I shouldn't have let you go. I should have held on to you much tighter and told you to stay. Why didn't I believe you? Why did I listen to their lies? There's so many things I wanted to say to you, would I ever have a chance to tell them to you? Would you be able to hear them? I have so many things running in my head, but no matter how I turn it, no matter how I analyze it, it was my fault for letting them do this to you.

You were a breath of fresh air in my suffocating life, the air in my lungs that helps me breathe. You were the words that came out of my mouth when I needed a reason, you were the daily thoughts that ran through my head at every given moment. The blood that runs through my veins that keeps me alive. You are my reason, Iwaki. My one and only reason for living and existing in this world and yet, I was your reason for extinguishing your light. How could I? How could I be so stupid?

Shotaro buried his head in his hands as he started crying again. Iwaki is still alive, but barely. The doctor said that he shouldn't hope, that it's all up to Iwaki if he still wants to live.

My work took me away from you, when I should have delegated it to someone else so I could be with you. You never really liked me, but I know the hostility that you showed me was just a façade, all you really wanted is for me to look at you, notice you, pay attention to you. And I was arrogant enough to ignore those signs you were showing me. Things could have been better, you wouldn't have been lying here right now, fighting for your life. Or I hope you are fighting for your life to come back to me.

If you could move things, I wish you would reached inside my body and move my heart or take a hold of my face and make me look at you and see you. But why am I giving myself excuses now, it could never bring you back, I can never have a second chance again. I can wrack my brains for hours on end, stay up every night to watch over you, but what good will that do? What is the point of doing that if you could no longer see me?

He must have suffered. He must have been in a lot of pain and yet he held on until the very end to wait for me. Because he knew I was coming back. But I took longer than I expected, and didn't realize that you were needing me. Wanting me. Calling for me. Iwaki.

Even now I really don't know your full name. All I know and all you could give me is one name, if it was your first or your last, you wouldn't say. Just Iwaki, you say, that's all I need to know and that's all you are going to give everyone.

You said you wanted to erase everything from your past, so that is all you needed. Just one name and nothing else. Connected to no one, linked to none, just yourself. Iwaki.

You are one spirited brat, how could I not notice you. How could I not turn and look at you? You were so full of life in the land of the living, are you feeling lonely now wherever you are? Please come back. My world is not the same without you. My world can never exist anymore because there is no Iwaki anymore to fill it.

I love you. I love you with the very core of my being. I wish I would have told you that sooner. And maybe then I could have rewritten the future and have you here with me now, living and breathing instead of you lying now on that bed, your skin as pale as the sheet that you are lying on.

He reached out and touched his face. He's still warm, like he's sleeping, if they pull this tube then everything else would be over. You will be over. Will I ever want that? Will I ever want to extinguish your light forever? I don't know if I could ever will myself to stop your suffering and pull the plug.

He touched a bandaged wrist. Everyone was puzzled as to how he gotten a sharp object to cut his wrist. There were no sharp things in his room. His cell. They never told me they took you from my home and put you back in the lab. It must have been horrifying for you to go through that, to re-live all those grueling tests and experiments they put you through. And all the while they shield these things from me, they said all they do is conduct interviews and give you exams to monitor your progress. I didn't know that they were so relentless that they treated you like test subject and nothing more, and no matter how much you pleaded them to stop, they never listened.

Someone told me you kept calling for me to save you. You kept telling them that you would tell me and I would make them stop. You did tell me, numerous times, and I teased you and ridicule you and told you that you were just being a baby, that those tests were needed to help you be strong. If I had known it was another form of torture, I would have killed them all for doing this to you.

So when they told you that I was gone and was never coming back, you lost all your hope. Because I was your hope and I abandoned you. So you tried to take away your life. You tried to take back what you tried to give to me, which is yourself. And I was so blinded to see what you were giving me. Iwaki.

He cried over and over again. He never left his side. Although he knew that there was nothing now that he can do, he still stayed. That even if this was the last time. Shotaro wanted to be there. So that even if Iwaki may never open his eyes again, even if Iwaki may never know that he is back, even if Iwaki could no longer wait, and not know that he is back, he would not die alone. For that last moment, even if Shotaro can never share his pain anymore, he won't be dying alone. He would be there. Even just for the last time.

Owari