I grind my teeth together and watch him as he gently traces the cloud-like figures on the wall, running his thumb across the masses of blackness like I myself have done so many times before in a mindless attempt to wipe them away. But this darkness is permanent. I can't rid myself of it, no matter what I do.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I bark at him. He visibly flinches, then stiffly brings his arm back down, pressing it to his side.

"Get the f-fuck away from there."

He turns around, and I don't know what I expected to see in his face, but it definitely wasn't those cursed empty eyes again.

"You should sit down," he says evenly, moving away from the wall and reaching into his pocket. "I want to take your temperature to see how bad your fever really is." He steps closer, and with a swell of something like desperation, I search his face for a sign-any sign of anything. Confusion, sympathy, disgust.

This wall is a manifestation of my pent-up rage. I don't believe for a damn second that he has nothing to say after seeing it.

His eyes dart around the room for a brief moment before they land on a small stool that he pulls up to the side of my bed. He sits down slowly, then looks at me. I begrudgingly lumber over and collapse onto the bed before him, only because it was getting difficult to keep standing, and continue to murderously glare at him as he slides a thermometer through my teeth.

His lips purse together ever so slightly when he looks at the readings on the device. "It's not too serious, but you'll need to rest for a couple days."

"Just say it," I snap. He glances up at me, his mouth falling shut. "I know you have something to say about it," I growl impatiently, gesturing towards the wall. "So get it over with." Does he think I'm crazy? Or does he think I'm pitiful? Which is it?

The idiot's facial muscles don't so much as twitch as he sits there, unresponsive.

Dealing with a faceless person is a bit like walking in the dark. There's no way of knowing whether you're saying the right thing. Every word you throw at them, every plea, and every poisonous dagger are lost on that face carved from glass. Every act and decision is one blind turn after the next, until you inevitably hit a dead end.

This guy just left a pot of water to boil downstairs, for fuck's sake, I remind myself. He's not like them. Don't be like that.

My stomach twinges with nausea, and beads of sweat have started to slide down the sides of my face, but I pull myself up straighter on the bed.

"Are you seeing this?" I snarl, the words tumbling out of my mouth, uncontained, like the scribbles on my wall. "I did that. Because I can't put a fucking plug on my feelings like you do. Don't you give a shit?" My breaths are coming out in short bursts, and I'm hit with a sudden wave of dizziness, but I push on. "I know that you've got feelings too." The shitty fever is really starting to get to me. "Don't be a fucking machine."

I fall back against the headboard, the last of my energy draining out of me, and watch as his eyes slowly flutter shut, his chest rising and falling with heavy, uncontained breaths. "It's...not my place to say anything," he says after a moment, his voice soft, opening his eyes to stare at his lap, his face still blank.

I sigh in defeat and turn away. "What the fuck are you doing here anyway?" I mumble, a question I should have asked him to begin with.

"R-Rubi asked me to come," he stutters, a too fast reply.

My eyes quickly flicked back to him. Finally. A different face. "Amari did?"

He nods, the motion uncharacteristically frantic. I stare. "She was worried because you didn't come to school." More. Show me more.

"So what, you just showed up here? What about your precious fucking notes?" I ask, my gaze fixed on him, ready to catch another evasive flick of the eye, a nervous bob of the throat, or any slip of expression. This guy breaks into a sweat every time it looks like his damn pen might run out of ink. There's no fucking way he skipped class to come here. To me of all people.

He abruptly looks straight at me. Ah, shit. "I apologise for showing up like this; I understand if you want me to leave," he says instead of answering my question, the locks rapidly falling back into place, one after the next. Not yet. Not that face again.

Tired and lightheaded, I blindly throw my hands forward and grab the sides of his face, pressing my palms flat against his cheeks. His eyes widen in the split second before I squish his face together, breaking the empty expression and driving away the unseeing eyes. He whimpers in my grasp, startled, like a fish out of water, and I weakly snicker to myself at the sight. I'd pick this spongy face over the usual robot one any day.

He quickly grabs hold of both my hands, bringing them back down. "Ren, what are you doing?" he stammers to his lap. A deep red colour has risen in his nose and cheeks, and I find myself staring again. A new face, one I don't think I've seen before, and it looks so good on him that I can't... I can't bring myself to look away.

"Sorry," he says when he realises he's still got both my hands in his. Face burning, he leans forward and carefully places them back on my lap, then shoots to his feet. "The water must have finished boiling. I'll be back." He walks briskly to the door, then hesitates for a second before exiting the room. "Until then, try and get some sleep," he says quietly.

When the door gently clicks shut behind him, I sigh again. But this time, it's more of a sigh of relief than anything. A task accomplished, a point proved. I close my eyes.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

When I wake up again, I find myself flat on my back, the blanket back on top of me. I kick it off and stare at the ceiling for a long while, until my trance is broken by the muffled sound of approaching footsteps. He's still here. How long has it been?

It's when I start to make out the sound of voices outside that I immediately sit up, the sudden movement sending the blood rushing to my head. I wince at the stabs of pain at the back of my skull, my heart racing. Maybe it's my father. Maybe the school called him after all, and now he wants answers. Maybe it's my mother; maybe she'll simply stop by the bedroom door, arms crossed and face blank, and tell me to leave because the one thing she wanted from me I couldn't do, and now I'm just dead weight.

But the voices are too high-pitched to belong to my parents, and there are too many of them. Ah. I feel myself start to relax again just as the door is thrown open.

"Ren, what the hell? I thought idiots didn't catch colds." Ha. It's Amari. "It must be because you're secretly a math genius." She makes it a whole foot into the room before noticing the wall, and her mouth goes slack. I can't even bring myself to be pissed about her being here because my mind is too numb from sleep and exhaustion.

Amari's friend with the braided hair is standing at the door, examining the wall with scrutinising eyes, and beside her is Senpai. Kurumi-senpai. Her eyes, trained on the wall, are wide with worry. But just the sight of her small frame and familiar face is enough to help me relax. I'm...I'm happy to see her.

She looks at me, concern etched into every line of her face, and I try to lift the corners of my mouth in a weak smile. I've told Senpai about the wall before, but this is her first time actually seeing it. This is the side of me that spirals out of control and fucks everything up-the side of me that she's always helped me subside. I don't blame her for being shaken up after seeing it.

Amari recovers first. She walks over to my desk and grabs a marker off the top, then turns to me, lips spreading in a smile, eyes twinkling. "You know what? Every dark cloud needs a silver lining."

She stops before the wall and begins to...draw, filling the gaps between the whorls of ink with random doodles that I'm too far away to make out clearly. What the fuck? Senpai squeals and runs to join her, and a satisfied smirk appears on Braids girl's face. Before I know it, all three of them are passing the pen around, turning my damn bedroom wall into a canvas for their stupid, childish drawings, and the room erupts into giggles.

"Stop-" I fall short when I see Kurumi-senpai clutch her stomach and laugh, the sound flowing out of her as naturally as the water running down a stream, clear and fucking sparkling. It's been so long since I've seen her laugh like this. Too long.

"Is that...should I stop them?" I look up to see the shitty nerd standing by my bed, a tray balanced in his hands, watching the absurd scene before us play out with confusion and uncertainty. Another human expression

I look away, pleased. "Just let them be."

"Um...okay." He carefully places the tray on the bed and sits down in his spot, handing me a steaming bowl of sick people food. I look loathingly at the bowl and bring a spoonful of the white sludge to my lips. "Be careful, it's still hot." The shock of heat on my tongue makes me drop the spoon, spilling its contents onto the blanket on my lap. I groan down at the mess.

Amari slides onto the floor beside the bed, just as the fucker slowly lifts the bowl out of my hands. "You know, I half expected to walk into a dumpster, but you keep your room clean. Unexpectedly," she observes, looking around with a grin on her face. I frown, my eyes searching for the scattered clothes and protein bars, but they're gone.

I'm about to ask the shitty nerd what he did with them when I come face to face with a spoon of that white thing again. I lock my jaw in place and glare at him when the spoon clacks against my teeth. "No fucking way. I can eat my own food," I snap, snatching the spoon back out of his lowering hands. Amari watches us curiously. Shit, I'm still too weak to shoo her away.

"Put your pride aside for once and enjoy the meal," she says unnecessarily.

"Food tastes better when it's fed to us by the hands of a loved one, after all," Braids girl says matter-of-factly, lowering herself to the ground beside Amari, and I turn my glare on her. What loved one?

"Ren," Senpai says gently, plopping onto the bed beside me. "You should eat. You'll feel better." The concern in her voice is watered down because she's smiling, no doubt amused by this gathering that I don't remember arranging. Still, this is better than no smile at all.

"Baa-san...my grandmother used to spoon feed me when I fell ill," the idiot says suddenly, his voice quiet. We all turn to stare at him. "It was the only time she ever did it for me, so...it felt nice, even if I was sick." He coughs awkwardly when he notices that all the attention is on him. "If you don't want me to do it then..." he trails off, his gaze flicking to Senpai.

"No," I say instantly, pressing the spoon back into his chest. "You do it." Senpai might not be mad at me anymore, but I don't want to make her uncomfortable.

He nods obediently, puckering his lips and blowing softly at the spoonful of porridge in a way that's almost funny, before bringing it to my lips. The taste is bland, but my throat feels warm when I swallow it. Amari and Senpai watch us the whole time, identically suspicious grins plastered to their faces.

Once I'm done, everyone says they want to try the sludge for some reason, and they insist on being spoon-fed by the shitty nerd, just like he did for me. I watch him as he obliges, face pink, bringing down the spoon to the weirdly eager brats, turn by turn.

They hum in delight and swoon over the bland as fuck soup, and then Amari drags him off to the wall to make him contribute to their hoard of scribbles that she has decidedly labelled a masterpiece.

They talk and they laugh, and they're so fucking loud. In all the years that I've lived in this room, it's never been this noisy. The incessant chatter should get on my nerves. Normally, it would. I think I'm just too sick.

My eyelids start to get heavy again, and the voices of the bunch of incorrigible idiots who barged into my room, uninvited, slowly lull me to sleep.

END OF CHAPTER