Chapter Text
Hiro and Tadashi walk slowly into the dim hospital room, the room eerily quiet except for the wheezing breaths of their eight-year-old son, Hitoshi, and the heart monitor making that slow but steady beep.
“Did you bring it?” Hiro whispers, trying to hold back tears as he lays with their dying boy.
Tadashi only nods and takes out a bag, handing it to Hiro as he tries holding back his own waterfall as well before lying on the opposite side of the bed so that their son is inbetween them. Hiro takes the bag and pulls out a vintage music box, placing the bag on their son’s bedside table after he hands the music box to Tadashi.
Hitoshi’s breaths soon get fewer and far between, and Hiro instructs Tadashi to open it up. Tadashi obeys without a single word, a tear falling as he opens the lid. The steady stream of the familiar tune fills the silence of the room.
Hiro pulls his son into his arms, humming along to the music as the tears just flow. Tadashi only watches as Hiro rocks Hitoshi much like he did when they first brought their son home from the hospital the day after he was born.
As the song ends, Hitoshi’s half-lidded eyes flutter closed and he takes his final breath. After that, the heart-wrenching droning of the heart monitor’s flatline is heard.