Uh, long time no see, you wonderful people who are reading this. I know, I know, the things I upload are really short, lately. SORRY. I've got a lot going on, lately. Tests and formatives before Christmas Break, you know, all that shitty stuff. Dx

But the other day, I was there trying to figure out this slope for a line or something, and this idea suddenly, randomly came into my head. So voila, a new story that I plan to focus all my attention on for the next month or so, however long it takes to finish it. It'll be a full-out story. Chapters and everything. ARE YOU SURPRISED? Take a moment. Collect yourself. Meditate.

I hope you guys enjoy this. I just thought of it on the spur of the moment and built up on it as the day progressed. Happy reading!

BTW, the song is by PANIC! At the Disco - Turn Off The Lights. Not necessarily a sad song, but the lyrics fit quite a bit.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Hetalia or any of the characters. All credit goes to the artist who made this wonderful series. /thumbs up

I got so sick of being on my own

Now the devil won't leave me alone

It's almost like I found a friend

Who's in it for the bitter end

Our story - or rather, my story - begins with the most bull-headed and conceited boy that a person may ever come across. You yourself may know a, or maybe a handful, of people very fitting to this little description. Everyone has their own little quirks, whether it be chewing off the ends of their erasers and spitting the remains ofn the floor, drumming their fingers againest their desk, and so on. Everyone does have their own quirks, negative or positive, and almost everyone around them is influenced one way or another by them.

Your view would remain stiff towards this person in any plausible case; in fact, if you were stuck on an island alone, they would be the last person you would choose to be stuck with, correct? If you had to choose between them and an uncomprehending ape, you'd choose the ape, because even though there wasn't much difference between the two, at least the ape wouldn't argue back with you and claim they were right, poke and prod and try to find that one thing that grated your nerves so bad ly they split at some point.

But let me change the outlook on this scenery from behind the curtains. Let's say that person had a life-sucking leech of a disease? That even though this person may be the most annoying form of a bugger you've ever laid eyes on, would your view on this person change at all? Would you think of them any differently, treat them like fragile glass? Would you feel those teaspoons of panging guilt hammer your gut when you looked at them, you met eyes with them? Would you regret all those snippy little remarks you threw at them when they goofed off? Would you try to backtrack and put both of yourselves on a better course before it was too late?

I didn't.

I got my heavy heart to hold me down

Once it falls apart my head's in the clouds

So I'm taking every chance I got

Like the man I know I'm not

That boy was the most insistent person I've ever met, the most stubborn... I couldn't possibly name enough words to describe him: he was the most abrade, nudging, nagging and cheerful, optimistic, agitating, beleaguering, provoking, irking, maddening boy ever.

But even though we both bickered on and off, even though we threw some ill-hearted commentary each other's way, even though he was obsessed with superheroes and marmite and helping out that little old lady with bad arthritis down the hall even when he could barely stand himself, even though he himself had a ticking time bomb of a tumor resting in his brain, ticking and tocking away the seconds, minutes, hours, days, he spent smiling through the chemotherapy and the pain and the toxic poisons they inserted into his bloodstream to help fight off some of the cancer from spreading, withdrawal the symptoms and the pain and the dizziness. Somehow I still stuck around all those months, and managed through it. With bravery, good will (not to mention migraines from hell and back).

Despite our disliking of each other, despite our badgering, he would grin that stupid little grin of his, and sometimes I would even smile back, at times. With my back turned, that is.

So shoot a star on the boulevard, tonight

I think I'll figure it out with a little more time

but who needs time...

If you have not noticed by now, I've been using past-tense. 'Was,' used to frequentely in my cruddy handwriting, hurried and scrawled like a first graders chicken scratch.

Here I am, sitting alone in this clean, sterilized room that smelled like air freshener and Germ-X to cover up the smell of toxins and blood and vomit. Here I am, knelt over this torn and aged-from-use journal beside a bedridden Alfred, the pen in my hand scratching againest the crumpled and dented paper. Alfred, who is distant. Alfred, who is breathing his last breathes as the IV steadily drips and drops, a sound so soft that it was deafening in this silence. It sounded like a chair clattering to the tiled floor (several times I had checked to see if I myself had tipped over my chair without consiously knowing I did so), it was so silent without his mouth running on and on.

So silent, when he wasn't taking up all the air in the room talking up a storm to either myself or the nurses or the doctor, and I'm not used to it. I don't like this uncomfortable, suspenseful periods of quiet that stretched over the room like elastic, coating over me and Alfred and only suffocating Alfred, who broke this momentary silence with breathing hitch and raggedly choke, hear him trying to desperately drag in fresh air that isn't tainted with clean gloves and cold hands and chemo; it would soon stop, abruptly, so abruptly I would jump, and his breathing would return to soft, tired sighs.

I knew his time was close. Very close. That clock was ticking. The time bomb was ticking away the precious seconds after these long 5 months. I won't admit I'm scared out loud. Those lurching gasps would appear from the silence, bursting as if from water, deep from inside his dying body, and I would jump each time. The IV dripped. The clock ticked. The pen scratched, and I waited.

Anxiously.

To hear him breath again.

I need a little sympathy

to sore my insecurities

our consciences are always

so much heavier than our egos

Alfred is silent, and I am on edge. He suddenly drew in another sharp inhale, his chest heaving under the thin blankets the hospital bed provided, under the homey little quilt he had kept with him all these months living here in this god forsaken hospital. A keepsake, he had told me. His expression tensed, then relaxed, smooth but clammy in the dull silver lights, toning the dark purple cresents under his closed eyes.

The past tense was used merely because even though Alfred was lying right in front of me, not even an arms length away, breathing in shortened gasps and hitching wheezes, I know he is long gone, my ability to drag him back to reality with a simple snap of my fingers no longer useful.

He is gone, even though he is still there, and I couldn't do a thing about it except watch as he slipped further and further away from me.