The last few weeks went by with little to no commotions. Almost no commotions, even. With Renjun spending nearly all twenty four hours of the day sleeping, there was truly nobody that Jeno could rouse up for any round of random s that they usually do together. 

 

He wasn’t always 100% sure if Renjun was sleeping, or if he was already half dead, as he only ever woke up to do two of his favourite things. Helping his mom prepare lunch, and greeting Jeno when he came around to his house just to check if, “you’re still breathing or not.”

 

On that particular late afternoon, Jeno felt a pang of panic when he walked inside Renjun’s ever so meticulously tidy room, because he looked so peaceful in his “sleep”. More so than usual, with both his arms crossed over his stomach and colourless face framed by his fluffy pillow. A thought, so strong yet so fleeting, crossed his mind and Jeno was just about to start thinking of ways to break the news to Mrs. Huang and Sicheng when a loud wheeze rumbled from the direction of the bed. And so he knew, that they would at least have another day to spend together. 

 

The steps he took were unsure, as they always were. And Jeno was so careful when he sat at the uppermost corner of the bed that he didn’t disturb even the smallest crease on Renjun’s duvet. Careful. Everything has to be done so carefully, especially then, when Renjun was lost in the rare times where he felt only peace and painlessness. Because then was the only time where Jeno could ever show his true emotions around him. All the sadness, all the pity. The need for forgiveness and the desire for more. 

 

It was terribly unfair, the way Renjun treated him. Because he was the last person Renjun still hasn’t allowed to fully take care of him. Sicheng has always occupied a special place in Renjun’s heart, so it wasn’t a surprise when he melted so quickly under his brother’s care. And by then, Jeno could tell that Renjun has lost all the energy and strength to stop his mom from babying him from his waking hour to the last second of his consciousness at night, as if he was back to being just a helpless toddler. “It’ll help her in the long run,” Jeno remembered him saying once, when Mrs. Huang left the room after feeding him his lunch that was accompanied through it all by Renjun’s whines for her to ‘not do this in front of Jeno, God, Ma you’re embarrassing me’ and Jeno politely muffling his laughter. “She feels guilty for this, I know it. I can’t convince her otherwise so the least I could do is… well…”

 

He thought accepting her help and allowing her to take care of him was the least he could do. The last thing he could do to her as the ever dutiful son that he was. But when it comes to Jeno, even allowing him to give a helping hand when Renjun wanted to take a short walk around the neighborhood would be a miracle. 

 

I can still do this. I can still do that. I don’t need your help. Don’t worry about me. 

 

How could he not? When it looked like Renjun was always in the verge of throwing up the entirety of his shrivelled up intestines and especially now, especially after he’d gotten himself another company in the form of a tall metal cage for his IV drip. Sleeping like this, he looked more frail than the thin and rickety pole that swayed even with just the merest blow of wind. Jeno could’ve accidentally sat on one of Renjun’s limbs and he was sure it would be enough to break it into a mess beyond repair.

 

Just like his hair, and how they easily crumbled with just the merest pressure. All coarse and sticking to his forehead like dried out wads of seaweed. So unlike the soft, warm fluff that Jeno remembered he had not even three months ago. Jeno wondered when was the last time he had a bath and such image of long lost normalcy sent a numbing pain that shot straight to the centre of his heart. 

 

‘Why won’t you die quicker,’ by that point, Jeno wasn’t even surprised anymore when he found himself capable of thinking such macabre thought, ‘die tonight. Please,’ as he couldn’t bear this any longer. He couldn’t bear being the brunt end of Renjun’s selfish desire to still be seen as a well-functioning member of the society, the only person left on Earth that he hasn’t yet allowed to acknowledge and greet death that has been sitting on the couch at the corner of Renjun’s room for the last week or so. Even if, at the start, Jeno has always been one of, if not the first person to know each and every single morbid thoughts that Renjun nurtured inside his brain. ‘What changed?’ he thought, as he absentmindedly swept his finger over Renjun’s grimy forehead to tidy the unruly strands of his coarse hair. 

 

He remembered how warm Renjun’s smile would look when his mom does this to him. That hidden smile he surely thought nobody could see. Just an unconscious reflection of how he truly felt before the rest of the world came crashing down on him and a more familiar stony grin took over his light innocence to cover it with a painfully obvious veil of don’t worry about me.

 

How grim. Such occasion would usually drag Jeno’s mood down to the gutter because it would remind him of how alone he is in this world. As not even someone who he trusted, and trusted him back, was able to bare their true selves even in the face of death. Lies. His strength, his ignorance, his acceptance. All of them amounted to nothing as they were all just lies he told for the sake of Jeno and Jeno alone. 

 

“Why won’t you tell me,” he said in a hush. Not even a whisper. His exhaustion caused the entirety of his body to feel like it was stuffed with wet cotton balls and Jeno couldn’t stop gravity from hunching himself over Renjun’s bed, resting his heavy head on the cool cotton pillowcase with a tired sigh. After a whole day of school and two science tests, he was way too tired for this. Will Renjun be mad at him if he joined in for a quick nap?

 

Like a cat that knew its days are numbered and would then began to seek for its final hiding place, Jeno knew this would be his last later. He knew he didn’t have anymore luxury left inside his already meager deposit box. And so without thinking, and while still remembering how selfish Renjun’d been acting for the last few hellish months, Jeno tilted his head and grazed his lips on Renjun’s temple. If You’re kind, allow me this.

 

But Jeno’s You was not kind. They were not kind nor were they generous. As not even a second has passed when he felt Renjun began to stir under his weary fingers. They both moved in slow, knowing pace, like two criminals sent on a doomed heist and could do nothing else but accept their fate when they heard police sirens seeping into their consciousness from the distance.

 

The look Renjun gave him carried in it strength that betrayed the sunken, purplish skin stretching around his eyes. 

 

“What are you doing.” Renjun always has this signature mumble everytime he attempted to speak so soon after waking up. So the fact that he sounded so stable and collected when he said his enquiry made Jeno wonder, ‘how long has he been lucid?’  

 

If Renjun was healthy, and he found himself stuck in situations that he didn’t want to ever find himself stuck on, he would’ve went ahead and give Jeno a potent whack over the top of his head. He would’ve scolded him, called him an idiot, something. Anything but this terrifyingly out of character display of defeat and uncaringness as he only laid on his bed, his eyes the only thing that moved when Jeno slipped from the corner of the bed and ended up kneeling on the floor. 

 

“Don’t do things you will regret in two weeks time.” There was a little scoff hidden beneath his hoarse voice, before Renjun attempted to tilt his gaze away from the side where Jeno was haunting him like a bizarre form of sleep paralysis. Though there needed to be an emphasis on the word attempted. Because in his own brand of selfishness, Jeno used what scarce resources he had and simply used a finger to stop Renjun from doing the thing he’d been doing all those times before. Wasting their time, wasting his own precious time, by escaping from something he didn’t need to escape from. The split second changes on Renjun’s emotional caleidoscope told him so much more about what he felt compared to any mindless chats they’ve had for the last few months. And to think that this was something they could have sooner. Even if just for a week. 

 

At least Renjun settled on a smile. A defeated smile, still. But a smile nevertheless. Because Jeno wouldn’t be able to say what he said next if he settled on something that came before that. The little grimace of fear. 

 

“I won’t.” He said, letting his voice filling the stagnant air of such a peaceful afternoon. With how close they physically were, Jeno didn’t have to pick up his voice to anything above a lazy whisper. But his desperation wouldn’t stop nagging him from the back of his mind and Jeno had to let out a cough in order to repeat what he said, clearer. “Regret it, that is. I won’t regret it.”

 

“Don’t look at me like that, please. ” Jeno could tell from his tone, from how his eyes were turning glassy, that Renjun wanted nothing more but to be left alone. He could’ve had his privacy, if only he didn’t push this conversation so close to its expiry date. Jeno would’ve let him go, but Renjun’s helplessness only further fueled the simmering contempt residing deep in the pit of his stomach, and it disgusted him, the fact that he had to pick that moment to learn the extent of his greed. How he only did what he did because Renjun no longer was able to retaliate. But everything had mixed inside his stomach as a nausea inducing, putrid vat of vile emotions and Jeno could no longer care to tell which is which. Which is love, which is disgust, which is pity, he no longer knew. He could only do. And so he did.  

 

Caressing Renjun’s cheeks was an easy thing. Jeno only needed to bring his fingers just a tiny fraction forward and he could feel Renjun’s skin sizzling underneath his fingertips. His forehead, the bridge of his nose, the border of his trembling lips. He hated himself for not having the dignity of a stronger will but he was exhausted. Stripped to the whites of his bone and Jeno could only move his hand to the sickening sweet scent that rolled out of every pores on Renjun’s very being like moths would to a flickering UV trap. 

 

“We could’ve,-”

 

“Don’t,- don’t say… could have. Or would have. Or what if or… or useless  like that,” he flailed his arm to the general direction of Jeno’s face as a way to chide him for his silliness. A gesture that screamed of, ‘don’t beat yourself over it, stupid. It’s fine.’ But then, if it was fine, why only now? Jeno wanted to ask back. He realised that just like an onion with its layers, with each truth, Jeno only found another secret lurking underneath. And he was reminded of the grim fact that he could never know someone else as well as he knew himself. At least never completely. “That’s torture. I don’t want you to torture yourself.” 

 

“But we’ve wasted our time.”

 

“No, don’t. It’s just…” his arm slid down the side of Jeno’s face, flopping right on top of his open palm, like an acceptance to the blatant invitation of a hand hold. Jeno didn’t waste any second to grab onto it as if it was the only lifeline stopping him from falling into an uncharted cliff drop. “ God, it would’ve been so much easier for you if I just tell you that… that I never did , wouldn’t it? That it’s all in your head, it’s stupid, it’s silly… but,-”

 

This was the most Renjun’s spoken for the last week and Jeno found himself hanging to each and every syllable as if he was a religious fanatic (so much so that he caught the soundless whispers that nearly caused Jeno’s heart to cease working from sheer remorse from all the ghosts of their missed opportunities. ‘We promised to never say’ ) . “But me? This selfish, dying prick? Thinking of what’s best for others? Groundbreaking.” Renjun went to pinch the bridge of his nose with his free hand, and the metal tower swayed beside him. Dangerously so, as if one more uncharted move would’ve caused it to crash lifelessly to the ground. Just like its owner. Renjun’s lips were trembling in an attempt to keep his emotions in and he hoped that all it took for him to fall was a firm squeeze of his hand, courtesy to Jeno. Who, is himself a very, very selfish person. 

 

“If I care about what others think, I would’ve kept on trying,” but when Renjun took his hand away from his face, it was dry. No tears, no pain, no regret. So unlike the waterworks that were silently rushing down Jeno’s two, bloodshot eyes. 

 

“What we did, we did, what we didn’t, we didn’t and whatever it was, it was enough. Please… please don’t think that we’ve wasted anything. All the time we’ve spent,- well… we’ve spent it well. Don’t you think?”

 

Jeno could only nod at that. Finally learning from the master of hiding their pain, Jeno flashed Renjun an understanding smile. Even though the regret that he felt, all the time they’ve wasted, no matter if Renjun told him a thousand times to not ruminate on them , were still eating holes inside his heart like they were a soggy, termite infested block of wooden garbage. Renjun patted the back of his hand then, as if saying that he understood. You always wanted to know how I feel, his eyes seemed to say, there you go.

 

“I don’t want to force anything,” Renjun added soon after. And the pause he took, accompanied with the little squeeze that he gave around Jeno’s hand, served as a clue that Renjun perfectly knew of the implications that will come after he said whatever he was about to say next. “because you’re the one that has to live with the consequences.” and that’s selfish. 

 

But let them be selfish. Let him be. Let him ruin his own heart in doing increasingly stupid impulsive acts because how else was Jeno supposed to remember Renjun after he was gone but for the pain he’d caused him to feel? He perfectly knew the consequences. 

 

Ignorance is bliss and he no longer wanted it. 

 

“I love you.” 

 

“I know.”

 

“I love you.” 

 

“I know.” Humans are weak, Jeno knew that. But the strength of their pride is something not even death could rattle and that was something he would always mourn over. But this was one of the consequences that he knew could entail his reckless behaviour and he was confident that there wasn’t any ounce of regret hiding behind the smile that he gave in return to Renjun’s. “I know. Thank you, Jeno. Thank you.” 

 

Maybe that was just another way for Renjun to give mercy for those he knew would suffer after he left them behind. The last thing he could do to thank Jeno, who’d been following him around on his macabre whims. But he didn’t mind. Strangely, Jeno didn’t mind even if it was just that. As regret from failing to get something you’ve tried out for will always be less painful than the regret that comes from unrealised fantasies you knew you’ll never be able to live out. 

 

They heard clinks of stainless cutlery hitting against porcelain plates and knew the last of their private pockets of time has been pierced. Time to restart the countdown and go back to reality, “I hate this,” Renjun pointed at the IV drip tower, “makes me feel even sicker than I already am.”

 

“Maybe they’re giving you morphine,” Jeno said, helping Renjun up from his bed with one firm tug of his outstretched hand. He found it magical how easy for them to slip back to how they were before, perfectly telling him that his impulsivity and Renjun’s mercy existed only in an alternate dimension already left behind in their past.

 

“So now not only am I a weed addict, I’m also a morphine addict?”

 

“Truly a criminal.”

 

They then sat together on the dining table, eating like a family on one gloomy Thursday afternoon. The two of them were playing with pieces of grilled chicken, throwing it around with their chopsticks and cheering everytime they managed to throw it into the small dipping sauce bowl. Sicheng could only shake his head at all the chaos, and their mom a happy spectator, overseeing everything with a serene smile on her face. 

 

 

_

 

Jeno has put himself through countless of imaginary scenarios of how it’ll happen. So often, in fact, that the string of events have ceased to be seen as morbid to him, and instead took in something that felt more like dull pangs of warm intimacy. Shamelessly revelling in that feeling of relief and forced camaraderie that Renjun’s death would bring.

 

One scenario had him dying while they were playing a round of Mario Kart, Renjun choking on his own saliva or a piece of spicy macaroni chips and Jeno only realising that he was gone when his car careened off from a bridge. Another scenario had him dying, very dramatically, while working on his painting. A fitful coughing spell that stopped his heart and he’d watch as Renjun’s face plopped into the messy palette and clattered lifelessly on the floor. Or maybe something simple. Another sleepover, another late night talks, another peaceful morning, only this time Renjun didn’t wake up. He would cry on Sicheng’s pajama and he could finally give their mom a hug that doesn’t feel too painfully awkward.

 

But on each and every one of it, Jeno always thought, always believed that there’ll be something that made it stand out from the rest of his day. Something abnormal, something extraordinary.

 

He hoped it’ll happen on a Friday, ideally on a Saturday, so he could lose himself in the luxury of his own home without having to socialise too much with people that wear those unbearable pitying masks, as Renjun liked to call them.

 

He didn’t expect it to happen on a Tuesday morning, that one he was sure. 7 AM, right after he turned off his alarm clock.

 

‘One last thing he did to spite me,’ that thought flitted into his mind when he picked up a call from Sicheng, in which they spent the first ten seconds only simmering in knowing silence, ‘one last thing he did to turn my life into a living hell.’

 

“Is he,-”

 

“Yes.” Contrasted to his miraculously stable tone, Sicheng’s nasal, mumbly voice caused him to feel as if he was a tad bit insensitive. Or even worse, glad.

 

“Oh.” He didn’t know if it was due to shock, he didn’t know if after spending so much time getting prepped for it, he’d managed to bypass the first four stages of grief and teleported himself right on acceptance? But he knew that he was being unnaturally calm about all this, which turned out to be a good thing, as he could tell that Sicheng was using his composure as a lifeline to tether himself back to Earth. “How…?”

 

“In his sleep,” he heard Sicheng let out a long overdue exhale, and also a smile, lightening up his sentence as it came to completion, “just like how he’d wanted it.”

 

“Just like how he’d always wanted it…” Jeno sat up on his bed and peeked at the top of his curtained windows, trying to see, and engrave in his brain, how the sky looked when he finally got the phone call. Cloudless blue. How fitting. “Thankyou for telling me. Do you want me to come over later today?”

 

“It’s… we…,“ he found it amusing that brothers do act alike. The way Sicheng hesitated reminded him of how Renjun was never able to refuse something that he truly wanted, and it caused Jeno to almost let slip a little laughter. Truly inappropriate.

 

In the end, he decided to help take the decision making process out of Sicheng’s hands and made both of their lives easier by giving him an undisputable offer, “don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

 

“… Thankyou, Jeno. Really.”

 

He was calm during the call. But unfortunately, he couldn’t remember what emotion came after calm.

 

Maybe he threw up all of his pulverised, acidic dinner after that. Maybe he sobbed so hard his cries seeped out of the bathroom in echoes, causing his parents to barge in, looking all terrified and panicked. Maybe they saw their son completely bawling his eyes out and they looked at each other, exchanging some sort of ‘and this is what we feared would happen’ look before they tried their best to console their child over a loss nobody that young should ever experience.

 

What happened after calm? He couldn’t remember.

 

Or maybe he made himself forget.

 

Either way, maybe that’s for the best.

 

_

 

“Do you want to see him?”

 

Sicheng, not-even-bothering-to-hide-his-tears Sicheng was the one who answered the door. It was nearing eleven in the afternoon but his excuse for why their ( his, now) mom was nowhere to be found was because she was getting ready to deal with all the formalities that came in the same package as their extended family.

 

“Of course.”

 

But truthfully, the word that he wanted to say was no. No, no, no he didn’t want to see. Why did he have to? With every step they took, first through their kitchen, then rounding up around the living room, then past the dining table until finally he could see the closed door of his bedroom, Jeno could feel the bile rising from the base of his empty stomach once again.

 

Empty. Just like the room. It’s just an empty room. Nobody’s in it. Why did he have to come in?

 

“Will you be okay?” Sicheng asked, his hands already grasping the door handle but stopped short before pushing it open, “do you want me to… go with you?”

 

At first he thought that Sicheng was pitying him, and it nearly led to an automatic response of ‘get mad’ to kick in. But wait. Wait , his common sense told him, look closer. The way Sicheng looked at him was the complete opposite of pity. It was an almost maternal display of empathy that nearly caused Jeno to crumble under the pressure. He wanted to say yes, yes go in with me, hug me and coddle me and shelter me from all this messed up . But in the end he managed to scrape up whatever strength he had left and refused his offer with a final compulsive push of his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

 

“I’ll be fine.”

 

But fine, in this case, stands for freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.

 

_

 

He’s imagined this moment so many times before.

 

But Jeno had to quickly learn that no fantasy was ever enough.

 

No amount of knowledge, no amount of offhanded jokes, that now Jeno learned was just Renjun’s way to ease him into the concept of death that initially seemed to be such a taboo for him, was ever enough to ready him to face the real deal.

 

All of his five senses were instantly assaulted the moment he stepped inside the room. His skin heating up in a flare so intense it almost made him lost his balance. The unnatural stillness in the usually vibrant room caused his ears to ring as if their school bells were housed inside them. That sweet scent of fermented citrus swelled into something so strong it almost had its own personality, like two fingers jabbed right up his nose, luring up the bile to the back of his throat. Bitter. The acid stinging his tongue, just like the prickle of tears were blurring up his vision.

 

For the better, he thought, all for the better.

 

Because then he didn’t need to see, all that clearly, his first dead body. His first funeral procession of some sort.

 

His parents never let him go to any and yet there he was. Staring right at the eerily life-like, lifeless body of his former friend as he lied there on his meticulously made bed.

 

Morbid curiosity was the only reason why he bothered to trudge along and sat at the empty side of the bed, and not bailing out the room, out of the house, out of the city, pulling his hair out of his scalp like a mad man. Morbid curiosity, and Renjun’s request that asked him to touch his fingers and see if those CSI shows are true. To see if they really do get rigid, like they were made out of concrete. That, was the only reason why Jeno bothered to reach out and touch the pale, cold fingers of the body.

 

In a bizzare sort of way, Jeno instantly knew that it was the best decision he’d ever made. Because then he realised just how empty the body was after the soul, the driver, the brain or whatever it is that people believed in, has left the cockpit. This was not Renjun, this was just an empty jar that no longer housed him .

 

‘There was none of you left behind,’ Jeno thought, at least not in this realm that he’s living in, so why should he dwell on it? When there’s nothing left to be dwelt on?

 

And just like that, freedom.

 

At least for now. At least until it all came back to him when he came across something that reminded him of Renjun, and everything will wash over him like a rising tide in the morning. But for now, he was liberated, and after living with constant high-level anxiety for the last six months, Jeno had learned to cherish this scarce moments of relief as if it might be his last.

 

The darkness, the grief, the fear.

 

Bye for now.

 

Only a tinge of regret was left behind. But what is life if it was without regret? And so Jeno grasped on that feeling so hard, just as hard as he was grabbing on the former-Renjun’s rigid-digit.

 

“, this is crazy.” Jeno stifled a wet laughter with the sleeve of his sweater, before slapping his mouth with his open palm after he caught up with the fact that he’d just swore in front of a dead body.

 

But his blunder only caused his laughter to grow in volume, and in sincerity. By the end of his fit, Jeno only hoped that Sicheng heard sobbings , instead of laughter. “This is messed up,” he sighed, putting his glasses down on the tidy bed cover so he could easily wipe the tracks of tears from his cheeks, and pulling with them a small smile because he could suddenly hear a voice, so clear, as if the owner of that phantom sound was standing inside his brain, saying the words that were dripping with mischievousness,

 

‘You tell me.’

 

_

 

Jeno thought he’d walked into his own intervention when he stepped out of the bedroom, with Sicheng and their mom sitting on one side of the dining table and beckoning him to come over as they were each holding a colourful envelope, “he asked us to do this together.”

 

“Now?”

 

The answer came in the form of an envelope of his own, handed over by the red-eyed yet still ever so composed Mrs. Huang, “he told me so.”

 

A dark grey (Mommy Huang got a pastel purple and Sicheng, of course, a rich gold), thick envelope sealed with a wax seal and Jeno had to fight the urge of saying out loud, ‘why are you so extra?’ Instead, he weighed the envelope on his hand and said, “no lawyer needs to be present for this?”

 

Sicheng chuckled at his throwaway comment, and Mrs. Huang only gave him a polite laughter, as both were too busy carefully opening their envelopes and unfurling the pages of “will” that Renjun left for them. Especially written to be read while they were waiting for the hearse to come. Or so Renjun himself said, written on a small piece of paper separate from the pile of letters that lie underneath it.

 

“Dear Sicheng,”

 

His mom firmly swatted his arm when Sicheng suddenly, and unexpectedly, began reading his share of letters. She glared at him as if she was silently yelling, ‘respect his privacy!’ But then Sicheng pointed out the first line on his letter that said, “you can read this out loud or read this to yourself, I don’t mind. I’m already gone and may no longer feel any sense of embarrassment from people reading my writings. Proceed.”

 

Sicheng’s letters dealt with a considerably light-hearted family matters. Give my plushies to cousin A and B, and here’s the list of username and passwords of my social medias, just in case anyone is curious, kind of light-hearted. But he did give a long pause when he reached the last sheet of Renjun’s three-page essay, seemingly too engrossed with it to bother sharing it to everyone in the room. If Sicheng was choked up by a letter, then who was he to even attempt?

 

But just when Jeno was about to give up entirely and maybe excuse himself to the bathroom before flushing himself down to the septic tank, head first, Jeno found that there was a continuation to the preamble of Renjun’s letter,

 

“The choice is in your hand. Can you read out loud something so personal? Sicheng, I know you can. Mom? I don’t think so, please don’t force yourself. Jeno? Who am I kidding, you can’t even tell how you feel after you stubbed your toe. Better zip it.”

 

Jeno shared a meaningful look with Mrs. Huang after they both finished reading the prelude, after they finished listening to Renjun’s letter to Sicheng. She might’ve actually gave Jeno a sincere smile, and she might’ve also actually gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. The look in her eyes told him something that not even his mother had told him, ever before, ‘it’s ok if you decide to not do it. Whatever your choice is, I’ll be right here.’

 

‘I’m sorry Renjun but I might’ve actually be in love with your mom.’

 

 

_ _ _

 

 

 

Dear J,

 

I know you have reservations with the fact that we’ve only known each other for however long it was. Are we close enough friends for you to deserve this? The good, the bad, and the ugly? (And an honorary spot in my will?)

 

Of course, stupid.

 

Here’s the thing: up till this point, we’ve known each other for nearly a quarter of our lives (after subtracting the first five years because did you remember anything from that time period? I don’t think so). A quarter of one’s existence is a long time, don’t you think? A quarter for my mom is ten years. A quarter for you might be fifteen, twenty years. 

 

So if one day you ever doubt yourself, for whatever reason, remember. You’re my best friend for a quarter of my life. 

 

That’s massive. That’s significant. Ok?

 

And nothing can ever change that fact, becaus e the other half of this friendship equation is dead. So just take my word for it. 

 

Ok. So now we reach the will part of the letter.

 

Well, for you, I’m bequeathing all of my books and school notes (you lazy note taker), and some paintings. 

 

You’ll know which ones. 

 

(They’re the ones that feature your face on them).

 

Be proud. You could’ve been my Mona Lisa. But I died. Oh well. 

 

One last thing.

 

I promised you no sappy town, but just hear me out on this one. 

 

Remember me. 

 

You still have your whole life ahead of you and my one quarter might just be a one-thirtieth for you but please, remember me, because only by that can I live on (ok that’s creepy let me try it again).

 

Thank you Jeno. I can’t ever thank you enough for everything that you’ve done, and will do. I might’ve made fun of you for it in the past but yes, please. Please take care of my family. We’ve been friends for so long my mom and Sicheng would’ve seen a little bit of me in you in everything that you do. Your presence will surely help ease them into the concept of my non-presence (?). 

 

I know you love them, and you know they love you.

 

Just as much as I did. 

 

Oh yes, you know exactly what I mean (don’t lie about it, I know you do too. Sicheng said you are being so painfully obvious about it) . I went there. The dead person went there. 

 

Probably should’ve said it when I was still alive. But I thought ‘gosh, I’ve been so selfish, I can’t possibly die peacefully if I ended up leading him on a doomed relationship.’ So I didn’t. It’s easier to forget something that never started, right? I hope I did the correct thing. I hope I didn’t mess you up man. 

 

[I’ve written those down before you told me you love me, stupid. Now you have to live knowing you’ve ruined my plan. Just kidding. So here it is: the thing I failed to say to you because not even death could force me to show my tears in front of your face. (Because I don’t want you to remember me like that. Never.)

 

To your I love you, know that I love you too. 

 

I always have. Now you have to live knowing that, ok?]

 

To be fair, I didn’t know I would die this quickly. I thought I’d have more time to muster up some courage to say it to you in person. I guess that's a lesson for you going forward.

 

Ah well, there’s no use dwelling on the what if. 

 

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye. 

 

I’m okay now. It’s time for you to go out there and find your own quarter. 

 

 

_

 

“... and then he signed here with a love, Renjun , and a lip stain mark, I mean he’s silly,-”

 

Jeno’s words were cut as all air from his lungs were forcibly forced out in one strong puff, when he found himself being hugged to the inch of his life by both Sicheng and his mom.

 

They all were too busy snorting through waves after waves of tears and watery snot to talk, but Jeno could easily understand the message they were trying to convey.

 

From Sicheng’s patting his back, thankyou.

 

From Mrs. Huang’s soft sushing, you’re not alone.

 

From the warmth that spread from their tangled limbs, seeping through his own and curling around his heart in a tender embrace, you’ve always been family.

 

He knew it, from then on and going forward, it’s okay, it’s alright, it’s going to be fine.

 

Besides, it’s Renjun’s last will for him. To go out there and find his own quarter.

 

And so he will.