The snow falls as it always had. He leaves no footprints.
Shuusaku's wrist was pale – standing behind him, his eyes trailed along the veins mapping his arm, blue rivers flowing, pulsing with a heat he cannot touch.
He lowers his lashes behind his fan as blood dribbles from Shuusaku's lips, already purple, swollen. Cheeks flushed with fever but entirely without warmth.
There is no comfort he can offer, and what words he sacrifices into the curve of the boy's ear is lost; the sickness takes over, a raging torrent.
A hand trembles; no longer any strength to hold up a stone.
A final shared gaze, a smile. Shuusaku's cheek, damp with tears, pressed against the edge of the Goban. A weak spluttering cough. Blood tracing the lines, seeping into wood.
It is suddenly quiet; he realizes that Shuusaku's heart is no longer beating.
The lines on the board gleam and he is drawn into a sleep – the angles of Shuusaku's face already fading, the light in his eyes waning; that last exhaled breath.
Just another irregularity in time.