He looked down at him; the red strands splayed across the cotton white pillow like a bloody halo that made him seem almost angelic. The gamer's hands, always encased in gloves, were for the first time in a while bare, showing the somewhat pale, but healthy complexion underneath, though the hands had a few cuts here and there from numerous occasions that Mello didn't even care to mention.
Matt's body was curled up, the goggles arbitrarily hanging around his neck, the eyes that were sometimes red, sometimes blue, hidden away beneath eyelids with fluttering lashes that were in no way feminine. The black and white striped shirt rode up on Matt's abdomen, showing a bruise from last week. The long arms were above his head, clutching the pillow as his face buried itself into it, seeking a solace that no material object could provide. There was a lingering scent of nicotine that hung around the sleeping boy that seemed almost like the ghost of the gamer himself; always there, but not. The nicotine was slowly fading away, yet it remained for the time being, as if waiting for something. An absolution or revelation of some kind.
Mello gazed down at his friend, wondering whether he should be feeling regret or anger, sadness or happiness, love or hate. The thought of hating Matt was far from Mello's conscious, but he wondered idly for a moment whether he should feel that way. What reason was there to feel such anger toward his only friend? Though the incessant game-filled days, which involved Matt more often than not ignoring Mello, even that was something trivial and forgotten along with other memories Mello almost wished he could remember.
"Matt..."
How easy it was for the name to fall from his lips in a gesture of acknowledgement... or sympathy. Mello idly wondered how Matt found the stamina to put up with him through everything; fights, danger, the good and the bad and for just one moment in that instant, Mello wondered if he should pity Matt or care less what the gamer did. And yet, the incentive to just think gave Mello the strength to lean down, his face close to Matt's, and whisper two words that he would never say, two words that he had never had to say, two words that were the first to anyone, filled with conviction and empathy that Mello hadn't known he possessed.
"I'm sorry."
Silence hung and the smell of nicotine continued to linger.