Past(2/2)

Soon after, however, Haru was told what would be the 'treatment' he will undergo. The doctor said that for now, it was better to avoid experimental techniques. If he is lucky, the immunotherapy will develop enough to cure him, since its effectiveness was proven to work on thousands of patients already.

"Haru...I've chosen to get you into immunotherapy. Your mom's going to work hard from now on..."

The therapy would have been much more effective and would have extended her son's life expectancy by a bit, but at the same time the cost for this therapy was certainly not something she could afford, her only choice was to work as much as she could.

Haru didn't respond to his mother's words as his hand squeezed the area of his chest close to his heart. Besides desperation, he felt anger. His mom had done everything so far to make him grow to the best of her ability, she gave him everything, even though his father was missing, Haru tried not to think about it much, but it was at this moment that he wanted a paternal figure. Besides, to alleviate lightly both their broken hearts, he wanted the weight on his mother's shoulders to somehow diminish, but unfortunately, this wasn't possible.

"Mom... Please don't work any more than you have to. That's not what I want..."

He desperately tried to convince his mother with a feigned calm, hiding behind it a voice much more trembling than his mother's. But to his words, she smiled as she hugged him for the umpteenth time.

"Your mom has to do everything she can. This body won't break that easily."

She whispered these words in his ear. His mother didn't care what happened to her or how many hours she'd have to work to afford this long-term therapy. She made her decision, and she would never let her body give in, she had to protect her son, this was what her heart and mind told her.

Haru didn't have the strength to answer these words. The only thing he could do was respond to her embrace by reaching out to her back and holding it as tightly as he could as if his arms were screaming not to let his mother go. He knew it was wrong. Allowing her to work this much for him wasn't what he desired. However, the powerlessness he felt was immeasurable enough that Haru couldn't yell at her that no, that's not what he wanted. He could only stare as she slowly moved away from his embrace. She had to find other jobs as soon as possible.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, Haru."

That's all he heard, and within seconds, he realized his mother had left the room. He was worried. He didn't want to see his mother work any more than she had to. She already did her best, it was enough for him, but she convinced herself she had to work harder.

'Mom... please come back.'

His thoughts were sincere. However, his mother wouldn't come back for him. Haru glanced at the cell phone he had left between his legs. He remembered wanting to contact Suzuki to tell her about his illness, but now he just wanted those calm, sweet bluish eyes to help him regain the calm he had a few minutes ago, shattered from the events unfolding.

[...They told me I have a disease. Can you please come?]

He was still shaking but at the same time the image of that shining smile, that hair almost the same colour as her eyes, that expression lost in the void. Haru sought her warmth. He wanted her to be close, even her presence alone would be enough.

These thoughts led him to send the fateful message. After only a few minutes, Haru heard his phone ring, his eyes almost lifeless regained some of their clarity by reading who was calling him.

He swallowed again. Accepting the call by bringing his phone to his ear, Haru heard on the other side of the phone noises of cars, voices of passers-by, people laughing at each other, the noisy of the wind. There was no doubt that she was running.

[...Yamaguchi-kun! Tell me, where are you?]

Her voice almost brought him back to life. As if the world, previously black and white, had now regained its colours. Her voice was enough to reattach the pieces of his heart together.

[..I'm at Keiyu Hospital. Sorry if I told you so suddenly.]

Haru certainly didn't want her to feel obligated to run here for him. His goal was only to receive some comfort, yet.

[Okay. I'll be there in a few minutes.]

He could hear the rustle of the wind increase in intensity, while her voice was growing hoarse, it was clear she was fatiguing quickly, but she seemed almost not to care. Haru wasn't aware of this, but Asumi immediately realized the situation was weighing on Haru's heart. Since she knew him, Haru had always been stereotyped as the person able to deal with everything on his own. But suddenly, Haru had asked her, a friend he knew relatively recently, to come to the hospital. She realized it was no laughing matter.

[..You don't have to run...I..]

He didn't have the words again. He understood that, although shy, Asumi was very impulsive. However, she didn't act impulsively only when relationships with people were at play because of her insecurity. But, when it came to acting, she knew no competition. At this moment, she wanted to be of help to Haru at least as he was to her. She couldn't forget the friends she could now rely on were the result of his hand he calmly extended at her. Haru had helped her from the start. Something like this was only natural for her.

From this moment on, the relationship between Haru and Asumi changed. After Haru wrote down his room number, and so she saw him on a hospital bed, she realized that the first person to interact with her. He was the first person who had shown such interest to her during these months. But now, he was in a much worse situation than she had even imagined.

His eyes were red. He cried a lot. His hair, which was usually only lightly disordered, was now a mess, his lips trembling, but he nevertheless found the strength to greet her.

Asumi was shy. However, she had aspects even Haru didn't know yet. Of course, she was bashful when it came to new friends, but this nice-looking guy, who she got to know personally, was no longer someone with whom she felt embarrassed. This boy had given so much for her and now was in this condition. These thoughts made her vision blurry. Tears filled her eyes, and as they flowed down her cheeks, she ran towards him as if she didn't see him in ages. Arrived in front of him in a few seconds, Asumi embraced him without saying anything, there was no need to add anything else.

Haru was surprised, but after a few moments, he sighed. Unlike his mother, Haru didn't return this hug. This hug seemed desperate. He wanted to hug her back when she would be aware of his feelings. At this moment, the happiness he would feel in return would only be an illusion, so he let her do it, and her feelings of pain led him to have his eyes wet once again.

The two didn't talk to each other during that moment. There was no need to add anything, Haru was devastated, Asumi, although not even knowing what illness he had, could imagine that it was nothing simple to cure.

After some time, however, Asumi stopped hugging him, so that she could find a chair. There were so many things she didn't know yet, and she didn't want visiting hours to end without the two of them being able to speak clearly in person.

Sitting in the chair, Asumi avoided asking questions about her illness. What she wanted to know was different.

"..I'm sorry I got so emotional..."

She embarrassed herself for letting her emotions get to her. Her reaction would have been enough for Haru regarding her feelings. However, it wasn't the time to talk about this, something he had also understood.

"...Don't worry about it. In reality, I wanted you to comfort me, and it worked."

Haru smiled weakly avoiding her eyes, while Asumi had her cheeks now red. Looking elsewhere as well, she immediately responded to his 'teasing'.

"..Stop teasing me. Now there are more important things we need to talk about..."

At such a reply, Haru would respond by raising his hands as a sign of surrender, but this time, with his heart shattered and his voice broken down to the vocal cords, he didn't have the strength to pretend.

"..I wasn't teasing."

A response Asumi didn't foresee, enough to startle her. She didn't understand what he meant by 'I wasn't teasing', but she chose to avoid this argument for the time being, even though her heart had suffered the blow.

"..B-By the way! Does everyone else know about this? If not they need to. They need to know..."

She did not have the contacts of his male friends, but as far as the girls were concerned, they were the same ones who had decided to include her in their group, so she decided to start by calling them first.

"You had to be the first to know besides my mother."

Haru said these words knowing full well that he was acting somewhat unfairly. At this moment, even if he told her he was in love with her, Haru believed that she would pretend to feel the same even if that wasn't true, just because she wanted to alleviate his pain to the best of her ability. But Haru wanted something genuine. He felt that if Asumi was by his side, then not even death was so scary.

Asumi didn't answer these words. She was lucky Haru wasn't looking at her. Her face was now similar to a ripened tomato. Aware of this because of the heat emitted from her cheeks, she immediately turned while typing in the group they had all created together about Haru's illness.

"I...I'll send the message when you want me to."

From those words, Haru nodded even though Asumi couldn't see him, with a small smile on his face. That message wasn't sent for about an hour, as the two began to talk about various things, losing track of time until the visiting hours were over and they informed her she could return tomorrow.

The next day, all of Haru's friends came to visit him. They asked how he was doing, just because after Asumi had gone the day before. She had clarified specifying what his illness was, a hard blow felt by all, especially by her. Since that same day, Asumi missed visiting him.

His family also came to visit him, but as they lived quite far from where Haru and his mother lived, it took them some time to arrive. Although Haru had no ties to his family, he nevertheless appreciated their presence, although he was already missing the presence of someone much more important than all of them.

After a few days, his friends, one after the other came to encourage him to fight to the end, and to his surprise, even Asumi showed up. She apologized for her stupid behaviour as she was just afraid to face him. She was scared of her feelings, but most of all, she didn't want to lose the person who made her life so much brighter than it would ever be without his presence.

During these days, Haru had undergone the first immunotherapy sessions, so he felt weak, but her presence was already enough to revive both his heart and his mind.

"No need to apologize. I can understand..."

It wasn't just her who was afraid. Haru was the first to feel scared. If they got together, he would have left her with much greater pain than he would have if only friends remained, or at least that was what Haru believed until he confessed his doubts to one of his friends a week later, Eichiro.

"...The hell are you even sayin', Haru? You have to tell her how your heart's feelin'!"

Eichiro was an eccentric person. Almost like Haru, only unlike the latter, he was able to cheer anyone up. The tragic situation had destabilized even him. However, Eichiro was the first to recover, because he knew very well that Haru wouldn't want to see him sad.

"..I know...but I'm afraid to end up hurting her even more...I want to protect her smile for the rest of my life if necessary, but.."

He didn't have the same life expectancy as Asumi did. She would probably live for the next 60, 70 years, but he had in a small possibility two years left. She probably would have even forgotten of his existence after a few years from his death, but he would have brought that expression, that smile, those gems that to others seemed nothing but ordinary blue eyes, to be his last memory of this world. He wanted her to feel the same way, but maybe he was demanding too much.

"...Bro. If you ain't tellin' her, I am. What do you prefer?"

Haru, with his eyes again wet, turned to look at him with an expression full of pain, but seeing his black eyes were serious, he returned to look in front of him.

"..I don't know if what I'm about to say is right or wrong. But after I'm... I'd like you to keep an eye on her. I'd do it myself, but I don't think anything I expect would lead me to look at her future."

He knew it was gruesome to think about it in such a way, but Eichiro continued with his playful attitude.

"If you want me to do this, I'll do it. But now you have to do it. I have absolutely nothing to do with your relationship."

He was playful, but at the same time serious. Eichiro knew that Asumi returned Haru's feelings far too much, but these two had spent months and months remaining simple friends, and the thing for him was unacceptable. Although he felt pain in his heart that things had evolved this way, finally, there was something big enough to spur them to that fateful step.

Although Asumi will remain grieved at Haru's death, Eichiro knew this was the right choice. It would have made the girl stronger in the future, and he could have been more comfortable with the role that whom he considered his best friend had entrusted him.

A few days later, Haru found the will to confess his feelings to Asumi, while Eichiro advised the others not to visit Haru today. Immediately understanding what it was all about. Even if this disease was deadly, in reality, it also had positive sides. The two groups to which Haru belonged, girls and boys, became a single and large group, so Eichiro had even more freedom to plan to leave the two alone.

---

By the day Haru confessed his feelings, about a year had passed. Haru was 17 years old, and in this year, a lot happened. His mother had worked to the point of exhaustion, ending up in the hospital a few months after Haru had been hospitalized in the section of the terminally ill patients.

But after he repeated it over and over again that there was no need to work so hard, he forcibly made his mother promise not to overdo herself. Since she didn't want to go against her words, she ended up obeying his rules of not working too hard.

Haru was also officially engaged to Asumi. She indeed reciprocated his feelings and, although, like Haru, she had doubts precisely because of his life expectancy. Eichiro didn't hesitate to scold her by telling her that it was necessary to live life to the maximum of their possibilities, a phrase that made Haru sigh. Asumi however, decided to agree to become his girlfriend.

In the blink of an eye, another year passed. Haru was standing on the wall located in his room. He was looking from the inside, the beauty of the now waning sun.

"Haru...you don't have much more to live."

His mother had received the information the immunotherapy had worked well for the first year. However, it didn't seem to be as efficient against his type of tumour, quickly leading Haru to the end of his days. He hadn't yet revealed either to Asumi or to all his friends, the only ones to know it were his mother and himself, the reason for his broken smile.

---

(With this chapter, the past is done, the next one will contain his death so I wouldn't say it's his 'past' now, but his present.)

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