YELLOW [[klance]] [[COMPLETED]]

Lance.

        The Children's Hospital was so much more colorful than this one.  There were always bright murals down each hall, metallic, brightly colored balloons tied to rolling beds and play rooms full of building blocks and crayons.

           Of course, I'm way too old for the Children's Hospital now - no matter how bored a 17-year-old gets, watching Sesame Street and playing with playdoh everyday isn't very fun. Still, I enjoyed the murals, and the laughter, and the kind nurses with face masks covered in rainbows and butterflies. Here, there is no lying. The lights are sickly fluorescent and the white-walled corridors seem to go on forever, door after door. It smells like chemicals, and the nurses wear nothing but blue scrubs and gloves.

     Don't get me wrong, it doesn't scream "death", but it doesn't scream "life is great, you're doing fine!" either. Right now, I stand in the doorway of my new room, my guitar strapped across my back, my oxygen tank handle in one hand and my giant suitcase in the other. The nurse that walked me here was very nice, telling me to meet "Takashi Shirogane" in fifteen minutes. She pointed down the hallway before walking off, leaving me to gather my surroundings before I have to meet Takashi and, after that, my family.

   There are two beds, one pressed against the far wall beneath a line of big windows. It's a cloudy day, and the low buildings, broad parking lots and grid-like asphalt streets are dull and gray. Outside, there had been the tell-tale smell of oncoming rain, which excites me. Rain makes me feel alive. So does playing my guitar, gathering my seashells, skating, and listening to the gentle lull of ocean waves. It's hard to get those things in a hospital, so I just have to make due with my guitar, a jar of seashells, a skateboard and a noise machine.

   The bed closest to the door, and the area surrounding it, is decorated and definitely lived in. According to the nice nurse, "Keith Kogane" is his name. I'm interested to meet him, and after setting my suitcase and guitar at the end of my new bed, I take a minute to observe his decorating choices. No, it's not creepy, it's friendly. Making friends is what I do so I don't go crazy in these places. 

      His bed is perfectly made (my guess is the nurses), and his pillowcases are black and dark purple. A silver laptop rests on top of the sheets, plugged into the outlet next to the wall. It's covered in stickers - hippie-goth type art, like a single big eye with eyelashes, wilting flowers in severed hands and goats with curving horns and three eyes.  On the wall is a tapestry, with an artsy drawing of a cross-legged naked woman with an open eye on her forehead and colorful chakra symbols against a black backdrop. There are sketches of big black bats, pretty boys holding flowers over their faces, and girls intertwined with boys. A shelf holds a salt lamp and stacks of fat, black-binded books with silver words. Hm. Definitely gothic, but I can live with it. It's sort of badass. 

           Finally, looped over his bed, there is a row of Polaroids clipped to a string. I lean forward. The first one is a selfie of, I assume, him - a cute Asian teen. I'm immediately hit by how pretty he is. Gorgeous. The camera is held above him, MySpace-style, so his head is tilted up and to an angle. His eyes are heavy-lidded, thick black eyebrows arched as if daring the onlooker to judge him. Two silver balls are pierced on either side of his right eyebrow, and small black circles are pierced in his earlobes. His cheekbones are sharp and shadowed, his jawline perfectly defined. A cigarette sticks out of one side of his mouth, and you can see his glossy black nails as he flips off the camera. He's wearing a big black sweater that rests on the very edge of his sloping shoulders, with the sleeves reaching over his knuckles. His collarbones seem to be chiseled out of marble, and a black string necklace sits loosely over them. A small lavender crystal is intertwined in the string and sits against his chest. I can only stare for a second at the marvelous human being that Keith Kogane apparently is.