I found you in April

The Morning

Eventually, after getting ready and having breakfast, me and Kaori decide to go for a walk. We both needed fresh air and I wanted a chance to get all of our grievances out in the open before the day really kicks off. Today will be great! We will be busy and that is even better because it means that Kaori won't have time to dwell. We walked all around the village, to the outskirts of the town, past the park where we first met, past our school, which I haven't seen the inside of in what seems like an eternity and, lastly, Doryo Bridge.

I've never actually jumped off the bridge. I never got the chance. Call it silly or whatever but I always dreamed I would jump off it for the first time with Kaori. But now I can't. Things like this remind me of my morality. I hate it. But I pull through it for Kaori.

There were two young girls playing Ken Ken Pa. I've heard people compare it to a game called "Hopscotch" but we call it Ken Ken Pa here. The girls were ecstatic. How could some chalk and a stone provide so much entertainment? I guess we have abnormally short attention spans when we are that age.

I didn't have anyone when I was young. Not really anyway. When I got older I had Watari but he was all I had. He had Tsubaki and Kaori anyway so I never spent much time with him. Seeing people with their friends always made me jealous because they had something I had never had. Company. People who cared about them. Of course, Hiroko and Koharu came along but I always felt as if they never had a choice but to care about me.

But then, one day in October, she came along. My angel. She was always my sole reason for carrying on this fight. The truth is, I had been diagnosed before Kaori. Not long before her but before her nevertheless. The image of her in that competition was all I had to hold on to. Then, I was holding the real person. My mission was to get her back on that stage and stop her, by any means necessary, from folding back into herself again. Then she found out. I was failing my mission. 

But I had an epiphany recently and this morning proved it to me. I'm not the one holding Kaori together. Sure the fact that I am dying is killing her inside but, if she had not been with me all this time through everything we've been through together, I probably would not be here. I would have given up.

She is the one that's holding me together. So thank you Kaori. Thank you.

**********

As the girls hopped between all the circles chanting the mantra of the game, "Ken, Ken, Pa!", I felt a stinging sensation in my head. I'm used to getting headaches at this point. Lack of oxygenation will do that to you. The difference with this one, however, was that it was a lot more precise than my regular headaches and a hell of a lot more painful. I rubbed and closed my eyes for a second to try relieve the pain but when I opened them, I saw a scary sight. It rocked me to my core.

Kaori was playing with the children, looking at me expectantly and holding out her hand, as if she was waiting for something. I reached out to grab her hand but she pulled hers away. As I began to take in her features, this was not the Kaori I knew. She was so much more pale, as if all the color had faded from her face and she was extremely thin. Why...

Why did it look like she was the one dying?

Surely my eyes are deceiving me. I mean, people who are under-oxygenated have illusions all the time, right?

**********

Kaori's POV 

Kousei is frozen. Why isn't he moving?

I'm trying to prepare him for what he will see.

No! Not now. This is literally the worst possible time you could do this. Stop it!