from august to december

chapter forty six

two hands.
eden closed the book in his hands.

the red book he had printed out.

he looked into the audience, their gazes were frozen, nobody moved, nobody clapped their hands together.

they watched the author quietly as he sucked the air into his lungs to say something.

"you see, this book i wrote, it is the true story of my lover who died to save me," his voice filled the hall and looked at the six chairs in the front row from which only two were occupied.

"and i remember clearly, after i got his letter, i ran to the balcony and normally you can't see the stars from where i used to live," he started. "but that night, there was his star, there was august, and there was december, they were next to each other again. when he was gone we were united."

shino rubbed his swollen and red eyes from crying and looked at eden who stood at the front and spoke, who presented his own book.

from august to december was his book.

he wrote the story down, to inspire.

"this might sound confusing to a lot of the people here," eden giggled and ruffled his blond hair.

a year after everything, he had gone back to his natural color.
it was already december again.

"yuri wouldn't have wanted me to die, dying was too easy. and i never liked it when it was too easy.
so he knew that with his passing, i would fall in love with the idea of life; because it would be so incredibly hard to continue without him.
maybe that's why he left me, he loved me, and with him by my side life would have been way too perfect and somehow, it would have been too easy.
and perhaps i would have left him.
that's when i realized he loved me, he sacrificed our love story for me to go on living, to endure the hardships, because he knew i loved them.
dying was never an option, not for me at least.
but, you know, it did work.
because here i am, telling you about the love of a man who passed away to leave me the will to live."

he smiled widely while looking up at the ceiling, he felt that all the people that died were watching him.

he knew that they were dead, and he had accepted the fact that five of the people he loved the most in his life were gone.

and, for some reason, he was the happiest he had ever been.

"you see, ladies and gentlemen, i do not know where the love of my life is buried and where i can go to visit him, i do not know who takes care of his grave now, but that doesn't matter. because i know that his soul is right here with me, and that is all that matters."

eli smiled proudly at the younger while reaching one hand back to take his girlfriend's, poppy.

"i decided not to be an author anymore. i will study to become a psychiatrist. i want to help the people that struggle with the same mental illness as me, and i want to use this book to help them, maybe," he explained shyly.

the hall was quiet.

eden didn't mind.

but shino and eli got up as the first people to clap at their best friend.

eli's girlfriend poppy was one row behind them, and so was matio, they got up secondly.

and soon enough, the loud and thundering sounds of clapping filled the entire hall.

yuri and eden's story together ends here, and eden was okay with that.

there was enough time for them when this life ended to be together.