#open to react.

[autumnalintellectual]

... It's really quiet. Should he be worried or...?

[autumnalintellectual]

His lungs felt as though they're going to collapse.

The world around him felt like it's sinking, but he kept his eyes open. Staring at the floor like if he forgot even a single detail of it, that the world would go slipping right from under him. One hand clawed at the ground, unable to feel the asphalt beneath it as the other clutched uselessly at his chest. And it felt like so long ago that his knees had given out, crashing him into the floor.

He couldn't feel his legs, couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in his veins.

The blonde could only feel the cold, stinging pain in his chest—a sharp feeling like someone was trying to drive a stake made out of ice into his heart.

He needed to calm down. He needed to breathe. But the feeling was so intense that it was all he could do to keep himself from collapsing completely.

Why now?

Why now?

[autumnalintellectual]

He’d tried the walk. He’d tried to rewrite the notebook again He’d tried telling himself it was just words.

But the thing about words is they don’t leave.

They curl up in the hollow of his ribs like a second heartbeat, creep through your mind like a moth -- useless, forgettable. His fingers trace the spine of his notebook in his hands, then freeze.

" Would it even matter if kept this? " The whisper is soft, rhetorical. But the emotions in his chest were searing. It made the book feel like an impossible weight. Foreign despite the familiarity of the pages.

Every entry, every observation, every carefully logged weakness -- all of it -- was just proof of what the strangers said. That he was nothing without it. That he was only worth as much as he could catalogue.

His grip tightens, pages wrinkle, they groan under the pressure, and then ---

" I’m done. "

It’s not a scream. It’s not even loud. Just final.

The notebook arcs through the air -- a flutter of paper, a crack of the spine hitting the wall before collapsing in a heap on the floor.

Silence.

Knees hit the ground before he can really process it. He just can't do this anymore.

[autumnalintellectual]

Maybe he can get away with people not seeing that he's been sketching a little in his free time. It's not good by any means, he's much more of a writer...

But it's not like anyone would be around to take a glance.

[autumnalintellectual]

Akihiko could be seen with a pair of stray dogs, what looked like an Akita, shaggy and standoffish, and a Shiba Inu, smaller and spunkier than the other. They were following him around and he was laughing as the smaller of the two seemed to be playfully trying to trip him. " Asahi, stop! You're gonna make me fall over if you keep hitting my legs like that -- " His words were interrupted by a burst of giggles. He really does care about his dogs.