//fin

Kuroo comes to check on him in the morning, finding his friend in his bed, arms tight around a picture of his beloved, with a genuine smile on his face. He finds him peaceful, in a deep, permanent slumber.

Akaashi had always followed him in life, and now it was time for Bokuto follow him in death.

"I have to go, Kou."

"Please don't go.", a voice normally so strong and imposing, now so weak, so pleading.

"Why don't you come with me?" Akaashi says, walking back and slowly fading into a bright, warm beam of light. "You don't have to though, I will still wait for you."

And how can he say no? +

Bokuto didn't want to live this new reality without him, and so, two nights after his passing, he meets Akaashi again in his dreams. There they find joy again, they cry, laugh, they kiss and they embrace each other with more hunger and yearning than they have ever had before. +

Akaashi had always followed him, maybe at times cautiously but always supportive — whatever he were to do, they would do it together. +

Bokuto gives half-hearted smiles at times, perhaps a weak chuckle, but not often and nothing more. What colour is there to find now? What is there to admire still when his everything is now laying in a morgue, cold, alone, lifeless, soon to be buried 6 feet deep in the ground. +

Someone who was always so full of life, so excited even in the face of adversity, someone loud, bright, always moving and laughing, became anything but. +

A cruel pain takes over his chest again.

Friends would often joke about the two, so inseparable and connected they were, "Who would Bokuto and Akaashi be without each other?" and now it would be the time to find out. +

He must have cried so hard that he fainted, for next thing he knows he's in bed. There is someone in the room, but it's not who he wants, it's not who it should be. He speaks to him words that don't reach his ears, except for "funeral", one that is to be held in a week. +

He calls out to his beloved over and over again, he begs the heavens to bring him back. He knows death is the only certainty in life, but he was the one who was supposed to go first — how is he supposed to live when his world is no more. +

Now, all he can do is sob uncontrollably, tears never ending as he hugs Akaashi to his chest, wailing so painfully. +

At first, all he could manage was calling out for Akaashi incessantly, wide eyes and eyebrows furrowed, shock and pain overtaking him, grasping at Akaashi as if collecting all the wisps of life that wanted to leave, forcing them to stay. +

Bokuto's world is gone.

Bokuto wasn't the type to have a hard time crying. He could shed tears watching a movie, get emotional with a song, feel sad and frustrated enough that he had to cry a little. But he was never one to sob so. +

There he goes; with a tear falling down his face, there goes his last breath, his last wisp of life.

There he is; unmoving, cold, gone, but eyes still open, and somehow, though now lifeless, the love in then is still evident. +

But at least it's happening in his lover's arms. Bokuto had been so many of his firsts, and now he'll be all his last moments — the last thing he sees, the last sound he hears, the last touch he feels. It's a good way to pass, he finds, he's content. +

His time has come. It's time to say goodbye. Though they've lived long enough to say they lived a life together, it's not enough. Anything short of forever is not enough for them. +

It's getting harder to see, harder to hear — he knows Bokuto is saying something, but he can't tell what. It's getting colder, and he can no longer do anything other than look at him, smile on his face and eyes quickly losing their life, but never their love and admiration of the other. +

a love he knows only the truly lucky ones get to live. But it's over now, it's time to leave. They've lived so much and so long, and yet, he can't help but be greedy for more. +

he won't get to see him anymore, he won't be there to kiss or hold him, to laugh and cry with him, to make love with him, but still so inexplicably grateful and satisfied for the life he had by his beloved's side, grateful for a love so gentle, so whole, so true, +