Warnings: shonen-ai, foul words, angst^^
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Weiß doesn't belong to me, nor the song 'Please Release Me' by Engelbert and 'The Lover After Me' & 'You can still be free' by Savage Garden (I love Savage Garden^^)


The Lover After Me
Part 4: No Regrets

Kisaragi Yuu

The sun has disappeared, exchanged by the coldness of grayish clouds, a sign of rain. One thunder strikes down the earth ground, threatening the passer bys to get to a shelter as soon as they can.

Who the hell cares about thunderstorms when Ken is somewhere in the middle of crisis?

Don't care about the unfriendly weather, I run to the mentioned hospital, St. Theresa. I have to get there as soon as I can. No matter what. Ken is there. Hidaka Ken, the soccer player with the dainty scent of pure mocha and sun-bathed grass.

My Ken.

A car screeched to me, almost knocking me down in agony. The driver spites some foul words as I keep running, don't even care on looking back and say 'sorry'. What's in my mind now is Ken, nothing else matters.

Promising myself that this time, I won't give up on fate, I keep running. No, I won't give up again.

Not after it took away my family, my sister, my emotion and my life.

This time, I won't let it take my one and only love, the only colour in my black and white life. Not this time.

***

Catching my breath heavily, I arrived at St. Theresa Hospital as immediate as I could. Soon I burst to the main desk of the nursery in a speed that would bend any Physics theory down. Banging the desk hard and make some attention from the other visitors, I ask for Ken's room with the glare of mine.

"O-oh, Hidaka Ken-san, is it? He's in..."

The nurse flips back through the record of the patients she's holding. I tap my fingers impatiently, what's taking this stupid nurse so long? Doesn't she know that I'm in the middle of a definite hurry?

"Room 203, but he's in the surgery now, you could see him after..."

"Surgery?! What surgery??"

"A-ah?" The nurse steps back, I don't blame her for that. I, myself, am surprised at the tone I'm using and the change in it. But that's not it, I have to know everything. What the hell about this surgery anyway?

"I-I don't know!" The nurse shudders.

Biting my lips and cursing at the same time, I grab her shoulder, "Who is the doctor that in charge with him?"

"Dr. Endo, he's in his office now, third floor to the right. Just next to the palm plant..."

Ordering my feet to run as fast as they can, I bust to the doctor's office and open the doorknob almost too violently. The door swings in a swift moment as it reveals the mentioned doctor is drinking an aspirin with black coffee. Enraged, I stomp to his desk and hit it hard.

"What is happening to Hidaka Ken?!"

"Saa..." he drinks his aspirin calmly, "You must be Fujimiya Ran, aren't you? Ken-san told me almost everything about you. He also told me to hold you down if you ever run here like a scientific madman." He smiles, "Guess he really can predicts you."

Slight blush comes across to my face. Wiping it away with my blue mask, I glare at him, "What is happening with Hidaka Ken?" I repeat myself monotonously.

"Ken-san eh?" another sip of his coffee. And I'm getting impatient.

"Don't get too calm about this! I'm serious! What the hell is happening to HIM?!!" I grab his collar and make him drops his cup of coffee. The lucid black liquid dropped and stained down the carpet, when the hand-made porcelain shattered although it drops on a soft surface. He doesn't even look a little bit scared, nor afraid, with still his mouth imparts.

"Calm down, boy. You do realize that even by beating the crap out of me, the reality won't change, don't you?"

Reality... WHAT reality?!

I already met too many realities that anyone wouldn't believe they exist. Damn, this doctor talks too much about something that he even doesn't know about.

"Are... you really a doctor?" I ask, doubtfully.

"What? After breaking in and asking for your friend's health in an improper way, now you are starting to interrogate me? How nice of you coming by. Need my license? Here."

Fuck, I don't need your LICENSE for the holy God's sake, I need the information about Ken's HEALTH.

Like reading my mind, the doctor smiled at me. He sat down to his chair after he unleashed himself off me. Then he crossed his legs as he put on his glasses and took a file out of his drawer.

"Sit down, Fujimiya-san."

I stare at him in a no particular friendly way.

"Sit down, I'm serious."

I widen my eyes at the sudden change of his voice. He looks so stern with his eyes burning with full seriousness. I swallow my own fear as I sit down, am afraid of the growing truth.

"I'm revealing the fact, ready or not," he pauses, "Hidaka-san is in a serious condition. All I can say is he has a severe damage in his senses, caused by an exaggerating drug capacity in his body."

"D-drugs? But he never..."

"Yes, he's NOT a drug addict, but," he flips his file and shows to me, "he's contaminated by morphine."

I took the file from his hands and gasp. There written about how Ken admitted about one month ago, he was jut trying to help a kid from becoming a drug addict, but ended up with he accidentally stabbed the morphine into his own body, to the length of his life.

Because before he inhaled it... he was already had an AIDS without him knew about it.

He never had any interactions with people injected with AIDS, but when he was volunteering in a blood donor for little children, the services in the hospital were not complete. Never did he expect that the injections used there were not sterilized.

"No, this couldn't be..."

"Fujimiya-san..." the doctor put his hand on my shoulder, "the morphine in his body is working much faster than we expected, so..."

"NO!" I cry, running out of the doctor's office rapidly.

Dammit Ken, is this why? Is this why you ran away from me? Hiding the truth beneath the cruel act you did to me? This IS the reason?!

Ken... WHY?!

Running to the surgery room and barged in, the doctors and nurses there cried. One of them even has the quickness to grab the phone and call the security guards. Too bad for him because my hands are much faster than him, I broke the telephone right away before he even could press the numbers.

"Y-You can't come in!" one of the doctors cried to me.

Saying nothing, I open the surgery room, just to find there's no one there. I glare at one of the nurses there and ask, "Where is Hidaka Ken?"

"He's already ported to his own room... room 43..."

I run from the surgery room and head to room 43, although I hardly know the place but I know, somehow I'll meet him.

To settle all the misleads we had...

Ken...

"KEN!" I open the door violently, just to find Dr. Endo already in there and Ken on the bed, lying motionlessly. I gasp, trying so hard not to let my tears fall.

Ken looks so pale, so white until I couldn't see that playful colour on his skin anymore. His hair looks so brown that I hardly recognize the brownish colour anymore, seeing only reddish brown on my eyes. He's thinner, till the lines of his jaw on his cheeks are exposed. His eyelids are closed, a sign that he's somewhere in a dream that I almost couldn't tell whether he's dead or not.

Maybe a dream that's too far away from here.

I bite my lips while wondering how can I don't feel any pain in that bite. Even after blood starts to drip from the strength of my bite. What hurts is my chest.

"This is the final stop." The doctor says to me. Soon, he walks out of the room for my comfort.

I approach to Ken as I draw myself closer to him, I could sense that he's breathing properly. I take his hand up and hold it tight.

"Ken... could you hear me...?"

Receiving no reply, I lay my head on his chest, trying desperately to sense his heart beat... which I find is very weak, I hardly could even feel it.

"Ken... you know what," I start to talk, trying to avoid the truth that he's not listening to me, "I just hit a new realization between us... when I thought I hate you from the confession from you that you never loved me, I'm lying to myself. I still love you, eventhough that you might never love me... but that's okay Ken, that's okay."

I smile, not letting myself to look at his face, "Whoever guess that I learn this from Omi, that young kid? Life is so full of surprise ne?"

Yes, full of surprises. But most of the 'gifts' from Heaven to me are the ones that I don't expect to come. From taking my sister and family away to the chance to live my life, I've lost them all. However now, I thank Heaven and the God or whatever they call Him because they take everything away from me...

...because of that I could meet you.

I would give them up, my life, my soul, or everything that I have, just so I could have you in my arms.

If in the next life I reincarnate to an insect and you a human, I would willingly fly around you, until your beautiful soft hands grab me to death.

With no regrets.

I hold down my tears as they are threatening me to fall. No, I couldn't cry, if I do... that means he's dead, and he's not dead. He will open his eyes again and smile to me as he always does. Everything would be back again like it used to be. Nothing would ever change, he will smile again.

And then I will smell his scent of pure mocha and sun-bathed grass again. We'll never be departed anymore, we'll always be together in long eternity. Just you and me, Ken... only us, both of us—forever. We'll be together...

Right?

My clench grows stronger.

"Ken... please, open your eyes... you haven't forgive me for being mistaken to you... Ken... don't make me doubt... please..."

If God or Demon wants my soul, I'll willingly sacrifice it to the exchange for the back of Ken's life. So please, just take my soul away, take it for all I care, but spare him.

Then... with the gentleness as the snow, I feel a warm hand touches and caresses my cheek. The hands that I almost forget... so soft and smooth... how could I forget the beautiful caress like this? It's Ken, it's Ken who's touching me now... isn't it?

I tilt my head up slowly, wishing that the next thing I'll see is his smiling face, out of my egoism.

"R...an..."

"Ken!"

Ken smiles at me weakly. My heart aches as I see his too-gentle smile, but I also has this great reliefness deep down me that he finally awakes.

Eventhough maybe it's just for a temporary moment.

"I guess that babbler Yohji already told you everything... ne?"

"Mostly. But I'll not believe any of those if I haven't hear it from your own."

Another heart-breaking smile, "Ne, Ran...? Do you still remember about the joke I told you when we went to the amusement park...?"

"What?" I smile back, tenderly caressing his hands like there's nothing disturbing happened to us, like he's just as healthy as ever. I really hate to lie, but if this could make him even a little bit better, then...

"I said..." he begins, "let's promise if we ever be departed and get our own new lovers... we'll have to show the lover after us and make them fall in love with each other... so that we'll get envious with them and might want to make things back again...?"

Aa, I remember that one. It wasn't a joke, actually, more like a maybe case. We were... no, we are in love with each other that we have faith that somehow, no matter what each of us do, we'll forgive the other one and get back together again. With the incident happened, I think we proved ourselves right, although there are some unforgiving cases, but we managed to skip it all through.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean..."

"Ran," he cut my sentence, "we both know that I'm not going to make it..."

"Ken!! Don't say that!"

"No Ran, listen to me... I have to ask for your forgiveness since I couldn't fulfill that promise we made... still..." he coughed an amount of blood that couldn't be categorized as 'little', "I will always remember you although I'm dead..."

"No... Ken... don't leave..."

"Ran... do you love me?"

"Yes Ken, I love you so much... as I couldn't get angry at you although I tried to."

"Thank you Ran... if you really love me... you know that you have to sacrifice me... you'll have the get a lover after me... somehow... someone..."

"Ken, you'll always be my forever lover..."

"Don't promise something that you know you couldn't fulfill..." he paused while smiling tenderly, "I have no regrets Ran, I love you too... but we both know that this departing time will eventually come, and then you'll just have to find someone else..."

I bit my lips, don't know what to say anymore as I know, every single word that comes out from his lips is true.

Then I start to hear some tones. Another song that I heard from the radio but never tried to listen to it.

No regrets or promises, the past is gone
But you can still be free
If time will set you free

"Ken..."

"Good bye Ran... find a lover after me..."

"Ken, I love you..."

"I love you too..."

He closes his eyes, letting the darkness to brisk him inside with a swift moment. The hand that was cupping my cheek limps down, lifeless.

He's gone.

For eternity.

A scream from a sinned demon could be heard as he lost his angel to death.

***

Time passed quickly.

It's been almost a year from your death, Ken, still I couldn't get your picture out of my head. I never think I'll meet the day that I'll forget about you. I still could feel your presence beside me, your figure, your feelings and your scent… I still could feel it all. You are alive, Ken.

You are alive in my heart.

I kneel down to the grave in front of me, the grave that is craved with your name on it. I hold down the purplish blue gentians from our own flowershop, the rest of us will be visiting you tomorrow.

I stare down the grave, with an imagination of you beside me, asking who is it beneath this ground. I smile at the thought of you, being so innocent and childish are your specialties. And I love them all.

"This is for you, Ken."

I start to sing for the last time, continuing what I've sang last time.

Am I all alone in the universe?
There's no love on these streets
I have given mine away to a world that didn't want it anyway

So this is my new freedom
It's funny
I don't remember being chained
But nothing seems to make sense anymore

Without you I'm always twenty minutes late

Ever since you've been gone,
The lights go out the same,
The only difference is
You call another name

To your love, to your lover now
To your love...

The lover after me

The only thing that is wrong from this lyric is... I know that you still love me, you have no 'lover after me', still I'll have to let you go, and so do you.

So this is the end, ne?

'Ne, Ran, do you love me?'

The gentians fall from my hands to the ground. And I could feel warm liquid trail down my cheeks.

There's no lover after you... Ken.

- Owari -

Comments in any shape is begged for!! ^.^