I can remember a thousand memories.
 
Of who you were.
 
How I came to be.
 
And what was to come.
 
Here, on such a beautiful campus.  Here, with the serene pond in the center to vindicate the fact we’re all dying.  Mock the sick children with tranquility.
 
A nice campus indeed, tailored for those of us who ‘just don’t fit in’.  Extreme spinal malformation? Check.  Acute physical trauma to the eyes?  You got it.  Those whose hearts double as time bombs waiting to extinguish at any moment?  That’s Hisao in 303.
 
We’re just all such special children, in our own incredible oasis.  Nothing bad can happen to us.  We shuffle along a normal school day like nothing is the matter.  All unique cases in wonderland.  Sickeningly sterile, and exemplary groomed.  Illya’s pain will just go away with how pretty it is here, right?
 
The soft grass of the pond’s edge moistens though the back of my pants, probably staining them.
 
I don’t care.
 
The thoughts of how we met.  Of how you came to cope with your diagnosis.  Of how I shared my own tribulations.  Of how we confided in one another.  Of how despite how frail you were, how you wanted to become one with me.
 
I raise my hands to my face.
 
I don’t care anymore.
 
You’re not the first one has left.  To have their condition worsen.  To have your body acquiesce to the world, to have it relent against your own will.  To be shackled to a hospital and the whims of others for the rest of your days.
 
But you’re the first one I cared about.
 
I don’t care anymore who sees.
 
It’s not a tame sob.  It’s not a subtle cry.  I can’t pacify it.
 
The look in your eyes when you took off your wig.  The muscle that sloughed off under the skin.  It hurt me every bit that it hurt you.  We’re all dying, you were simply leading the way.
 
My chest wretches with every inhale.
 
You would always try and smile.  You would conquer this.  Cancer wouldn’t be the victor
 
right?
 
There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease.