The Sun with A False Eternity

Goodbye.

  Eventually, after another period that Kageyama lost track of, Hinata's hand fell limp in his. Within moments Kageyama was on his feet, desperately trying to delay the inevitable. He scanned his best friend's face, trying to not let the knot in his throat come undone. Trying his hardest to keep his composure. But when he saw the rise and fall of Hinata's chest growing weaker and weaker, there was nothing he could do to stop himself from screaming.

"NOT YET, PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME,"

Kageyama kept clutching the small hand. The hand of the only other person he would acknowledge. No matter how tightly he squeezed, however, he couldn't get a response. He moved closer to the hospital bed, nearly falling on top of it in desperation. His voice was rough, and he felt like he was being suffocated by the pressure in his own throat. But none of that mattered, not now.

"HINATA PLEASE, SAY SOMETHING," he collapsed onto the floor once again, his vision blurring with unreleased tears. There was a loud ringing playing in his ears, and he barely heard one of the nurses mutter something about removing someone from the room. But none of it mattered. Not when Hinata, his teammate, his closest friend, the person who meant everything to him, lay before him on his last breaths. Kageyama desperately scanned the small boy's face, trying to cling to the false hope that he would make it out of this okay.

He can't go. He can't. He has to stay with me forever! Please Hinata... Please...

The ginger's face was shallow, his eyes open wide but sunken ever so slightly back. There was no emotion in them, nothing but a blank stare fixated upon a bright light above his head. Sweat glistened over his forehead and dripped down the side of his face, his lips dry and cracked. His mouth opened and closed rapidly, still fighting with every breath to stay afloat. Kageyama rubbed his thumb over the back of Hinata's clammy hand, the limpness of it sending a pang through his heart.

"Please..." He whispered, barely able to muster up the strength to say it.

Out of nowhere he felt something grab him from behind and pull him to his feet, tugging on the back of his shirt roughly. His hand slipped from where he was clutching Hinata's, the latter flopping down at an uncomfortable angle. Kageyama lunged to grab it again, but the thing gripping him wouldn't let go. He tried to break free from its grasp, his desperation maxing as he desperately clawed at the arm that was now dragging him out of the room.

"NO! NO!" He screamed as his view of Hinata, his Hinata, grew smaller and smaller.

Then he was forced outside of the room and the door was slammed in his face. Before he even fully realized what was happening, he lost sight of his best friend completely. He pounded desperately on the door, roughly shaking the doorknob and trying to pry it open.

"HINATA CAN YOU HEAR ME? PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE," Kageyama cried and fell to the floor, slamming his head into the door. Someone was trying to say something to him, but his ears barely registered the noise. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered but the boy in the hospital room who lay dying.

Nothing else matters at all.

Kageyama couldn't stop it anymore. He screamed again, the tears he had been holding back falling freely now. He was hunched over, back arched, head still pressed hard against the door. His entire body heaved with sobs, and he buried his face in his hands, trying as hard as he could to physically press his last image of the boy he cared so deeply about into his memory.

It was quiet. Too quiet. Nothing but a distant hum in the back of Kageyama's mind. The world around him had been slapped with a monochrome filter, the mute button pressed. Everything slightly blurred, and the corners of his vision were overtaken by shadows. The darkness loomed as if taunting him.