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courtforshort15 · 1 year

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My Own Worst Enemy

Pairing: Matt Murdock x GN Reader

Word Count: 5,400

Summary: There are some things that are just too shameful to talk about, each mark on your skin a testament to a sense of pain and desperation that you’re unsure how to talk about.

Trigger warning: This is a bit of a heavy one, so read with caution. Self-harm, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and mentions of suicide (reader does not commit suicide, but it is brought up briefly.)

Masterlist

You were a hypocrite. A dirty rotten hypocrite. To the highest extreme. For all you spoke about Matt needing to talk to someone, to develop healthy coping mechanisms for all the pain and trauma he had endured, you've struggled to do the same.

Struggled, and often failed.

The first time you slipped since you’d started dating him, it was easy enough to pass off as an accident. The man was a human lie detector, sure, but you had learned by now that if you spoke enough of the truth, he couldn't always pick up on the part you kept hidden from him. You hated to admit it, but you sometimes took advantage of it, telling yourself that it would hurt him to know the truth, that he was better off not knowing where your thoughts sometimes strayed into a depression so encompassing that you struggled to breathe.

"What happened here?" he asked as he cradled your wrist gently in his hands. Your wrist wasn't bleeding, per se, but it was rubbed raw to the point where it was red and patches of skin were missing. It was sore and agitated, washed with a bar of soap that had left it stinging even more, the flesh angry in the face of your failure to seek help instead of hurting yourself.

"Oh," you said, eyeing the mark as casually as possible, voice wavering just the tiniest amount, "I just scratched myself. No big deal." He pressed a kiss to the skin next to it tenderly, before sliding his fingers through yours and focusing back on the notes his computer was reading back to him through the ear buds that were squished into his ears.

No further questions on his end, and you sighed in relief, masking it as a yawn and leaning back into the couch, energy zapped out by a seemingly simple question and a feigned simple response.

You'd scratched yourself, yes, so that part wasn't a lie. But he didn't know it had been done on purpose.

He didn't know that the pain had soothed you at the time. Matt was a bit of a masochist himself, ending most of his nights bleeding and bruised, not because he necessarily enjoyed it, but because he believed it was a small price to pay for keeping Hell’s Kitchen safe. He may not enjoy the pain, but he enjoyed the release of anger, the letting go of every frustration experienced by the law not being enough to help innocent people, enjoyed the opportunity to use his abilities and not be forced into the lie of being an ordinary blind man.

If Matt knew that you purposefully hurting yourself, for nothing other than taking your mind off the ache in your heart, there might be a part of him that understood, but it would not stop the overwhelming sense of horror.

When he noticed the second time, it was during a night out at Josie's, celebrating the end of a grueling work week with Foggy and Karen, both of whom were sharing a bottle of the worst tasting liquor you had ever had the displeasure of drinking. Sometimes you weren’t sure if it was because they actually enjoyed it, or if they were still trying to drink frugally despite the recent success and profit of Nelson, Murdock & Page. You joined halfway through the night, stumbling up to their table in desperate need of a drink after a meeting that had lasted far too long into the evening hours.

By the time you got there, they were all halfway on their way to drunk, Matt included, his lips tilted into a relaxed smile that was far too charming. He stood up with a loud exclamation of your name, reaching forward to pull you into him and laying an enthusiastic kiss on your mouth as you laughed. When he stepped back, his hand drifted down your arm to pull you by the wrist in an effort to bring you to the empty chair by his, but you hissed as his fingers inadvertently trailed down the large scratch that had been carved into your forearm.

Matt seemed to have noticed it at the same time you tried to pull away, frowning as he pushed your sleeve up. His head tilted curiously as it always when he found a puzzle he couldn't quite figure out.

"What happened here?" His words were slightly slurred, and you were grateful that while his attention was on you, it definitely wasn’t the typical extreme laser-focus you were used to, likely due to the liquor coursing through his veins.

You gave the same excuse.

"Nothing, just scratched myself." A pause, a nod, and the subject was easily forgotten. Matt, normally so astute and observant, smiled when he was assured that you were ok, and pulled you back in for another kiss. Foggy and Karen took turns greeting you, Josie handed you your normal drink order, and the night passed on without incident.

It wasn't like you liked doing it, enjoyed hiding things from him, enjoyed hurting yourself. He didn't make it easy to keep things from him, at any rate, usually so perceptive and in tune with your every word and reaction. And it wasn't like it happened all the time; it was spaced out enough that it didn't seem like a pattern. The marks were definitely not bad enough to warrant much attention, unlike the cuts and bruises and fractured ribs he came home with. It was an unhealthy coping mechanism, you knew. Something you did, something you felt like you’d always done, even while telling Matt that he had his own unhealthy coping mechanisms he needed to watch out for.

This was just something that had followed you for years, decades even. Medication. Therapy. A brief stint in a psychiatric hospital. You'd done it all. And it wasn't like your depression was something you were afraid to talk about. It was just something that never came up, and you didn't know how to work it into a conversation.

How did you bring it up to Foggy, who had literally walked in on his best friend bleeding to death on his apartment floor?

How did you bring it up to Karen, a woman with a past drug addiction that had been partly to blame for the death of her brother; a woman who had been forced to kill a man just so that she could keep herself and her friends safe?

How did you bring it up to Matt, beautiful, adoring Matt, who treated you like you were the most precious thing in his life? How did you bring it up to a man whose father had been shot in an alley not too far from his home, a man who had held his ex-girlfriend in his arms while she died, not once, but twice?

They...they had real things they were dealing with, had already dealt with. And you...you were just someone with a brain whose hormone imbalance was off, which sometimes led to days where you couldn't get out of bed because you were so depressed.

Compared to them, what did you have to be depressed about?

And yet...it was this shadow that was always hanging over you. A monster hiding within it, behind your back, waiting for the right moment to sink its claws into you. You liked to think that you were able to fight it off 90 percent of the time.

But sometimes you failed.

Being with Matt was the easiest thing in the world. It was like breathing, like the puzzle pieces of you were always meant to find the puzzle pieces that made up him. Where he moved, you moved. Where he went, you followed. You were a well-oiled machine together, something that would run to the very end if it was given the right care and attention.

He made it easy to forget the way the depression sank in occasionally. He was good at unintentionally, unknowingly chasing it away, though he had no idea of the monster he was inadvertently fighting on your behalf. But sometimes even he wasn't enough, just like you weren't always enough to pull him out of his head. It was just the reality of how things were, you supposed.

He was a busy man, though he never made you feel like anything less of a priority. But sometimes life happened, and his attention was forced elsewhere, or you had deadlines you had to make, and things just got lost in the shuffle. You couldn't be around each other all of the time. And even if you could, these feelings would still find a way to sink in, like they always did.

You could feel an episode coming on. You'd felt it for the past few days. Sometimes the depressive episodes snuck up gradually, as if they were giving you a warning, and other times you ran head first into one. You weren't sure what was worse: being given time to prepare, with the sinking feeling of what was coming, or living life like normal, only to be smacked so hard in the face with it without warning.

You found yourself instinctively drawing in on yourself. It was relatively easy to do this time. Matt was in the middle of a large case, and you'd made the decision to give him space to focus on the trial. You knew how much you meant to him, even while you could see that he was grateful for the extra quiet time at home to prepare.

Foggy was in the same situation as Matt, and Karen was off visiting Frank in some undisclosed town in the Midwest. Three of your major support systems were currently wrapped up in other important things that absolutely deserved their undivided attention, and it was just a perfect time for the depression to sneak up, ensnare you in its clutches, and yank you back into its hold, this time without anyone to hold your hand and protect you against something they didn’t even know about.

You could feel it clawing up your throat, the tears and panic, and you knew it was going to be one of those nights. A night where you'd struggle to breathe, struggle to think, struggle to ground yourself in a reality where you knew you mattered and had people who loved you unconditionally.

Sometimes, all the support systems you had thoughtfully and carefully selected and put into place were knocked down by the force of a tornado that ran through your brain. Utterly paralyzed by the panic and sadness that was roaring through you, its force stronger than you'd felt it in a while, you found yourself needing to...scratch.

So you did, and the pain grounded you, as it always did, pulling off layer and layer of skin with nothing but a fingernail and desperation to carve deeper into flesh. And when you were done, the relief was equally matched by the failure and shame.

"Sweetheart?"

A gasp tore its way out of your throat as you turned sharply around, reaching out to grab the kitchen counter as your balance wobbled. You’d gotten up to wipe the mark down with alcohol wipes, wary of an infection setting in. He was standing in all black, no doubt in the middle of his route through Hell's Kitchen, given the time of night.

"Hey, Matt," you said weakly, moving in front of the alcohol wipes still on the counter, as if placing your body between them and him would actually hide them from his senses. "Are you...did you finish for the night?"

He didn't say anything as he slowly removed his mask. Once it was in his hand and no longer over his face, you winced as his head tilted, his unfocused eyes landing on your hip, just a few inches above the line you had just carved into your thigh, skin bare except for the thin pajama shorts you were wearing.

"I..uh. I was making my way through the city when I heard you crying," he told you softly, his focus still on the patch of skin that was on display and blood he could no doubt smell. "What is that?"

"Nothing, I just--"

"Don't tell me you just scratched yourself on something," he said, heat slowly seeping into his voice. "That's what you've been telling me, hasn't it?"

"I--"

"I thought maybe I was imagining things." Matt's voice was gradually getting louder and you couldn’t help but wince again, eyes shifting away from the downturn of his mouth. "But I wasn't, was I? You did this to yourself on purpose."

"Matt," you managed to choke out as your fist tightened around the alcohol wipe you’d briefly used to clean the scratch to prevent infection. "Please don't--"

"Please don't what?" he asked incredulously, and you couldn’t help but flinch at the tone, eyes lowering again so that you couldn’t see the look on his face. "Please don't get upset? You hurt yourself. You made yourself bleed, and you want me to...what? Not talk to you about it? Pretend it's not what it is?"

"Please don't yell at me," you whimpered, burrowing your head in your hands, unable to stop the tears from coming in full force, shame lighting up your skin like a failed firework that does nothing but burst into flame. "Please don't be mad at me."

"Mad at you?” he asked with a gasp, the words still somehow sharp. “I'm not mad....I'm horrified." You jerked back so hard your knee almost gave out, hurriedly opening the distance between the two of you blindly, your hip bumping painfully into the counter behind you. "I'm horrified that this has been happening for months and I...I didn't pick up on it."

Matt sounded so broken that you dropped your hands from your face, eyes trailing over his form through your tears. His head was bowed, and his hands were shaking. It only made you cry harder.

"I'm sorry," you choked out, your voice every bit as broken. "I'm so sorry."

"No, sweetheart," he whispered as he tilted his head back in your direction. Something in the way you whimpered caused him to finally take a few steps toward you. "Don't be sorry. I just...I just don't know what to do."

"You don't have to do anything," you told him quietly with a sniffle. "This is my thing to deal with, I'll be ok."

"Bullshit, that's bullshit," he said adamantly in a tone that displayed a tiny amount of frustration. It made your heart speed up for just a moment, the fear of his impending judgment too much for you. "You're not okay. And this isn't just something that you have to deal with, not anymore. It's mine, too. I have to deal with it now, too."

You flinched, the words somehow indicating that he was now burdened with something that should be just your problem and was angry about it. You could see the look of horror that crossed his face as he realized how it had sounded.

"No, that's not what I meant by that. Fuck." His hands were suddenly cupping your face before you could think. You tried to pull away, but he stepped forward when you stepped back, latching on to you, though his hands remained as gentle as they always were when he touched you. "I meant that this isn't something you should have to do alone. This is my thing now, too. Anything that's yours is mine. This is something we will work on together. Ok?"

"You don't even know what it is, Matt," you said weakly. You put your hands over his and tried to pull them off and break contact, but he refused to be moved.

"I thought…I know enough about depression to recognize it," Matt told you softly, blank eyes landing on your cheek. "I should have...I could feel it. I could feel something was off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I let things distract me from asking the right questions, and now you've..." he finally moved his hands so that he could gesture vaguely at your thigh.

"It's not your fault, Matt." You moved to take a step back now that his hands were off, but upon recognizing your intentions, they were back on you, holding your waist this time.

"I still should have--"

"No," you interrupted him as you shook your head quickly, rejecting his idea that he was somehow to blame. "I should have. This...I should have said something. We've been together for what, a year? Plenty of opportunities for me to say something, and I chose not to. You take responsibility for things out of control all the time, Matt. Don't take this on, too."

He took a shaky breath, one that rattled his entire frame. "Can I ask how long you've been..."

"A while."

"Did it start while we were together?" You shook your head and he closed his eyes briefly as he took a deep breath, the look on his face suggesting that he was somewhat relieved that the habit hadn’t started since he came into your life, the idea that maybe he was what led you to start hurting yourself for the first time. "Before we met?" He flinched when you nodded, somehow realizing that this was a long-term habit. "How long, sweetheart?"

"Pretty much since high school," you admitted quietly as your eyes trailed a face that was far too pale. He shuddered, as if in pain, and you knew the admission hurt him. You felt incredibly guilty, and it reminded you of the day your mother found out what you’d been doing, her tears and anguish still haunting you years into your adult life.

"Okay," he mumbled, his eyes closing again. He let go of you and took a small step back. "Okay. Is it alright if I hold you? I don't...I don't want to touch you anymore if you need the space right now."

Your eyes welled with tears again. "Please do." You were in his arms before you even finished speaking. He was warm, and despite the heat inside your apartment, you found you needed the warmth of him pushed up against you. One of his hands slipped around your waist, the other around your shoulders, where it reached up to cradle the back of your skull. His fingers wrapped themselves in your hair, something you knew he loved doing, something you knew he did when he was trying to remind himself you were next to him and safe.

"Do your parents know?" he asked quietly as he held you to him, the side of your face pressed against his shoulder. Your arms were snug around his waist, your hands gripping the back of his sweat-soaked black shirt. You didn't know how much you'd needed him to hold you until this moment.

"About what part?" Your voice was equally as soft.

"Any of it."

You sighed and you felt him tighten his arms around you. "They know about pretty much everything besides the...recent scratching. I spoke with my mom earlier today and she knows I've been slipping a bit."

"And what did she say?"

"She told me I could come to visit for a few days if I needed to," you responded. "I told her I couldn't, but she refused to hang up until I promised I'd schedule an appointment with my therapist."

"Did you?"

"Yeah, I have a virtual appointment on Thursday." He nodded and you felt more than heard his sigh of relief.

"Good. That's good, sweetheart." You felt him place a kiss to the top of your head. By the way his chest expanded to take a deep breath, you knew a big question was about to come out, something that had probably been weighing on his mind since the moment he noticed the mark on your thigh. You had a pretty good idea what it was going to be before even he asked it. "Have you done more than...these scratches in the past?"

You winced, having guessed the question correctly. "I have."

He tensed. "How much worse?"

You gulped, not wanting to give him the answer. He could feel your reluctance, but pushed on. "Please tell me. I'm not…I'm not going to judge you. I just want to help you, but I can't do that if I don't know."

Taking a deep breath, you forced it out, eyes squeezing shut as you revealed something you haven’t shared in years. "I was once...hospitalized. I was placed on suicide watch."

You felt Matt shake against you, body trembling as he took in your answer, and grimaced when his arms tightened around to the point of pain. He apologized immediately, loosening his grip just a tad, but the shaking didn't stop. "Matt, I'm okay. I promise. I haven't felt that way in a long time."

"How long ago was that?" he asked you, seeming desperate to wrap his mind around it. "Last year? A few years ago? How recent?"

"It was ten years ago," you whispered as you clutched the back of his shirt in hands that weren’t steady, either. "I got a lot of help. I went through a shit ton of therapy. Put on some medication, some of which I'm still on. I'm okay."

"You have to promise me you won't do something like that." He was still shaking and it was making you tear up again. You buried your face in his shoulder, and he cradled your head there, hand still buried in your hair. "You have to promise me that if things get that bad again, you'll say something. You'll tell me."

You swallowed loudly, before slowly nodding your head

"I promise, Matt." He took a deep, shuddering breath, and when you pulled back slightly to look up at him, it tore at you to see the tears that were making their way down his face, stark against a bruise that bloomed on his jaw. Gently, you tilted your chin up so that you could kiss his cheeks. First one, then the other, pressing all the love you felt for him into the simple connection of lips to skin. He pulled back to place a kiss of his own on your forehead, and took a deep breath.

"I think you should come stay with me for a bit."

You pressed your face back into his shoulder, your strength seeping out of you slowly, feeling safe and secure for the first time in days, the depression sliding back just enough so that the red flare of the devil could warm your skin. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I need you close. I need you to be with me where I can keep an eye on you."

"You don't--"

"Please," Matt whispered, the tone pleading and desperate. "Please...just don't argue with me. Not on this."

"I'm not arguing with you, Matt," you said gently, lifting a hand from his waist to run it through his hair. He caught the hand and brought it to his mouth instead. "It's just...you have a big case next week and--"

Matt jerked away, looking aghast, a sense of realization seeping into his pores, though you knew it was an incorrect one. But he took the idea and ran with it, once again trying to take the blame for something that was not his to bear "Is that--is that why you didn't say anything? Because of this case? Because you didn't want to distract me?"

You winced. "No, Matt. But it did make things...easier for me not to admit that things were bad. I didn't want to say anything in the first place, and I’m not sure if I would have said anything at all."

"Oh my god," he said, seemingly horrified. "You can't...you can't do that. You can't hide things like that."

"You understand the irony, right?" You mouth quirked up in the corner. His eyes widened drastically at the comment, lips parting in a mixture of alarm and frustration.

"That's not funny!" He exploded, tightening his grasp on you. Your mouth snapped shut. "You have to tell me these things. You can't use my job or my work at night or anything to hide this. Do you understand? Tell me you understand."

"I understand, Matt. I’m sorry."

"Promise me."

"I already--"

"Promise me again," he demanded, and your eyes widened at how frantic he sounded, your eyes sweeping over a face that housed haunted, red-lined eyes and drying tracks of tears. "Promise me a thousand times."

"I promise, Matt. I promise." You found yourself crushed back against his chest.

"You're my priority," he whispered adamantly into your ear. His hand was shaking again as it rested on your lower back. "You're the priority. Everything else...it doesn't matter, none of it matters if you're not here. I need you to understand that."

You hesitated, and he caught on to it.

“Sweetheart,” he said with a quiet moan that sounded far too grief-stricken, his cheek pressing to yours, the scruff of his beard nothing but a familiar, welcomed feeling. It spoke to you of love and adoration, his beard often rasping against your skin while he kissed you, or even while he slid down your body to put his mouth on the most sensitive part of you. “I don't care if it's the biggest case of the century. I don't care if I'm one second away for finally catching the most important drug ring and tearing down their entire organization. If you need me, I'm there. No questions asked."

"But--"

"No." He pulled back to place his hands on your shoulders while his head tilted towards you, unfocused eyes landing around your mouth. "No buts. You call me. You tell me where you are, and I'll come get you. I'll be there as soon as humanly possible, everytime."

"Matt," you whimpered with a shake of your head, mouth tilting down in a frown. "You can't just--those things are important to people, I can't let you--"

"You're not letting me do anything. I choose you. Always."

You shuddered at the declaration, wondering what you had ever done to deserve this man, but unwilling to ever let him go. Eyes welling with a new batch of tears, you held on to him with everything you had, energy leaching out of you as you leaned against him. He took your weight easily without a word, no objection to being your sole source of strength and balance.

Matt cleared his throat as held you, breath fanning out across your cheek. "Can I...will you let me check it?" he asked quietly, the question almost hesitant as if he expected to be rejected. "I can smell the antiseptic, but I just need to be sure."

You were absolutely helpless to deny him anything."Yeah…yeah, you can."

He took a step back and pulled you over to your kitchen table where he gently pushed you into a seat. Once you were settled with your leg outstretched and balanced on another chair, he grabbed another alcohol wipe and a large bandage from the first aid kit. Bending down so that he was kneeling next to you on the hardwood, Matt leaned forward and placed a kiss directly below the mark on your thigh, your skin turning into a field of goosebumps despite the fact that Matt had had his lips to every inch of your skin at this point in your relationship. There was something so gentle, something so reverent about the kiss that you mourned the loss of his lips the second he pulled away.

You watched as Matt turned his attention to the long scratch on your thigh, frowning when you hissed at the alcohol wipe he ran gently down it. His finger traced the outline gently as his sightless eyes roamed over the room, and you knew he was testing the temperature of your skin as if he’d be able to trace the possibility of an infection. When he was satisfied, he took the large bandage and placed it over the scratch.

He placed the trash on the table with fingers that had steadied as he focused on making sure you were okay, the mission to help you overpowering the horror and concern he’d been feeling since he made his way into your apartment. Grasping your hands in his, he turned his face towards you, tilting up as he licked his lips in a tick you had long since noticed was often an indication of anxiety. He pulled your hands into his, the heat of his palms warm and soothing he held them. Within a gentle kiss placed on the back of each hand, Matt’s form finally seemed to relax as a small smile broke our across his face.

Unable to help yourself, you leaned down and pressed your lips to his.

"Thank you," you whispered quietly as you slowly sat back up. He chased your lips for just a small second before he settled back on his haunches and let his eyes rest over your shoulder. "For always taking care of me."

He made a noise in the back of his throat. "You don't have to thank me for this."

"I do," you affirmed gently. "And I'm sorry for...not saying anything."

He was silent for a moment as his thumbs traced over the back of your hands. "I understand what it's like. The depression. I've told you how bad it got, after Midland Circle. But I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. And part of that is thanks to you."

You opened your mouth to object, but he cut you off. "No, it's true. You make me want to be...better. Do better. And I know that I'd be struggling a lot more than I do if I didn't have you in my life. All the good that I do, all the good I try be, is partly thanks to you."

“Matt–”

He continued on gently even as you shook your head in denial, squeezing your hands tightly in his. "You do this for me every single day without even trying to, and I'll never be able to express how grateful I am for you, for how much you love me. So whatever you need, whatever you need from me, it's yours. Ask me for anything, ask me to do anything, and I'll give it to you."

A stray tear warmed your cheek as it fell. “You know I feel the same way, right? That I’d do the same for you.”

Matt’s smile was faint as he answered. “I know, sweetheart. You’ve told me.”

“And you–you believe me?”

“I do.” The sentence is small, a simple three letters and only two syllables, but it causes you to sigh in relief and sag against the chair as he finally stood up, your fingers entwined with his.

“Okay,” you whisper as you glance up at his face, taking in the tender look in his eyes and the smile that was equally gentle. “As long as you know the feeling is equal.”

Matt was quiet as let go of a hand to push back a few pieces of hair. "I know,” he said softly with a sigh, the flush of his skin finally bringing some color back to his face. “I think you should come stay with me for a bit, where I can look after you and make sure you're okay. We will make things work. No matter how busy I may be, this is the priority. Okay?"

"I….yeah, okay,” you answered with a nod of your head, eyes shifting to look out the window that he had left open, suddenly grateful that he’d been able to hear the tears that had left you feeling hollow for a few short moments.

Only a single moment passed before he took your face in his hands and tilted it up so he could place a kiss on the top of your head. "I'll help you pack your things."

When he pulled you out your front door, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and tshirt he had left at your place weeks ago, one hand in yours and the other holding the small duffle you’d thrown your things into, you somehow knew the move would be permanent. Your lease was nowhere close to being over, but the idea of swapping an empty apartment for one that was filled with silk sheets, record albums labeled in braille, and Matt’s smile was exactly what you needed.

Your bouts of depression would come and go, of this you were sure, but Matt would be unwavering and solid, standing in front of you in the face of whatever nightmare headed your way.

#daredevil #matt murdock #human disaster matt murdock #marvel #matt murdock x gn!reader #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x you #matt murdock fanfiction #daredevil x gn!reader #daredevil x reader #daredevil x you #daredevil fanfiction #tw:self-harm #tw: mentions of suicide #tw: depression

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sannasruins · 11 months

Text

blue haired girl

hado nejire x reader

warnings: growing apart, unrequited feelings, abandonment, non-descriptive self-harm, lesbians (the horror!)

a/n: there's a bit of time skipping in this, so i’ve labeled things as their verses in the songs and the years (1, 2, and 3A) + semesters of high school they took place in. is nejire adhd/autistic coded? i cant tell, maybe its because i see the way she is as my normal (adhd) that i cant tell. i'm basing her personality strongly off the wiki bc she really hasn't had that much air time.

word count: 2.9k

inspired by and based on tv girl's- blue hair

Verse 1 - First Semester 1A

You and Nejire met on your first day of high school, class 1A. Both of you had quirks that were more powerful than the rest of the girls in your class, assuming that the two of you thought that you were superior to them and were already looking down on them, they took initiative and distanced themselves from you at the start. This left the two of you with only two options, have no friends, be a lonely outcast for the foreseeable future, or become friends. Obviously, it was an easy choice, and it was nice that the two of you got along well, and probably would have become friends even if you weren’t put in that unfortunate social situation.

She was a blunt girl, not really knowing when it was the appropriate time, if at all, to say something that she wanted to say. She often ended up saying things that were accidentally hurtful, though if you let her know, she would instantly feel remorseful and apologize incessantly. She wasn’t always sure how to make a joke, often her attempts falling flat, but she was bright, and cheery, and had so much knowledge that she longed to share. You couldn’t help but find yourself smiling at her as you listened to her ramble about the newest thing, she learned that week on national geographic.

One day, in the middle of your first year, she asked you how to be funny. You were taken aback, and asked her back, “you think I’m funny?” She nodded with a small smile.

You contemplated on how you should respond to her difficultly abstract question, “I don’t think that’s something you can teach.”

She looked down, her smile falling off her face sent a pang of guilt to your heart. You quickly tried to backtrack, “I think you’re funny though Hado! You’re constantly making me smile and laugh!”. Her eyes met yours, a furrow forming on her brow, you stammered on, “Maybe not everyone thinks you’re funny, but I think that’s true for everyone! You just got to find the people that do think you’re funny and like being around you… like me.” You held eye contact with her despite the bright flush that made its way to your cheeks, ask if you were trying to transfer your conviction over to her. She brushed off your almost confession with a giggle and a change of topic.

Chorus 1- Second Semester 2A

As you both aged, Nejire started to get more notice than you. Not that you were jealous, you being too enamored with her to care, no, you were just happy that she was getting the recognition you thought she so obviously deserved. It did sting though, when she would turn down your invitations for afterschool dates poorly vailed by you as hangouts. She needed to train though, she would say, and dismiss you with a “next time, okay y/n?”

Sometimes as you left the school building on your way home you would take the long way, past the training fields to watch her for a little bit, training with two boys from your class. You wondered why she didn’t ask you to train with her, to help her. You would never ask though, far too afraid of the answer that seemed to be pulling at the hem of your shirt, demanding your attention. She’s just focusing on training, it’s not like she suddenly stopped liking you. It’s not like she wanted to stop being your friend. It’s not like she was purposely ignoring you. Right?

Verse 2- Third Semester 1A

The two of you were sitting in a cafe after school, one that Nejire had shown you a picture of on Pinterest and said the two of you had to go for their cute specialty foods. You had gotten a parfait, the cream on top having been manipulated into the shape of a cat, Nejire got a jasmine tea latte, the art in the foam had her swooning and whipping out her phone to snap pictures of it in multiple angles as she told you about her Pinterest page’s aesthetic, you listened along, slightly confused at the idea of people posting on Pinterest like it was a social media but not questioning it. After she had taken enough pictures of both her and your orders, the two of you started on your treats, she took a long sip from her latte and when she placed it back down on the table, she had suddenly grown a distinguished mustache made of foam. It made you smile so hard your cheeks hurt, trying to keep your laugher a courteous volume to the other patrons was exceedingly difficult as she didn’t seem to notice her new facial accessory and was looking at you very confused. In spite of your shakes of laughter you managed to raise a shaky hand to point at your upper lip, signaling to her what you had found so funny. She raised a finger to her top lip, touching the foam and then pulled it back to see what was on her face. Realizing what she had done, her face blushed a warm pink as she quickly grabbed her napkin to wipe it away. You had finally calmed down and noticed that she had missed a little bit on the far edge.

“Nejire, you still have some,” you told her and pointed on yourself where it was on her, picked the napkin back up and scrubbed at her face, but on the wrong side.

“No, other side,” you specified. She again rubbed at her face with the now crumpled napkin but somehow still managed to miss the small smudge of foamed milk.

Not thinking, you rose and leaned across the table, before wiping the white away with your thumb. You sat back down, and without a thought in your head, licked it off of your thumb.

You noticed her face flush, even more than before, now a hot red; you realized the suggestiveness of what you had just done, and at the same time, felt an explosion of butterflies manifest themselves into your gut.

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, looking down with a slight smile on her face, and you reddened.

The two of you sat in silence for a while before she broke it.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

You didn’t think before you responded.

“Yes.” You hesitated and then added on, “I think you’re really beautiful.”

The two of you fell back into silence.

The purgatory of not knowing how the two of you felt about each other was horrible, but the fear of rejection, not just of a confession but of you as a person, rejecting your identity, kept you in your place.

There really was no winning.

Chorus 2- First Semester 3A

It hurt, seeing her every day, but not being able to talk to her about anything and everything in the way that you had grown used to. She was part of the big 3 now, she was revered by everyone now, she was strong and kind and smart and now they were all seeing what you had from the start. It was selfish of you, you knew, but you wish they hadn't noticed.

She wasn’t being purposefully cruel in her withdrawal from you, she wasn’t doing it to be mean, she had just forgotten, she had just been stretched too thin and something had to go. It was still mean though, and it was still cruel.

You felt the loneliest now, so much so it was almost incomparable. Your days now spent in silence, and slowly falling into the motions. School, train, sleep, school, train, sleep, school, train, sleep. With nothing to break the monotony, life became dull, and you were sinking into a different kind of blue, not the blue of an eye like you did when you first saw Hado Nejire, but into the blue of the mind, getting darker, muddier, harder to see what’s in front of you.

You became more reckless, not in retaliation but due to a slow building and concerning lack of self-preservation. Often throwing yourself into dangerous positions with villains, jumping solo into fights, you had no probability of winning alone, asking for more and more hours at your internship. It kept it at bay for a little while, the numbness, but as with most things, it did not last. You feared you were slowly but surely becoming a shell of your former self.

You needed something more, you needed to keep yourself feeling, needed to keep yourself human, needed to keep yourself. So, you resorted to means you probably shouldn’t have. Flame, blade, burns, blood. You knew it wasn’t healthy, but it was something.

On an especially hot September day it was odd to see students wearing their long-sleeved winter uniforms, but not enough to raise many questions. One girl asked, “Aren’t you hot?”, but you brushed it off, explaining that you just ran cold. A bold-faced lie to anyone who knew you, but none of them did.

As you were working on your lesson book, Hado Nejire walked past your desk on her way to the front of the room, glancing down at you, maybe out of habit, she got a glance of lines of damaged skin, some already faded, but many varying degrees of red. She faltered in her step, double taking, confused as to what she was seeing. Not wanting to cause a scene in class or be caught staring, she almost seamlessly continued walking, and if one hadn’t been watching her, they wouldn’t have noticed her split second reel.

She stopped you by the door after class, and when you tried to scoot by her, thinking she wasn’t aware she was in the doorway, she blocked its entirety with her body, staring you down. She grabbed you by the hand and led you to an unused stairwell as you stumbled behind her hastened pace. You didn’t notice it at the time, but she was especially careful when grabbing you, fearing that she would take hold somewhere that would cause you pain, fearing to reopen possible wounds.

There was a furrow in your brow as you looked at her, wordlessly questioned why she had dragged you there. She turned your arm over, her hand still holding yours, and gently raised your crisp white sleeve, a gasp of dismay escaping her lips as her eyes raked over your battered arm. She dropped your hand only to quickly grab your other one, pulling the sleeve of that arm up too. You were watching her face as she grit her teeth at the sight, her eyebrows pushed into an expression you didn’t know, one you had never seen before even after all the years you had known her. Her head turned and her eyes met yours, weirdly, you thought, they were filled with tears.

“Why?”

This pushed some button you did not know you had, and an unexpected, hot rage filled you.

“What do you mean, Hado?” you did not spit her name, but she flinched as if it was filled with venom.

“Y/n…” she trailed off. You remained silent, seething.

“This isn’t like you, why would you do this?”

You didn’t answer her for a long time before sighing, “You wouldn’t know Hado, you haven’t spoke to me in well over 5 months.”

“I’m sorry, I-” her words almost a whimper, but you interrupted her.

“Please, don’t. I don’t think I can stomach it Hado, I think, whatever you’re going to say next, will only make things worse.”

She clamped her mouth shut, her lips in a pale line, and nodded tearfully, before choking out an “okay”.

Things didn’t change much after that, though she was more watchful of you, you could, at times, feel her eyes boring into you from across the classroom or training halls and fields, and you started feeling a little different, slowing down in your efforts to drive away the numbness, as the numbness seemed to seep away from you. Less and less, you found yourself feeling as if there was nowhere else to go with a knife in your grasp.

You also no longer prayed that she would make time for you, disillusioning yourself, and realizing that she was not perfect, though feelings as strong as yours don’t just simply disappear due to disillusionment.

Verse 3- Third Semester 3A

Her hair had been burnt off, now in a blunt bob, and what once had been marred and blistered skin was now just slightly tinged pink. It still hurt you to see though, quietly observing. She was different now, bolder, more self-assured, Maybe, you mused, something had been burnt off along with her hair. You were different now too though, you were better. You had sought counseling, speaking to the trusted hero you were interning under, and they helped you find and utilize resources to mitigate your mental health. You felt lighter, you were still lonely, but you were now a little bit more at peace with your solitude, and less afraid to put yourself out there, slowly becoming friends with the sidekicks at your internship who were just a couple years your senior.

Chorus 3- After Graduation

Sometimes you would see her on TVs in coffee shops, or in ads in magazines, though if you looked you could find yourself too, maybe not as often, but still there. Both of you were making a name for yourselves in the hero world.

You had started dating a pretty sidekick from your agency, she was one of the first people you had befriended when you started putting in the effort to get better, she had been there for you through many bad nights, and many more good ones. You really, truly loved her. And yes, sometimes you would miss your first love, but not in a way of current longing, but for a past. You would never leave your girlfriend though, even if you got the chance to go back, even if they told you everything would turn out the way you had begged and hoped and dreamt. Those were no longer your dreams.

It was in line at a coffee shop that you ran into her. She looked nice, more mature, gracefully slipping into her early 20’s, face less youthful, but still bright with a smile.

The two of you chatted as you waited for your orders to be taken, and continued afterwards, as you waited for them to be made.

She was direct in her flirting, touching your arm, complementing you, laughing a little too much at things that weren’t that funny. You did not reciprocate. 5 years ago, if she had been doing what she was doing now, you would have been over the moon, indescribably happy, but now, you didn’t feel much of anything at all. You were flattered, maybe a bit annoyed, but the feelings were so watered down, so muted that you could barely describe them as anything. You were happy to talk to an old friend though.

“We should hang out some time,” she told you after your orders had been picked up from the counter and the two of you started towards the front doors, “go on a little afterschool date like we used to.” She smiled and winked.

You politely smiled back at her and opened your mouth to reply, when your phone started going off, the ring tone you had affectionately assigned to your girlfriend, playing.

“Oh, sorry it’s my girlfriend, let me answer real quick,” not waiting for a response from Nejire, you picked up the phone.

“Hey love, what’s up?” You inquired through the phone.

“Are you almost home yet?”

“Yeah, I just picked up your coffee from the coffee place two blocks down.”

“Oh yay! Thank you baby, see you soon, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

You ended the call and turned towards Nejire apologetically, “Sorry about that!”

You exited the shop, Nejire holding the door open for you, and stood next to her on the sidewalk, close to the building and out of the way.

“Oh!” you realized you hadn’t answered her question yet, “yeah, it would be nice to hang out and catch up.” This time, hangout had no hidden meanings or crossed fingers. It was purely platonic. “I miss you,” she confessed. Your eyebrows shot up in surprise, you were really never expecting her to say that.

“I guess things ended up differently, not the way I wanted I mean.” she clarified. “It’s hard seeing you in the news, or in my fashion magazines, but not being able to see you in person anymore. I just… miss you a lot y/n, even though you’ve not gone anywhere.”

You hmm and nod, “you’re right, I haven’t gone anywhere. That was you, Hado Nejire. I’m proud of you, you're becoming a great hero.” You smiled at her softly. She stood, unmoving, looking at you, maybe waiting for something more, but you were no longer the person who would be able to provide that.

“Well, I need to get going before all this ice melts,” you shook the iced coffee in your hands, “or my girlfriend will have my head.”

“Oh, uh, okay” she stammered.

“Message me! My numbers still the same, if you still have it. You could meet my girlfriend too, I think you’d like her, she’s amazing.”

Nejire nodded, watching your figure as you walked away, bitter jealousy and remorse making their home in her sour stomach.

Hi! I know it may seem like I am romanticizing self-harm in this but I promise I am not. As it is something I have struggled with for many years I am just reflecting my own struggles and thoughts, and trying to represent a mental illness as what it is. That doesn't mean it is something you should do, and if you struggle with it and are tempted after reading, here are some healthier alternatives. Please do not hurt yourselves, lovelies.

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