EPHEMERAL

終点 | ENDING POINT

終点 ( shuten )
— red mark, ending point

— ○ —

09 | e n d i n g  p o i n t

It was so empty without Akira. Akane was always a silent one, but now she almost didn't talk at all. Sometimes she would tell her mother about some things she needed, but other than that, she was silent like a dead person.

Haruka knew that it would be happening soon.

Excited? Haruka couldn't tell if he was, but he noticed that the fact that he would be talking to the girl soon made him feel better. He wasn't doing very good physically, since he would die soon. But it didn't matter to him.

Only humans are naive enough to fear death.

It was ironic, wasn't it? The beings that had another chance, had another life on the other side feared death. And the beings that would be turned to ashes, completely deleted from the world after death, weren't scared at all. Haruka was about to delve further into these thoughts, but seeing Akane stand up from her bed, he was distracted.

Akane decided to take a walk the first time in the week. She did roam around her room every now and then, but her mother didn't let her move from the bed much. She wanted to make sure she did everything to keep her frail child healthy.

Akane's legs felt like jelly when she was walking. It's like she had no strength left in her body. She slowly stepped out of the room and walked through the corridor, heading towards the balcony. There was a huge balcony on this side of the hospital and patients always went there to spend some alone time.

Akane stepped into the large space to see that a little boy was standing there, alone. She wasn't very social, but she still went up to him and said, "Hello."

The boy seemed to be in deep thought, and Akane's voice snapped him out of it. He flinched a little, but the next moment he flashed a sweet smile and said, "Hello! How are you?"

"He has better manners than Akira."  Haruka thought.

Akane was a bit surprised. She thought that her appearance told everyone that she would be gone soon. But this boy didn't understand, rather asked if she was doing good or not.

Or was he just faking it?

It didn't seem like that, though. His eyes sparkled when he talked and his smile was very sweet. It all seemed genuine.

Akane pushed all of her thoughts away. She told herself that she was over thinking.

"I'm doing.. so so. Thank you for asking." She smiled as well. "What about you?"

"Not so good, I heard the doctor say that I won't be here for much longer." He scratched the back of his neck. "But don't tell mom if you see her, she'll be very upset if she hears that I know about this."

"A fellow sufferer, huh..."  Haruka thought.

Akane's eyes widened. The last few months, she was feeling very upset about her health. She wanted to live, she wanted to be here with everyone else. But she couldn't, and that made her feel very low about herself.

She cried alone at night when no one watched. She wrote all the hateful things she could think of about herself in her diary. But nothing helped. The pain inside her heart didn't go away.

But this little boy, he didn't show weakness at all. He was rather smiling when he talked about his own death, acting as if it was completely normal.