Chapter Text
Chuuya couldn't believe his bad luck.
A mental institution? Really?
Weren't mental hospitals for crazy people?
Then again, Chuuya supposed he himself was going crazy, wasn't he?
He was only fifteen, and yet he had already been diagnosed with ADHD, C-PTSD, OCD, and depersonalisation-derealisation disorder. How much worse could it get?
He was sitting on his bed. He'd only woken up a few minutes ago.
He recalled the events from the night before.
He'd sat in the emergency department for TWO FUCKING DAYS before they'd admitted him to the psychiatric ward, and his parents had been berating him the whole time. How dare he try to kill himself. It wasn't like their blatant physical and sexual abuse towards him as a child had contributed towards this at all.
He shuddered at the memories.
The opening of the door jolted him out of his thoughts. He turned and saw a nurse peeking in.
"Breakfast's ready," she said, smiling, and left.
He sighed. He was hungry.
He got up and trudged out and down to the table.
The two kids he'd seen last night were here. One had silver hair and shitty bangs, and the other had straight black hair and a closed-eyed smile.
"Hi!" said the one with the black hair. "You must be the new kid! What's your name, and what're you in for?"
Chuuya was slightly taken aback. He grabbed his tray from the trolley and sat across from them, next to a boy with black-and-white hair.
"My name's Chuuya," he said, "and I'm in here for suicide."
The other boy laughed. "Same! I overdosed. Didn't work very well, though! I just threw all the pills back up!"
Another boy at the table, who had brown hair covering his eyes, winced. "Please don't talk about that right now, Ranpo," he said softly. "It's triggering for me."
Ranpo's face fell. "Sorry, Poe! I didn't realise!"
So they were all accepting of triggers and the like? That was much better than the people Chuuya had been around thus far.
Maybe the psych ward wasn't just a place for crazy people. After all, everyone here seemed quite reasonable and normal.
Then the boy beside him started tapping the table in specific rhythms, and he started to doubt himself.
"Are you okay?" he asked, taking a bite of his toast.
The boy laughed. Chuuya could hear the bitterness in his voice.
"Sorry," he said, "OCD. Plus the voices. Not having a good day today."
"You hear voices?" asked Chuuya, frowning.
The other boy narrowed his eyes at him. "Yeah. Psychotic symptoms. Caused by my C-PTSD and OCD. My antipsychotics aren't working well."
Chuuya nodded. "I have OCD and C-PTSD too."
The other boy looked surprised for a moment before smiling. "Nice to see someone as fucked up as me. What did you get your C-PTSD from? I got mine from being forced to sleep outside about every week for a few years."
Chuuya laughed. "Mine's from the parents. Parents can't do shit, can they?"
The other boy laughed, too. "No, they really can't."
The boy with spiky reddish hair across from Chuuya laughed. "Sure fuckin' can't. Mine gave me up. Couldn't handle the BPD even though they're the ones who abused me to the point i developed it."
Chuuya winced. "Oh, fuck. That sounds real shitty."
He waved his hand dismissively. "It's cool. I never liked them anyway. The name's Tachihara, by the way."
"I'm Akutagawa," said the boy next to Chuuya.
"This here," said Tachihara, pointing to the boy beside him, "is Kajii. We bonded over being bipolar."
Kajii grinned. "Bipolar buddies!"
The blonde boy at the head of the table tapped his chin. "Yosano also has bipolar. Is she okay? I haven't seen her this morning. I'm Kunikida, by the way."
Ranpo winced. "She's having a bit of a depressive episode. She'll come out when she's ready."
Tachihara laughed. "Man, sometimes I prefer the depressive episodes over the mania. I was manic and thought I was a god so I tried to kill myself to go back to heaven and i wound up here instead. Pretty shit heaven if you ask me."
Chuuya laughed. "I just had a C-PTSD moment and the DPDR made it worse so I, uh, 'made a mistake' and now I'm here."
The boy with the Russian hat - the only one who hadn't spoken yet - smiled at Chuuya's words. "I have normal PTSD, nothing complex about it. Are we trauma buddies?"
Chuuya grinned at him. "Sure."
These people were so easy to talk to and bond with. Maybe being here wouldn't be too bad.
A very ragged-looking girl trudged over to the table. She picked her tray out of the cart and sat at the head of the table opposite Kunikida.
Ranpo's face immediately softened. "Hey, Yosano," he said softly. "Feeling any better?"
She shook her head. Her eyes were blank. She wasn't touching her food.
Chuuya had seen that look before. That was the look of someone who was completely and utterly broken.
She looked up at him. "Hi," she said. Her voice was hoarse. "I'm Yosano. I have bipolar, ADHD, and OCD, and I'm having a bit of a depressive episode right now, so sorry if I upset you or anything."
Tachihara forced a laugh. "Don't worry, Yosano! You can't be any worse than me when I'm manic!"
Chuuya smiled at the reddish-haired boy. "Dude, have you even seen me when I get triggered? I literally get so irritated over the dumbest shit."
Fyodor smiled softly. "Ah, but you have not seen me when I'm having a sensory overload because of my autism. I will get mad if you so much as breathe too loudly."
Chuuya laughed. He swore he could see the faintest smile dance at Yosano's lips.
Atsushi smiled. "Yeah, but none of you saw when Akutagawa had that episode and thought he was the devil. I accidentally woke him up and he said he was gonna send me to hell!"
Akutagawa chuckled. "I said I was sorry!"