From Best Friend to Boyfriend (Hetaila, HongIce)

Chapter 31. Now or Never.

The largest idiot that had ever graced his life was Emil. The male was a testament to his creation, the man whom would make Leon cry more than once, and on occasion, cause his life to have some form of meaning.

So what was one to do when that lover had faded? When one found their lover now gone and truthfully, it was all a little fast-paced, rushed. Cliche, a way to wrap up something that should have never been wrapped up like this. Yet, was that not just life in general? The fast-paced-ness, the cries, one moment you're a child uttering your first words, then before you know it you're an old man who muttered his last dying breath.

Leon currently wished that the latter wasn't the case and that immortality was not just a gift, or curse, only heard of in fiction. He wanted immortality, he wanted Emil to be immortal, and most importantly he wanted Emil back.

He wanted that idiot back.

He didn't want to sit in the familiar halls of the hospital. One moment he was being checked over for any bumps and bruises and the next - well he was checking over Emil, praying that he was okay.

It seemed that they had somehow managed to make it to the hospital in time for some strand of hope to be threaded back into the scarf of life. However, things appeared bleak, for the town and for Emil. Of course, Arthur and Francis had been awoken, their ramblings and bickering nothing more but hushed whispers as a sense of immense guilt fell upon them. Arthur would not stop muttering how this all was his fault, while Francis would fret ever-so motheringly over the children that he had watched grow up.

It seemed that the remaining members of the town, or those that had not been consumed by the curse, now congregated at the hospital. Friendly faces, young and old all huddled together to check the damages done to their community. Many were missing, and before Leon could even think - there were newscasters, reporters, even national media posts commenting on the story that had befallen the town. They didn't know the reality. Those people that they could make money from, they were hurt. They didn't want to be interviewed, hell, all they wanted was their livelihood back.

Thus, as Leon sat on the pristine floors of the hall, his head pressed against the wall - the apathy and urgency that he believed he would have forgotten now returned. He was trapped between the right and the wrong in these answers. What else was going to happen now? He hadn't heard from Yao, was Yao even okay? Last time he checked, the male was cranky - perhaps even one of them.

"Stupid." Leon would hiss, kicking the other side of the wall with his foot. It would hurt but it sure as hell wouldn't compare to the emotional breakdown he was going through. That was the true pain. Knowing that his lover - not only his lover, that his best friend was on the verge of death. It was now or never.

The male sat with his legs pressed to his chest. Awkwardly sitting on the linoleum floor. Checkered tiles of white and grey were both an uncomfortable sight and one that was all too familiar. His head hiding within the crevice of his two legs, while the two men that had lied and argued to the hospital staff about Leon being their child, sat alongside him. Francis was trying his best to get word from any of the other members of their tight-knit community while Arthur was grumbling; his eyes moving back and forward as he viewed practitioner after practitioner run in and out from the operating theatre.

"This is my fault." Leon would hear him admit once more: never in his years had he seen Arthur so distraught. Almost as if he was to take full blame for this mess, even though it was evidently not only his factor that came into play.