"We think he has severe anxiety," Takahashi says, and his voice is only slightly hushed. It's coming from the living room, and-- ah, they're speaking in English. No wonder.

"You think?" Alex sounds exasperated, "have you not signed him up with a counselor? That's step one for children when they're grieving, aren't they?"

She knows what she's talking about-- and Takahashi does too. There's a bit of a condescending air through the house as they argue.

Hiroto doesn't really care.

He leans over the toilet bowl, and heaves up nothing but stomach acid. His throat is sore and everything burns like searing acid on his tongue, yet all he could think of was how much his head hurt and how loud the ringing in his ears was.

He wants to cry, but he has no energy to make anything more than a pitiful whimper. He's so nervous he could throw up-- he already did, so many times that he has nothing left to throw-- and Tatsuya's weak pattings on his back really isn't helping much.

"We have," Takahashi remains strangely calm, "but this isn't the first time. Hiroto-kun is a smart child, he knows what they're going to say and he doesn't want to hear it. If we force him to go through another session, he might shut himself in his room again, like that time a few years ago."

Like that time a few years ago? Hiroto worked to catch his breath, leaning hazily against the sink as he struggled to wash the horrid taste from his mouth. Were they talking about the time before he came into this world? Hiroto had some sort of depressive bout at that time too, didn't he?

"Are you okay?" Tatsuya asks him, looking bedraggled, and worried. His hands are extended in case Hiroto stumbles again.

Hiroto nods weakly, unable to look the boy in the eyes.

This was all so humiliating.

-

Alex was released from the hospital the day Takahashi had to leave, and they spent the greater of the time discussing what they could do for Hiroto thereafter.

They spoke mostly in English, because they didn't want Hiroto to eavesdrop-- so Hiroto wasn't going to tell them how much he understood.

Takahashi leaves soon after that, and Hiroto is stuck in this foreign house, forced to adapt. It doesn't sound as hard as it really feels. He adapted to this new world easily, but something's different this time.

This time, he feels Hiroto's pain. The real Hiroto, the one that disappeared-- he feels the agony, the depression, the anxiety. He feels it all and he just can't take it.

Hiroto spends an hour seated on his bed, blanket in his lap, lost in thought. He doesn't move, doesn't speak, barely breathes. Something goes through his head like a thread of endless questions that never has a full sentence-- plaguing his mind over and over and over--

Then he breathes out, slowly, slowly.

He feels like throwing up again.

There's a weight in his chest, a ticklish feeling that burns, itches, drives him mad. It's telling him something's wrong, something is different, and something is never going to be the same again.

But the question remains unanswered, and if he isn't crying, maybe throwing up would make this burning ease.

He doesn't move for another hour after that.

-

The alarm clock rings. It's set to five in the morning, because that's when he would usually wake up to get breakfast ready. They've neglected to shut it off beforehand.

Hiroto moves for the first time in a number of hours, and Tatsuya rouses from his sleepover mattress on the floor. He shuts the alarm, and sets the clock back on the nightstand.

"Good morning, Hiroto-kun," Tatsuya says, and although he looks drowsy, he wakes up because Hiroto is awake, and as much as he can he doesn't want Hiroto to be alone.

Hiroto tries to speak.

He can't.

The heat in his chest boils over to his throat, threatening to spill like vomit in his lungs-- but he doesn't have the energy for that. He doesn't feel anything solid to throw up either.

He just wants to cry without crying.

(God, why was he so weak?)

Hiroto stands up, picks up his wrist brace from the table-- and leaves the room. He slept in a pair of shorts last night-- good enough.

"Hiroto-kun? Where are you going-- wait!"

Tatsuya, hastily grabbing a pair of jackets, follows after him.

-

A quiet basketball court. The sun, barely rising. A single figure racing across the streets in nothing but his bare feet, breathing heavily, breathing in disbelief, breathing against the world.

There are tears in his eyes, and a pain in his chest nothing, nothing can describe.

He screams, but there is no sound. Something in his just mutes him, and he shrieks in frustration. He stumbles, catching himself, and continues running.

He's here, in the basketball court adjacent to Alex's apartment.

There's a stray basketball on the ground. Blisters were forming on the skin of his feet, he can feel it. His hands were clenched so tightly they were cramped and kind of hurt. The brace is cold against his warm wrist, and he breathes out.

He scoops up the ball, and runs.

He breaks into a new step, the coarse bumps scratching against his fingers. He feels chapped skin, feels friction as he dribbles. He spins, he does a crossover, he shoots and he misses, because that was his right hand and his right hand never scores. He catches the ball again, and races himself to the other side of the court.

There's a familiarity in this. He's done this before, the first day he came into this world. Overwhelmed by everything and fearing the world would fade, he went wild against the world, harder than a sane person would dare.

He had felt like an intruder, and the hole in his chest told him that the world didn't recognize him as a citizen. He was fighting against the universe and something up there, hoping if he screamed hard enough, he could make this dream last longer.

And it did.

Now, he was here, hollering until his throat was sore and fighting against that thing above again. But for what reason?

He takes one step, two steps.

And he leaps.

It's not fairy-like at all. He soars across the lane and it's rough, it's fierce, it's like a wild beast. It's like an enraged, angered vulture, spreading wide wings and slamming the ball right down on the hoop.

(No, it's still a fairy.)

(A furious little fae, driven to insanity, screeching against injustice and finally revealing its purest, ugliest form to the world that was never fair to him.)

He lands on the ground, and somehow, air flows into his lungs, cleaner, fresher, purer, and colder than before.

He's breathing heavily from his run. He's sweating from the exertion. The thin shirt on him isn't nearly enough for the cold spring morning-- but it doesn't matter.

Right now, his world consists of two things-- himself, and basketball. These were the only things that mattered-- all those that wielded fate could go screw themselves.

(Hiroto has had enough of being toyed with.)

He closes his eyes, feeling the spark of indigo threading through his soul, tingling like electricity coursing through his veins.

Like a drug, it's the best feeling in the world.

"Hey, you'll catch a cold!"

Tatsuya had run after him, all the way from the apartment-- though he was ragged and out of breath. "You forgot your shoes, too!"

Hiroto feels the boy drape a purple sweater across his shoulders, and it's much warmer than he thought it would be. Maybe it's because Tatsuya is looking at him just like how Dad had looked at him that day-- desperate, relieved, and so kind.

"Goodness, your body got so cold!" Tatsuya puts his hands on Hiroto's cheeks, and against Hiroto's freezing cold face, Tatsuya's hands were warm. "You didn't put on your shoes? Why didn't you--"

Hiroto leans into the touch, and breathed out a smooth, very light and liberated sigh. A smile perks at the sides of his lips, and he can't help but feel so happy-- so blessed.

"Is that a smile? Oh my god, is that a smile?" Tatsuya freaks out, pulling Hiroto's face closer so he could get a better look, "now? Of all times?! You couldn't have done that when I had a camera on me?"

Hiroto chuckles.

Maybe, slowly, his world will get bigger again.

One thing at a time.