requiem ➳ sugawara koushi ✓

nine

My vision is blurring.

My lungs are burning out.

I wonder if this is how it feels to die?

I looked around the white room, the blaring sound of beeps pounding my ears. It was a reminder of my counted heartbeats. A reminder of my end.

A reminder of Sugawara Koushi's foreseen death.

Faces of the people I hold dearly in my heart surrounded me, tears falling drop by drop from their swollen eyes. I noticed my fellow third years taking the front rows, their faces holding an intense amount of grief that I just found myself chuckling weakly at the sight of it.

"Your nose is running, Daichi." I said before pointing a bony finger towards our team captain, he gently lowers it down as more tears came trickling down his cheeks. I smiled bitterly. "Hey, the captain shouldn't show weakness no matter what. Haven't you told me that?"

"Sugawara-kun, this is different." Shimizu spoke up, gently pulling away the handkerchief covering half of her face. "This...you are..." She didn't have too much to say however, as the tears came pouring down continuously from her puffy eyes. I patted her head.

"I am dying." I said, offering them a smile. "I'll eventually disappear, that's why don't cry for me so much."

"Stop being so damn cynical!" Daichi shouted, the rest of my visitors flinching at the sudden outburst of their usually composed senior. I didn't share their reactions, though. I suppose I was expecting this all along.

"Why are you like this, Sugawara?! Don't... Don't say things like that!" Asahi, the tallest and meekest person in our team, found it in himself to actually raise his voice.

I looked at him blankly.

What am I supposed to say, then?

What am I supposed to do?

I can't stop this.

There's no use trying to mourn for myself. I'm going to die. That's that. How am I suppose to remain positive?

"Sorry." I said, looking away as the voices pushed their way inside my mind, screaming a mixture of despair and anger; the demons I tried so hard to contain are returning, and if I'm going to cease on living then I might as well drag them with me.

A few moments of silence felt like years for me. No one had the courage to speak, and I just didn't feel like entertaining a conversation myself. That's why when the door to my hospital room opened, the 70 beats of my heart rate increased into 120. My heart hurting and fluttering, screaming out the words I love you before drowning into Don't come near me.

"Koushi." Your voice called me. By my first name. And who knew that by just a single, heartfelt embrace from you would send a thousand shock in my body? Who knew that with just a simple hug from you, all the cynicism and depression that I've kept all to myself would wash away as if it was never there?

And then I felt the tears rolling.

I didn't know when it happened, but I just realised I was sobbing, screaming even, saying all the things I wanted to convey. Things I was too afraid to speak out. Things I locked inside me so that I won't worry those who cares for me. Things I hid from you. Things I was afraid of.

"I don't want to die.

It's so lonely.

I'm scared.

I don't want to leave.

I still wanted to do a lot of things.

I still wanted to make other people smile.

I still wanted to make you smile.

I love you. I'm sorry for loving you.

It's so unfair.

It hurts.

Don't leave me."

I hugged you as tight as my skinny body could allow me to. I wanted your warmth to linger into mine before all is lost. I wanted for you to be the closest to me before I go. I sobbed in your embrace, and I voiced out all the pain inside me. The pain of being cut short in life. The pain of knowing nothing could be done. The pain of not being able to be saved. The pain of leaving you.

"I won't wish for anything else," I said as I pull away from your grasp. "because I know that I would only keep on wanting more."

"I want you to smile and live your life to its fullest; do not let my requiem linger." I wiped your tears away weakly, my eyelids feeling too heavy for me to keep open. "Please, do not sing for me."

let a piece of me remain alive in you. that alone is enough.