Medication

   The more you know someone, the easier it becomes to trust them. Growing up, it was a world where I couldn't quite get to know anyone. There was nobody to trust around me because they were all dead . I was taken from my family to fight for survival.

Well, I survived.

  Would my parents have been proud of me? Does my family even care? They gave me away like my life hadn't ever held any real value. What even is "family" now? I survived, only to be given a fiancée who didn't even want me. It was a cruel while of pretending and waiting.

  I sat through it all will a smile of false satisfaction. It was a smile that shoved the pain of the past down my throat and made me swallow it like disgusting medication.

"It will make you stronger", so they say.

I made a friend.

  I made a friend who had other friends. I made a friend who had the affection of my supposed fiancée. His attention was divided, but we forged a bond regardless. Sometimes when we were together, I would pardon myself for those brief moments that I'd cough up the foul liquid that was called a "remedy" to let him ease the pain instead.

  His smile became my smile. Even as I dreamt he was smiling with her and I was in the background, I was smiling too. Seeing him happy was enough for my "medication" to settle in my stomach for just a little while... until that smile disappeared behind a kiss. My eyes would snap open and I'd sit up in a cold sweat.

  My stomach turned in pain, agony. It was mortifying, honestly. I was watching my best friend's intimacy with the girl I had to play charades with in the presence of her family.

I hated it.

  Somewhere along the lines I realized that I was dependent on a medication that would never cure me if I didn't advocate. I could ask for a higher dosage, yet I also could not. I couldn't ever hope to attain such prominence in his life. I couldn't force myself into his happiness. I realized that I loved this friend much more than I thought I ever would. It was a devastating thought.

  It was as if I had been drowning and liquid medication just can't help; it won't go down, if you can't open your mouth without choking.

  Time passed and I had I upgraded to pills. It wasn't much of a change, really. In fact, you need the aid of a liquid to make it go down. He was still my drug that sustained my sanity, but it took more effort to get him to stay down. We were together, yet he wandered. And when he was away, I was deprived. I couldn't think properly. Who even was I? The culmination of childhood corruption and devastation? Or have we moved passed that, rendering me nothing more than a fool in love? I'm not sure... But I did know that, as the days went on, my reliance was only getting more desperate.

Mahiru had died.

  Just like that and Guren didn't even seem all that upset. It was my chance.

  In the years that followed, we had separated from time to time, due to work. But we always found our way back to each other when we needed it most; even when it wasn't truly necessary. I knew that one day I could do it. And I would do it. I would speak out and I wouldn't need to rely on medicine.

I would be cured.

  The past wouldn't matter and I'd be free, as long as we were together. There would be a time of healing, in which I'd tell Guren Ichinose how much he's helped me along the years. I'd tell him that I love him. Nobody needs someone else to be their medication like that.

You just need their love and devotion.