Sometimes Death Isn't Even the Worst Thing That Can Possibly Happen - Free!

Chapter 3: Happy Birthday

This day, today, I tend to dread for months... because if something's painful, it's having to celebrate a birthday of someone who's barely even there. And today's that day, Haruka's twenty-second birthday... yay.

I walk into Haruka's room at eight in the morning, today's one of those few days I don't attend work and spend the entire with Haruka alone, and say, "Happy birthday, Haruka." I walk to the chair beside his bed and sit down, taking his hand in mine, strangely his fingers move slightly at my touch. It's something that's never happened before, Haruka's mainly unresponsive to my touch, but I also thought it might be a sign of Haruka finally gaining consciousness again when he started moaning and even screaming all of a sudden, one day about a year ago.

Apparently those kinds of things, according to doctors, aren't any signs of awareness but that they're just little things shooting through his brain and that they're merely reflexes that go on without any awareness being there.

So, to stop giving myself false hope, I tell myself that this is another one of those reflexes. And so it appears when I move my gaze from Haruka's hand to his face and see that he's looking like ever; just gazing around the room with his mouth opened.

"I hope you're doing well today," I continue, forcing myself to smile even though I'm still disappointed and sad that this change in Haruka's responses doesn't seem to be anything life changing. "I was thinking, uhm, maybe I could give you a bed bath and put on some fresh clothes after breakfast and we could go for a longer trip today? Yeah?"

I feel my chest contracting when I get a moan in response, but I still get up from the chair to prepare everything for Haruka's breakfast and bed bath.

As I sqeeuze the formula into Haruka's stomach via the G-tube, I talk to him about random things. Just things I would to talk about when Haruka and I were seventeen; I tell him about Ren and Ran, whom I've spoken to on the phone yesterday evening, and I tell him about how we spend his previous birthdays at the pool almost every year.

When I'm done feeding him, I take the blankets off him completely since I have to clean Haruka's completely body and that serves as an opportunity to immediately refresh his bedding.

"Ready for your bath?" I ask, trying to sound enthusiastic as I hold a bucket of warm water in the air so Haruka can, possibly, see it. "I remember you used to love taking them... always bathing, you."

Without much of a response, other than another moan, I wash and dry Haruka's face and hair before undressing his upper body.

For the first time in a while, I find myself smiling a little when I'm turning Haruka in different positions and cleaning every part of his chest and back and arms with the soaked towel before drying them off immediately after so Haruka won't get cold.

I reach out for the hoodie I chose for Haruka's outfit today and lift Haruka forward until his head in resting against my chest. While carefully sliding the hoodie onto Haruka, I feel a wet spot developing on my shoulder, where Haruka's head is resting against me.

Thinking it's just saliva, or maybe vomit which happened for the first time yesterday, I quickly make sure Haruka's hoodie is on correctly and then let him lower back so I can see what's going on.

I'm surprised when I see Haruka's face, comepletely red and wet, some of the wetness is sure to come from drooling but he's also clearly crying. Crying is a normal thing for PVS patients, or so I've been told, but Haruka has never cried before and right now he's full on crying.

"Wow, Haruka," I mumble, laying Haruka back down on his pillow. "Hey, it's okay. It's totally fine, did I hurt you?"

My hands are now wiping away Haruka's tears, but new ones keep coming. Knowing crying isn't normal for Haruka, even in this state, I'm worried; what if I hurt his back or this is a sign that he's drifting away even more?