Thank you Nawulf for letting me know this part didn't publish properly! Sorry for the late update, I'll have to double check from now on

God, I hated calculus

Not because I was failing the class or anything. It was just one of those subjects that taxed my brain. With a million other assignments handed out this week, it seemed borderline abusive to have us show every little detail on how we got to the dozens of questions listed in the packet. I could understand why we needed this skill about thirty years ago, but dammit, I have a phone with internet access. If I needed to graph something — which I highly doubted I'd need to do after school — there were online calculators for it now. I stared down at my paper in disapproval. Currently, there was more graphite from my pencil than ink from the printer. And I was only a fraction of the way through the assignment. I glanced up at the clock and sighed; I wasn't finishing this tonight.

There was a groan to my right and I startled. I'd forgotten Ryuji came over. We'd both been silent for so long that Kuro had fallen into a deep slumber in my lap. My eyes flickered up to my classmates expression, and I realized he was just as fed up with his homework as I was. He flopped back onto the wooden floor, his hair was getting long and it splayed out above his head. "Hey," he started, his voice breaking from inactivity. He cleared his throat before continuing. "What's up between you and Kamiki-chan?"

Trying to play it off smoothly, I shrugged my shoulders. However, my voice wasn't as confident. "I don't know what you're talking about." He rolled his eyes and turned to face me. Propping his head up on his elbow, he gave me look of dull skepticism.

"Bullshit, I've seen the way you two look at each other. You two are all buddy-buddy in class, and I've heard you talking about studying together."

I snorted, "we're looking at each other right now, and we are studying. By your standards, should we go ahead and kiss?" A grunt sounded from him and I waved my hand flippantly in his direction. "Izumo and I are friendly. Just because she's a girl doesn't mean there's anything going on between us."

My skin began to itch as he looked me up and down. Finally, after careful scrutiny, he narrowed his eyes. "Do you want there to be anything?"

My breath hitched and I inhaled my own saliva. I coughed and averted my face away from him, hiding my embarrassment. "No," I said weakly, and I berated myself internally for it. Bon's laugh echoed off the bedroom walls and Kuro shifted in my lap. My feline familiar stretched briefly before tucking his legs once more and falling back into slumber. Instinctively, and maybe a bit for comfort, I ran my hand over his silky fur. Kuro's soft purrs vibrating against my palm.

"You don't sound very convincing," he retorted and his playful jabbing irked me. I shot his a glare, but he only found more humor in it. "Dude, it's okay if you like her. We're not in junior high anymore. No one's going to bully you on the playground for having cooties."

"It's not like that," my voice held an edge and even I found it a bit defensive. Obviously, this conversation had my emotions in some turmoil, but I didn't really know what those feelings were. I sighed, "She doesn't like me like that, anyway."

Bon mirrored my action and sighed, running his free hand through his messy hair. "You're oblivious, you know that?" I simply shot daggers through him with my eyes. With a grunt, he pushed himself back into a seated position before gesturing to me. "Kamiki-chan is the moodiest bitch I've met, besides Shima. Yet, when she talks to you, she's all shy and polite-"

I laughed, "she calls me a dumbass every other sentence, dude. How the hell is that polite?"

"Okay, that's just her, to be honest. But she calls you a dumbass without being mean, if that makes any sense." Eh, I kinda knew what he was talking about. Izumo had a sharp tongue, but she wasn't ill-mannered. "Do you really believe she sees you as a friend?"

I blinked several times, looking down at the hardwood below me as I reminisced on my previous interactions with Izumo. She'd blush, and she sometimes stammered. But how am I supposed to know if she was nervous around me or if she did it while I wasn't around? "I don't know," I settled on. "I wouldn't really blame her if she did."

"What do you mean by that?" I returned my gaze to my burly classmate before quirking an eyebrow. Was he dense? For good measure, I gestured to my bare forearms. His expression didn't change, however. "Really?" He sounded disappointed, like I was a toddler found writing on the walls. "That shit's just cosmetic, dude. No one cares." I care.

Scoffing, I shifted my legs. Kuro woke from his slumber once again. My familiar must've grown tired of being disturbed because he crawled from my lap and moved to walk out of the room. I watched as he exited before staring down at my marred flesh. My lips pulled up into a sneer. The others say they don't care about my scars, but how couldn't they? They were unsightly, and the reason behind their existence surely made them uncomfortable.

"Whatever. Besides, you're forgetting the small detail that I'm the literal son of Satan. That surely would turn her away."

Silence hung in the air and as the moments ticked by, I found myself growing tense. Shifting my gaze back to Bon, I was met with pity. His brown eyes were saddened and his lips were pressed tightly together, like he was silencing himself. A crease formed between my brows and I brought my palm up beside my head, urging him to speak. He simply shook his head and stared at me for several more seconds. Frustration ate away at my patience until I finally spoke. "What?" The single word was sharp and full of annoyance.

I watched his nostrils flare as he took a deep breath. Finally, he set his gaze toward the empty wall in front of him. "Do you think you're that undesirable because of them?"

"Wouldn't you?"

He shook his head, falling back into silence. I realized that there was no way we'd be able to go back to studying after this, so I moved to close my textbooks and organize my school supplies. It wasn't until I'd properly put everything away that Bon spoke up. "Why do you do it, then?" I didn't understand what he meant so I asked him to repeat himself. "Why do you hurt yourself if you think it makes you ugly?"

I ground my teeth. This was what, the third time today this subject was brought up. Couldn't he google this shit? "Because the pros outweighed the cons."

He shifted, crossing his legs and leaning his elbows against his knees. His expression was one of genuine curiosity, but his previous pity still lingered behind his irises. It had ebbed away enough, however, that looking at him didn't immediately piss me off. When he spoke, he seemed careful on how he phrased his sentence. "I'll never be able to understand this at the same level as you do, but can you explain how there are any pros to hurting yourself?"

How could I say it without sounding absolutely batshit insane? I flopped backward, laying on the floor as I pondered my answer. "It felt like my life was falling apart. Cutting myself was a distraction from that. Which sounds stupid because if you're going through shit, why add more to your plate? But I don't make the rules." I shook my head, hearing the sound of my skull rolling against the floor as I did so. "But when you hurt yourself as a distraction, it's not just the pain that keeps your mind off of shit. It's the build up; the anticipation of what you're about to do. Your head is so wrapped up in the idea of the oncoming pain that you start to forget why you wanted to hurt yourself in the first place. Then there's the actual pain — which does wonders, don't get me wrong. But afterwards, you get this rush of endorphins."

My lips pulled down into a frown. That last part made me seem like an addict. Self harm wasn't like drugs, I wasn't consuming or inhaling any chemicals. In fact, it was a natural high. I could only imagine it would be similar to what adrenaline junkies felt. I pulled myself from my musing and continued. "And after those wear off, you're left with the cleanup. It's a whole process that keeps you from obsessing over your shitty life. Even if it's only temporary."

I realized he hadn't spoken or moved while I talked and I flickered my eyes over to him. He was sideways in my vision due to my position on the floor, but I could still easily make out his thoughtful features. The air was a comfortably quiet around us, in spite of the morbid nature of our conversation. After a couple seconds, Bon moved to crawl closer to me. I watched as he got about a foot away from where I was, right next to my hip. I pushed myself upward and sat cross-legged in front of him. We were eye to eye like this, yet it felt far from confrontational. His eyes were trained on my right arm and I followed his gaze to where two scars stood out. They were my bite marks from the night he'd spent here. A small ball of remorse swirled in my chest at the memory. Not because of the wounds, but because he had seen me do it.

Almost like a mind reader, he spoke, "do you regret it? I remember asking you that before, but you've had time to change your answer."

I felt like a criminal for shaking my head, but I didn't see the point in lying to him. His hand moved and he poked the skin around one of the bite marks. The scar wrinkled slightly from the pressure and he withdrew his hand. "Would you do it again?"

My shoulders stiffened, and it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't been able to speak as freely about this with Yukio earlier. Maybe it was because I've only known Bon for a short amount of time, but I guess it didn't really matter to me if he thought I was stupid or crazy. Maybe this was a good time to vent.

I took a breath and relaxed before nodding. "I'd do it in a heartbeat. Nothing compares to it." My skin itched just thinking about it. "You'd think the better my life got the less I'd want to do it. But throughout the day, I'll randomly get the urge to cut myself. Like if I were craving a snack or something. There'd be no rhyme or reason for it."

Bon hummed, sounding appreciative of my answers. "Weird question, but would it be worse if you were angry?"

I chuckled, "fuck yeah. I did it everyday, and a typical session was just that: typical. But on bad days, I sometimes had to hold myself back." Visions of crimson liquid sprouted in my mind and I shook my head to rid them. "I've gone deeper than expected at points and had mini heart-attacks." He breathed out a quiet huff, like a small laugh, and I felt eased at the fact that he found some humor in my demented past.

"It's weird, though," he muttered. "You didn't know this, obviously. But Shima pissed me off earlier. We got into this heated debate and the idiot is just too stubborn to be open-minded. But either way, I was pissed. But I can honestly say that something like this-" he motioned to my bare arms, "never crossed my mind."

I heard as my voice darkened, "if he shot you, would that change your answer?"

Brown eyes stared at me intensely. And I could see that he understood exactly what I was referencing. "No, not even for a second. If that dumbass fired a shot in my direction, he'd be the one bleeding; not me." His low tone abruptly dissipated into a playful jab. "But then again, when you and I were fighting, you scared the shit out of me with those flames. I probably would have shot you, too."

My mouth fell open, "dude, you literally told me to go kill myself!"

His eyes flickered down to my arms then back up to mine. "Well, you failed."

I snorted, "I like that one."