A/N: This is based off the song "Cactus and Mirage" by Jakkan-P/KNOTS/STONK. This song still makes me cry, and writing this made me cry harder. If you would like to cry, too, watch the PV; a link is in my profile. "A sorta sad song," my ass. The tears flowed like a waterfall.
Disclaimer: I don't own Vocaloid.
Cactus and Mirage
The truest love is one that is impossible.
My job may have seemed pointless, but I think it was worth it. To see those serenely smiling faces of the patients who had not much else to look forward to was enough to keep me where I was. I played the keyboard and sang for the patients in the hospital, all the while observing what went on around me. I saw all. One particular recurring scene held my interest, though.
Once upon a time, there was a young nurse who worked at a hospital. Back when she had first started out, she had had a fragile heart; the sight of her patients dying had wrought tears to stain her porcelain face every time. She had since gotten used to it; as the months rolled by from the time she had begun to work here, her cheeks had dried to the point where nothing flowed from them anymore.
She had spent so much time in that hospital watching patients wither away and die, abandoned by those that loved them, that she had come to forget what that word meant. Love.
The few patients who remained optimistic shone their pearly smiles at her, the one who had been chosen to take care of them. The last person they'd likely see before they died, had they had a lonely life. And so, she was loved by the patients but no longer had the ability to feel the same way. And so, she dropped her facade of the nice, sensitive girl she had once been. There was no need to love, she'd said, if we were all going to die anyway.
She'd gotten used to deception, and had gotten good at deceiving others. The protective barrier that surrounded her was made of thorns that hadn't seemed to be disappearing any time soon.
This was all before that young man had been admitted to the hospital.
He was one of the smilers; the ever-optimistic ones that, quite unreasonably, she thought, seemed to think they'd have a happy ending. He'd seemed rather fond of the nurse, but she remained stubborn, having given up her facade long ago. Her job was to get rid of the fallen love that filled the otherwise clean white rooms; if there was any place where love fell apart at its seams, it was that hospital.
The boy had a talent for art. The other patients of all ages had admired his skills, secretly admiring that he still had the coordination to be able to draw so beautifully. The nurse had chosen to have nothing to do with this; she'd ignored it whenever she'd seen him with pen and paper in hand. Like most good things, this did not last.
Whenever the nurse had traipsed in the room, intending to perform some kind of duty of hers, he'd always been drawing. He had always looked up at her, always smiling, never showing any fear or sadness. How admirable it was, but she with her thorns was no longer affected by any of it.
Eventually, his condition had started to deteriorate. The low hum of admiration that had once been associated with his drawings was no longer there, and everyone had known why; his thin arms were starting to lose their magic. One otherwise uneventful day, the nurse had been in his room, back turned to him, preparing to draw his blood. His hand had reached out to touch her shoulder, and she'd nearly jumped a foot in the air. It had felt like a skeleton.
All those other times when his hand had reached out to her, she hadn't thought anything of it. In reality, he had been trying to convey a message. All those "if"s were meant to explain something, eventually. Like all good things, he didn't last.
He was wearing away, and she knew it. Each coming day, he'd seemed worse off. He'd thought nothing of it as he licked his pink blood-stained fingers, still remaining unreasonably chipper. Each day, he was becoming less and less there. Each night, when the sun made its descent and he fell into a deep sleep, she'd secretly, unknown to even herself, wondered if he'd make it to the next morning.
One day, he didn't. The sun had set, like it had every day before that.
And just like that, he was gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.
Gone.
And then she realized. She realized that the message he'd been trying to convey was that he wouldn't be there forever. Without realizing it, she'd become expectant of his smiling face greeting her as she walked into his room every day. She realized that those dreams were shattered, impossible, gone.
She'd felt the need to attend the quiet funeral that was about to begin outside of the hospital. She left his room for the last time, an unfamiliar sensation stinging her eyes, causing her to clumsily trip over the wastebasket.
More folded papers than she could count spilled out, covering a good amount of the floor in front of it. She frantically gathered them all, unfolding them.
His drawings.
She gasped, then spotted the dresser by the bed and yanked its drawers out, revealing hundreds more of them. It was like watching a timeline of his condition; the drawings had started out incredibly realistic and had begun to deteriorate until they resembled those of a five-year-old.
Each and every single one of them was of her.
Until now, she'd forgotten this feeling. The thorns that surrounded her heart had seemed to disappear, instead bringing the stinging sensation to her wet eyes. Then, she remembered that word.
She would never be able to tell him that word. She would never be able to tell him not to touch her, nor to stop smiling, nor to stop talking. Nothing. Ever again.
In her hand, she found one of the last drawings he'd drawn, along with a pink paper flower, the only touch of color in the lifeless white room. Tears freely flowing, she raced out of the room and found herself in front of his coffin.
It was all his fault, she knew. He was the reason why this word, this short four-letter word with the huge impact, had wormed itself into her mind and her heart. The word which she had once forgotten, which now had returned. She would make sure he knew what that word was.
Silently, she took off her glasses and placed them next to him. In those endless pictures, she'd been drawn each time without her glasses; it would be best, she'd thought, he she remained that way. Like he had when he was still living, he was smiling, eyes closed. She couldn't bear to see it. She swallowed, then spoke her feelings, all summed up in one word.
Love.
After those forgotten feelings had resurfaced, the nurse had found herself unable to resume her job. Those feelings would never die, and all she'd wanted to do for long after was bring smiles to those who had no smiles left in them. For him, always smiling. And so, she opted for a job that would allow her to do just that.
She now played the keyboard and sang for the patients in the hospital, all the while observing what went on around her.
A/N: In the PV, the nurse and Miku are portrayed as different characters. Using the power of poetic license, I have chosen to portray them as one and the same, with the Miku who plays in the beginning just remembering the past.
This is heavily based off the lyrics in the subbed PV, linked in my profile. It goes all over the place, really, but it sort of works.
This did not take me long at all; I wrote it on a whim.