I took a long walk. Around the park and out in the city.

I noticed rather than realised that it didn't matter to me what people said about me anymore. I still looked for reactions, mostly due to old habit, but even when I noticed them, they didn't bother me that much.

I kept walking, hands in my pockets, enjoying the blue sky, the white chilly wind buffering the quite warm weather. I looked around me to find cute places I would have taken Tobirama for dates, even if we weren't dating.

"There he is", someone said. The first time I had heard someone say anything during this particular walk; there had only been stares and whispers so far. "Not only did he sleep with another man in Christ's home. But he is also a groomer like the old one was. They have hacked into his computer and found evidence. Only a matter of time before he is burned. And then, his little brother will take his place and he will burn, too."

I closed my eyes, trying to feel anything but couldn't. All I could think were logical thoughts. Like the fact that I knew they couldn't have found anything on my computer because I didn't have one. And I couldn't expose Izuna to this. I couldn't expose him to any of this.

But I couldn't talk sense to my emotions. In that moment, I whole-heartedly believed I was a groomer, a paedophile, a danger to children.

And for the first time, I believed that God hated me.

I kept going as if on autopilot, without any emotions. I went to a library, borrowed a computer available for studying and typed into the search bar.

Am I a bad person?

Quiz: Am I a paedophile?

Could God love me despite my mistakes?

Reddit: I am a paedophile. Will it be better for those I love if I kill myself?

One story caught my interest. A family who had a son who was a convicted paedophile. That son had later been killed, murdered in something that had to do with gang criminality. His family told the interviewer that even if they were heartbroken of having lost their son, their brother, their friend, there was also a sense of relief intermingled with it all.

I deleted the search history, put the computer on energy-saving mode and went home to the cathedral.

The yellow roses Tobirama had gotten me were still on the floor, had been for days now. I picked them up, took them with me up the hidden stairs to the little area with the resting room, bathroom and kitchen. I took a jug which would serve as a vase and filled it with water. Then, I took a knife and cut a bit of the stems of the roses off, diagonally to improve water absorption, and put them in the fresh water, then put the bouquet on the little kitchen table.

I then took the knife with me to the bathroom. I plugged the tub and turned on the faucet providing hot water, let it fill up slowly. Meanwhile, I went to the bedroom where I opened the top drawer of the little chest of drawers there. I took up the little tube... The one I had stolen that day when I had visited the two elderly Catholics with Tobirama by my side. Lidocaine cream. For numbing skin before procedures.

I took a generous amount on both my wrists, and felt tears start to trace their way down my face. They were calm tears, mellow, not wrinkling up my face or anything. I let the cream sit for the five minutes it took for the bathtub to fill up. I considered taking off my clothes, but decided against it. When I sunk my body into the hot water, the fabric protected me from the heat at least a little while. A few seconds before I felt it.

I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, my arms on the edges of the old tub. I then tried tapping on one wrist with the other; the cream had worked, and I was surprised that it worked so well. I hardly felt anything. I reached to my left, grabbed the knife I had used on the roses, and that I would now use on me, feeling bad that the knife that had felt something as beautiful as a rose would now be contaminated by my dirty skin.

I didn't feel anything. No emotions at all. Just the complete conviction that what I was doing was right. That I didn't want to do this anymore.

The ease and depth with which I cut my wrists took me completely by surprise. I managed to cut so deep, the whole blade disappeared within my flesh.

Yet, the pain also took me by surprise, too he cream having number the skin but not the flesh beneath, and I screamed straight out. It was the first thing I had felt for a long time. Before I could hesitate for even a moment, I pulled the blade out of the flesh of my one wrist and then slit the other. I realised I had started using my left hand, slitting my right wrist, and knew I had done so because Tobirama was left-handed, although I hadn't thought about it consciously. I had wanted to try to take a part of him with me in death, even if I knew that was impossible.

The way the blade pulled pieces of muscle fibres with it as I pulled it out made me feel like throwing up, then, when I refused, seeing I had only drunk water the entire day and throwing up would hurt, I became dizzy instead.

I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, panting, my screams echoing in my mind even if seconds had passed since I uttered them.

I dared to look down, one last time, seeing you could see the tendons and muscles in both rashes. My arms went limp, sinking down into the water, dying it red so fast, it frightened me.

But that fear was soon overpowered by the pain of dipping my flesh in soaking hot water. I was trembling in pain but refusing to make any more sound. Instead, I let tears fall down my face, even if I didn't know what they were about.

The last thought I had was the realisation that I had forgot to turn the faucet off, and that the bathtub would, without a doubt, overflow.