18

Dear Diary,

I did it today. I told him. It hurts, but it will get better, right? It's not like I have much time left... It'll be better..for the both of us. I don't want him to see me suffer."

Luhan

Hot tears poured down the boy's flushed cheeks, staining the messily written little entry. Blotches of black and gray tainted the pale paper, once again.

Two years have passed since that one, faithful day that ruined his life: but Luhan was glad:

New treatments have been discovered for the illness crushing his heart bits by bits, only to be deemed more dangerous than useful. His parents had struggled to pay for them in hope of grasping onto the last rays of hope; only to have their faith broken, again and again.

Their only son, their baby was fading rapidly and no treatment could help.

Oddly enough, no one seemed to notice,

Surely, Luhan had always been excellent in acting. Of course: there had been a reason for him to want to become an actor. He had always admired how people changed when they set their foot on the stage: they could be anything from princes and princesses to evil witches or doctors, those that could whisk away all their patients' problems just by words.

He had always wished that life was that easy.

Shaking his head a little, he hid his tiny book under his pillow before standing up, wincing as the mere movement evoked a sharp pain in his chest.
"Luhan, are you up?" he heard his mother yell."School starts in an hour!"

The boy shouted his reply as he dragged himself to his wardrobe. He pulled out a couple of clothes, not quite caring about what they were. Within just some minutes, he was fully dressed: clad in black jeans and a grey sweater. He ran a brush through his thinning hair before heaving a sigh: he looked horrible.

"Another day in hell." He whispered with a sad smile before rushing downstairs. His sweet mother was standing in the middle of their grand kitchen, pink apron tied around her waist.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart!" she greeted him with a large grin."I can't even believe you are 18.." she added."My baby boy has grown up so quickly!" she kept on rambling; eyes filled with unshed tears."Oh Luhan.." she said suddenly, pulling him close.

"Mom, stop!" the frail boy groaned out, sniffing a little."The doc said two years max." he added, reminding her of the cruel reality they were forced to call theirs. The day he had found out about the lingering illness in his body, he had just turned sixteen...

"Well, you don't look like you will drop dead any moment to me," the woman teased, ruffling her son's hair lovingly."Baby, you're on a new medicine and it seems to be working, you know that very well. So raise your chin and act like the winner you are, alright?"

"Mom, I didn't win this battle. And I won't." the boy's words were harsh but his deep brown eyes were laced with pain: all he wanted was his mother to finally give up on forcing him to try new ways to get 'better'. Most of the time, they only made him realise just how little chance he had to live until his next birthday.

He had been sick for two years, but it seemed like an eternity had passed since he had been rushed to the hospital after partying out with his friends. At first, the doctors believed that he had drunk a bit too much; but quickly, they came to the conclusion that something else was going on. His heart was smaller than it should have been - or so he had been explained, he still couldn't quite understand why that was a problem - and its beats were limited. Obviously, there was more to this, but Luhan never actually cared: the only thing that mattered to him was that he was going to die.

He sat down at the table as he pulled away from his mother, eyes falling on his bland cereal. He was on a strict diet, and not even on his birthday could he even dream of eating something sweet like cake or chocolate. He shrugged that little fact off and started eating, eyes kept on his food.

"Your father is coming home today..." his mother informed him, sitting down with a soft sigh. The cheerful mask she had worn just moments ago had been broken by her son's obvious indifference: she couldn't keep on pretending, not when he kept on reminding her about just how little time he had left."Why don't you invite your friends over? You haven't hang out with them for a while, not even Sehunnie."

"Mom, I..." Luhan despised lying to his mother, but he couldn't just tell her that he had no friends anymore. Sometimes, he stayed out late and said that he had  hang out with them, but lately, he usually felt too sick to stay out after school.

He knew that he shouldn't have even gone there in the first place, but he wanted to die after graduating.

"Okay sweetheart, I get it. You'd rather spen