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Eight months into the disease, Michael’s voice starts to wane. A mother with her little boy had asked him directions in the water park, and he had seen Michael’s mouth move, but no words came out. Yuzuru had left Michael for a bit so he can buy drinks for them, and that was the sight he saw upon his return.
It was inevitable. After all, the doctor had told them that as soon as motor functions wane, speech is the next to go. He meets Michael’s gaze at that time, and he can see the frustration etched in his companion’s face.
“Don’t worry about it,” Yuzuru says, managing a reassuring smile as he takes Michael’s hand, hidden underneath the table. The setting sun is casting gentle shadows on Michael, but the shadows, adding to him in a wheelchair, makes him look weaker than he is.
Yuzuru doesn’t tell Michael that he’s worried; it’s the last thing he wants Michael to know. Michael’s words are like part of a song in this melody Yuzuru holds close to his heart. He dreads the day Michael won’t be able to say his name anymore.
His speech is now slow and soft, but Yuzuru always manages to hear him. He’d tilt his head to hear Michael better, and he’d speak softly, to match Michael’s voice.
“Yu-Yuzuru,” Michael would always say at the start of his sentence, just to make sure he’s here.
“Hmm?” Yuzuru would always reply, to reassure Michael that he’s there, and always will be.
“I-I h-ave … to… te-ll you—” Michael’s voice wanes, but his mouth is still moving to finish the sentence. When he finishes, his smile is serene. He said those words with the last of his voice, even incompletely … those words must have been important.
Yuzuru smiles back, making a silent promise to speak another language, just for Michael.
A few days later, a signboard is propped on his hospital bed. Michael waves to him, and once Yuzuru’s seated, he carefully points to each and every letter. I speak with this now, he manages to say.
Yuzuru nods in understanding. He doesn’t say how he aches for the unfinished song Michael has created in him, the final verse of which he’ll never hear.
Yuzuru visits Michael faithfully until he’s mastered this new language. Sometimes he knows what Michael is asking for before he can finish spelling it out. He learns, and it’s as if Michael is still speaking. With each press on the signboard, Yuzuru can hear Michael’s voice, no longer halting. Maybe the song can go on.
One night, Michael doesn’t prop up his signboard. Instead, he reaches for his notebook and writes, every stroke of his pen awkward and jumbled. He asks Yuzuru to read it.
Michael’s voice is growing fainter and fainter in his mind, and yet he hears the catch in Michael’s voice when he asks if he’ll ever get married. Michael asks for the impossible, asks him to live if he can’t stay with him forever, and Yuzuru agrees. Even though this is a promise he’ll break, this is all he can give Michael.
It was on that night when Michael gives him the last verse of the song in his heart.
Soon, the signboard disappears. Michael’s fingers have already stopped functioning three weeks before he turned seventeen.
But Yuzuru continues to visit every day. They would just sit together in silence, and he doesn’t mind one bit. He’d remember all the things Michael has told him, and the way he would say his name, the way his breath would hitch. It’s like a melody to his ears.
He’d watch Michael as he breathes slowly and shallowly. He’ll go to sleep soon; he sleeps more than he wakes now.
With much effort, Michael tilts his head back a bit, and their gazes meet. His mouth moves as if he’s speaking, and Yuzuru knows there is something important he was to say. But even without words, Yuzuru somehow knows what Michael is trying to say. He nods, and listens.
Michael lifts a heavy hand and rests it over his chest before lifting it higher. Yuzuru holds his hand, and watches the way Michael’s eyes move from his face to their hands.
Yuzuru presses his companion’s palm to his chest, and Michael smiles.
Michael sings the last note of his song to him, and it echoes in Yuzuru’s mind.
I love you.
Yuzuru loves him, too.
And like Michael, words aren’t needed to say it.