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"SUNNY... Are you there? I'm... I'm cold…"
He felt cold too. In a different way than she probably did. He felt especially cold when he woke up in the mornings to find nobody else in the house. It would be an uncomfortable cold, sort of like when you sit down on one of those hospital examination beds. The ones with the crinkly paper cover over them.
He also felt a paralyzed cold. Like the feeling of sitting and not thinking about anything, not even how numb and cold you feel. He felt that he couldn't smile, but also that he wasn’t exactly sad. Like the porridge is just right in a medium way.
Occasionally he would feel a numb cold. His chest would be tight, and his fingers and toes would have a prickly, uncanny feeling. His breaths would feel untamed, and his tongue strange in his mouth. Body in a cold sweat and awkwardly aware of every movement made. Holding a blink for too long, only to realize it's because he’s tearing up. But he's not sad; he's just cold and just numb.
Sometimes when he felt like this, he would do irrational things. Or maybe just things other people don't do. Things normal people don't do. One example of this is when he once took the razor blade out of a pencil sharpener his mother had owned, and cut across his left arm exactly 45 times. He would watch the blood bead up across and then continue on, gripping the blade in between his thumb and index finger. He'd be wide eyed and in his head he would still feel numb.
In his skin, he'd feel something, though. A stinging kind of pain. He enjoyed this pain without being happy. An appreciated, more positive kind of numbness. And it would all just flow out from his flesh and drip onto the floor below. He'd never really felt this sort of thing before.
He would revisit this habit again and again. Other reasons came up for why he did this. Getting irritated over losing online blackjack. If he showered (albeit rarely) and dropped something. When he'd glance over at the piano room — her piano room — and get a weird feeling in his chest, almost similar to guilt.
Digging sharp metal into his flesh. Dragging, pulling, and smearing blood. Scratching and peeling at scabs, opening wounds up, and birthing scars. Breathing harshly over them with a dead-eyed look. Soon it turned into more than a bad habit; he was centered around it. Whatever he did would have much deeper consequences than just hurting his dulled feelings. Anytime he'd done something deemed wrong, anytime he failed, and anytime he felt something he didn't revel in. More than enough times, his days would end in blood and showers that would turn him red and increase his deserved pain.
"You're useless—less than useless. You're sick."
When he thought of Kel, he would also think of these things. Like the two were connected. Not that he thought Kel was useless or sick, but that his thoughts about Kel were. His thoughts, like how it would be to hug him and cuddle up with him and just enjoy themselves in little moments of silence. How nice it would be to be with Kel, not like two friends but more like how girls and boys are together. How Hero and her were. Whoever she was.
He'd cut himself at this too. Thinking only about how disgusting he was. Nobody could ever love someone like him, especially Kel. If Kel ever saw him, he'd be repulsed immediately. Not only that, but Kel is a normal person. Kel doesn't hurt himself, and Kel doesn’t like boys. He hadn't heard or seen from Kel in 4 years; there’s no way in hell he'd ever like him like that. No way in hell anyone would, could, or should ever like him like that.
"People like you don't deserve to live."
In the moments that he'd be cutting into himself, forcing blood out, sometimes these thoughts would also come to him. They had been a lot more frequent recently, though. He would have the urge to take the blade from his arm and instead drag it up to his neck. To slice through his skin into his carotid artery and jugular vein. Oftentimes he’d imagine it, to feel deep pain quickly fade into an unconscious numb and finally death. If he could carve into his arms, was cutting into his neck any different?
Stabbing himself also came to him when thinking about death. What if he didn't go for his neck, but instead his stomach? Or maybe his thighs, if he hit deep enough. Could an overdose be better? Reaching into the tylenol his mom had locked away after something bad happened a few years ago — he can't remember what — to swallow it down with stale, flat soda.
His thoughts and memories were jumbled around a lot. He couldn't remember what his dad had looked like. He couldn't remember how it was to hug his mother. He couldn't remember what he had done earlier that morning. Every time he tried to reminisce about things that happened that week, all that would rise up was the same thing. Which was nothing, nothing good had happened, but nothing real bad either. It had always been a repeat of a numb and normal week of mangling his flesh and snoozing.
He didn't see his mom anymore. Either she'd come home late at night or when he was sleeping early in the morning, always leaving before he'd awaken. Sure, she'd leave voicemails on the phone in his room. And yeah, there'd sometimes be food in the fridge for him. And maybe he thinks he should feel sad that his mom isn't around; he should feel something, anything. But in his sick brain, he liked that his mom hadn't bothered him. He was a disgrace of a son, an awful and filthy rodent, invading her home for scraps. She was lucky to not have to see him or the abominable scabs and scars across his arms.
Along with lacerating his flesh, his daily routine, as stated before, also consisted of sleeping and getting up to check the voicemail box. He found himself sleeping strangely after developing the routine practice of cutting himself. He'd often wake up multiple times in the night, or sometimes he would sleep so much that he would be unsure if it was the next day or the next week. When he slept, he went somewhere nice and very bright. Very very bright; it reminded him of the light that came through his blinds and the window outside his bedroom, only less scary.
He wouldn't remember much from his dreams when he woke up. Only that they made him disturbingly comfortable. Like he would never escape from them—an infinite dream loop when he slept. More than once, he'd find himself craving to bleed when he awoke. Like he hadn't cut himself in months. And that's when he'd pull out the closest sharp object and slice up his arms. Afterwards, he usually would check the voicemail box or play one to two rounds of online blackjack, before dredging himself back into his eternal slumber.
And with this thought, he fell back into bed and into his own vivid dream.
"Hi OMORI! We were hoping that you'd come by soon.
Wanna play cards with us?
We were just about to start another game!"