"Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about.

Be willing to be split open."

- Natalie Goldberg

Rei stared down at the blankness of the paper, unperturbed by the ridges of his pencil or the drops of sweat slipping past the fence of his shirt's collar.

The fan whirred back and forth, useless as it sucked up stale air and vomited the humidity back out at the students all curled over their desks, scratching, listing off things that scared them on their crinkled notebook paper, smudged by the dampness of their fingertips.

But it was not about what scared you, it was about what trapped you.

Clowns, sharks, bumps in the night, those were not scary, those were not frightening. Those were toys, something a beam of light or a mother's caress could shoo away. A decoy, that's all they were, something you used to distract yourself from what was really horrifying. No, those were not scary at all.

What about the things that remained after the light switch was flipped on, after the closet was emptied, after the vaccine had entered your bloodstream and protected you from whatever could bring you harm? The blandness, the regret, the limits of the human mind, stuck inside our fears of judgment and appearance, unable to say what we truly thought and meant. What about the fear of worthlessness, disappointment, inadequacy?

"You don't know what to write about either, Rei?" The blonde stuck his head over Rei's shoulder and glanced at his unblemished paper.

Rei knew exactly what to write about, he was just afraid to write it.

His hand pressed tremorous against the sheet of loose-leaf and he squeezed the fragile pencil to make it stop.

Nagisa tilted his head against his neck.

I'm afraid that I'm not beautiful enough for you.

The drizzling breath against his cheek stopped as Rei's own hyperventilation geared up. He could imagine the look in his wide eyes, the disgust and anger and hatred, but all he heard was confusion.

"…What?"

The bell rang, drowning out Nagisa's response, and Rei left without turning in his sentence long paper, without waiting for his friend.

He did not go to swim club.

He walked home, avoiding the speed of the train as it barreled past.

The old women in the rice fields clutched their backs as he walked past, paper in his hand now folded to the size of a single fingernail, utterly decimated by his pulsating grip, swallowing every frustration rolling inside of his bones.

The bottomless pit of…anger? sadness? bitterness? What was it that stuck inside Rei's skeleton and latched onto his sinews and organs and veins until he was so tired he felt like he could not walk anymore? It felt like everything, but there was nothing to describe it.

Rei dropped his bag to the ground before settling onto the dirt path, bones leaving dents in his skin as he sat on his hands to keep his pants clean.

Somewhere in the distance, thunder growled.

Rei checked his watch, at exactly 5:30 it began to rain. Swimming club ended fifteen minutes ago, and the train had already passed, carrying Nagisa with it, hopefully too distracted by his kinetic conversations to notice the abandoned boy next to the overflowing fields of soggy leaves.

He would need to make his way home soon, but every inch of his body remained rooted to the ground. He could have slept there, pressing his pale face into the dirt and letting it soil his skin until there was no way he was recognizable, absolutely no way for Nagisa to pick him out from any other rock scattered about the road.

A light drizzle turned to a torrential downpour and Rei watched drowned colonies of ants dissipate through the flood and cyclone around his shoes, carrying themselves away and flailing for safety. He caught onto one with his finger and set it on a dry area next to him, watching as it ran in frantic circles, over and over and over, until it was washed away again, borne by the trickles of water sneaking past him.

"Rei."

Nagisa's umbrella had a cartoon raccoon with a grinning face decorating its exterior, and the blonde looked incompatible next to the animals exaggerated smile with his uncharacteristically serious face.

"You're going to catch a cold."

Rei spread his hands into the mud, dirtying their scrubbed existence.

"Please look at me."

The pleading tone of Nagisa was the reason Rei turned, if he would face his fears, he would face stare them in the eye.

Nagisa scared him because he was so beautiful.

The rain stuck to his hair, even through the umbrella, and he looked youthful, the heavy sweat of summer cleansed away and leaving him with a fresh, mossy smell. Drops of water ran along the rim of Rei's glasses, distorting his face, twisting it into a kaleidoscope of horrific and monstrous shapes, but still beautiful.

"I don't really know what that was…"

A small crack of lightning oozed above the distant ocean.

"But it's crazy! You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, Rei."

He was lying.

But Nagisa never lied, and that's what made him so beautiful.

A bright smile flashed across the boy's face and he giggled, dancing across the raindrops to settle against Rei's ears like a warm melody.

"When you're pole vaulting, or I'm helping you swim, or even when you're helping me with physics, you do it beautifully!"

Nagisa was so honest that it hurt, so unabashed that it was beautiful.

"So don't say untrue things like that, alright?"

Rei had never wanted to scream so hard in his entire life, toes curling inside his shoes, fingers digging into the earth. Nagisa laughed again, holding out his umbrella, letting the rain completely drench his head.

"Let's walk home together!"

Hello.

Callophobia is the irrational fear of beauty, something that I think ties in with Rei well. He obviously has a fetish for beauty, but sometimes we see something so beautiful it hurts, and that's Nagisa. What do we do when we encounter these things? We sit in rain and watch ants die.

I'm sorry, I'm not very proud of this. I haven't written in a while and Rei is not an easy character for me to identify (I didn't even give him dialogue ahahaha), but at least it's something.

So please review, favorite, and enjoy your fears.