I know that I haven't updated Memories in a really long time but there have been a lot of things that I had to put first instead of writing. Because it has been a while since I worked on it, I'm not quite sure where I want to go with it plot wise, so instead of just waiting for inspiration to hit me, I wanted to get back into writing and do a little 'project' of sorts. In Memories I hinted at the subject of self-injury but didn't go into a lot of detail and wanted to develop that into a story of its own. Self-injury is a issue very personal to me and I wanted to write something that not only deals with the physical effects of it but the emotional as well. The reason why I decided to rate it as M is because there are going to be very detailed descriptions of the act of self-injury which I don't think everyone will be comfortable reading, as well as swearing, suicidal thoughts, and just a lot of issues that can make people feel uncomfortable reading, especially younger audiences.

This won't be a very long story, only about eight chapters, but hopefully it will enough to get myself back into writing and then I can focus on getting Memories completed and then going on to write something a bit more happier.

Disclaimer- All characters and references belong to their rightful owners.

In our family portrait
we look pretty happy
we look pretty normal
let's go back to that

Family Portrait- P!nk

At five years old she stood in front of the large building, hearing the children's laughter inside, screams of joy and shouts of annoyance. Pulling on her pale yellow dress she turned around to face her parents who looked back with reassuring smiles.

Her father placed a gentle hand on her small back, "Go on then, go and have fun." He encouraged, giving a soft push.

Tears sprung to her big brown eyes as she shook her head, "Can we go home?"

With a quick glance to her husband, her mother knelt down and ran her fingers through her daughters thick black hair, "You wanted to go this morning, you were really excited, remember?" the little girl nodded, "you're going to be fine. Your teacher is very nice and said everyone will be kind to you."

"Promise?" her tiny voice shook with nerves as she took another look at the school.

They both smiled, "promise" they replied in union.

After a few minutes of walking into the foreign building and saying their goodbyes, she found that she was in a room full of children her age but without anyone she knew. Gathering up the courage to try and make friends, she travelled the room to the group of three girls dressing up dolls in oversized and glittery gowns. All three looked up at her when she accidently kicked a forth doll lay on the carpeted floor.

"C-can I play with you?" her hands went back to pulling on the frill of her dress, a habit she had slowly formed since she was a baby.

A girl stood up, her blonde curly hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, her light green eyes narrowed as she took in the strange new girl. Once the girl had taken in her appearance, a mean smile came across her lips and her head shook, "no you can't," she stated harshly, "I don't want you to play with us." She turned on her heels and sat back down, quickly getting back into the world of dress-up.

The black haired girl took a step back, feeling the sting of the rejection. As she turned to walk away she felt her body collide with another. Before she knew it, her side hit the floor.

"Oops! Sorry!" she heard a voice say. A boy's voice.

Not many boys had talked to her and she could feel a blush rise to her cheeks, "I'm okay." She replied, standing back up and looked at the boy for the first time. His brown hair was short and slightly spiked up, his dark green eyes, much darker than the mean girl's, were directed straight at her. Her blush grew and a strange fluttering feeling entered her stomach.

The boy blinked twice before looking down at the crayons in his hand and then back at her, "I heard what Abigail said to you, she was really mean. Do you want to colour with me?" he took out a bright red crayon from the pack and offered it to her.

Smiling softly, she took the crayon from his hand, "thank you."

He smiled, showing the gap in his teeth where a tooth had already fallen out. Again he reached his hand out, something his father had taught him to do whenever he met someone new, "I'm Ulrich."

Her hand gripped around his, "I'm Yumi."

Ten years had passed since that fateful day, the now fifteen year old Yumi sat crossed legged on her futon with music blasting from the ear phones forcefully placed into her ears. The loud beats muffled the screams coming from downstairs but as much as she turned up the volume, nothing would silence them. It had been like this for almost half her life but only in the past few weeks had it been this bad. As a young girl, she would tell herself that it would get better, that they all would be happy soon. She had heard stories from classmates about how their parents don't live together or how they spent one weekend with one parent, the next with another. But she blocked them out, reassuring herself that it would never happen to her family. As she grew older Yumi started to realise that her parents were not getting better, the fights were becoming louder and even violent as any item close would be thrown in anger. She didn't want to accept that it was highly likely that her parents would be getting divorced, for her little brother she had to believe that things would get better.

The screams grew louder and louder until a crash and shatter stopped the argument. Quickly pulling out the earphones and turning off the device, Yumi quietly stood and out of her room, settling for sitting on the top step just close enough to hear what they were saying.

"Just leave!" Yumi flinched at her mother's venom laced voice. She meant every word. Yumi could feel the tears beginning to fall and shut her eyes tightly to try and stop them, she couldn't break down, not just yet.

Silence filled the air until her father appeared at the bottom of the stairs, facing towards the door and oblivious to his teenage daughter who was a few feet behind him, "I never wanted it to end this way." he whispered as he started to turn the door handle. Yumi's heart started to beat faster. He was leaving? No, he couldn't do that. He wouldn't do that to his family.

Her mother appeared next to him and Yumi could see the tears running down her tired face, "None of us did but we don't have another option. Not anymore."

With no other words said, he walked straight out of the house, the door slamming behind him. Yumi felt like someone had just punched her in the stomach, pain and sickness started to take over her body. She watched as her mother reached out to the closed door, almost as if she was going to open it and call him back. She didn't. Her fingers ran down the wooden frame until she reached the handle, as soon as she touched the gold metal, her body fell to the floor. Sobs shook her body as she lay on the carpeted floor.

A part of Yumi wanted to comfort her mother but she couldn't find a way to get her body to move towards the older women. Instead she retreated back to her bedroom, locking the door and falling to the floor. Just like her mother, she found herself lay down whilst tears streamed down her face, struggling to gather enough breath and feeling her heart shattering inside. Its pieces scarring her from the inside.

She couldn't remember what time she had drifted to sleep but she found herself opening her eyes and being hit by the summer sun beaming through the window. She groaned in pain as she pulled her stiff body from the hard, rough floor. The events from the previous night flooded back and she almost fell back to the floor. Managing to keep her balanced, she changed her clothes and made her way out of her room and down the stairs.

The house was silent, something that Yumi couldn't remember the last time it happened. Entering the kitchen she froze as her mother was busy making breakfast, flipping pancakes and pulling out various sauces from the cupboards. Before Yumi could say anything, her mother turned to her and jumped in surprise at seeing her daughter.

"I didn't hear you come down. How many pancakes do you want?" She gestured to the plate which had a pile of already cooked pancakes on it.

Yumi stared at her in confusion, "What?" her voice was harsher than she expected.

"I just asked how many you wanted?" she replied softly before hesitating, "Is something wrong?"

She was trying to hide what happened but Yumi wasn't going to play along, "I know what happened last night, I know about you and Dad."

Her mother froze and turned her back to Yumi, gripping onto the edge of the counter, "How did you find out?"

"It was pretty easy with you two shouting all night," her voice began to rise, "when were you going to tell us? It's obvious that you weren't going to tell us this morning because you are too busy making stupid pancakes!"

Her mother quickly turned around, "Don't yell at me, Yumi. This wasn't the right time to tell you and before you start yelling again think of Hiroki. Do you really want him to find out like this?"

"Don't use him as an excuse to push this aside," Yumi shot back, anger building up, "I won't be surprised if he already knew. All you two did was shout at each other every night, just like last night and it's hard to get some sleep when you're down here at each other's throats!"

"Yumi I-"

"Don't" she snapped, "I don't want to hear any more excuses, I'm going to see my friends." Grabbing her jacket off on of the chairs, she walked out of the room.

"Yumi, come back here, I wasn't finished talking to you," she heard her mother yell after her but she just shook her head and ran straight out of the house.

All the way to Kadic Yumi was trying to stop the tears from falling, trying not to fall apart. She needed him, she needed to be with him. Entering one of the buildings, she ran up the staircase and down the halls until she reached the room she wanted. She knocked three times on the wooden door and waited, her heart beating faster as she heard movement coming towards the door.

The door opening and revealed him. It was obvious that she had woken him up; his dark hair was messy and was only dressed in an old pair of black sweatpants. Rubbing his eyes, she looked at the girl in front of him.

"Yumi? Do you have any idea what time it-" he stopped as he saw her shaking body and the tears that were slowly falling down her cheeks, "Yumes? What's wrong?"

A choked sob came from her lips and she felt herself break down. She couldn't speak, instead allowed herself to be pulled into the small dorm, placed on the bed and wrapped in a pair of warm arms. Burying her head into her bare chest, the tears streamed down her face as she held onto him as tight as possible.

It took just over twenty minutes for the tears to stop and she became quiet. She heard him sigh and and kiss the top of her head, "What happened, Yumes?"

She lifted her head from his chest and looked into his eyes. He felt his heart break as he saw how hurt she looked.

"They were fighting so much and I couldn't block them out. She kicked him out and now he's gone. I didn't really think it would happen, I didn't want it to."

He held her tighter, "I'm so sorry, Yumes." he lowered his head and placed a kiss on her forehead, keeping his lips there as she spoke again.

"It's not fair, we used to be really happy."

"I know it hurts know but it will get better."

She grabbed one of his hands and laced their fingers together, "Promise?"

Ulrich smiled softly and softly squeezed her fingers, "I promise."