There is something different in the way that he smiles today. The fire in his eyes is now gone, I am sure of it. He lies there, cloaked in white to match his dry and lifeless skin. He lays there drenched in the sorrow of knowing that there might not be a tomorrow. He watches me sit down beside him, and he knows that I know...time is not on his side.
I open my mouth to speak, but his voice was what I heard. His hand prevents my words from forming, and I just watch him with tear-ridden eyes. How long has that fire been gone? A resigned sigh passed his colourless lips, and I knew that he knows too…time is not on his side.
This room in which he lays is so distastefully clean. It is nearly colourless from the ceiling to the floor. Everything is so uncomfortably in place, so unnervingly uniform. His pure cotton yukata…his dying skin…the blanket loosely hanging from the edges of his bed…they are all the same. Everything in the room was blank, empty even. Everything including him had the scent of death hanging over it, and the thought brought tears to my eyes. How empty he was, how blank. But he knew that I know… just like white, he will soon cease to exist.
And I did know. I knew perfectly well, and for a moment I begin to wonder to myself why it was that I even bother to come see him everyday. Was it not better to let go of something that would soon slip away from you? Was it not what any smart man would do? Perhaps I was helplessly stupid, but I wanted to hold his hand up until the hour of death. Maybe I am just that kind of a fool after all.
As my attention digresses from the white room back to him, he stirred in his bed, and I gave up hope. What more was there for a couple of fools to do than live and die as fools? So now resigned, I gaze searchingly into his fading brown eyes, hoping that there might be a bit of comfort in them for us both. Bitter fool that I am… Reflected in those soft brown eyes was a will that was wavering. When was it that he abandoned all hope, I wonder… In those eyes that I have long grown to love was nothing that even hinted that he was trying anymore. I know it now, he has resigned to dying awhile ago, and I was the only one that had been in denial. His eyes do not bother to mask his despair anymore, and it is quite evident to me now that there was nowhere left for me to run. He was dying faster than I had ever imagined.
Despite how he showed his empty eyes to me and displayed to me the hopelessness in his soul, he smiles yet again. That smile…how long will I get to see it? I wonder… He then let out a sigh and scolds me for my unpleasant scowl. He laughs quietly before breaking into a coughing fit, and collapses against the pillow that had been his only source of comfort these past lonely nights. He insists that he is getting better, but he can barely speak before he started to cough again. He tries to hide his blood stained sleeves and turns away from me. I know full well the extent of his illness…. I have known for almost a year now.
It seems that during the war that we fought to preserve our way of life, he was battling something rather ruthless. He fought two wars, one of which was rather lonely---is rather lonely, I would imagine. But he does not know that I have been fighting along side him all this time. I have always been a comrade to him in his silent struggle to keep alive, and now that he is losing, I am more on his side than ever before. Now that he is nearing his eminent defeat, I will not leave him to fend for himself. However, I am well aware that there was only so much I could do. I am so painfully aware that my aid is very limited, and I am much too aware that even if I should put forth all I have to offer, in the end we will still lose this fray.
All of a sudden, I am very sad. We have approached an end to the era that we call home and in doing so I believe we have ended something else in the process. Perhaps the rest of Japan will finally advance and transcend its self-enforced barriers, but I feel as though we are regressing more and more each day. As time passes and the world outside this room spins faster, going headstrong into the future in a forward direction, I grasp his bloody hand, and I swear that we are spinning backwards.
The paper pinwheels by the window do not spin in the hard breeze that sends chills down his spine. I know now, more than ever before, that when he dies the world outside will remain unchanged. Infact, most people will never even know that he had ever lived at all. Everyone outside of this room would move on with their lives, unaffected. I cannot describe the pain in my heart at the moment, knowing that I might be the only one that would hurt when he dies. Knowing that only I am affected by his death makes me strangely disappointed in the world. How do they live knowing, or not knowing, rather, that such a beautiful man is slowly leaving the surface of this broken world? How do they live so unaffected, so unmoved?
He looks up at me now, a dull amusement gleaming in his eyes. He waves and smiles, and urges me to leave before night falls. He insists that I go between heart wrenching coughs, and I know very well that something is wrong. Still, I must honour his request. Releasing his hand, I get up to turn my back on him for the last time. With my heart growing gradually more and more wary, I glance over my shoulder once more before leaving the room, taking the last bit of him with me in my blood stained hand. On the other side of the door I hear his coughing grow thunderous before it suddenly ceased. I know now…on this fine, late spring day, first year of Meiji, Okita Souji, no longer exists.