I do not own this anime. Understand that.

They both knew they needed to do this, for the sake of life. He wasn't strong anymore… and he's got a mission to fulfill, before his time runs out… and he's got to do it. Fast.

Yet he knew he was not mature enough to fulfill it.

It was not exactly an easy mission like all the things he'd done in the past, for this mission was 'love'. You know 'love'? the exact drippy-drippy, very romantic things that women rave about? It's the only thing he hasn't quite fulfilled.

He wanted to feel it badly, he needed to. Yet his heart won't kick in… his heart won't let him feel what he needed to. His heart was cruel.

Ha. Cruel. Like he was, and what was slowly but steadily fading from him.

"Hey." He hears a voice, a fragile, thin, yet spirited voice. "Come on. Don't be slack."

He obliges. Naturally.

=====****=====*****=====

He knows the pain that thug in his heart. It was the pain that he had to endure… at least, for the time being. He knows, in less than two or more months, he had to go.

But this pain was quite searing. He can't take it. He wanted it to disappear badly. Yet he was strong, he believed he was. And believing in himself was one of the qualities he knew that was born with him.

He calmly sits on one stone boulder nearby, stopping his youthful stride; delaying the journey he had to make with the girl that went with him, wherever he wanted to go next.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

He looked up to the blonde that came his way, laying her cool palm on the heat of his forehead. This girl… this girl was the only one who went with him through it all… even if it meant her freedom. She kept herself tied to him, for she knew that he needed her.

And he knew in his heart that he really did.

This girl held him all through the past months, the past months that spoke of devilishly endured pains that he kept in his chest. Pretty heady stuff, but she kept him grounded… He needed her by his side… especially now that everybody abandoned him. He has no use to them, anyway… he was abandoned.

But she stayed.

She dismissed all thoughts of everybody hating her; she dismissed all his doubts that say she pities him. She was a drop of water, and he was a wilting plant…

She knew his mission, and she clearly supports his purpose of staying alive, and not just being a living corpse.

The thought makes him smile now and then. It was funny, in his desperation; he sometimes lets the tiny thought that she actually loved him. He was that desperate. Who would believe him? This girl was stoic as hell, yet she has this extreme ability to be patient and to be very sacrificial. He bet she doesn't believe in the saying, time is gold.

"Hey, answer me, are you still okay there?"

He can't answer. The pain was slowly crawling up to his jaw, to his head, and he bet that his time was coming, right then, right there, without even fulfilling the mission he had to fulfill.

"Don't tell me," she gasps breathlessly.

This is no surprise, but he made it clear to her from the start. The things in front of her began to sink in, and she sighs in silent understanding.

He looks into her ocean-blue eyes, and sighs. Okay, well, this was hard. He was leaving everything behind, especially her. She had come very far from her, and she's just a little girl…

"Hey," he says quietly, and her eyes divert to his immediately.

"Need anything?"

"NO." he says, trying to make it easier.

"What, then?"

"I'm just curious." He sighs.

"Hm-hm."

"Did you ever love me, huh?" he sighs. There, he said it. After almost two months. The only thing that kept him hoping came out of his mouth.

She tries to keep back a gasp, but it passes readily out of her lips.

"So?"

She smiles.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't, right?" she asks, smiling.

He breathes easily now, and he smiles. "Thank you for doing so, though." He says.

She nods and stands up.

"Till next time." He says.

She nods again.

"Oh, by the way, I did love you, too."

She nods understandingly as his eyes give up on the world. His eyelids close. And at last, after almost two months, he did fulfill his mission. He found love in the arms of one girl that was already in the possession of his best friend.