It was precisely 7:46 PM. Namine had just taken a shower and was dressed in pajamas as she wasn't going anywhere and nobody was coming to her.

She sat cross-legged in the desk chair in front of her computer. She clicked the Start button and then Blank Word Document.

Three minutes had passed before she wrote:

My friend Kairi does not deserve to die.

She is sixteen and going into tenth grade this year. I believe she is still a virgin, but we don't talk about those things very much.

I know she shared her first kiss with a boy named Sora three years ago, but he moved away last month. She is very upset about that, because he is not here when she needs him the most.

Kairi has cancer. Throat cancer, to be exact. Chemotherapy is not helping very much at all, and she is tired and in pain most of the time.

She is the nicest girl I have ever met, even more so than myself. She has one pet dog named Sushi - don't ask me why she named him that. Sushi likes to sleep in her bed with her, no matter how she is feeling that night.

Kairi's parents are an "emotional wreck," or so my big brother Roxas says. He is about as close to Kairi as I am, but he doesn't consider himself her "friend," at least not in front of the boys in his grade. He is eighteen as of three weeks ago.

I don't know very much about throat cancer, and Kairi doesn't like to talk about it. Whenever I ask, she just looks down at her homework or her dog or does her chores. She usually mumbles something that I don't hear. But she will never walk away from me or hang up on me or snap at me.

I spend a lot of time at Kairi. I know her better than her parents do - which isn't unusual. Her parents were divorced when Kairi and I were nine years old. They don't pay much attention to their daughter, unless they are sobbing on her shoulder.

Kairi doesn't cry in front of other people. I have only seen her cry twice. Once in first grade when Sora pushed her onto the ground, and when she first found out she had cancer. She doesn't understand the point of happy tears, like when I cried on her birthday this year because she was still alive. The doctors didn't think she would make it.

She is the most wonderful girl on the entire planet.

My friend Kairi does not deserve to die.

Namine managed to let a few stray tears glide down her face before she closed the word document without saving it.

She sent a text message to Kairi later that evening saying, "Another day, and you're still alive. Hang in there, Kairi. We love you." Her brother looked over her shoulder while she typed it, and walked back to his bedroom as soon as the screen read "Message Sent."

Namine could hear nothing but her own breathing for a few minutes, and then a loud thud. She walked back to her bedroom and went to sleep early that night.

Namine tapped softly on her brother's door with her knuckles at 9:12 the next morning. He mumbled, "Come in," and she did so. Her eyes soared to a dent in the wall and she sat beside her older brother. "Put yo' fist through the drywall?" she asked jokingly. He looked away, not in the mood.

"Life sucks," Namine thought aloud.

"Life is alright. What really sucks is cancer."