Kei tried his best not to die.

Maybe not at first, but gradually it was getting clearer that maybe it wasn't quite such a beneficial thing.

His voice was pitching higher, his jaw seemed softer and the dip of his waist was growing disgustingly prominent again.

(His body was flushing out the hormones he was putting into it)

"When did you get so curvy," Kou remarks suddenly one day.

Kou hadn't quite understood why Kei had punched him in the face but was perfectly happy to throw a few hits back before Izumi and Kuro-chan dragged the pair away from each other.

"Take a blood sample," Kei had ordered Tosaki one morning

"No," Had been the confused but firm response.

("Take a blood sample" Kei had begged Tosaki after.

"Okay," Had been the confused but curious response.)

Kou had panicked and told Izumi that he'd seen blood on Kei's bedsheets.

But it wasn't as though Izumi was unfamiliar with that issue herself.

(Kei accepts the toiletries she offers him, feeling disgusted with his body.)

Kei stares at the wall for almost an hour, eyes unfocused and glazed. Kou waves his hand in front of Kei's face, starting to worry when there wasn't even a flicker of acknowledgment.

"Kei?" He asks and Kei jerks suddenly, "What's up?"

"Nothing," Kei replies, not even facing the correct direction.

("Can you even see me?"

"No.")

He chose not to remark on the testosterone label while he was lecturing the blinded boy on being more responsible. Then Izumi reset Kei, because he was refusing to do it to himself.

("No, no, my body will flush it out."

"Kei you've overdosed, you're blind."

"I know just, let me feel it for a bit?")

Kou pats Kei's back when he's coughing up the liquid that's been building up in his lungs, gurgling and wheezing and trying to breathe as deeply as he can.

(But he can't.)

"You need to take it off," Kou's fingers traced the bottom of the binder, "You've been wearing it nonstop for days."

"You're not taking this from me."

(Izumi draws the line when Kou voices his fears that Kei will drown in his own body fluids.

But then he worries the blood on Kei's sheets is too frequent to be menstrual.)