbed as ‘murder-face’. He kissed him and said that he wouldn’t want Toast to go into jail when they hadn’t even seen Reuben’s collab with Lily and Corpse yet.

Every spring, Toast gave him the same bouquet of flowers, with the amount of red roses gradually increasing each year. On one spring, Sykkuno gave him a bouquet of pink roses, with twenty-eight red roses in the middle. Flowers were another language that he was getting familiar with, something else that made him feel safe.

It was nearly eight years after almost, and Sykkuno wasn’t quite okay still, but that was alright, too. He was allowed to take it at his own pace, and he was quite happy with it. Because there was someday that existed for him, where he was okay and safe and loved. And right now, it felt pretty damn close, if he was honest.

So if someone asked, if he was okay, how he was feeling, he would think back to years of fear and guilt and shame, and then years of building himself up again and layering himself in things that would come to bring him a sense of safety and happiness and relief; a sense of mercy and chance for himself.

He would think back to Peter’s silent presence, to Brodin’s reassuring arms, to the punks’ rowdy companion, to Toast’s encompassing devotion and assurance, and he would say, “I’m feeling fucking dandy.”

#video blogging rpf #shiki writes #from ao3 #toastkkuno #sykkuno #disguisedtoast #brodin plett #modern au #read the tags please

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