Okay. Wow. I'm actually doing this. *deep breath*

Welcome, friends, to the main fic of my Trans!Souji AU - part of the "Scars On My Sleeve (For All the World to See)" universe. This story, the whole AU, is unbelievably important to me; it has been in my head for over two years now and I am both excited and terrified to finally, FINALLY start bringing it to life. I hope you all enjoy the ride with me - as well as the suffering.

WARING! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!
This fic is going to be dark. Read the tags for full warnings, but there will be heavy themes of depression and gender dysphoria, suicidal thoughts, implied past child abuse and transphobia, and a just a whole lot of heavy stuff. I will put the appropriate warnings before each chapter that has the worst of it, but just know that this is not a light fic despite the happy ending.

Bon voyage!

Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 4, nor any of the characters/locations therein.

Caught in the Grey

Chapter 1: Beauty In the Breakdown

"So let go, let go, and jump in.
Oh well whatcha waitin' for?
It's alright,
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown…"

– ("Let Go", Frou Frou)

)()()()()()(

October

"You better have damn good explanation for this!"

Yosuke is livid, incredulous. His voice cracks as he rounds on the girls, asking them how they could have done this, and from somewhere far away, Souji can hear him growing increasingly upset.

He knows that Yosuke has raised his voice in panic and embarrassment, knows that Kanji is nearby, adding his own disbelief to the mix, but everything is… muffled. Distorted. Like he's hearing it from behind a wall, through a rushing current that's pounding somewhere inside his head and can't breathe!

Seta Souji

It's there, on the list of names under "Pageant Signups" – in scrawled black letters, clear and bold.

Everything is numb.

He curls freezing fingers around the cuff of his jacket sleeve, absently noting that his hands are shaking. He wants to run, wants to bolt, wants to go find a nice, quiet place to hyperventilate, because he can feel his lungs seizing and his vision blurring and he. Can't. BREATHE.

"…isn't that right, Senpai?"

Souji looks up. Sharp, manic, eyes wide and chest stuttering. He stares at Rise – because that's who was calling him, right? – and tries to think. He doesn't know what she said, has no idea how to respond. Fake it. Don't crack where they can see. You're the leader, you're the leader, you're the leader…

Crushing down the weight inside his chest he forces himself to soften his eye contact, to school the line of his shoulders so that he doesn't look like a cornered animal. He evens out his features until all semblance of expression is gone and only a blank mask remains. Jerkily, puppet-like, he gives the slightest nod of his head and consciously pulls up the corners of his lips into what he hopes is a faint smile. His stomach churns.

Rise crows with delight. "See?! I told you, Yosuke-senpai! Souji-senpai believes in us!"

Oh. Oh god.

"Dude, what the hell?!" Yosuke whips around and gives him a look of utter betrayal, his mouth hanging open and eyes bright with indignation. "Why would you agree to this? Do you just want to get paraded around in drag?!"

He feels sick. He feels so sick and he still can't breathe and the edges of his vision are starting to go all fuzzy and he didn't mean to agree to whatever she just said.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god

Something acidic climbs up his throat and burns the back of his tongue.

Yosuke is staring at him and Rise is grinning at him and Chie and Yukiko are sniggering and-

"Y-you're positive we'll be pretty?"

"Kanji, not you, too!"

He can't do this. He can't do this; even with Yosuke's blistering gaze now turned towards Kanji, (and fuck fuck fuck even Kanji's agreeing now!) the room still feels too small, too crowded. He needs to get away. He needs out of this whole situation but he knows he can't escape because he's trapped. He's been roped into doing the one fucking thing he would rather chug bleach than do and there is no way to get out of doing it without making everything so much worse.

The girls would demand a good reason for backing out. Kashiwagi probably wouldn't even listen, would just dock his grades or something if he skipped. He almost wonders if it would be worth it.

He'd do it anyway if he didn't think somebody would find a way to do something to punish him for it.

I can't breathe!

Everything is cold. He can't feel his fingertips as they twist and wrap themselves deeper into his jacket sleeves, nails digging through the fabric to prick at his palms. Is anyone looking at him? He can't tell. The room dims; a ring of grey static, like the Midnight Channel, fizzles in around the edges of his sight and makes everything around him dull and blurry. His friends are speaking. He doesn't know to whom. He can't pick out their voices anymore, can't make out any words against the thunderous drumming of the river inside his head. It's too loud, too dark, too cloistering, too much.

He turns. He doesn't stop to figure out if anyone is calling after him, following him. He doesn't care. Through muscle memory alone, he manages to get out the classroom door and into the hallway. He wills his legs to move, to push, to carry him forward in the direction of the nearest bathroom, even if he doesn't know where he is anymore. The hallway is too long, too crowded, too, too, too, and he can't.

He pushes the bathroom door open, body trembling so violently that he barely makes it inside before he's throwing himself into a stall, to his knees. He feels them connect with the hard tile floor, is aware of the impact, but cannot feel the pain he knows will be there when he comes back down. He doesn't feel anything but sick.

He curls over the toilet as if it could offer him salvation and vomits up everything he's eaten today. Even long after he's purged his stomach, the roiling is still there; he coughs until the taste of bile and acid sits heavy in his mouth.

The world is finally quiet by the time he's able to stand again – though whether that's from the roar in his ears subsiding at last or because the school is starting to empty, he has no idea. He doesn't care. He washes his hands, his face, his mouth with water from the sink and refuses to look in the mirror as he does. His hands shake so badly that he's certain there's puddle on the floor beneath him. He doesn't care. His breathing is still too shallow, too thin, comes too fast. He doesn't look in the mirror. He doesn't think.

It's only after he hears a quiet creak that he even remembers other people still exist. He glances up from his shaking hands – why is there steam coming from the faucet? Is the water that hot? – forces his head sluggishly up and his eyes blearily over until he thinks he can see just the barest hint of hallway beyond the cracked-open door.

"Souji-senpai?" someone calls from outside. The voice is low, blessedly quiet, like deep blue twilight and old velvet. "Are you alright?"

Naoto.

"I'm fine," he tries to say. His throat screams at him, raw and papery, like crusted salt. He tries to clear it and winces as the burn nearly makes him choke. "I'm fine," he says again. It's weak, scratchy, but louder than before.

Silence.

He wonders if he'd been too quiet, runs his tongue over his lips to try again. He tastes panic and shame.

"Please don't lie to me, Senpai."

Damnit.

Of course, even if Naoto wasn't a detective they're still the most observant of the team, the most logical. They're exactly the kind of friend that wouldn't be fooled or placated by something as weak as his automatic response. Of course they would notice him leaving, would find him even if he'd somehow wound up on the opposite side of the school building. Of course they would call him out for his obviously bullshit answer.

The door creeps wider open and suddenly there is a swath of blue in the line of the doorway. Naoto swings their head from one side to the other – checking the hall – before stepping further into the bathroom and settling their too-keen gaze upon him.

He looks back down at his hands, watches them turn pink, then red under the scalding water.

Naoto gasps softly. "Oh! Senpai…!" There are footsteps, the sound of the door closing, and then there are hands in his line of sight as Naoto reaches over and turns the water to cold. He still doesn't feel a thing.

He stands there and lets Naoto keep his hands under the faucet, watching the redness of his skin slowly start to recede.

"I'm so sorry."

He doesn't look up at them.

There is a pause, a measure of silence before they whisper again. Their voice is calm and level, and he focuses on it rather than the rush of water from the sink, the rush of blood still behind his ears.

"It was only Teddie and Yosuke-senpai that signed us up for the beauty pageant; I tried to tell them that but they had already put your name down as well. I didn't know…"

Their voice catches slightly, and when he lifts his eyes from his numb fingers he can see them pursing their lips as they stare at their own hands on his wrists.

"I couldn't stop them. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he whispers back. Because it is okay, even thought it's absolutely not; he believes Naoto. They're the newest of the group, but they're honest, and he knows them well enough by now to know that they're also the most rational member on the team. They would have agreed to punishing Yosuke for his stunt – he'd like to think they would have stood up for him.

Naoto shakes their head. "It clearly isn't." They look up at him then, the movement of their head so sharp and startling that he finds himself looking up at the same time out of shock and catching their eyes. They stare and he can't look away.

He holds his breath as Naoto opens their mouth to speak. But then, they don't. They close their mouth again with a soft 'click', sighing out their unspoken words through their nose. Their gaze falls back to the mess of hands beneath the stream of water.

"You should see the nurse," they say instead.

He shakes his head.

No. He absolutely does not want to do that. He's already going to be poked and prodded enough for the damn pageant, thank you, and at least he can try to keep his friends' hands on his face and hair and away from the rest of him. The nurse? Not so much.

He tries to say, "I don't need to"; what comes out instead is a weak, shaky, "I can't."

Naoto looks back up at him, their lips pressed into a thin line and their forehead creased in concern. They stare at him for what feels like eons. "...Senpai—"

"Naoto, I can't."

And the way his voice breaks, the way his vision blurs, he's sure he's close to crying. But he can't, he won't, not here, not in front of his teammate, not in the middle of the school building where anyone else could walk in at any moment. He pleads with his eyes instead, because if anyone is clever enough to see hidden meaning in someone's face, it's Naoto.

Slowly they nod, and he feels a burst of relief for the first time in far, far too long. He wants to sob.

Naoto sighs and slumps their shoulders, apparently giving in for now. "I understand." They tilt their head pointedly, searching his face for something he can't fathom. They must find it, because the ghost of a reassuring smile passes over their features and he feels something inside his chest lift just the tiniest bit. "I really do."

He should be afraid, he thinks, that Naoto can see through him – even though, out of all of the IT, it was always going to be Naoto that saw him first. He should feel like the floor has been shattered underneath his feet, like he's falling into blackness again, but no. Not this time.

No one has said anything; no one has spoken the words out loud. It's Naoto. He's safe for now.

And he didn't even have to pull the words from his mouth like shards of broken, bloodied glass. They just knew.

"I'll do what I can to make sure they don't go overboard tomorrow," Naoto is saying. Their fingers uncoil from his wrists and turn the faucet off. (He thinks he can just barely make out the feel of the air on his freezing skin now.) They sigh again. "Chie-senpai and Yukiko-senpai will likely be all too glad to focus on Yosuke-senpai, but Rise-kun…" They trail off, unspoken horrors hanging thick in the air between their lips like oil.

Souji nods. He can feel the cold of his hands now, the leftover sting from the hot water still burning beneath his skin; the room is less fuzzy, now the lights less dim and his vision clearer. He feels himself slide back into his body – not lock into place, he's still too shaky, too jittery – like a sheet of colored plastic overlaid across a different one to form a new color only where they touch. He's there, he's just not solid yet.

Souji flexes his fingers. They hurt. "I'm in drama club," he rasps. "I can do most of it myself."

The look that Naoto gives him is full of pain and sympathy – much more emotion than he's sure anyone else in their group has ever seen. "Awful, isn't it? That playing pretend has become so natural for people like us."

The laugh that tears unexpectedly from his chest sounds more like a sob.

)()()()()()(

The next morning dawns like bile against the horizon. Souji watches from the window, barely real as he takes in the sickly yellow of the sun as it rises. A glance at the clock shows he's been awake for several hours now, unable to stay asleep because of the constant, taunting reminder of what today is; the hummingbird-quick beating of his panicked heart bringing him back to wakefulness any time he managed to doze off from sheer exhaustion.

Numb, nauseous, he drags himself over to the desk and grabs his uniform from where he'd habitually set it out the night before. He feels like nothing, like a wind-up doll as he puts it on. He gathers his things, heads downstairs, passes by the kitchen without even bothering to glance inside. He doesn't want breakfast right now, doesn't even want to try and keep his stomach under control long enough to make a bento for later. He stops just long enough to give his little sister a hug.

Nanako asks him if he's okay.

"I'm fine," he answers with a strained smile.

)()()()()()(

He runs into Yosuke on the way to school, even though Souji's absently aware that it's far earlier than Yosuke actually needs to be leaving his house. But it doesn't matter, so he doesn't ask. Yosuke looks about as tired as he feels and at first there is silence.

And then Yosuke opens his mouth and starts to talk.

Yosuke rants about how unfair it is that they have to go through with the pageant, about how it's totally different for the girls to be up on stage, about how real men don't wear dresses, damnit, this is so stupid! Yosuke gesticulates as he talks and never once looks over to see the hollowness in Souji's eyes or to see why Souji hasn't said a single word to agree with him.

Souji tries and tries to tune his friend out but in the end he feels every word as though it were a splinter of ice burrowing ever deeper into his gut.

Yosuke finally asks him if he's okay only once the front doors of the school are in sight.

"I'm fine," he says, and pretends the catch in his voice is a yawn.

)()()()()()(

The day stretches and stretches but still seems to go far too quickly and soon he's being handed a girl's uniform and a long silver wig done up in a pair of braids. There are stockings, too, and a padded bra stuffed with what looks like socks pinned inside. He takes the uniform and the wig and stifles the burning, sinking, suffocating feeling that spreads throughout his body so that he can make it to the bathroom to change. Rise calls out to him as he walks stiffly into the hall like a man marching to his execution, asking him if he needs help fastening the bra. He keeps walking as if he hadn't heard her.

He stands in the stall and tries, tries, tries not to hyperventilate, not to give in to the way his vision blackens and his lungs scream and his stomach – still empty from yesterday – lurches and rolls. His heart pounds like he's been running, like it's already escaped and is pleading for him to come with it. He barely manages to hook everything together with how badly his hands are shaking – fingers slipping and nearly dropping everything as he slips the bra fasteners into place. He wraps the socks that had been padding it up in his own uniform and doesn't think about how well the bra actually fits him without them.

He puts the wig on last while still in the stall. He uses his drama club training and feels for the tabs on either side of the wig, pulling on them until they're next to his temples. He keeps the stall door closed, keeps his back to it and his head down, even though he cannot see the wall of mirrors over the sinks while he hides behind the door. He squeezes his eyes shut as bits of the wig brush across his cheekbones and does not look at the long silvery strands that now frame his face.

The way the skirt swishes around his legs, the way the shirt hugs his chest, the way his hips look fuller, his waist smaller, his hair longer—

He clamps a hand to his mouth as he gags, body heaving to expel his fear and panic, even though his stomach is so empty it cramps. Sweat breaks out over his forehead and he has to blink back the sting of tears behind his eyelids because everything is wrong wrong WRONG!

It takes everything he has to lock himself away and call up the bone-deep coldness. He slips into the numbing distance, pulling it over himself like a cloak, and pushes everything away until there is nothing left inside but nothing.

Gathering up his things, he finally steps out of the stall and breezes past the line of sinks towards the hallway. He watches himself from someplace far away in his own mind as his body looks dead ahead and refuses to even glance at his own reflection in the mirrors.

Naoto is waiting against the wall just outside the classroom when he makes it back. They take a glance at his mask-like face and their expression twists like they can feel every bit of black, oozing wrongness that has filled his veins and settled into his lungs; like they want to cry every tear for him that lurks behind his frosted wall of forced calm.

He hears them whispering to him as he passes, hears them asking senpai are you okay?

"I'm fine," he responds, voice like a worn-out recording on an over-played cassette.

)()()()()()(

He doesn't let Rise do his makeup. He doesn't let Yukiko or Chie do his makeup either. Thankfully, the latter two have Kanji and Yosuke to focus on to keep them from descending upon him. Rise, though, winks mischievously and waggles a foundation compact in his direction.

He doesn't want her touching him. Doesn't want anyone touching him. But he stills just before he can tell her he'll do it himself because even through the cloak of numbness he knows that to do it himself he'll have to look in a mirror. His mind stutters, reboots, works his mouth on autopilot and tries again to tell Rise she doesn't need to help but she isn't listening. She leans into his personal space with a wide, sweet grin, and he doesn't want to be upset with her when he knows she's doing it because of her not-so-subtle crush on him, so he can't recoil or shove her away like his instincts want to. Luckily his mind and his body are so far removed from one another right now that his knee jerk reaction doesn't reach his limbs through the void.

He feels the ice encase his heart just a little more solidly and pulls himself further back into his head.

In the end it's Naoto that winds up doing his makeup. He doesn't remember them speaking up or shooing Rise away, doesn't know how he wound up sitting in the far corner of the room with Naoto in front of him like a shield even as they lean in close with a brush.

I'm sorry, their lips say; he can read the words up close like this but the sound is lost behind the echoing cold.

He doesn't answer, doesn't know if he's human enough to remember how. He just sits there and lets them dust the smallest amount of pale brown shadow onto his eyelids. Someone whistles nearby, one of the girls saying something about the 'natural look,' but he catches next to nothing else. He can't even tell who it was that said it – the voice muted like his head is underwater and he's drowning.

Naoto sweeps something minty-smelling across his bottom lip; a tube of tinted balm, it looks like, not lipstick, but he doesn't bother trying to read beyond what passes through his peripherals.

He sees Naoto rest their hand tentatively on his shoulder – he can't feel it, can't feel anything – and another pained, worried look paints itself over their features. Any other time he would feel guilty about making one of his friends worry, but right now he's so hollow that he barely even notices.

Naoto turns over their shoulder, eyes suddenly sharp, and parts their lips as though they're about to speak at someone, when Chie and Yukiko appear in front of them both with matching expressions of glee.

Chie's mouth moves, quirking upwards as she gives a stunned Naoto a thumbs-up. Yukiko, however, tilts her head at him, appraising. Her mouth moves as well; a great wall of static noise blocks out her words but her lips shape the letters 'O' and 'K" and he absently sees his own head turning to mimic looking in her direction.

"I'm fine," he feels his body say in his absence.

)()()()()()(

It's over. The pageant is over. Everything is finally, finally over.

He barely even waits until everyone is off the stage before he's pulling the wig off his head as though it burns him. He tosses it at someone beside him, not caring whom, and immediately grabs for the bag full of his clothes – his clothes – that someone has apparently stashed backstage for him. (Probably Naoto.)

The world is a blur around him and he all but runs to the bathroom and slams his shoulder into the door. He's already kicking off the shoes before he even makes it into the closest stall. The first thing off is the stockings, which he nearly trips over as he tries to yank them from his legs as gently – but quickly – as he can, because he doesn't want to tear them. He'll have to return everything in one piece; he doesn't know whom any of this belongs to. He whips them over top the side of the stall and lets them hang there, reaching for the skirt next and hearing something 'pop!' as he tugs it down almost before it's completely unfastened. It joins the stockings in a whirl of fabric.

Still in the top, the scarf, the bra, he unzips his duffel bag and starts grabbing at the clothing inside, not even caring what he pulls out first. He separates a pant leg from a jacket sleeve and drops the jacket back into the bag. As he slides his legs into his pants his knees nearly buckle in desperate relief.

Never again never again never again

The frigid wall, the cloak of numbness, the nothing inside his head; all of it starts to peel and crack and unravel as his violently shaking hands fumble with his button. It takes him far too long to get them fastened, scraping his knuckles on he teeth of his zipper, but when they're finally, finally, FINALLY ON, the breath leaves his lungs like he's been slashed open and he has to lurch forward to brace himself against the wall. He trembles, gulps in lungful after lungful of air like a dying man and it still isn't enough, still feels too shallow. All the color has left his vision, leaving only blacks and whites and greys behind in the ever-tightening circle of static sparkling at the edges of his eyes. He feels unbalanced, off-kilter; his head spins as he continues to try and fill his chest with enough air to keep him above the line of blind panic.

He wonders just how much adrenaline a human body can handle in a day before serious damage is done.

But he can't relax yet. There's still the rest of the girl's uniform, and then the makeup, and he doesn't know if he has enough left in him to keep going right now. He's running on sheer luck – body too sick and anxious, deprived of any kind of fuel beyond adrenaline and well-practiced autopilot since yesterday afternoon. And even then, not by much, since everything had come up again after seeing his name on the sign up sheet. How he's standing he has no idea; how he's going to make it home, he doesn't want to think about.

He wills his body to move, to peel off the remainder of the costume – because he has to think of it that way, it cannot be anything else – and locate the toughest part of his own clothing to put back on. He doesn't look down as he practically rips off the bra, nearly drops his next item of clothing into the toilet in his haste and rising exhaustion. He only gets stuck for a moment as it rolls up underneath itself, but he's done this before, so many times, in fact, that detangling himself has become muscle memory by now. He rights the fabric, tugs it down over his torso, runs the palms of his hands down the smoother, flatter surface of his chest.

Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. Almost done, almost done.

The shirt takes several minutes to button. He keeps getting the wrong hole, keeps slipping as he tries to push the buttons through only for them to resist. He's better now that he has pants on, more in his own body than he has been in hours, but he's still not entirely there, not completely whole again. He won't be until he can put this entire fucking day behind him and he can't even start to do that until he can get his goddamn clothes on, please just button!

He gives up on the last couple of buttons, letting them hang open; they don't go low enough to show the flesh-colored fabric beneath, so it doesn't matter. The rest of the shirt is fastened, though, which is good enough for now. He grabs for his uniform jacket and pulls it on without a hitch. Somehow he manages to get his socks and shoes on without sliding down the wall and cracking his head open on the tiled floor.

He's stuffing the pageant costume into the bag so he doesn't have to look at it anymore when he spots the pack of makeup remover wipes tucked into the bottom. He owes Naoto everything, anything; anything they want, he will gladly give them. He will run himself ragged in the TV world to earn as much money as he needs to, if only for this one last kindness that his friend has shown him.

He rips open the pack and feverishly starts to scrub at his face with the first wipe he can get his fingers around. It hurts; even through the numbness still plaguing him and the chasm between his body and his mind he can feel his skin starting to burn. He doesn't remember if Naoto put foundation on him – he doesn't think they did – but he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs at his eye makeup, at his cheeks, at his lips, until he can taste copper on his tongue and see stars behind his lids. He grabs another wipe and keeps going. He doesn't dare step out of the stall until the makeup wipes come away clean.

He washes his face with cold water at the sink, both to clear away the film of makeup remover and to quell the rawness of his skin. He watches the water stream around his freezing hands just like he did yesterday and absolutely does not look up at the mirror.

Somewhere out in the hallway he can hear clock chimes; he counts them to himself long after they've stopped.

)()()()()()(

He's almost human again when he reemerges from the bathroom and finds his way back to his friends. Truthfully he wants nothing more than to hug the living daylights out of Naoto and then roll into a ditch somewhere to sleep for a million years. He can't, though; he knows he has to make an appearance with the rest of the group or even the most oblivious among them will get suspicious. He doesn't have the energy to think up a lie.

He shuffles his way into the classroom and sinks down into a nearby chair, legs wobbly and threatening to fail him. Once he can focus on something other than keeping himself upright, he takes a moment to properly look around the room. It's weird seeing it suddenly, (even through the grey veil still clouding the edges of his vision,) since he's barely registered anything around him for the past two days. He's exhausted and probably hungry and really just wants to go home, but there's still that responsible part of him that thinks he should try and rejoin the living and clean up the classroom with his friends. Though, looking harder, it seems like most of the decorations have been taken down already.

Just how much time did he lose?

"There you are! Damn, I was wondering where you disappeared to." Yosuke steps over to him, also back in his own clothes, and slumps into the chair adjacent him. There is still makeup on his face, and his hair has a crimp mark where the hair tie had previously been. He looks haggard.

Souji doesn't say anything I return, only gives his best friend shaky smile that goes nowhere near his eyes; he doesn't think he can manages human words right now.

Luckily it doesn't seem like Yosuke notices. Instead, he gives Souji a pitiful look and says, "Duuuuuuude, how'd you get your makeup off? Rise keeps saying she doesn't have anything because she 'forgot.'" He snorts sardonically and levels an unamused look over his shoulder at where the girls are snapping pictures of Teddie still in full costume. "'Forgot,' my ass," he grumbles. "Probably forgot on purpose just to make us suffer longer."

Souji makes a mental note to ask Naoto if they paid for his makeup wipes out of their own pocket, and how much he owes them for it.

He doesn't answer – again – but he does expend a little of what energy he has left to lean over and unzip his duffle bag. He doesn't let his eyes focus on anything inside, just feels around until the familiar crinkle of plastic reaches him. Covertly, he taps the pack of remover wipes against Yosuke's knee.

Yosuke looks down, confused, before taking the pack with barely-contained glee. He fixes Souji with a face-splitting grin. "Oh man, you are the best, Partner!" He hurries to stand, shooting Souji a quick, "be right back," and nigh on sprinting towards the door. He nearly runs into Kanji as he's leaving, the other boy apparently just now returning from changing out of his own costume with the dress draped over his arm.

Yosuke actually grabs kanji by the elbow and drags him back out into the hallway with a hushed, "come on!" The two of them disappear around the corner.

It would be funny, Souji thinks; probably should be funny, but the whole situation is some kind of overly-customized personal hell, and he's about two steps away from saying "screw it" and slinking out the door to make his own escape.

He never gets the chance.

Somewhere, at some point in his life, Souji must have cashed in all of his good luck and used it up forever because its only once Yosuke and Kanji have vanished that he realizes there's no one left to distract the others. Rise spots him first and, with a bubbly, "Senpai, you're back!" she hurries over and into his space.

"Look!" she beams, holding her phone out towards him, screen turned where he can see. "I took pictures of all of you!"

He makes the mistake of almost looking – even knowing full well what's probably on her phone screen, he instinctively turns his gaze and catches sight of long silver braids.

Immediately he freezes, doesn't let his eyes finish focusing on the image now shoved in his face. He can't. He's tried so hard, made absolutely sure that any mirror he passed, any reflective surface, any window for god's sake, was kept just out of his line of vision. He's tried, for two solid days to keep from looking at himself, to keep from thinking, and now it's all about to come unraveled because Rise has photographic evidence of this complete massacre of a day.

He shifts his gaze over to Rise's face instead, looks just past the edge of her cheek and doesn't meet her eyes. He thinks he might feel his lips twitch cordially upwards at the corners – autopilot yet again – and thinks he might hear himself say something. It might be, "so I see"; it might be, "please kill me." He isn't sure. The room is starting to waver in his vision and the river inside his skull has begun trickling to life.

Whatever it was he said must not have been too bad, because Rise just giggles and leans back on her hip, pulling her phone with her. She grins down at it and starts poking at the screen, likely flipping through her pictures.

He wonders if he could make it to the door before she pulls up another one to show him.

Chie and Yukiko wander over, much more relaxed than Rise had been, and while that part is appreciated it's rapidly becoming too crowded in the little sliver of classroom he's found himself trapped in. He lets his mind pull away from his body, giving his friends a fake smile and a nod while he tries anxiously to see if he can spot Naoto anywhere. He can't pinpoint the exact moment his subconscious started hyper-fixating on them, viewing them as safe, as shield, but he won't complain. For once there is an anchor, a lifeline, even if Naoto can't really do much right now; it's been so long since he's had any form of hope when his panic surges and rolls, tugging at him like a vicious tide. Even just knowing he wasn't alone in this cage of people would be enough to ground him.

But Naoto isn't here. Naoto isn't here and Yosuke – who could have at least pulled their attention away from him – is off in the bathroom and there's nothing to keep his heart from quickening in his chest like a frenzied moth.

"Hey could you send me those?" Chie is saying to Rise, blessedly not looking at him for the time being. "I'm gonna lord this over Yosuke's head for weeks!"

Yukiko launches into a laughing fit and the level of static noise in the room ramps up to just shy of too much.

"You got it! Senpai, do you want me to send some to you, too? I got a bunch of cute pictures of you backstage~"

No, please no.

He pulls himself back into his own head on a burst of sheer adrenaline, clutching onto his fight or flight moment of sickening clarity to open his mouth and beg her not to-

A whirlwind of blue dress and blonde wig throws itself at him, practically into his lap, and suddenly Teddie is latched around his arm like a vice.

"Ooh ooh! Send one to me, Rise-chan! Send one to me!" He pulls a little yellow Junes-brand phone out of seemingly nowhere and shoves it into Rise's hand. "I want a bear-utiful one of Sensei!"

Without even seeming to pause for breath, Teddie wraps back around his arm and sighs dreamily. The blonde wig brushes against his face. It feels too much like the silver one had.

Longer hair, a smaller waist, fuller hips, the swish of a skirt…

His chest is full of cinders.

Teddie beams up at him. He stares back with wide eyes, only vaguely seeing.

"You should have won, too, Sensei!" Teddie says – very loudly, right near his ear. "Just think of it! We could have been heartbreakers together, on the hunt for bear-utiful admirers!"

The cinders in his throat climb higher, choking him, burning everything in their path.

Teddie sighs again. "Sensei makes such a pretty girl."

Everything whites out.

It's like being dropped into dark, freezing water; his body is paralyzed, rendered immobile in the sharpest, most bone-deep way, with every inch of skin so cold it feels like a thousand shards of ice digging into him and twisting. It forces the air from his lungs, suspends it in time so that he cannot draw another breath to replace it. He feels the frigid water seep into his mind, his mouth, his chest, feels the way it drains everything from his body until he is so numb he can't even call his limbs to shake. There is no sound, no voices – only the muted rush of the water as it claims him and fills his head with silence.

)()()()()()(

There are flashes of black and grey in his vision.

From far, far away, he catches a glimpse of himself in the school hallway as he throws himself out into it and against a wall. He sees Yosuke and Kanji, coming casually towards him, sees their faces as he passes, shocked and confused.

He sees the door to the stairwell. He sees the landing halfway down.

He sees Naoto near the bottom, close to the exit to the first floor, heading upwards in his direction. He sees their look of terror as they notice him, the recognition dawning in their eyes, sees them reach out as if to intercept him. He sees himself dodge, sees his body swing itself over the railing and past the last couple of steps, landing wrong and slipping, falling, catching himself with the palms of his hands and using the last of that momentum to fling himself out the door.

He sees the front entrance of the school. He sees the walkway beyond.

He sees nothing after that.

)()()()()()(

The world is dark around him as he slowly blinks his eyes open. He is back in his room at his uncle's housel he can just barely make out the outline of the desk, the couch, the TV in what faint moonlight filters in through the windows behind him. The wall is hard and unforgiving at his back; the floor is cold on his already-cold legs. Vaguely he notes that he is bare from the waist up, the skin of his arms and chest and shoulders all exposed to the chill of the room.

His hands sting and his knees ache. He has no idea what time it is.

"I'm fine," he whispers to no one. His voice, though weak and raw, echoes like a temple bell in the maddening quiet of his dark, empty bedroom. In what sounds like a dark, empty house.

He licks at his lips, closes his eyes. He leans his head back again and rests it against the wall. "I'm fine."

His next exhale is wet and trembling, like the dying breath of a drowning victim, pulled from the river only to die with water in his lungs. There is something crusted under the fingernails of his right hand. He touches it with the tip of a finger from his left hand and finds it thick and sticky beneath the first layer. Something smells sweet and coppery. There is a long stripe of stinging pain across the side of his left arm when he shifts it. He doesn't focus on it.

There is a buzzing noise and a square of light shines from his pants pocket in the perfect outline of his phone. He lolls his head to stare at it until it goes away. It comes back what feels like a few moments later. Again and again, he watches as it blinks until going dark once more.

"I'm fine," he whispers as the lead in his bones pulls him down to curl up on the floor against the side of the couch.

"I'm fine," he whispers again as he lets the exhaustion settle across him like a weighted blanket and slips his eyes close.

"I'm fine," he whispers like a mantra as sleep finally takes him.

His dreams are full of fog and shadowy places that he does not recognize; a crumbling indoor maze with whispering voices, a rooftop surrounded on all sides by impossibly high chain link fence. He stands on one end of the red-washed roof beneath a sky of blood and onyx and watches himself watch back from the other side.

"I'm fine," he whispers to the figure across from him.

It shakes its head and sobs. "No," it answers with two voices – layered over top each other in perfect stereo, one low and one high-pitched. It looks at him with eyes the color of sickness, gold and harsh against the pale, flickering silver of its hair.

A wail of anguish rises from their chests, long and loud and keening, and the figure lurches forward to bury its face in its hands.

"No, I'm NOT!"

Fic title is taken from 'The Grey' by Icon For Hire.