Shiina_Mikado_And_The_Infinite_Sadness.txt

I listen to the gentle hum of the machines keeping me alive, keeping me tethered to this world. Whether they're delaying the inevitable or not is obvious at this point; it's only a matter of time.

 

Time. What a concept. It meant something to me once, I'm sure.

 

The steady beeping of the heart monitor prevents me from getting any real rest. My tossing and turning would be filled with nightmares anyway. I turn my weak head toward Hicchan, sound asleep in the chair by the bedside. I love him. I love everything he does for me, everything he's done in the past. When I tell him that now, he cries, and he isn't ashamed.

 

I can feel my body slowing down. Every day I lose more and more to the numbness consuming me. I can't move anymore; Hicchan has to help me eat, has to help me move. I've got a machine hooked up that helps me breathe too, when it's necessary.

 

The shelf beside the bed is filled with mementos and flowers: A tiny space marine figure here, a beautiful silver ring there, among other things. They shine in the moonlight coming through the window. I examine some of them when he's not paying attention; All they look like to me are memories now.

 

I'm sure I look like a mess, but Hicchan loves me anyway. My hair is in tangles- what little hair I have left -and my face is sunken and depressed. My eyes are dull and dim, almost as bruised and beaten as I am on the inside. A war is waging within me, a war I'm eventually going to lose. That was the metaphor the doctors used to get me to stop crying and it didn't help.

 

Hicchan is really the only reason I bother to open my eyes anymore. I'm practically comatose anyway. Some nights I wish that this all would end, but most nights Hicchan just stays awake to reminisce with me until I fade out of consciousness. He caters to me hand and foot just like he did in high school, and he's fine with that. There's more caring to it this time around anyway.

 

He notices me staring as he rouses from is sleep. "Hi," he smiles. Thirty-five years old and he's already seen so much. It makes him look old, but we're both barely even getting started.

 

"Hi." I whisper back, lulling my head to the side to face him. "Hi...cchan... I can't sleep."

 

I'm actually very tired. This happens a lot nowadays.

 

He sits up in his chair. "Oh? Do you want me to get a nurse to give you some sleep meds? Are you in any pain?"

 

I raise a tremling hand a few inches to quell him. "No... I'm... fine. I just want to talk... to you." What better way to spend my last few days than with someone I love more than life itself? He pulls his chair closer, sitting right by the bedside.

 

"Okay." He nods. "What do you want to talk about?"

 

It takes me a full minute before my brain un-scrambles his words, through my inner-ear problems and whatever's eating me alive from the inside. We used to joke about what he thought my disability was in high school all the time. Cancer was a favorite among the guesses. When I braved up enough to tell him that's what it really was, he cried for days. I'd just found out myself, but I never wept. After Shicchan's passing a few years before, I had no tears left in me.

 

In fact, everyone we knew has left us. Hicchan tells me that Shicchan's cousin Lilly is running her family's business in Scotland, good friend Hanako by her side. Resident detention expert Emi Ibarazaki is off running marathons for charity, and doing particularly well for herself both mentally and physically. He even showed me a picture he took at one of the world-famous Rin Tezuka's art galleries. Everyone gets a happy ending but me, I guess.

 

But maybe this IS my happy ending. I get to spend as much time as possible with my beloved Hicchan and I have not a single regret. Hicchan sighs as he realizes I'm feeling too frail to respond.

 

I feel so tired.

 

He gives me a light pat on the shoulder. "How about I tell you a story?" He turns his head to level it with mine. "About the old days? Would you like that?"

 

I nod weakly. "Go... ahead. I'm listening." I close my eyes as his voice carries me away, to a different time, a better time. One where I wasn't bed-ridden and a sight for sore eyes and then some. I just want to go to sleep, but it's not going to happen, so I pay close attention.

 

A young girl sits at her desk, doodling on a scrap of paper. She doesn't even realize class is over until it's too late, and then it's just she and her new boyfriend. He nudges her to get her attention, and she looks up. He leans over to see what she was drawing, scooping the paper into his hands.

 

"What's this?" He smiles. "Is that supposed to be me?"

 

The girl nods, drills bobbing along with her. "It's supposed to be you if you were also an anime fighter jet~. I stayed up kind of late last night."

 

He chuckles, offering her his hand and lifting her from her desk. "Do you ever sleep?" They depart from the class together, setting foot into the hallway with reckless abandon.

 

She shrugs. "I can sleep when I'm dead, Hicchan~! Besides, I get bored without Shicchan around, y'know?"

 

He nods to her. "Yeah. Sucks that she's out sick, but what're you gonna do, right?"

 

"I have to take her lunch to her~, but I'll meet you down in the cafeteria in a bit, alright?" She gives him a warm grin.

 

"Sure." As she turns to head the opposite direction, though, he catches her wrist with his hand.

 

"Misha." He looks her deep in the eyes. "I love you."

 

She beams even wider. "Love you too, Hicchan~!"

 

I'm too tired to blink the tears away from my eyes as he finishes his story. I'm too tired to do anything, I suddenly realize.

 

"Hi...cchan..." I mutter, reaching out for him. He takes my hand, and murmurs to himself how cold I feel.

 

But I don't feel cold. I feel warm. I feel warm and safe beneath the covers of the bed. The beeping in the heart monitor is getting quieter; maybe I'll finally be able to get some sleep.

 

Hicchan is crying again, and I'm not sure why. My lids are getting heavier and heavier. The doctors said it would be any day now. Maybe this is what 'any day' means.

 

I sigh, not happily, not sadly. I just sigh. I exhale and that's it; my eyes unfocus and the world around me goes fuzzy. The beeping gets slower and so do my thoughts, chugging and whirring like broken machinery. Hicchan is sobbing like he's never going to be able to cry again after tonight.

 

"It'll be... okay..." I whisper to him. Breathing is getting harder, but I have to tell him. I have to tell him one last time. "I love you, Hicchan." He's blubbering too much for me to hear his response, whatever it may be between his heaving and shudders.

 

Another hand joins his, clasped in mine. I follow the hand up the wrist and to the arm, where Shicchan awaits with gleaming eyes. My eyes flutter closed, and then the beeping stops.

 

Goodnight.