warnings: slight mention of attempted rape, and suicidal thoughts and suicide at the end of the chapter. additional notes at the end.

The rain was pretty, in that cold, melancholic way where it froze your bones and dripped into your eyes like tears that you were trying to hold back.

Mai had always cherished it. When she was younger, she'd lived in a sunny, fishing village where it hadn't rained all that often. When it did, Mai and her father played in it, soaking their clothes to their wet skin with shouts and trills of happiness.

Rainy weather was her favorite weather. She had good memories of it and it was nice to reminisce.

But today, she wasn't remembering the good memories. Today, she was staring up at the sky and pleading with whoever was listening to take her pain away already. Today, she was hoping for someone to grant her mercy.

Today, she was hoping someone would kill her.

She hadn't always wanted to die. She used to want to live life to the fullest.

When she was sixteen, she dreamed of being a professional ghost hunter. She never said so aloud- Masako would laugh, Bou-san would tell her she needs a lot more experience, Ayako would make a cutting joke about how she wouldn't last long in the field, and blah, blah, blah.

They wouldn't have believed in her. And it wasn't their fault. Mai knew it would happen if she brought it up, so she didn't. And Mai knew she had little experience and would probably be killed by some evil spirit on whatever first case she took on. And they would have known that as well.

But maybe she was being overdramatic. Maybe they would believe in her.

But maybe, she thought, wasn't absolute.

Things had happened to her- horrible, horrible things in the two years she'd been like this- alone, living with three other girls in a tiny apartment while they all worked their asses off to pay the rent and Furihiko's college tuition.

But the horror she has seen is not who she is. She is not the scared little girl that Hana found shaking and crying in an alleyway next to a bloody body with a knife lying next to her crimson, bruised leg. She is not her physical therapy sessions. She is not the feeling of a knife being plunged into her thigh. She is not the blindness in her right eye.

She is not what she has survived.

And while she is not her tragedies all mixed and mashed into one slightly-disabled girl, she is still broken. Dead, in the sense that her body is alive but her soul feels smoked out, like it floated up into the stars when the doctors said she would never see out of her right eye again, and when she realized that not all friendships last.

Taniyama Mai wanted to die, even though she felt like she already was. What she had survived was useless to mention if her bones felt hollow and carved out, like the marrow had been replaced with lead, like she was barely getting by everyday because her feet felt too heavy to lift.

Sometimes, Mai thinks back on herself three years ago.

How naive, she thinks. I'd give anything to go back to then.

Mai hadn't bought her favorite candy since the month after Bou-san left for America.

She heard he went viral and became famous over the studio version of a song he'd always loved to sing. She's happy for him still, was happy when he called her with the news, but wishes they talked more. One call every month or so wasn't great, but if it was all she could get, she'd manage. Even if the calls started to become two, three, four months in between with only an hour of talking before they had to hang up.

She ate the taffy on the day he left. The next time she ate it, it tasted bitter despite its sweet flavor.

She never bought it again.

There was a sort of butterfly effect leading up to Mai's inevitable suicide.

She always thought suicide wasn't the answer. It was a permanent solution to a temporary problem. That was what she believed whole-heartedly.

But she'd been having this "temporary" problem for two years now, and god, she was tired.

She lost Naru to England. John had to go back to Australia. Ayako was just- busy, and was forced to move across Japan for work as a nurse. Bou-san made it big with his band, leaving Japan behind with love that could have prospered if not for his and Ayako's stubbornness. Masako just point-blank didn't call Mai. They got into a nasty fight before Naru left and they'd never talked again.

She didn't even have Keiko or Michiru's numbers anymore.

Naru left Japan and never looked back. He carried Eugene's ashes and boarded a plane without even a last goodbye to Mai.

Without her surrogate family. . . Life was incomplete.

Sure, she had Furihiko, Maya, and Fahra, but it wasn't the same. They all roomed together out of convenience and became close in the forced way. But Mai, no matter how hard she tried, couldn't establish the same bond with them that she used to have with Michiru, or Ayako, or Bou-san. She liked them, and helped pay Furihiko's tuition with the little earnings she made at her lame job at a bookstore, but she still didn't feel extremely attached to them.

And god, it sucked. It sucked so bad. She missed the feeling of happiness and love, and loving someone. She'd deal with heartbreak if it meant Naru and Lin would come back, and Naru would be his usual asshole self and ignore her feelings if she could just feel love again.

If she could just pretend to be human again.

There wasn't anything climatic about her suicide. It was a week after asking whoever was above to end it for her. Nothing happened, so she took her life into her own hands. One minute she was standing at the top of a bridge, staring down into the roaring waves of the ocean below. The rain pelted her skin and she heard a voice from her right. She turned her head and stared at the police officer with her good eye, saw him try and convince her to climb back towards the safer part of the bridge, away from the edge.

And then she threw herself down. The rain was like tiny needles poking her skin, and the wind roared in her ears.

She felt free, for the first time in a while.

And then she felt nothing.

A/N: before I get any comments, let me make this clear: Mai is intentionally OOC. she will not be this way in future chapters. also, hasn't been proofread, so. sorry for any big mistakes.

who knows if anyone will actually read this though lol. if you do then you can tell me your thoughts in a generic comment if you want. doesn't have to be too great a comment, i'm not picky.