You'll be my last dying breath (tgcf)

Beginning

As a terminally sick boy you don't do much. You lay about, wondering when you'll inevitably die.

You lay awake listening to your body struggle.

You sleep waiting to be woken up by pokes and prods of doctors.

But really you do nothing.

Well Xie Lian did do something. A thing he wasn't really supposed to do. But he did it anyways and it was his best decision made.

He's tired of his room. Tired of the halls and tired of the walls. The doctors faces he's knows so well. The examination room and the blood room. The surgical equipment and the full ache his arms always have from having needles shoved in them. Xie Lian was tired and it wasn't just because he was dying.

He usually got told off for saying such things. "Positivity is key to recovery." Every one says it. But he sees the sad smiles. The pained faces. He can see past their eyes. He knows. They know.

He won't recover. He's knows it for a long time. He's seen his test results. He knows it's why he can't leave the hospital. He had his own room. He was here for the foreseeable future.

For heavens sake, he's been here for months on end.

All he had to do was wait. It would come, his time would come and it would be too early for those around him but that's fine. He will die before 20 and he'll die with no regret.

It's something he's proud of. Dying without regret. It's hard to do when you're young but he'll do it. He just had to wait a bit more.

A thing he did while he waited was wander the halls at night. It gave him something to do. Got him moving and out of that room. He could clear his head. Or think himself into a black hole. Depends on the day.

It was a good break. He never went far, couldn't trust his body to bring him back if he did. So he somewhat paces the corridors.

They're all lined with windows. Floor to ceiling. They look over the city and the lights that twinkle like urban stars.

It's pretty.

But also cruel.

So close yet he can't reach them. So near yet he'll never go and see. Xie Lian's destiny is to die in this hospital, and with death so close he's never going to leave.

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On the third night of a new week he was walking further away from his room in the young peoples ward, he was in the under 25's section of the hospital.

No longer young enough for the children's ward, not that he was complaining. The long stay area in the young adults ward was quieter.

No screaming babies and lights that glare at all hours of the day and night. No frantic machines or nurses rushing around.

In fact it was here in the young adults long stay ward, where he met a boy.

And just like that Xie Lian would be cursed to die with regret.

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↻ ⊲ Ⅱ ⊳ ↺

But let's take it back to the beginning shall we.

Xie Lian was an active healthy kid. He always had been. From birth the heavens seemed to shine down on him.

His parents always so proud bragged about him to everyone they meet.

The scholar and athletics star who was the pride and joy of his home and school.

He was everyone's favourite and the golden boy. He had friends by the mile and the whole of the south country seemed to know him.