#heeeeeeeey!

It was so loud, the breathing, all frantic gasps and abject terror. It grated on his ears, on  his fragile nerves, and made him want to yell and scream and rip at the sound until it was nothing. Until it could no longer touch him.

He tried to growl but all that came out was another puff of air, just as needy and scared as the others.

Ah.

So it was his breathing.

Rin staggered down the street on numb legs and cars passing by honked their horns and cheer at how terribly in character he was in his Halloween make up.

They thought he was a murder victim.

He wasn’t a murder victim - he had run far to quickly for that.

“Oh, that look so cool!” A girl squealed as she walked past him. Rin didn’t say a word, just kept walking, and his blood dripped a hot and quick path down his arms to dribble from his fingers.

He could feel, as if from some great distance, the sting and burn of the deep gashes on his hands and forearms - all defence wounds. Much more keenly he could feel the deep, deep cuts that sliced right through to the bone on various parts of his face. 

No more beauty shots for him, he thought wryly and a hysterical giggle bubbled up his throat.

His feet ached to stop walking, to give in to the urge to sit down and rest the bare soles that were being mercilessly destroyed and shredded by the harsh pavement below. And yet he moved on, step by shuffling, staggered step, until - at last - the steps he ached for came into sight.

There must have been something dangerous in the relief he felt at seeing the stairs to Haruka’s home for he collapsed hard to his knees at the sight of them.

That hurt.

Panting, Rin began crawling, one slow dragging movement at a time until he could knock on the door and slump down, leaking blood, leaking tears, leaking life.