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It was so cold, then. The bed, for which Nagi once complained to be too small, suddenly felt so horribly cold and empty and too big for himself, alone.
Slowly, as if he wished to cling onto his dreams, he opened his eyes.
His body, curled up around himself; his arms, holding onto something that was no longer there. There is a hollow feeling, instead. It is as if the part of him, when stolen away, left a cavity in his heart.
“Sei, wake up. C’mon, c’mon-”
Once, maybe, a bright voice. Once, maybe, the blanket flung off of him and the lights turned on harshly.
Instead, there is the cold and dull shrill of his alarm. He turns it off absentmindedly, turning over to stare at the ceiling.
It’s gray.
A ceiling fan, old and dusty, spins meaninglessly above him, a soulless buzz filling the room. He reaches up, pulls the string, and turns it off.
Then, there is silence, and the whole world is only the gray tones of the too-low ceiling and the ringing in Nagi’s ears.
“...is the ceiling fan’s string seriously more important than me?!”
Once, maybe, a teasing lilt and a joke about how cat-like he was. Once, maybe, a cute pout and the click of Nagi’s camera.
Nagi stands up, in a lethargic way, as if the very thought of movement drags him down. He sits at the table, and everything is gray still. A cat jumps onto Nagi’s lap, mewling, and Nagi pets it delicately, as if it is made of glass. His eyes move to the cat in his arms, and it looks back at him.
There is a sorrow shared between them, and the cat curls up, wraps its tail around itself, and purrs sorrowfully.
Nagi scratches the area behind the cat’s ears, and the hollowness eats away at him more.
“Ah, you’re just like Luna, aren’t you…”
Once, maybe, Nagi’s body draped over Isagi’s like a blanket, pressing kisses into the other’s hair. Once, maybe, a soft laugh and a shared cup of coffee.
Once, maybe, Nagi Seishiro was human; once, maybe, Nagi Seishiro loved and lived.
Once, maybe, the mornings were not so gray and dull.
Silent tears pour from Nagi’s hollowed out, gray eyes, dripping down his cheeks and dribbling down his chin. He wipes them away with his sleeve absentmindedly, but it the tears, refusing to be ignored, begin hurting his throat, a sob welling up.
He shouldn’t be crying. Nagi thought, so foolishly, that he had cried all he could and that there was nothing but emptiness left.
It is false; the tears still come, painful and burning, but are swallowed up by the void in his chest.
“Hey, Seishiro. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. Keep living, please. Live for me.”
Nagi is trembling now, on that seat, and there is no one to rush to his side and ask him if he’s alright. There’s no one to comfort him, to embrace, to lean on; there is no one left, there is no color left, there is nothing.
Nagi Seishiro cries and cries, and there is no Isagi Yoichi to crawl onto his lap and tuck himself there, the smaller boy’s steady heartbeat slowly easing the larger’s sporadic one.
Nagi Seishiro breaks and breaks, clay shards sharp and jagged and strewn across the floor and there is no Isagi Yoichi to pick up the remains, bloody hands be damned, and piece them together with gold.
Nagi Seishiro sees less color every day, sees less purpose every day, and there is no Isagi Yoichi with his stunningly beautiful azure eyes shining with determination to dye his gray life colorful.
Once, maybe, there was.
Once, maybe, Isagi Yoichi burned brightly in this cold world.
Once, maybe Isagi Yoichi loved Nagi Seishiro.
Once, maybe, Isagi Yoichi’s heart beat in his chest and his lungs took in air.
But now, no.
Now, Nagi’s heart, though it is perfectly healthy, is hollow; now, Nagi wishes to rip the life out of his body and press it into Isagi’s, fill the other’s body with his blood and with his oxygen and with everything that made him fundamentally living.
Maybe then, he could feel the other boy’s warmth, if only for a moment.
“Nagi, I’m going to die in two years.”
That day, Nagi had gone to work as he always did. The winter chill bit at him as he barged into the cafe, twelve minutes late to his shift, his hair messier than usual and his photography portfolio haphazardly strewn under his arm. Chigiri waited for him at the counter, raising an eyebrow.
“You owe me, now.”
Nagi sighed, neatly setting his portfolio to the side. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Sorry.”
“Mm, yeah.” Chigiri untied the apron wrapped around his waist and folded it neatly to put away before pausing.
“Oh, I almost forgot - Isagi has a gift for you~”
Immediately, Nagi had whirled around, almost dropping the papers he was holding. “What? Give it -”
Chigiri rolled his eyes fondly. “Alright, loverboy. It’s right here.”
Nagi practically snatched the envelope out of Chigiri’s hands, opening it with utmost care. Out came a dried, pressed red carnation, and a note scrawled on a torn-off piece of paper.
Chigiri peered over curiously. “Ah, so he wanted to see you.”
A pause, and then a shit-eating grin bloomed on the redhead’s face, and he slapped Nagi on the back fondly. “Good luck, Nagi~ steal his heart!”
Nagi glared at him half-heartedly, watching the other boy leave with a wink, and the six hour shift that followed felt like an eternity. When it finally ended, Nagi practically bolted out the door, the flower and the note held delicately in his hands.
He saw Isagi sitting on a bench, waiting for him, staring at the snowflakes dance as they fell from the blue gray sky.
“...hey, Isagi.”
Isagi turned, and then smiled softly.
“Hey, Nagi.”
They spoke of everything and nothing, and Nagi had an omnipresent smile on his face, the corners of his eyes crinkling, his gray irises warmer than usual.
While discussing the hell of customer service, Isagi suddenly paused, a solemnity darkening his eyes, and opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again.
“Nagi, I’m going to die in two years.”
A dreadful silence, and Nagi couldn’t speak, though there were millions of things he wanted to say.
“It’s because of this dumb heart,” Isagi said, a sorrowful sort of smile on his face. “It’ll give out in two years, maybe.
“So that’s why I have to say this.”
Isagi’s eyes were blazing then, so bright that Nagi’s breath was snatched away from his lungs..
“I love you. I really, stupidly, really love you. And I want to be yours, and I want you to be mine. This shitty, dying heart, wants to be held by you, and -”
Nagi didn’t know what he was doing then, but one moment he was sitting down beside Isagi and the next he had gently pinned Isagi to the bottom of the bench, staring into those intoxicating blue eyes with an indescribable warmth.
“And?”
Isagi’s face bloomed red. “I- uhm, I -”
A little chuckle escaped Nagi, crinkling the sides of his eyes, and then Isagi pouted - cutely, so cutely, Nagi couldn’t handle that - before pulling Nagi’s collar down, closing the distance between and connecting their lips.
Nagi looked at Isagi, his eyes screwed shut, surprised, before smiling and kissing him further before pulling away.
In those moments, Nagi did not care about the ticking time bomb in Isagi’s chest, simply focusing on the present moment.
Only when Isagi suddenly started to sway and cling onto Nagi years later, his eyes disfocused, his heart beating ridiculously fast in his chest, did it finally sink in. Only when Isagi’s body, lied out on a white stretcher, his chest heaving too quickly, was rolled away; only when the sickeningly loud sound of the ambulance’s siren drowned out Nagi’s cries of desperation as he tried to push past the people blocking him, tried to reach the one he loved with his everything.
Only when they spoke again, for the final time, in that horribly white hospital room, did he see.
“Live for me.”
The words, so strong, despite the pain; the words, a curse.
But how could he refuse?
“I will.”
And thus, Nagi continued living; and thus, Nagi continued breaking and crying and disappearing, bit by bit, into the cold and gray world, a ghost with a beating heart.
And thus, in the cold kitchen, with a horrible ringing in his ears, Nagi Seishiro closes his eyes and disappears like dust.