fic: It's good to be alive
It made no sense, really. They couldn't believe it. He tried to explain, but it ended up sounding like crazy talk, unconnected and desperate and they told him over and over again that he didn't need to be afraid anymore; the spirit was gone. He opened his mouth to say, “That wasn't what I meant at all,“ but he couldn't form the words because he couldn't explain what he meant, and it would just sound more insane than it really was, when he wouldn't find the right words, and he didn't even know if there were any right words at all.
They took him home and put him in bed with a hot chocolate and a year's worth of food on the nightstand, and then left him to eat and sleep, telling him to call them when he woke up.
The door slammed shut and there was a buzzing in his ears, like a swarm of bees, and he ate to shut the noise out. It didn't work, the bees were inside his head and though he was starving he didn't manage to swallow much of it, it didn't taste of anything when he knew it should, and the buzzing wouldn't go away, and then he fell asleep.
He later couldn't remember what he dreamed, but it had to be something horrible, he awoke sobbing and calling out to someone who wouldn't ever come, someone who, had anything been right at all, he wouldn't need calling for, would already be there.
It all felt so wrong.
He discovered that the buzzing in his ears was the sound of silence, the sound a room made when there was no one in there, the sound of not-existance, the sound of nothing.
He couldn't think right, there was too much room, he felt like he might lose himself in the nothingness.
And of course they didn't understand.
"He's gone," they would tell him.
"Eat something for gods sake!"
"How long will it be till you can come to school? You should be alright soon, right?"
And: "You should really get out of that big and empty apartment once in a while."
And all this time he couldn't find the words, couldn't tell them that his apartment was big and empty, just like his head, couldn't ask Yuugi if he didn't feel the same, couldn't tell them about the noisy silence that didn't let him sleep, the feeling that his body was a tomb, that he couldn't taste food anymore or manage to eat it, that he couldn't think, because everything was far away in the empty darkness of his head; that there was no darkness at all, just nothingness, and that, when he managed to fall asleep at all he would dream of a voice that talked away the silence and that he didn't want to wake up again and again to the sound of silence.
-
"All he needs is time," Anzu says soothingly, and he nods and smiles weakly like he's always done. They leave, and the Nothing overtakes him.
-
But of course, Anzu's right. Time helps. He doesn't go insane, he recovers.
He learns to move around the empty spaces in his mind, carefully, so he won't fall through the floor, clinging to sharp edges, holding on. He gains the ability to think around the void, forming words out of nothing, coherent thoughts that lead somewhere.
He forces himself to eat something, his body feeling too bony to be healthy. It still tastes like nothing, but he decides he can live with it.
He finds he can live with a lot of things, or rather, live around them like the thoughts in his head.
He fights the silence with noise, radio and TV always blaring at top volume, even at night. He fights the dreams with pills he orders online, dreamless sleep being a bliss he encounters for the first time. He'd always dreamt of something.
He paints the mirrors in his apartment black, because he can't stand his reflection.
When he finally goes back to school, two months after the Endgame, he just avoids toilets and places he knows contain mirrors. He doesn't leave the house often, only to attend class and buy groceries, so it mostly works.
"We're glad you're back among the living," Yugi says, speaking for all of them.
"Yes," Ryou says. "It's good to be alive."
They took him home and put him in bed with a hot chocolate and a year's worth of food on the nightstand, and then left him to eat and sleep, telling him to call them when he woke up.
The door slammed shut and there was a buzzing in his ears, like a swarm of bees, and he ate to shut the noise out. It didn't work, the bees were inside his head and though he was starving he didn't manage to swallow much of it, it didn't taste of anything when he knew it should, and the buzzing wouldn't go away, and then he fell asleep.
He later couldn't remember what he dreamed, but it had to be something horrible, he awoke sobbing and calling out to someone who wouldn't ever come, someone who, had anything been right at all, he wouldn't need calling for, would already be there.
It all felt so wrong.
He discovered that the buzzing in his ears was the sound of silence, the sound a room made when there was no one in there, the sound of not-existance, the sound of nothing.
He couldn't think right, there was too much room, he felt like he might lose himself in the nothingness.
And of course they didn't understand.
"He's gone," they would tell him.
"Eat something for gods sake!"
"How long will it be till you can come to school? You should be alright soon, right?"
And: "You should really get out of that big and empty apartment once in a while."
And all this time he couldn't find the words, couldn't tell them that his apartment was big and empty, just like his head, couldn't ask Yuugi if he didn't feel the same, couldn't tell them about the noisy silence that didn't let him sleep, the feeling that his body was a tomb, that he couldn't taste food anymore or manage to eat it, that he couldn't think, because everything was far away in the empty darkness of his head; that there was no darkness at all, just nothingness, and that, when he managed to fall asleep at all he would dream of a voice that talked away the silence and that he didn't want to wake up again and again to the sound of silence.
-
"All he needs is time," Anzu says soothingly, and he nods and smiles weakly like he's always done. They leave, and the Nothing overtakes him.
-
But of course, Anzu's right. Time helps. He doesn't go insane, he recovers.
He learns to move around the empty spaces in his mind, carefully, so he won't fall through the floor, clinging to sharp edges, holding on. He gains the ability to think around the void, forming words out of nothing, coherent thoughts that lead somewhere.
He forces himself to eat something, his body feeling too bony to be healthy. It still tastes like nothing, but he decides he can live with it.
He finds he can live with a lot of things, or rather, live around them like the thoughts in his head.
He fights the silence with noise, radio and TV always blaring at top volume, even at night. He fights the dreams with pills he orders online, dreamless sleep being a bliss he encounters for the first time. He'd always dreamt of something.
He paints the mirrors in his apartment black, because he can't stand his reflection.
When he finally goes back to school, two months after the Endgame, he just avoids toilets and places he knows contain mirrors. He doesn't leave the house often, only to attend class and buy groceries, so it mostly works.
"We're glad you're back among the living," Yugi says, speaking for all of them.
"Yes," Ryou says. "It's good to be alive."