I just want to die.

It sounds dramatic, doesn't it? But when every breath feels borrowed and every heartbeat feels like a countdown, death starts to sound merciful.

I was twelve when my body betrayed me. I collapsed in the middle of a school debate, one moment I was arguing about morality, and the next I woke up to silence, to voices trembling around me, and to a world that had gone completely dark.

The doctors said it was my heart. A defect that slowly poisoned the rest of me, my eyesight first, then my strength, and finally, my will.

Since then, hospitals have become my home. The antiseptic smell clung to my skin like a cruel perfume. Beeping monitors replaced lullabies. Hope became something that came in pills I couldn't pronounce.

It's been ten years. Ten years of waking up to the same white ceiling I can't see, waiting for either a miracle or my last breath — whichever comes first.

Sometimes I tell myself I'm ready to die. But then I hear my mother crying outside my room, my father talking to doctors in hushed, desperate tones, and I feel selfish for wanting peace. So, I keep breathing. For them.

===================================

That day, I was listening to music when my nurse came in.
Jessica — the only person in this place who still talks to me like I'm more than a diagnosis.

"Hi, Hiro. Just checking your IV as usual."

"Hi, Jess. Any new poison I'm supposed to swallow today?" I asked dryly.

She chuckled softly. "Still hitting me with your dark humor, I see. But yes, sadly."

"Fantastic. My kidneys are planning a mutiny any day now."

She sighed, the sound of a tired mother scolding her child. "Don't joke about that."

"Y-yes, ma'am," I mumbled, smiling despite myself.

She fiddled with my IV before saying, almost too casually, "Your parents made a request."

That tone meant trouble. "What kind of request?"

"You're... getting a roommate."

I froze. "Excuse me?"

"It's for your own good, Hiroshi. You barely talk to anyone. Maybe this will help you."

"Help me what? Die slower?"

"Hiroshi." Her voice trembled, soft but firm. "Don't talk like that. You'll be cured someday. I know it."

"Tell that to the doctor who gave me an expiration date."

She went silent for a long time, I know that anytime soon I'll be dead, I'm just waiting for it to happen. 

"You deserve to be loved, you know." She whispered softly.

I didn't answer. Because what do you say to that when you don't even believe you deserve to live?

===================================

When Jessica wheeled me down the corridor, the whispers started.

"That's the blind one, right?"

"Poor guy... heart disease too, I heard."

"He's kind of cute though."

I clenched my fists. I may be blind, but I can still hear the pity in their voices.

Then, a new sound — laughter. Bright, unrestrained, alive.

"Oh! My new roommate's here! Nice to meet you!"

I tilted my head toward the voice. Young, warm, and annoyingly cheerful.

"Uhm... are you gonna shake my hand?"

"I'm blind, idiot. I can't see it."

"Oh. Right. Sorry!" He laughed again, light and unbothered. "I'm Akio Miya, but call me Kio!"

"Hiroshi Sakusa. Hiro for short."

"So, what brings you here? The blindness thing?"

"And the heart thing."

"Oh man, that's rough."

"I've gotten used to it. I'm basically a ticking time bomb waiting for spare parts."

"Hey, don't say that! You'll get better. I can feel it."

"Optimistic, huh? What about you? Why are you here, too much dopamine and oxytocin?"

"Well..." He paused for a beat. "I had an infection in my legs. They're gone now."

I blinked. "You're... joking."

"Nope!" he said cheerfully. "I'm learning how to walk again."

"How can you sound so... happy?"

"Because I'm alive. And that's something, isn't it?"

I wanted to scoff, but his words hit something deep.

"Well, at least you can still see."

"And you can still walk," he shot back. "So maybe together, we make one functioning human."

I laughed, an actual laugh, for the first time in years. "Even blind, I can tell you're grinning like an idiot."

"Damn right I am! Oh, do you know Braille?"

"Uh... yeah?"

"Teach me! So I can write you letters when I get out of here."

I hesitated. "Why bother?"

"Because friends write to each other."

"Friends, huh..." I muttered. "Fine."

"Yay!"

===================================

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months.

Akio was relentless, sunshine in human form. He dragged me out of my self-pity and into laughter. We shared meals, talked about music, argued over anime plots, and dreamed about things we might never do.

He told me about his twin brother, Akari, who baked cakes so sweet they made people cry. He said he missed the smell of flour and vanilla the most.

Sometimes, he'd hold my hand during bad nights, when my chest hurt too much to breathe. "Don't give up yet," he'd whisper. "You haven't seen me smile."

And I'd whisper back, "Then I guess I'll have to live long enough to see it."

===================================

Three months later, the laughter stopped.

"You're...leaving?" I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

"Yeah. Therapy's done. I can continue at home," he said.

"That's great..." I lied. "You get to escape this hellhole."

He chuckled softly. "I'll visit, I promise. You're my best friend, Hiro."

"Best friend," I repeated. It tasted bitter.

Before he could leave, I grabbed his wrist. "Kio... would it be stupid to say I don't want to be just friends?"

Silence. Then, a soft chuckle. And before I could pull away, his lips touched mine, warm, trembling, desperate.

When he pulled back, I could feel his smile. "You're not stupid. I love you, Hiro."

"I love you too... my Kio."

===================================

He visited every other day after that. We kissed, laughed, and dreamed about a future that felt closer than ever. I told him that when I got my transplant, I'd marry him.

But one day... he didn't come.

Then another. And another. Like he suddenly disappear. 

Jessica wouldn't answer when I asked. 

"He's just resting," she simply said.

Liar.

A week after Akio didn't visit me anymore, doctors told me they'd found a donor. My heart and eyes, both at once. It felt too miraculous to question.

Sixteen hours later, the surgery was done. When the bandages came off, the world exploded in color.

My parents wept as I whispered, "I can see..."

And the first thing I wanted to see was him.

===================================

"Where's Akio?" I asked.

My mother looked away. "Hiroshi, maybe you should rest—"

"I want to see him!"

Her lips quivered. "In a few days. I promise."

===================================

A few days later, I got a call.

"Is this Hiroshi Sakusa?"

"Yes. Who's this?"

"I'm Akari... Akio's twin."

Relief flooded me. "Finally! Where's Kio? I've been dying to see him!"

Silence. 

Then he whispered, softly "Please come to this address after your discharge. He... left something for you."

===================================

The address led to a cemetery.

My mother's voice trembled. "Go on, Hiro."

There was something in her tone, a fracture, a quiet pleading I couldn't place.

"Mom... why are we here?" I asked, but she only turned her face away. Her shoulders shook once, then went still.

I stepped out of the car, and the world felt unbearably loud. The wind groaned through the trees. A bird cried in the distance. My footsteps scraped against the stone path, every crunch of dirt beneath my shoes marking time toward something I didn't want to know.

Rows of headstones stretched before me, countless names carved into eternity. I ran my fingers along the tops of a few as I passed, cold, smooth, unyielding.

And then I saw him.

Akari.

Standing perfectly still in front of a marble slab, his body trembling like a leaf barely holding on to its stem.

"Akari?" My voice cracked. "Where's Akio?"

He turned slowly, and in that single motion, I knew. His eyes, red, swollen, emptied of light, told me everything before his lips even moved.

"Sit down, please."

My heart began to pound. Too loud. Too fast. My chest felt like it was tearing open.

"Why... why did you bring me here?"

He swallowed hard. I could hear it, the sound of guilt, of sorrow too heavy for words.

"Because," he whispered, "this is where my brother rests."

The world stopped.

The air vanished from my lungs. My mind refused to connect the words.

Rests.

That word echoed in my skull, twisting and breaking until it lost all meaning.

"No." I took a step back. "No, that's not funny, Akari. Tell me where he really is."

He blinked, tears spilling down his cheeks. "He didn't tell you, did he? His kidneys... they were failing. After his last therapy session, he collapsed. They—" His voice cracked. "They couldn't save him."

I shook my head violently. "No, no, he was fine—he was just here—he was smiling—he said he'd visit tomorrow—"

My legs gave out. The grass beneath me blurred. My new eyes, his eyes, filled with tears for the first time. I hated it. I hated that the first thing I saw clearly in this world was the grave of the person I loved most.

Akari's voice trembled, a ghost of sound through my sobs.

"Before he lost consciousness... he said one thing."

I looked up at him, desperate, broken.

"He said, 'If anything happens to me, please give my heart and eyes to Hiroshi. That way, I'll still be able to see the world... with him.'"

The words ripped through me like glass. I screamed—an animal sound, raw and primal. My knees hit the ground as I clutched my chest, the place where his heart now beat.

It thudded violently against my ribs, as if trying to answer me.

Akiio's heart. Kio's eyes.

He was everywhere inside me, and yet nowhere around me.

"How could he do this?!" I sobbed, my voice strangled. "How could he love me enough to die for me?!"

Akari knelt beside me, placing a trembling hand on my shoulder. "He didn't die for you, Hiroshi," he whispered. "He lived for you. Until the end."

He reached into his jacket and pulled something out, a small, worn photograph.

Kio.

 (credits to the owner :3) 

Laughing under sunlight, head tilted, eyes hazel and impossibly alive. His smile—the one I used to imagine, now burned into the paper, eternal and unreachable.

"He wanted you to have this," Akari said softly.

My fingers shook as I took it. The moment I touched it, I broke completely.

I fell forward, pressing my forehead against the cold marble of the grave. The stone was damp, unyielding, but I clung to it like it was him.

Akio Miya

20xx – 20xx

A brother, a son, a lover. You will be missed.

The words blurred through my tears. I traced each letter like a prayer, whispering his name again and again until my voice became nothing but air.

"I'm sorry, Kio," I choked out. "I promised I'd marry you. I promised I'd live for you. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you took your last breath."

I pressed the photo to my heart, the heart that once belonged to him. "But you're here. You're in every beat, every breath. You'll see the world through me now. Every sunrise, every storm. I'll live for both of us, Kio. I swear it."

I lifted my head toward the sky, the wind brushing against my face, gentle, warm, familiar.

And for a moment... just for a heartbeat... I could've sworn I heard him laugh. That same soft, radiant laugh that once filled our room, now carried by the wind.

"I'll live a life bright enough for the both of us," I whispered, smiling through the ache.

Then I closed my eyes, feeling his heart steady in my chest.

Each beat whispering his name.

Akio. Akio. Akio.

And for the first time since his death, I truly saw.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"See you again, my love."