A/N: I began this story 4 years ago, but somewhere in the middle, it became too much for me emotionally. I scrapped the entire project and hid it from existence. I stumbled upon it again today and thought, 'maybe now is a good time to start over and try again.' So here is a story I'm attempting to revive.

Day 1: BAKA 2-26-XX

BAKA. She writes it across her wrist in pretty cursive letters. It's large, encompassing, and ever so secretly painful. Some people glance over, but blow it off as just another girl obsessed with a culture she does not understand. Her friends know what the word means, but most of them do not care that she has written it on herself. He, however, knows and does care. He wraps his fingers gently around her arm, all the while glaring at her wrist as if it has perpetrated some great offense.

"You are not a 'baka," he says in a whisper. "You are not an idiot. Don't ever think that of yourself."

She visibly tenses as he speaks. He was always able to do this to her. He broke through every secret, every lie, and every pretty little disguise she put on to try and cover up the painful truth. He always knew the motives hidden beneath her seemingly innocent actions. He truly lived up to the meaning of his name, Jace, for he was a healer. It seemed sometimes that one of his only goals was to aid her in healing herself and leaving the past behind.

His softly spoken words break something inside of her. She shakes slightly with the urge to suppress the tears that are attempting to fall. She stubbornly refuses to let them slip, and Jace backs away slightly from her. She turns her head, allowing a curtain of hair to separate her eyes from his concerned gaze. She slowly begins to walk away, his very presence threatening to break the floodgates in her eyes.

'Idiot,' she thinks to herself. 'Why did you ever think that he wouldn't see? Why did you think he would know? He always knows.'

Later that night she scrubs violently at her wrist. The marker comes off her arms in dark rivulets of water. Beneath the word lies a patch of smooth, yet discolored skin, the reason why she claims she is an idiot.

BAKA...the word had seemed perfect to describe every emotion she had felt that day. She was an idiot for doing this to herself, and an idiot for needing it still. After scrubbing her poor wrist raw, she finally sank down to her knees on the cold tile floor. The clock ticked once, twice, and the tears began to fall. She felt weak from the effort of restraining them the entire day.

Sure, the scars on her wrist had faded since she had first put them there, but the feelings behind them had not yet begun to heal over. They were every bit as real and overwhelming as the day she had placed the blade against her skin. The only difference now, was that Jace knew her secret.

He wasn't making it any easier on her, either. With the knowledge that he knew, she forced herself into even more secrecy. The healed wrist she boldly revealed was only a ruse to throw Jace off of the truth. She knew he had no ill intentions, he just didn't want to see her hurt...but she needed to hurt. That was a part of her that he could never understand.