I often think about how we met. How I saw you roll on your skateboard, that jaded expression stuck on your face. How your eyes scanned me, and a hint of curiosity flickered in your eyes. How cool your skateboard was. How you hopped off it with a swift, deft gesture, and ran by my side, looking so bored as though you hadn't just pulled the coolest move ever. How cool you were.

It was, by then, the first time I truly talked to a kid my age. There weren't a lot of kids on Whale Island. Everything you said was interesting and new. You had seen so much of the world, so much I hadn't seen.

I didn't know, by then, that I had met my best friend. The person who would never leave my side, never give up on me, never stop believing in me. The person who followed me through every foolish decision and every tantrum. The person who never abandoned me, even in my darkest times, even when I had abandoned myself. The person who saved me when no one else could. I couldn't know, after all. I couldn't know that I could be this blessed to come upon you. You never know, at first, how lucky you are when something happens to you.

You only know when it's gone.

A sigh escapes my lips. The sound is strange, breaking the silence of this cold room. It reeks of dust and rain and rust. I bite my lips, try to tear my eyes away from the walls and the steel bars that pierce through it like exposed veins in a cadaver. Outside, the rain is still pouring like marbles on a glass window, extinguishing a raging fire. Columns of smoke raise from the mess.

I look away. It seems like everywhere I look, I still feel the pang of regret in my chest. The despair that bites and gnaws, a leech on a dying animal. The guilt. The sorrow and the helplessness. They are everywhere, thick like a fog, dark like the night. I feel them in the dampness of the walls and the distant sound of thunder, the floods of rain and the bitterness in my mouth.

I drown back in my thoughts.

I down back to warmer times in Greed Island, to the soft embrace of the sun and the hopeful perspectives before us. I remember what I told you, then. That I was glad I had met you. I meant it when I said that, you know? I really was happy to have met you. I still am. No matter what happened, No matter how many times I doubted, this is a certainty I had allowed myself to keep. You were my best friend, and meeting you was a turning point in my life. I would never regret that. The regret can have everything, but it won't take this one from me.

And it won't have all the moments we spent together either. Those are mine, and yours, and I let myself revisit them again. All the moments we spent together. The fights, the plans, the schemes, the trainings. The smiles, the candies we shared, the games you tried to teach me. The arguments. The laughs. The talk in the forest, when I said you could travel with me until you find your goal. The way you agreed. Your gaze, which I couldn't quite decipher at the time, because I didn't know yet what an old soul was, and it seemed so far from what I was. I didn't know I would come to know, someday, too. And I didn't know this moment would come so soon.

I close my eyes. When I reopen them, I feel some kind of nostalgia inside of me. It sits there and grows, sprawling in my whole being like a cat, lazy and determined not to move. I see us running in Whale Island, fishing, taking a bath. I see your mesmerized eyes when you see my house, my room, my wooden bathroom. My aunt. You looked shy at first, a bit embarrassed. But you quickly became used to Aunt Mito and Grandma, and they pretty much adopted you as part of the family. Well, rightfully so. You are the brother I never had. My soulmate. My best friend in the world.

My lips quiver. The words stay at the back of my throat. I want to say them again. But I'm afraid I will collapse. I open my mouth, but it has gone dry, and my voice seems lost somewhere I can't find it, somewhere in the void inside me that expands and begs. So, I close it, and reminisce. I look back at our journey, our jokes, our trips. I look back at the time we spent together with Leorio and Kurapika, the warm moments when I felt like home while being so far from it. It soothes me, but also slays through me. I look back, because I cannot look at you right now, next to me. Because I cannot look forward. Not now. And perhaps, not ever.

"You are my best friend in the world," I finally manage, the words clear and heartfelt. Warm and truthful. The single reality in this maze of nightmares. But the nightmares are real, and my reality is crumbling. "You are my best friend in the whole world," I repeat. My voice quivers. My eyes prickle. My breath is ragged. My hands tremble.

You don't answer.

I gaze at your lifeless body lying on the floor, at the blood staining your white hair, and the void finally settles in my whole being.

You never will.

A/N: This is something I wrote some time ago, on a whim. I'm not sure how that happened, or why, but I just wanted to write it. That's all. Hope you like it!