Mutually Numb

I huffed as I pulled my car up to a parking spot and got out. “Seriously?” I said to myself, “The doctors think that I’m so manic that I need pills?” I shook the bottle in my hand, making a rattling noise that echoed throughout the parking lot. I sighed and read the back label on the orange bottle, “Well, I guess I’ve got to take two of these everyday… starting at dinner tonight.” I rolled my eyes and threw the small bottle into my purse. Those doctors were crazy for actually thinking that I needed them.

I unlocked my apartment door and dropped my purse and shoes right by the front door. When I got to my bedroom, I was greeted with a surprise visitor.

“Kai?” I asked

“Oh, hey Claire. How did the doctor’s appointment go?”

“How did you get in here?” I thought for a moment, almost forgetting to answer his initial question. “Oh, it was a bunch of bullshit. The doctors prescribed me some anti-depressants. They think that I need them for some reason.”

Kai looked at me with an awkward glance. “Well,” he quietly said, “The last panic attack you had was two days ago. You cried on me for three hours, and you scratched a giant red sore spot on to your arm.” He grabbed my hand and inspected my fingernails. “Claire, three of your nails is only a small bloody stub. You’ve bitten it almost all the way off. No matter how much you deny it, you have some form of anxiety, depression, or mania. Maybe it’s only situational, we’ll never know until your life gets sorted out. But until then, you’ll need to be on these pills. It is for the better of you and Aimie.” He gave me a small smile, as if he was trying to make the situation sound better.

I scrunched my lips to the side. “I guess so…”

Ruki has had Aimie for three days straight; I’ve literally been going crazy. I don’t know from what, but my emotions have been completely everywhere. One moment I’ll be totally okay, doing something constructive. Then the next, I’ll want to kill myself and I’ll feel like all of the life has been sucked out of me. I haven’t spoken to Ruki or Toshiya since I last saw them. I still have no more answers from Ruki, I don’t know what is going on with him. Sometimes I almost feel like I should go ahead and give up on him; stop chasing someone who doesn’t want me. But then I’ll sit down and actually think. I will remember us, and all of the sentiments attached. I don’t think I could ever see myself with anyone else, and if he doesn’t want me, I guess I’ll just die alone. I don’t want another man in my life trying to raise my daughter; when Kai second-hand parents, that’s fine, he’s the only other man I’ll put up with.

I paced around my apartment, unsure of what I should be doing. When I have Aimie, I’m usually so busy with her that I have no free time at all. And the days that Ruki has her, I normally plan ahead.

Kai got up from my bed and patted my back. “What are you do worried for?”

“I… I don’t know.” I huffed. “I hate having nothing to do. It makes me feel like I’m useless and just taking up space.”

“You aren’t being useless; you’re taking a few needed days off. You’ve been going through a very hard time recently, and have had a few emotional breakdowns.”

I shrugged my shoulders and my eyes wandered off. I slightly jumped at the sight of Toshiya’s shirt, jeans and boxers sitting on my desk. “Fuck!” I quietly said

Kai looked over at me, worried.

“I need to give Toshiya back his clothes…” I mumbled, more to myself rather than Kai

“Toshiya? Who’s that?”

Crap. I guess I hadn’t mentioned him to anyone. The topic of Toshiya never really came up in conversation, so nobody knew about him. “He’s just a good friend of mine… We hung out a few days ago and I forgot to bring him back his clothes.”

He gave me a confused look. “And why exactly do you have his boxers?”

“It’s a long story” I said, not wanting to get into it. I was hoping that Kai would get the hint – but I guess not, he just pried his way deeper.

“Could you please elaborate? If I’ve been able to see you have a full-blown breakdown, I think I could at least be able to hear about some guy!” He lightly smiled and leaned closer to me.

“It honestly isn’t even that interesting,” I tried to make him drop the topic, but he was so persistent. “Ruki took Aimie out for a day, and had a ‘father-daughter day’ with her. I was feeling particularly stressed, so I went out to a bar to get a drink. I met Toshiya there, and we really started hitting it off and talking. He paid for my drinks while I was there, so I guess I drank a lot more than I thought I did. That was one of the nights Ruki and I got into a bad fight. He was furious at me for going out and getting drunk – apparently I didn’t show up to his apartment like Aimie had wanted me to. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel absolutely terrible for it. Toshiya ended up giving me his phone number, and we’ve kept in contact since then. I recently saw him the other day, and we went out for a drink again.” I took a small breath, thinking of how to word this. I honestly don’t think Kai would blab to anyone else; and I don’t really see why it’s that big of a deal. “After we came back from the bar, I ended up spending the night at his house. Well, one thing led to another, and I needed clean clothes for the next morning.” I was hoping that he would get my context clues, I hate explaining stuff like that. Call me conservative, but talking about sex was never really a thing I like to do. Especially with Kai; he was like my brother.

“You slept with him?” He questioned, making it sound like we were 14 year old girls.

I shrugged my shoulder and nodded my head “I mean, yeah, if you want to say it so brashly.”

“I really hope that Ruki doesn’t find out about this. It will probably make the entire situation worse.”

I sighed as I peered over at the clothes on my dresser again. I really with Kai wasn’t making such a big deal about this situation. Ruki doesn’t need to find out, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, we aren’t even together; I don’t see why it would affect him. He wanted to see other people and have me out of his life, right?

~~~

I shot up out of my bed, sweaty and panting. Tonight was just one of those nights again; sometimes you just can’t escape nightmares. The doctors only gave me pills for the daytime. Nothing was prescribed for my vivid night terrors. I absolutely hated having to take pills to make myself happy, but I also hated being afraid to go to sleep due to the horrible things I saw. My eyes wandered around the room, and then my jaw clenched tightly as soon as I realized that today was the last day before Toshiya left. He would still be at his apartment, but I wouldn’t be able to see him or talk to him for the next month or so.

Giving his clothes back was a good enough excuse to see him, right? I didn’t see a problem with it, and I was just wishing Toshiya didn’t either. He didn’t seem to mind that I called him soon after meeting him, so this shouldn’t be a problem. One of my biggest fears is coming off clingy to guys.

I got dressed, ate breakfast and brushed my teeth within ten minutes. I wanted to make sure that I was out the door and to Toshiya’s apartment in time. I knew that it was only noon, but I didn’t want to miss one of my last opportunities to see him for the next few weeks. Thankfully, I also remembered exactly where he lived. I would have felt bad calling him to ask him where he was. Little surprise visits are always nice, right? I know for sure that I don’t mind them. The only person that I’ve had over my house for the past while was Kai. Nobody else really visited me that much – not even Toshiya. I had been thinking about him for a little bit now; he was that one topic that my mind went to when there was nothing else to think about. If I couldn’t go to sleep at night, I’d daydream about stupid scenarios with us. At first, it was an odd change of pace from them always being with Ruki, but change is good when called upon.

Feeling better than I did this morning, I pulled into the parking lot of Toshiya’s apartment. Sometimes just changing the way you think can really make an impact on the rest of your day. I happily shut the door to my car and went up to his door. I shifted his garments to the other arm so that I had a free hand to knock on the door.

It took a few moments until I heard some shuffling inside. The door was slowly pulled open, but only enough for Toshiya’s eyes to be seen. I looked through the crack and gave a sweet smile. Upon seeing it was me, he shut the door again, and then a few seconds later he opened it fully.

“Hey, Claire” he said with an anxious laugh following behind.

His nervousness caught on to me, because as soon as I began to speak, I stuttered. “Oh, I just came by to drop off your clothes. I figured that you might want them since you were leaving soon-” I stopped myself from rambling and extended my arms, handing him back his garments.

He took them from me and nodded his head. “Thanks” He sheepishly smiled, still seeming uncomfortable about something.

The conversation ceased, and an awkward silence fell between us. He uncomfortably leaned back on his heels and lightly bit his lip.

My nervousness arose slowly as nothing was being said. It was apparent to me that something was wrong – silence never fell between us. Then again, the only times we had really conversed and been with each other was when we were both drunk. Maybe nobody actually likes me for who I am, the only hang out with me because they have to, or are too intoxicated to notice. I gulped and clenched my lips, praying that I kept my composure for the little time that I was talking to Toshiya. I didn’t take my anti-depressant pill yesterday; I haven’t really gotten onto a schedule with them, considering that I didn’t take it seriously.

Toshiya cleared his throat and licked his lips. “Would you like to come inside for a little bit?” He quickly looked behind himself before letting me inside.

I smiled and stepped in. I couldn’t tell if he was sincere about letting me in, or just trying to make this visit less excruciating. His eyes motioned towards the couch as he came over with a pot of coffee and two cups.

“So, how has everything been? Are you excited to go on the tour?”

He poured both of us a drink and handed me the warm mug. “Yeah, I guess. Kaoru and Kyo have just been a little crazy with the band meetings recently.” He said bluntly.

I nodded my head as I neared the coffee mug to my mouth. “Well, that’s nice I suppose. It seems exciting to be going on tours. You know, playing in front of thousands of people who adore you.”

A very small smirk appeared on his face and he became smug. “I suppose so”

Toshiya looked a little more at ease than before. He relaxed on the couch and rested his back on the cushion behind him. I took a sip of my drink and scrunched my face. The coffee he prepared was straight – something that I was completely unused to. I choked down the rest of my sip and got up from where I was sitting.

“Do you mind if I get some coffee creamer from the fridge? I’m not used to drinking black coffee.”

His body faintly tensed, but he nodded anyway. “Sure, it should be on the top shelf in the fridge.” He put his cup down onto the table, and tapped an apprehensive beat with his fingertips.

I walked directly behind where we were sitting into the kitchen. I stared into his open fridge for some time, completely lost. It took me longer than it should have to find the creamer, but what can I say, I was sleep deprived and my body was probably freaking out due to the uneven doses of drugs.

As soon as I poured the sweetener into my drink, I realized that I hadn’t gone to the bathroom all morning; and I drank two glasses of water with breakfast. I scampered off to Toshiya’s small bathroom, which was conveniently located a few feet from the kitchen.

I stepped on something padded and soft as soon as I walked in. I gasped, hoping that it wasn’t something important of Toshiya’s. Not that he would leave anything too meaningful on the bathroom floor; I just didn’t want to make this situation any more bothersome than it already was. I blinked a few extra times to make sure that my mind wasn’t making me go actually crazy. I picked up the three bras and four pairs of women’s underwear from the floor and cast them aside. I sighed and walked out, shutting the door to his bathroom.

I should have known not to add another problem to my life.

“Hey,” I started with a shaky voice, “Thanks for the coffee and everything but I need to go.”

He stood up from the couch and came close to me – not close enough for a hug, but far away enough that I could hear him. “That’s okay, I’m busy today too.”

We said nothing more to each other, and nothing less. I left his apartment after that, feeling relieved that returning his clothes wasn’t a priority to me anymore.