There's a distinct difference between dying and dead.
Dying is that moment of anxiousness. The second of waiting for it to happen, because it will, you know it will; there's this disgusting twist in your gut that says "congrats, you're dead" and then all fades to nothingness. Dying is that painful thing when you hope it will be instantanious but you'd never know, because as the seconds stretch out into minutes and hours who knows how long instant will take. Dying is fear. Dying is failure.
Dead is peace- that one moment of feeling when you slip and fall and you expect the pain but it never comes; dead is solace and it is as calm as the warm waters of death washing over you like the sun kissed ocean.
When he was a child, Chihiro used to play on the farmland that his grandparents owned, where the forest smelled of life and the grass was full of fresh rain dew, he used to run and play free before the criticism started. Once, he found a well. The birds had not stopped singing and it was only at the late hours of the afternoon but the sun was hot so the well gasped, "sun", and he asked (maybe a little too eagerly) "is there something wrong?"
There was another gasp. "Too much,
"Too much sun-"
Fujisaki didn't know what to do, this was his first time speaking to a well at all. But he tried, of course. It was suffering and he just had to help it at some point, someone did. And so he asked "do you want me to put the lid back on?" and Chihiro heard in reply a sound that was too soft to hear but he guessed that it was as close as a response as he was going to get. The wooden top was a bit heavy (but Fujisaki suppose now that it was probably just his weak body), yet it came on eventually and the well whispered something like "thank you" but the boy didn't understand because he was too distracted by the sound of his dad congratulating him, with a pat a on his back, saying "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of you."
Once it rained at school and somehow the roof right above his chair leaked so the teacher had to move him next to this girl. "Rain got you?" her voice was high but it didn't bother Chihiro as much as he thought it would and he nodded quickly and continued to do whatever he was doing (nothing).
"Not a big talker, are you?" she said and he tried to say "yeah" back in c++ and it almost got out of his mouth but she seemed to not noticed so he just murmured a yes or maybe nodded or maybe it was both. She beamed, while saying "i know what will fix you up," and wrote down some digits and her email and said "call me or email me" and that's how Chihiro met Asahina.
Sometime later he met Mondo. It wasn't something out of friendliness at first but more of stalking because he wanted to see how he got so strong. It wasn't long after he met Ishimaru too.
They caught him, eventually and while his face was red and he were close to tears they said that it was alright and asked him why he did it in the first place.
"I'm a boy," Fujisaki had said, almost defiantly, and the looks on their faces dropped to the ground. But they didn't care, not a single bit and instead let him train with them.
He doesn't blame them, not when the weight had hit his head and thousands of codes and programs and softwares spilled out of his brain in a warm liquid rivulet of blood. Instead he thinks of Ishimaru's broad shoulders and Mondo's thick strength but it's only now that he realizes that that's not what makes him strong. He already was.
But for one last grip on the living world he thinks of their clothing and how it always was far too large on him when he tried it on. He knows that one day, be it now or in some other life, he will grow and will be able to fit in them.
This he knows for sure.