Chapter Text
Mizi was so tired.
She'd tried her best to be likeable, to be desirable, and still, still, it hadn't made any difference.
She'd been burnt out for years-first around middle school, trying endlessly to please her parents, even though she knew, deep down, nothing would truly satisfy them.
And now she was right back where she started, only in college, falling behind on sleep and her classes, burnt out for the millionth time, trying to make someone who would never love her just notice her.
It wasn't enough to simply be Sua's friend, and she hated herself for it. She hated that she couldn't just accept where they were at in their relationship, but like countless times before, she'd fallen for someone who would never feel the same way. It didn't matter that she'd changed what music she listened to based on what Sua liked, didn't matter that she freaking learned piano because Sua said she loved it, nothing she did would make her deserving of Sua's love. She knew that, and yet it still killed a part of her every time.
Why couldn't she just be okay?
Everyone else was doing alright, and then she was just there, a shell of a human, broken, and she didn't blend in, not with everyone else who seemed to be doing alright.
Mizi inhaled sharply as she picked up the scissors that she'd used to store in a drawer in the kitchen. She'd been using them so often that they weren't useful there anymore. Her finger traced one blade, then the other, almost slicing off a bit of skin with how hard she was pressing down. It barely registered in her mind what she was doing, the pattern that she'd grown so used to.
Sometimes she did it to feel something other than the suffocating numbness that engulfed her in every movement of her life.
Sometimes she did it so that she wouldn't feel anything else at all.
She slid down to her bathroom floor, legs spread out in front of her, and removed her sweatshirt in one swift motion.
Thin, mostly straight lines peppered her forearms, her wrists, even her shoulders, ranging from faded scars from years ago to scabbed over to fresh from a day or two ago, dried blood still encrusted around the edges.
They were reminders of all the people she'd changed to please just to have someone there, all the times she'd cried, barely surprised, when someone else left her. A friend, a lover, even her fucking parents after every fight that got rehashed whenever they met up again. Mizi wished she'd just cut them off as soon as she turned 18 and moved out, but it was too late now. She was already in too deep.
Part of her wondered what she would even be like if she hadn't changed for people. Did anyone truly make it through life without changing for someone? To what extent was it considered normal?
Mizi assumed she was much out of the normal range.
Quickly, before she could change her mind-though she was probably too far gone to do that anyways-she dragged the scissors across her arm, a thin, horizontal line of blood welling up quickly to the surface. She embraced the pain, almost delighted in it, in the fact that she'd finally returned to her outlet, her savior, after less than a day. She'd gotten so used to the feeling that it was barely more than a sting. One cut, two cuts, three cuts...again and again, endlessly, it seemed, she returned to her skin, drops of blood smeared across the cold metal of the scissors, and she still didn't care.
No one even cared about her, anyway. She could be gone, and they wouldn't hardly notice. They might be sad, but they'd get over it, like they expected her to every fucking time.
She stared at the mess on her arms, wondering whether she should clean up. She reluctantly grabbed a few tissues, dabbing away at the blood, hardly caring as more crimson replaced it. She gingerly removed her pants, barely taking in her previous marks on her hips and thighs, before starting again. She wondered if it would scar. She hoped it did.
She was so tired.
She stood, finished-for the time being, at least-and stared at what she'd done in the mirror. She wiped away a tear from her cheek that she hadn't even realized had fallen.
Holy fuck.
She was so disappointed in herself.
In the recent haze she'd been in, she hadn't skipped meals as strictly as she usually did, and she was disgusted. Her thighs, the ones she'd just marked, likely permanently, looked...not like she'd realized they looked. She'd mostly avoided mirrors recently, and now she both felt both regret and relief at her unconscious decision. They looked so odd, so weird, but not completely unfamiliar. Shocking, perhaps, to wake up and realize again that this was the body she'd been stuck in her whole life, and horrified that there used to be a time where she didn't care.
Not that she remembered when that would've been, of course, but that girl would be completely unrecognizable in comparison to her appearance now.
Dread filling her stomach, she turned to the side, lifting up her shirt and glancing back at the mirror.
Disgusting.
Horrifying.
Repulsive.
Those were the words echoing in her head as Mizi bit her lip in an effort to not scream in outrage.
How had she let herself gain so much?
Fat.
Ugly.
She was familiar with those words, the words she'd used to describe herself for years.
She wouldn't let herself cry again, she vowed to herself as she impulsively hit her arms, shoulders, hips, as if she could shake the fat off her body.
She stood still for a moment, then quickly pulled her sweatshirt over her body, the bagginess hiding her frame, not even registering the roughness of the inside of it rubbing against her fresh cuts. She smiled into the mirror a few times, making sure her face wasn't too red-she'd spent a while, years earlier, making sure she could recover from crying before anyone noticed. Before she could turn back, she stuffed her scissors back into the cabinet door, turned off the bathroom light, and returned to her bed and her phone, in the perfect mood to leave any messages she'd received on delivered and go to sleep.
As if she'd even had any messages.