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I'll be home for Christmas
It had started off so small, like the smallest, un-bloomed bud of a sickly flower. Brief moments of feeling out of breath. Clear had worried over even the smallest of irregular symptoms. Days where he would have no appetite. Clear would encourage him to eat anyways. He had a cough that didn't seem to go away. Clear would ask him if he was okay. The days where he would feel so tired. Clear had told him to get more rest. Clear felt like there was something wrong, despite being reassured by the sweet voice of the one he loved more than life itself, the creeping, cold feeling that something was in fact, wrong, did not leave him, it was always there like your own dark, looming shadow.
You can plan on me
And then one day Aoba fell. Clear had heard the noise, alarming and loud, from where he sat upstairs in their room with beams of sunlight dappling his coat. Clear had rushed to see what happened, with an uncomfortable silence falling over their house.
Aoba was on the kitchen floor, unmoving with his hair splayed like the waves of the ocean across the wooden tile, the sink trickling water and a plate still wet and lathered in soap lay in pieces on the ground like a diamond that had been shattered, glistening.
Clear had panicked, Clear tried to wake him up, Clear screamed his name, Clear thought he was dead, Clear called an ambulance....
Please have snow and mistletoe
"Advanced Lung Cancer." He had been told.
Clear stared at the doctor and cried, he cried and cried until his eyes burned, and his body shook with tremors that felt like lighting passing through him, and every breath he took caught in his throat and he felt like he was suffocating inside of himself, and he felt like he was dying, that he was suddenly trapped inside a nightmare and was waiting to wake up. Why couldn't he wake up? This wasn't real, this couldn't be real, why was this real...please make it stop....
And presents on the tree
When Aoba woke up and saw Clear beside his bed with an expression so sad it ate away at his heart like greedy, hungry fire, he already knew. Hearing it slip from his lover's trembling lips in a voice so broken you wouldn't believe it belonged to Clear only made it more magnified. He stared deep into Clear's blurry pink eyes and he too, cried. Not because he was scared of dying, not because he was in pain, not because he knew the chances of surviving were close to none, no, he cried because of Clear. He cried because he wanted more time, he wanted more time with the person he loved more than his own life, more than anything in the entire world, the person who when he was with made the stars align and made his heart flutter with every smile and tender touch...the person he never wanted to cause such sadness to, the person he would do anything for, the person we wanted to spend the rest of his life with and live every day by his side until he grows old...the person he will have to leave behind too early, so cruelly early, why? Why? Why?
Christmas Eve will find me
12.22
Why isn't he getting better? Why can't they fix him? Clear's head was spinning. It was December 22nd, a month since diagnosis and Aoba's treatment was failing. He has now developed severe pneumonia as well, which also was responding poorly to treatment. It was almost Christmas. Clear hasn't left the hospital, he's been by Aoba's bed every second, every minute, every hour, every day...holding onto Aoba's hand and savoring the feeling of his skin while they talk about the times they shared together, losing themselves in the past as if both were trying to forget what was happening, trying to escape reality as the days drew on and the snow outside the hospital window fell and built up on the ground to prove that time was indeed passing, that there wasn't any escape from reality....Time....there was so little time...
Where the lovelight gleams
12.23
"I...I don't want to spend Christmas here, Clear...I want to spend it at home with you like we were supposed to..." Aoba stared at nothing as the silence of the room was broken with his quiet voice, it sounded longing and sad and so far from what it used to sound like it was almost startling to realize, like something you'd try to ignore was true....Clear had looked up from where he had been resting his head on Aoba's side, their fingers laced together as if neither could bare to let go, and in truth, they didn't want to.
"I want to go home..." Aoba's voice shook, he sounded so sad, so little, so broken, it made Clear feel like someone was ripping apart at him from inside, like someone had torn out his heart and thrown it onto the ground to shatter into nothing more than a pile of dust and oil.
Clear stared at Aoba with this searching look, like he didn't know what to say, like he didn't want to say anything.
"You can't leave, Aoba-San, it's-"
"How much longer do you think I have?" Clear felt the world freeze over, Clear felt something inside of him crack, maybe it was the false reality he had tried to desperately to build, or maybe it was just his heart.
"W-why would you ever say something so horri-"
"Because!" Aoba was staring at him now, his eyes wide and scared, reflecting everything Clear was feeling, shining with the same desire to deny what was the truth, yearning to find some kind of hope that had already vanished so long ago. Tears that he had so painfully obviously been trying to hold back fell down his all too pale cheeks from golden eyes like honey. "I-I'm not getting better! Can't you see I'm not? Can't you see it? The medicine isn't working! I have cancer, I have pneumonia, I feel like I can't breathe! I-I'm dying, Clear!"
I'll be home for Christmas
12.24
"Please be careful, Aoba-San!" Clear supported his lover as he got out of the car, helped him into their house, sat him on the couch and wrapped him in blankets and Aoba thanked him in his whisper of a voice, staring at the fireplace and the two stockings that hung from it with their names on them, unfilled unlike the years before...Clear tried to ignore the shallow breaths, tried to ignore the coughing. Clear plugged in the Christmas lights, plugged in the tree, watched the house light up in all its glory and felt the black hole in his chest eat away at him.
If only in my dreams
12.24
"D-do you want hot chocolate?" Clear tried not to let his voice shake, he tried for Aoba, he didn't want Aoba to know how scared he was, how much he was shaking...
"No," Aoba said so quietly. "Just-" he paused to take an uneven breath, it was apparent he was trying not to cry, but Clear tried to act like he didn't notice.
"Please hold me..."
I'll be home for Christmas
Aoba was wrapped in Clear's arms, their hands pressed tightly together, his head resting against Clears chest and the flames of the fire warmed their bodies, and the brightly colored lights danced around the room, and candy canes hung from the mantle....they didn't need to say anything, there was nothing to say, pressed together it was if everything was being spoken even though no words had left anyone's lips, and hours slipped by too quickly.
You can plan on me
The fire died out too quickly, the snow built up too high outside, Aoba's breathing became too slow, Aoba's eyes looked too distant.
Clear held him tighter, felt his hair, felt his skin, kissed him, felt his heartbeat and saw him flash the weakest little smile, his glossy eyes staring into Clear's with all the love a soul could possibly hold.
"I love you,"
"I love you too,"
Please have snow and mistletoe...
The fire stopped cracking, the flame turned black, Aoba's grip loosened, Aoba's eyes wouldn't open....
"A-Aoba-San?"
Aoba wasn't breathing. Aoba's heart wasn't beating.
And presents on th-...........
....