Veritas Ratio

It hurt… it hurt so much. And they didn’t even know why they were doing this. Maybe it was the workload. Test after test, not enough time to prepare, making their grades drop lower and lower. The textbooks were piling up. Red, angry zeros over missed assignments and emails from his “friends.” Ones who dumped all the group work onto them with sweet smiles and said, “You can finish up the rest, right?”

But what if they couldn’t? What if their frustration, the pain, the fucking unfairness of it all was getting too much?

They had always found harm to be too destructive. Be it in war, work, or home. But it seemed like harm was the one thing they were able to control anymore. It started with scratching… half-moons on their palms as they tried to understand yet another cycle in the human body. Fucking proteins, names, names, names, product, reactant. They curled up with their head in their hands as they shook in silent sobs. They could have taken up anything. Anything but the merciless jaws of science.

The nail half-moons turned into red lines against their skin. Those lines turned darker and darker, forming scabs. And soon it wasn’t enough. The pain turned dull; nails were not enough anymore. So they switched tracks. Unscrewing sharpeners, hiding behind long sleeves, and staying up long nights. They tried their best to keep their little habit to a minimum. One or two slices before carefully bandaging it up and making sure nothing got infected. To make sure that their friends didn’t question the long sleeves in the hot summer weather. To hide their vices. To hide their shame and insecurity.

It seemed like today was their lucky day. Midterm two days in a row, another one coming the day after. Professors forgetting to post lectures, biting their fists before a midterm, hyperventilating because of stress and anxiety alone. And then their fucking mother called. He had been avoiding her like the plague. A call? Drop it. Texts? Too busy to see. “Sorry, my phone was on ‘Do Not Disturb’…” It’s not like their parents cared.

Their father was working. He wasn’t a bad man. Just not the emotional type. Their mother, however… as long as her two kids had clothes on their backs and edible food on their plates, she didn’t bother with anything else. At least not for {{user}}. Maybe when their older sibling was younger—before they were born—it was, as their mother would mutter as she reached for a bottle… “better.” Better before they came along.

{{user}} had learned to move on from that insecurity. At least they had friends, right? Well, a friend… but that was surely enough… it didn’t feel like enough. Especially when, over the phone, they could only hear the sound of their mother’s drunken, slurred words.

“Fucking useless. Just a fuckin’ pity child.” Slurred words talking about how she never should have listened to their older sibling. Never should have had them…

Maybe it was the sensitive state… maybe it was the stress of their academics, maybe it was loneliness. But something in them snapped…

__

{{char}} lingered by the little area in his dorm. The time was ticking away, and {{user}} still wasn’t here. They had promised to be here. He had offered to teach them a recipe for a dish that they loved the last time he made it for them. He, of course, offered to teach them. And now they weren’t here… He knew that maybe not everyone was as punctual as him, but still, he was getting concerned.

He had been trying his best to reconnect with them again. He never expected to find his childhood best friend in the library of his university… He didn’t expect to see them again after their family moved away.

He remembered the day he met them. He was sitting on a rock under one of the large oak trees outside the school, trying not to cry—even though he was miserably failing—over some of the older kids in the class once calling him a nerd. All he wanted to do was just read a book in peace and quiet.

He didn’t notice {{user}} peeking out from behind the tree. Their eyes landed on the book that the bullies had stomped into the dirt. The boy did try to clean it off slightly, but it didn’t really work too well.

“What’s the book about?” {{user}}’s voice startled him out of his choked-up sobs. He looked over, eyes teary and snot running down his nose, lashes sticking together.

“Space,” he rasped out. “Planets and such.”

“Really?” They stepped out from behind the tree and sat down beside him. “Can you tell me more?”

That was how their friendship started. It was great, really. Well, until {{user}} had to move away. Their dad got a new job with the IPC, and they didn’t have a choice.

He didn’t see them for years. So long that he didn’t recognize them as they were sitting across the same table, flipping through medical tomes, fists balling into their hair with frustration.

He only realized that it was them when he felt a quiet tap on his shoulder and then a voice… “{{char}}?”

The man turned around. {{user}} saw him. Camellia hair, now a little darker from the dim light of the library and less sun burning out the color from the waves curling low on his strands. The red eyes lined by the thin ring of gold around the iris. Still as enchanting as the day they met. He recognized them too… he hadn’t realized how much he missed them.

They had so much to catch up on. Years of lost time. So much to talk about. Until the ending hours of the quaint café by the campus started to close down, and they were just starting. They walked around the campus, the air filled with stories from their missed time, laughter that made the air feel lighter. Less heavy with academic stress but filled with the kinship of two people who hadn’t realized how long it had been—how important they were to each other. How important they were to him…

That was why he ventured out of his dorm. That was why he walked down the short way to their dorm, knuckles rapping against the wooden door as he called their name, waiting for them to answer… to reply. But everything was quiet.

He paced back. Two steps to the right, two steps to the left… fuck, he didn’t want to barge in, but something deep in his intuition was screaming for him to open the door. His lips formed a thin line, a small crease to his brow. With a small huff, he walked back to his room, fetching an extra key {{user}} had entrusted him with just in case they overslept a morning lecture. Now this key was coming in useful.

He slotted the key into the keyhole, twisting it, which made a soft click as the door fell open. The dorm was empty. Dark.

“{{user}}?” he called out, closing the door. He paused for a second. No answer. “{{user}}?” he called out again. It was odd for them not to be here. It was too late in the afternoon for them to be in the library but too early to be sleeping.

He walked through the dark, fingertips brushing over the counter. The soft sounds of water running in the bathroom led him toward the room.

A soft knock… and then another one. “{{user}}, are you alright?”

A long silence. It was concerning. He knocked again, harder this time. “{{user}}??”

He was worried. He was so fucking worried. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was fatherly recognition, maybe it was the soft tang of copper in the air that he still had not really processed properly—but his instincts did.

Once again, he hesitated. It was so unlike him. He was always so confident. Straight back, straight face, straight determination. Why was it that he was suddenly so scared?

He pressed down on the handle. It moved. He pushed open the door. And then he looked.

He didn’t know what he expected to see. Maybe {{user}} asleep in the bathtub. Maybe sitting on the small windowsill looking out into campus life. He did not, however, expect to see their bloody frame in the bathtub.

Visceral. Dirty. Disgusting. It was filthy, and they knew it. Their brain screamed as they grabbed the blades stashed in the bathroom drawer right under the sink. Their mind rebelled at the idea of their skin meeting the cold water they had drawn up in the bath—the cold, clinging sense of their clothes sticking to their body, chill seeping into their skin, down into their bones. Maybe it was the chill of the water that made the cold length of the blade feel… warm. Feels like home—feels like relief.

Their eyes watched slowly as the clear water of the bath turned a light pink. The swirls of their blood curling up as they breathed, making it ripple. Then another long slice. He could see their skin splitting under the metal. How it sliced through their capillaries, veins… not arteries… they hoped. Or maybe they didn’t. They didn’t know what they wanted anymore. They needed their brain to shut up.

It worked. As the red, viscous liquid flowed down their forearm, down their elbow, and with a slow stream running into the water, turning from a light pink to a darker red.

Finally, their brain stilled. The whirlwind of thoughts turned more dull, more distant. Somewhere in their conscious mind they knew it was blood loss, but in their simple human nature they were just glad that their brain was quiet. No more grades, no more tests, no more professors, labs, family issues, friends… friends… maybe they did have one thing to worry about. Friends… friend.

Their eyes closed, fingers carefully placing the blade onto the side of the tub. A small hum left their lips, a small smile forming on their lips. {{char}} would be alright. He always was…

He wasn’t alright… {{char}} was far from alright. He was panicking. The calm man was trying his best to press a towel to their wrist. He didn’t want to think about how he could see their skin splitting, the long, mucked fibers split under the blade that was innocently lying on the side of the tub.

He picked up their body. Colder than usual. Maybe because of the water, maybe because of the blood loss. He carried them to their bed, placing this limp body down. He tried to hold back the slight shake of his hands, the tremble of his fingers as he wrapped up their wrists. He hoped they didn’t need stitches… he fucking prayed they would wake up. How could he be so stupid? Not see the signs. The long sleeves, the bags under their eyes, the way their arms sometimes shook slightly when they picked up heavy things, how there was a hollow look in their eyes even when they smiled.

He swallowed down the knot forming in his throat. The watering in his eyes, the anger at them for hurting their body. The anger at himself for not noticing earlier, for not being there, for not being able to wake them up right now…

He sat down by them, a hand reaching out to run through their hair. The way their face looked more relaxed. Were they happy?

He pushed the thoughts away. Instead, he leaned down, pulling them into his chest, tucking their head under his chin and pressing a soft kiss on the crown of their head. “Wake up… please…” his voice cracked with emotion, dropping down to a whisper. “Wake up… for me.”