Rooftops At Sunrise

21

[Content warning: mentions of suicide, suicide ideation.]

"They kind of look like aliens, don't they?"

Aoi turns away from the tall tank full of water, that had been emanating a modest, blue glow against her skin. "Huh?" she watches, whilst Damian brings a fist to his chin and clears his throat.

"The fish, I mean," he tells her, as he kicks at the ground beneath them. "Maybe, aliens don't look like little green men after all. Maybe... they've been here all along, in the ocean."

The young woman laughs. "Are you high?"

"On depression and one existential crisis after the other, yeah."

Now, she is the one who shrugs. "Okay, that's fair. Tell me about your dread—how bad is it?" A large shark swims past them, and a few other, fishy spectators, without any sign of an expression across their faces. "Do you want to kill yourself?"

Her sudden talk of death causes Damian to pause. Something tells him Aoi would not have asked him this, if Lucas hadn't gone to fetch them both some water, and a can of soda for himself.

Damian turns to face Aoi with both his hands shoved inside his pockets. "Do you?"

The young woman purses her lips together. She thinks, that she should probably cut her bangs again soon, for they are starting to grow over her eyes. "Sometimes," she mutters, ever so casually, as if she weren't speaking of going somewhere far. "What?" she finally looks Damian head on, then laughs again; it rings empty, pained.

Forced.

"It's not like I'm actually going to do it, Damian, chill out. But sometimes I wonder what the point of me being here is. I've given my parents so many unnecessary bills. I can't work. Every time I write a better essay at school, I'm taking the place of someone who needs the credits more than I do."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She averts her gaze. A child runs past them, and starts screaming something about wanting a balloon.

"I'm like a leech," Aoi tells him, as she hunches over herself, then feels her throat tense. Her eyes water. But she cannot cry. No, she cannot—for if she does, she will have a migraine, and Aoi hates it, whenever she goes blind. "I take up space, and I can't give anything back. So," she glances at him again, briefly, until she decides it is too hard for her to keep his gaze.

Aoi goes back to staring at the fish. "So," she repeats, "sometimes... I wonder if it wouldn't be better for me to disappear."

She does not expect it, when Damian starts crying in her stead.

She does not realize, what exactly it is that is going on, until he has his arms wrapped around her, and is holding her like she might truly vanish into thin air, if he were to let go.

She does not wish, to her surprise, that she could take everything she has just admitted back. For Aoi had never truly said these words to another before. And somehow, now that her invisible aches are out, into the world—existing in another's heart—something inside her feels lighter. Better.

"Don't ever think that again," Damian's voice is hoarse. The mid of his phrase is swallowed by a crack in his tone. "Please," he deepens their hug. He sniffles. "Please, Aoi—you deserve to be here just as much as anyone else, if not more."

From afar, Lucas spots the two and waves at them—however, they do not wave back.

He approaches them, only to notice that Damian is crying.

He steps forward, then presses the cool water bottle, whose outside is dripping with remnants of dew, to Damian's forehead. "I'm guessing I walked in at the worst time possible?" he tells them.

Damian releases Aoi from his embrace. He sighs, then wipes away his tears with the back of his arm. "Whatever," Damian snatches the bottle away from his friend's grip. "Thanks for getting us drinks."

Lucas does not ask them what this was about. He changes the subject, then falls into a casual conversation—strange banter and jokes about bread—with Damian instead. They definitely do not mention the young woman, whose cells are prone to overreacting to even the slightest touch. And how much pain that brings her.

Aoi observes them without saying another word. She has gotten quite good at this—holding back her urge to crumble to her knees and fall into an ugly sob, despite how much she wishes she could.

The young woman digs her nails into her fist. Not now, she tells herself, Please, please, don't cry.

You'll be sick if you cry.

She takes a deep breath. She tugs at Lucas's sleeve, then at the hems of Damian's dark red shirt. "Hey," she tells them both, with a smile that she hopes will become real if she bothers to fake it long enough. "How about we go see the penguins now?"