faded_lace | shiritori drabble

Today has been exhausting (though maybe not quite as emotionally draining as yesterday), so I'm just going to leave yesterday's shiritori drabble here.

title: sticks and stones
rating: g
pairing: gen; Marius + all of Sexy Zone friendship
word count: 391
beta:

yomimashou
author's note: I thought Marius could use a little comforting right now. Written for shiritori @

writetomyheart
summary: It's in that moment that Marius realizes that nothing can hurt him so long as he has his groupmates there to protect him.

Words can never hurt me, Marius's mother had always told him when he was a kid, when other kids poked fun at him at school or his siblings teased him a little too much at home. He's not exactly great at taking it to heart still; he may be mostly grown up and doing a grown up job in the grown up world, but when the others heckle him for his bad Japanese, or for being the baby, or for doing silly things, no matter how much he knows they don't mean it to hurt, it makes him throw fits and blubber and cry like a child. It's hard, to remember that they're just words, that they're not supposed to hurt him, because they do, sometimes, they do hurt.

Words can never hurt me Marius chants to himself again and again every day as he checks twitter and forums online, but it's hard being famous, and every time he sees another "ugly," "weird," "noisy," "useless," about him, it's hard to bite back tears. He knows he shouldn't, but every day, he somehow hopes that the negativity will magically disappear-- it isn't going to happen, but for some reason, he can't stop himself from checking anyway. And here is the worst place to cry, sitting in the dressing room before a show, staring at his phone, but before he can do anything, the screen is blurring in front of his eyes, and…

…then suddenly, there's a hand in his hair, ruffling it affectionately, and Marius looks up in surprise to see Kento examining his phone screen with a dismissive scoff towards what's written there, and then suddenly Shori is by his side, smiling warmly as he puts a hand on Marius's shoulder, and Marius barely has a chance to register that before there's Fuma, scooping him into a hug and holding him tight, and then, last but certainly not least, Sou, his quiet presence somehow calming as he slips a warm, unwavering hand into Marius's and squeezes. Marius is overwhelmed at the outpouring of love from his group so suddenly, but then Sou is saying, Sometimes words can hurt, and it's okay to cry, but actually, it's in that moment that Marius realizes that nothing can hurt him so long as he has his groupmates there to protect him.