I am afraid, Sensei.

I am afraid I will never be good enough. That no matter how many times I pick myself up, I will always fall down again.

I am afraid that Neji is right and that there are things we cannot change about ourselves. That in the end, despite all my efforts and perseverance, I am still just a loser. A nobody. I am trying hard to believe in myself, Sensei—to see myself as good. To be the me I see reflected in your eyes when you smile at me.

But I am still afraid.

I am afraid that these shattered limbs of mine will not heal. I keep telling myself that this is just a temporary minor setback, that I must not give up. But a part of me is not convinced. I am not bright or clever, Sensei…not like the others. My body is all I have. And now it is broken. What is left?

I am afraid of letting you know how afraid I am. I am afraid you would be disappointed in my weakness…afraid that you would look away from me, that you would not smile at me or meet my eyes or call me your dear student ever again. I am terrified of that because right now, you are all that I have.

I am afraid that in the end, I am no more than an embarrassment and a mistake to you, because you believed in me—because you invested everything in me—and I still lost. I am afraid that deep down, you now agree with everyone else and believe as they do: that I am a failure.

I am afraid of letting myself love you too much, because a part of me still believes that you will abandon me.

I am afraid I already love you too much.

I have no family, Sensei. Without you I am alone. I am afraid of being alone in this world—a world that now seems so dark and empty to me.

I am afraid you will see my true feelings, the ones I cannot bring myself to whisper even in the secrecy of darkness. I want to hide like a child. At the same time, I want to fling my heart open and let you see everything…but I will never do that, because if you saw everything that I am really thinking and feeling, you might be disgusted, and I could not survive your rejection of me. I know that is pathetic and that I am wrong to be so weak, to need you so much. I know that I should have the strength to go on, to keep fighting, with or without your belief in me. But wrong or right, these are my feelings. I do not know how to change them.

I am looking at you now, Sensei. You are sleeping on the floor next to my bed. I know why. I know that you cannot leave my side because the med-nins think I am a suicide risk. Because my limbs are shattered. Because my dream is shattered.

They call it depression, Sensei. Is that another word for a broken heart? Can these little white pills really fix what is broken inside me? You say it is not shameful, that it is not weakness, but I still feel weak for needing them. For not being strong enough on my own.

I will never tell you these things, Sensei. Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, I will smile and tell you that I am all right. That this is a temporary minor injury. That I will overcome it no matter what. You have already done so much for me. I do not want to worry you. I cannot let you know that my mind is collapsing.

I need to write these words. Even if no one will ever see them, I must let them out somehow, or I will burst. But you must never read this…so I will destroy this page. There is no way to burn it without you noticing. I cannot just throw it away, or you might see it. I cannot flush it down the toilet, because if I get out of bed you will wake. So when I am finished writing, I will crumple the paper into a tiny ball and swallow it. These words will descend back into me.

I will keep trying, Sensei. When you wake, please smile at me.

If you smile at me, I can go on living for another day.

-The End

AN: One of these days I'll write something cheerful. Really.