Already two hours had passed since dinner time came but still, the two of them were in a state of light conversation. The paella stood no chance against Athrun's craving for Kira's cooking and everything was perfect. From a stranger's point of view, one can say that they are both indeed lucky because they are, in a way, a perfect match. A match made somewhere else in a different time and place, destined to be united once again.
"You never told me that before. So what happened next?"
"I ran away from school and I slept in my room all throughout the day."
"I never knew that you are weak against boredom," Kira said in a comparative tone and added, "My Ate Murrue was never a boring teacher compared to yours. She taught me how to climb a tree when I was five." Ate in Filipino means older or big sister.
"Really? How come you always talk about this Ms. Ramius of yours? Is she really that special to you?"
Kira took a sip from his cup of coffee before looking away from Athrun. The question brought about nostalgic memories back to him that obviously was a little hurtful to him.
"I guess you know what the answer is," Kira let out a meek smile, "I owe her everything I have right now but she's too kind to let me repay her for all that she's done for me. Honestly, I miss her… and my home very much," Kira replied as sincere as possible before sipping again from his cup.
"You don't feel at home here?"
Still, another awkward question coming straight from Athrun's frank mouth. It wasn't hurtful like the previous one but rather embarrassing.
Yes, how can he feel at home in a place where society frowns upon him? Where his classmates that were supposed to encourage him to go on with life's struggles degrade him instead? Where life is sad and full of restraints? How can someone as fragile as Kira feel at home in that almost God-forsaken place? Where can he feel at home? Kira only fell silent once more and didn't bother to answer the question.
"What I mean is do you feel at home here? Here as in, in my house?" explained a smiling Athrun who didn't fail to notice Kira's sudden silence. Silence once again. The primary hurdle he always faces when talking to Kira. Why can't Kira answer him straight?
'Here? Inside this massive structure where warmth is always present? Of course I do feel at home here. Why not tell Athrun about it? Would it make any difference? Will he appreciate my effort of saying yes?'
"Of course I feel at home here. You know, I have to tell you something. I've wanted to tell you this a long time ago but I was hesitant in doing so. I was afraid you might get upset."
"Go ahead."
"I…I… I'm… Every time I lose consciousness… I… It's a…" Kira struggled with his words but he couldn't place his thoughts in motion because he was holding something back.
"You what?" asked Athrun worriedly as he moved his chair closer to Kira fully expecting to hear something he doesn't know about Kira's health yet.
"Umm… I think I should go back to the dorms now. It's almost curfew hours and I don't want to end up locked out again," Kira tried to put the whole situation under the joke spell, although inside he was worried sick to the point of physically coughing out everything that he just ate. He failed to go through the ordeal of confessing an important detail of him to an important person in his life.
Athrun looked dismayed, as Kira saw him pout his lips. The looming finals disrupted their usual afternoon tea sessions and times like the ones he just had with Kira was a rare opportunity to come by – at least for two months more. At least Kira made his point clear so he could go home immediately and avoid suffering the consequences of being late. Just how difficult was it to make an excuse?
Athrun led Kira out of the dining room as soon as they both finished their respective cups of coffee. He was in the verge of a sudden mood swing, probably because of Kira's abrupt request to go back to his dorm. He made a quick peek on his wristwatch for time verification, to see if it was truly near curfew hours. Indeed it was already nine fifty – seven. The time check rationalized everything so the impending mood swing was suppressed, compressed, and thrown away out of the window.
Applying his cultivated social manners, he opened the main door for Kira, who stepped out of the door rather hurriedly and shouted SNOW over and over again.
Kira ran out into the open and spread his arms to catch all the snowflakes he could get hold of, face in an expression of pure delight.
"Snow again…." Kira said while Athrun followed him out into the night after he closed the door behind him.
"You've seen snow before?" Athrun asked Kira who was paying little attention to him. The brunette was busy picking up snowflakes one by one. It seemed childish for him to do that sort of thing although it also seemed that he was carefully examining the snowflakes in his hand.
"Yes I have. We went to Denmark to visit Ms. Ramius' mother," came Kira's reply.
"You've been to Denmark before? A few months ago, I just found out that you are an archer. Now you're telling me you've been to Denmark. Is THERE anything else about you that I need to know?"
"Why are you so hell-bent in trying to find out every piece of information about me?" Kira stressed out with a louder voice, traces of annoyance present. 'Why does he always have to ask these things?'
"Because I want to know everything about you?" Athrun asked countering Kira's voice with a louder one.
"BUT WHY?" Kira shouted in a very strong voice that echoed out into the darkness, face flaring with emotional anger.
"I want to know if I can trust you…" Athrun finally said under his breath.
Kira's was dumbstruck as soon as he picked up Athrun's words. Trembling unsteadily, he bent down and pretended to untie and retie the knots of his shoelaces. With his eyes visibly moist with tears that he was having difficulty holding back, he stood up and steeled himself to face Athrun's expected vehemence towards him, only to find out Athrun standing in front of him with a face so plain, it looked almost unfeeling.
He was ashamed and at the same time angry with himself for keeping things only to himself and not telling his best friend about it. He was afraid of rejection, losing the only thing that his heart values the most: his friendship with Athrun. But there are certain lines that cannot be crossed.
"If all these times you didn't trust me entirely, I'll make myself worthy of your trust"
He stood up and bade Athrun a flat goodbye. On the other hand, Athrun was speechless.
"Okay class let us hear an essay on TOEs by Mr. Yamato. I know that you are very much aware that the essay is irrelevant to our topic but I think it's worth it." Ms. Badgiruel said loudly for her whole class to hear. Her hair was tucked into a tight bun and her spectacles glistened with an ominous glow.
Her class seemed to be equally enthusiastic with every student informed ahead of time that Kira, their "favorite classmate" will be reading an essay to them. Kira was always generous when it came to their weekly tests and he never failed them even once; including Athrun who was anxiously waiting in his seat for the brunette to arrive, eager to apologize even he has to do it in front of the whole class.
Removing a stray lock of azure hair from his face, he looked out into the window, which was almost covered by snowflakes that were relentlessly falling down from the dim sky. He was thinking about Kira's attitude toward him the previous night. The image of Kira's countenance flaring up because of anger was a rare site and he never dreamed of seeing it again even in his dreams.
A few minutes more and the room was filled with louder buzzing as a result of the growing volume of the students' conversations. Ms. Badgiruel had to silence the whole class by banging her fist into the blackboard several times. Then, the door of the room burst open revealing a Kira who was busy panting heavily. It looked like he was being chased by stampeding horses.
Everyone's eyes darted into his direction. Wasting no time, he said, "Good morning everyone. I apologize for coming late." He gave Ms. Badgiruel a smile and without receiving further instructions, he went up to the lectern and prepared to read his essay. Period. He didn't even try to find Athrun among the crowd like he usually does.
Athrun noticed the odd behavior and mentally punched himself for losing control of his words last night. Now Kira was really angry with him or maybe Kira did not notice him at all.
And Kira began reading his essay.
Ms. Badgiruel has found a liking on Kira's way of expressing his opinion and ideas by engaging in a debate with her especially at times when their ideas are completely contradicting. She found it challenging up to a certain degree. On the first day of class, she nearly came to a conclusion that Kira was just a lousy nobody who came from an underdeveloped archipelago somewhere in the Pacific, yet, she was very wrong when she found out the truth behind Kira Yamato.
She was appalled at Kira's skills in and out of the classroom even though his class with her is only an extra unit. A colleague in her faculty revealed that Kira was no ordinary Natural. This colleague of hers chanced to see Kira in the library explaining the superstring theory to a bunch of physics freshmen using a plain blackboard where computations filled it to a point that it became so complicated that it all looked gibberish.
"I assure you, the boy is a genius, but they are so rare now these days. Physics is a thing of the past for kids today. I wonder why he's so interested in it."
"I'm not so sure what to answer as well. You see, he's an HRM student and he only attends my class because he wants to complete a degree in education with a science major."
"AT THAT AGE! My God he's only 16!"
"Is he a coordinator?"
"I'm not sure about it. Every student in this university is a coordinator and he's the exception. I already looked at his records the first day we met."
"Why? Did you have suspicions?"
"No, I didn't. I just had a queer feeling about him."
Kira's essay was interesting enough to lure a fourth grader into the mysterious world of theoretical physics. His careful placement of humor in his composition and the simplification of words helped his listeners kill boredom and most importantly, understand everything that he was saying.
While the brunette was reading, Athrun could not take his mind off from his fascination on how Kira managed to write his essay overnight. From his own summary, Kira left his house fifteen minutes after ten. In approximation, he would have arrived at the dorms at almost eleven, so it was still possible to write his essay, only until the wee hours of the morning. He thought more of the possibilities than to listen to Kira's essay as he looked outside the window.
Taking a walk in the grounds that day was impossible, he thought. The earth, as he observed, was frozen solid and the temperature piercing – and he still wasn't sure if he should be in speaking terms with Kira again. He dwelled on the memory of last night's event and it still troubled him to a certain degree.
Down at the lectern, Kira looked up to see if Athrun was listening to him. To his dismay, his friend wasn't so he continued reading on even if Athrun wasn't listening.
Then, from out of the blue, a sharp, almost physically incisive pain shot through his chest that forced him to clutch the wooden panel of the lectern tightly. He tried to conceal what he felt so as not to disrupt the class. Everyone thought he was catching up to his breath but it was quite a long pause before he resumed.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One. The same excruciating pain swamped into Kira's head. The pain was far more stabbing that it blurred his vision, eventually bringing him down to his knees. Seeing this, everyone stood up from their seats, including Athrun who swiftly dashed to Kira's side.
"Kira, what's happening to you? Please tell me!" Athrun shouted frantically. Ignoring what other people might say, he contained Kira in is arms and embraced him tightly.
"A-Ath-Athrun...I'm sorry..." Kira whispered feebly, eyes shut, hands slowly locking into Athrun's arms. Despite the pain, Kira still remained focused and was still aware of what's happening to his surroundings. 'This is it,' he thought as he concentrated all his remaining energy to prepare for a blissful experience he had been expecting to happen a long time ago.
He tried his best to override the pain with happy memories both from his past and present life. Deep down, he was smiling, knowing that Athrun will be at his side to take charge of him once he slips into the edge. His heart began to relax, pumping blood at a slower pace in a steady rhythm. He tried to say one more word just to tell Athrun that he is still alive, but he had no more control over speech. Eventually, his muscles eased causing his hands to unclench from Athrun's and his face be stripped off of all his remaining expression of pain, returning to its blank, serene state.
"Please Kira. Please stay awake," Athrun said in a nervous tone. He didn't know why he felt that way. He never felt so nervous in his life before. If things would be weighed down, his feelings for Kira would be the main cause and the feeling of uncertainty that roams around him now due to Kira's present condition would only worsen the anxiety he feels. It's not normal for an Athrun to feel nervous but somehow, he feels it physically up to certain extent that his eyes became brimming with tears.
The last thing Kira heard was Athrun's distant voice, sobbing beside him. Maybe the boy was thinking that he was already dead.
"Silly Athrun," he thought while he slowly succumbing to the satiating feeling of drowsiness. "When will he ever learn to check for a pulse?" Then all his remaining senses were shut down and everything was shrouded by a vast blanket of deafening silence. Kira fell asleep and an internal process of reanimation began.
It had been a month, two weeks, six days, two hours, 25 minutes and 34 seconds. Kira lay peacefully asleep in his hospital bed. He showed no signs of waking up and the doctors can't keep themselves from being dubious about Kira's abnormal "bag o' bones".
They ran every possible test on him but they failed to gain feasible results. Except for the fact that Kira already had an infection in his upper respiratory system, as showed by the preliminary diagnosis, but it was not an acceptable conclusion that can justify why Kira is in coma. The least that they did was treat Kira's already advancing pulmonary infection, which, posed another puzzle for them.
Antibiotics administered intravenously into him were rejected by his body from time to time. His body had a perfect way of rejecting foreign chemicals entering its premises by releasing an unknown enzyme that greatly reduces the permeability of his cells. They gave up hope eventually and concluded that Kira was "a questionable by-product of nature's goodness". They had to solely rely on Kira's immune system for his own recovery.
One thing was sure for them though; Kira was nowhere near his grave. All his vital signs remained stable. It was a real ray of sunshine for them and for Athrun, who once tried to shake Kira awake. It took several male nurses to wrestle him out of Kira's recovery room.
When he did lighten up, he went to the flower shop and bought a bunch of the bluest roses known to humanity that came all the way from an island in Sweden. He purposefully chose the blue roses to complement the whiteness of Kira's room, and placed them straight into a clear glass vase. Although for him, Kira alone made the room look animated – even in his unconscious state.
When afternoon came, Kira's attending physician came to check on Kira's condition. Upon her entrance into the room, she quickly took notice on the roses that weren't there the other day. She went over to the vase and fixed the arrangement of the flowers.
"You shouldn't shoot it into the vase like shooting garbage into the waste can. You…," she said as she removed extra leaves from the rose stalks, "…should do it with style."
"If you place flowers carelessly, they won't look good and will lose their dignity causing them to wilt easily," she continued.
"It does look better that way," Athrun remarked, noticing the abrupt change of the flowers' effect on the room.
"Well, of course it does. Now, let me take a look on your friend over here," the doctor said as-a-matter-of-factly and then walked over to Kira's bedside.
Her daily routine on checking the brunette's condition made her somehow attached to the kid and his friend. The happy college life that Athrun often talked about during the past days greatly gave her an advanced score of information about him and her patient. These led her to suspect that the two might be more than just friends but are simply unaware of it.
Two college students whose lives revolve exclusively around each other, for her, is a pretty picture to look at. So it would be bad to lose the other one to a disease that who the hell knows where it came from. It would ruin the image. It inspired her even more to take extra care of her patient. Everyday, she would spend hours searching for a possible cure to her patient's illness in medical books and in some of her personal journals.
"Today is a beautiful day isn't it?" the doctor said after a moment of hesitation. She could not stand the silence anymore.
"I agree. Everything is covered in white." Athrun answered her morosely as he watched snow flakes fall from the sky down to the frozen ground where they would eventually melt, ending a short phase of the water cycle. How the snow mocks him, he thought. Days looked terribly dull, literally, for him without Kira to laugh around and talk with.
"He likes snow, haven't I told you?" Athrun said as he moved from the wall where he was leaning to Kira's bed where he seated himself quite comfortably close to the other youth.
"Really?" the doctor replied cheerfully, very opposite from Athrun's lethargic mood, while taking Kira's blood pressure. The doctor demonstrated a talent for multitasking as Athrun observed. It proved that doctors have a keen sense for everything. Manually taking a blood pressure with a "sphyg" and talking to someone at the same time can be quite a difficult undertaking. Nonetheless the doctor made it with no difficulty. It made Athrun wish that he had that kind of ability too for him to observe Kira closely without giving away his cover. Too bad he doesn't notice that he has a stronger sense of understanding for other people's feelings, especially for Kira but his carelessness overshadows it.
"I only found it the night before he got sick. We had a row that night," Athrun recalled briefly as flashbacks of their argument refreshed his memory.
"And I assume that it was your fault why you had a row with him. Prove me wrong," the doctor said omnisciently. It's as if she saw the flashing images of the argument going on inside Athrun's mind.
"No, you're right," Athrun admitted, brows furrowed, "I went on with my words telling him to spit out every fragment of truth about his real background so that I can learn to fully trust him."
The doctor smiled at him and jeered, "That was pretty rude of you to say that directly to his face. Poor boy must be really hurt. Tsk, tsk tsk…No, no, no…. don't try to give me that irrational reasoning…." The doctor interjected immediately before Athrun could even react. It clarified his doubt that this doctor was capable of skimming human thoughts at the mere sight of their facial expressions
She continued, "…..I get your point. But you were in the brink of accusing him of being a liar. No one wants to be called a liar in a way or another. You hurt his feelings. Are you even sure that you are not hiding anything from him too?"
Athrun brought a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes, sucking huge vats of air before breathing out again. He was unintentionally found guilty by a doctor.
'God, she knows how to talk. She's right…. I forced Kira into admitting things when I know for myself that I'm hiding many things from him too.'
The thought of dismissing the discussion crossed his mind but a part of him insisted that he should go on with the small talk even though that small talk was discussing an extremely personal subject. He had to accept the doctor's third opinion for the nth time!
"And besides, the trust that you are talking about is a complicated matter that people inside a relationship tend to overlook most of the time," the doctor said in a suddenly stern tone, stressing each word carefully for her listener to hear clearly.
She strode past Athrun and adjusted the blinds of the windows and added, "I know how it feels not to be trusted by the people around you."
The azure-haired boy gave a sigh, sad somewhat, and pondered over what the lady said. He dropped his head and rested it on Kira's pillow, facing that admirably immaculate face sideways. He felt a deep sense of guilt and regret for having said those hurtful words to Kira. More than anyone else in the world, he should be the one to understand him the most. Although he didn't mean it, it was still an act of negligence.
It's over and done, he thought. He reached for Kira's hand under the thick blanket and held it with both of his', feeling its contrasting texture. The roughness of Kira's hand made him more imperfect, and it made Athrun happier, knowing that Kira was just another normal human being, with his own set of flaws, and, with his own brand of beauty. A rare kind of beauty far more perfect than anything else by his standards. The beauty that he fondly calls - simplicity.
"Oh Kira, even when you're asleep, you still manage to stab my conscience," Athrun whispered, "If you only know how much you mean to me. Please wake up."
Athrun's eyes were suddenly brimming with tears. Tears of yearning flowed down his cheeks to Kira's hand that he was holding. He cried for the same reason. He cried because he was hoping that Kira's subconscious might actually hear his childish sobs and wake up for him. He cried because he was unsure of what was going to follow. He never felt so close to a person before. There were times that he almost thought that what he feels for Kira as a friend might be deeper than normal friendship. It made him more confused though. He thought that what he "thought" was wrong but a little corner in his mind tells him that it isn't, adding up to all the confusion in his head.
Yet, no matter how feeble his voice was, the doctor still chanced to hear what he said. As fast a bolt of lightning, her suspicion was confirmed. She smiled and left the room stealthily, slowly closing the door behind her to leave the two souls in their moment of silence. "A little more understanding…" she said to herself while walking contently to her next patient feeling fulfilled for the first time in years. Then she adjusted her I.D. pin that bore the words, Astrid C. Porter, MD.
Snow fell incessantly still. Athrun cried his heart out until he fell asleep. Darkness eventually fell. And peace reigned throughout the night, and in line with the passing of time, the night was robbed of its blackness as the light of a new morning crept its way to the world, leaving in its path, patches of murky twilight.