He hated the smell of antiseptic soaked into your clothes. Hated the way your fingers had become colder over the months, even when he held them between both of his hands. Hated how weak your smile had gotten.

But most of all, he hated how helpless he was.

Because Itoshi Sae could fix everything else.

A bad match. A failing team. A broken strategy. Himself.

But not you.

Your heart was born fragile, the doctors said. A cruel thing, really—someone so full of love cursed with an organ too weak to hold it all. At first, it was manageable. Medication. Checkups. A few scares here and there. You laughed through most of it anyway, teasing Sae whenever he got too serious.

“You look scarier than the doctor,” you’d mumble from the hospital bed.

And Sae would click his tongue, adjusting your blanket with careful hands.

“Then stop making me come here.”

But he always came.

Always.

Even after overseas training. Even after exhausting matches where his muscles screamed and cameras followed him like vultures. Even when he looked half-dead himself, he still walked into your room carrying your favorite drinks and peeled fruit because you once mentioned hospital apples tasted sad.

He learned your medications by memory.

Learned the signs before an episode happened—the way your breathing shortened, how your fingertips trembled slightly before the pain began. He became terrifyingly observant. Watching. Monitoring. Waiting.

You once caught him staring at your chest while you slept.

Not your face.

Your chest.

Just to make sure it was still rising.

“You should sleep,” you whispered groggily.

Sae looked away immediately. “I am sleeping.”

“You’ve been awake for thirty minutes.”

“Tch.”

You laughed softly.

God, he would spend the rest of his life trying to remember that sound.

The worst part was that you never acted angry about dying.

You treated it like weather.

Like something inevitable.

One rainy evening, while the city lights blurred outside your apartment window, you laid against his chest listening to his heartbeat. Steady. Strong. Reliable.

You smiled faintly.

“I like yours.”

Sae frowned down at you. “What?”

“Your heart.”

Silence.

“It sounds healthy.”

Something inside him snapped.

“Don’t talk like that.”

You blinked.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re already gone.”

Your expression softened immediately, and somehow that hurt even more.

“I’m sorry.”

“No.” His voice came out sharp. Broken around the edges. “Don’t apologize either.”

He held you tighter after that. So tight it almost hurt.

As if pressure alone could keep your soul inside your body.

Sae became desperate near the end.

Desperation looked ugly on him.

He argued with specialists. Flew doctors in from different countries. Threw money at treatments with microscopic success rates. He stopped sleeping properly. Stopped eating regularly. Stopped showing up to interviews unless absolutely necessary.

Articles started calling him “withdrawn.”

“Cold.”

“Mentally absent on the field.”

They didn’t know he spent nights sitting beside your bed counting every breath you took because he was terrified one of them would be the last.

You noticed it all.

Of course you did.

One night, you reached for his face weakly and brushed your thumb beneath his eye.

“You look tired.”

Sae leaned into your palm before he could stop himself.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.”

“I know.”

Your breathing crackled slightly.

The room was dark except for the dim hospital light beside you both.

“I think…” you whispered slowly, “I’m scared now.”

For months, Sae thought he had prepared himself.

Thought he was the strong one between you.

But hearing that tiny confession in your shaking voice destroyed him completely.

He climbed carefully into the hospital bed beside you despite the nurses protesting before, wrapping both arms around your fragile body.

And for the first time in his life—

Itoshi Sae cried.

Not prettily.

Not quietly.

His shoulders shook violently as he buried his face into your neck, clutching you like he could fuse your bodies together and keep you alive through sheer force.

“I can’t do this,” he choked out.

You stroked his hair weakly.

“Yes, you can.”

“I don’t want to.”

Your eyes burned.

Neither did you.

The morning you died was painfully ordinary.

Gray skies.

Half-finished tea on the table.

Your hand limp in his.

Sae had fallen asleep for the first time in nearly two days with his forehead resting against your knuckles.

And when he woke up—

The monitor was flat.

At first, he just stared at it.

Like he didn’t understand.

Like his brain physically could not process what he was seeing.

Then he looked at you.

Your face looked peaceful.

Too peaceful.

“Mr. Itoshi?”

A nurse entered quietly.

No response.

He touched your cheek.

Warm, but cooling.

“No.”

His voice sounded distant. Unfamiliar.

“No.”

The nurse approached carefully, but Sae jerked away violently when she tried touching you.

“No, she’s sleeping.”

His voice cracked harder this time.

“She’s just sleeping.”

The nurse’s expression shattered.

And Sae—

Sae kept repeating it.

Over and over.

Until the words stopped sounding real.

After the funeral, he disappeared. Not physically, Emotionally.

Training became mechanical. Interviews reduced to one-word answers. He stopped replying to messages unless necessary. Stopped caring about headlines. Stopped caring about football some days.

His apartment remained untouched. Your mug still sat beside the sink, your cardigan still hung over the couch, your slippers still waited near the door.

Sae couldn’t move them.

Because moving them meant admitting you were never coming back.

Sometimes he swore he heard you humming in the kitchen.

Sometimes he turned around expecting to see you asleep on the couch.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he reached across the bed searching for your body before reality slammed into him all over again.

The grief made him hollow. Heavy. Rotting from the inside out.

He stopped understanding time. Days blurred together until Rin finally showed up one evening and froze upon seeing him.

Sae looked awful. Sunken eyes, unshaven, blank.

Like someone had carved everything human out of him and left behind only a shell wearing his face.

Rin opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Then quietly;

“…You need to eat.”

Sae stared at the wall.

“She used to remind me too.”

And that—that was the first moment Rin realized his brother was truly destroyed.

Months later, Sae still talked to you sometimes.

While standing in empty rooms.

“I scored today.”

Silence.

“The pass was shit though.”

Silence.

“…You would’ve complained about my attitude.”

More silence.

And somehow that was the cruelest part—the world kept moving; people still laughed outside, trains still ran, matches still happened.

But yours didn’t.

Your world ended while everyone else continued living like nothing catastrophic had happened.

Like you had not taken entire galaxies of him with you when you left.

And Sae hated them for it.

Because how dare the world keep spinning—when you no longer existed in it?

Sae Itoshi sat alone in his apartment, the silence deafening. He looked around at the empty rooms, the untouched furniture, the dust bunnies growing in the corners. It felt like a museum, a place where time had stopped. And he hated it.

He hated the way the sun still rose every morning, like nothing had changed. He hated the way people still smiled at him, like they didn't know. Like they didn't understand.

He hated the way he still felt so fucking alone.

He picked up the framed picture of you two, your smiles wide and carefree. You were sitting on the edge of a cliff, your legs dangling over the side. Sae remembered that day. The wind had been strong, your hair whipping around your face. You had laughed, your eyes sparkling with joy. And Sae had felt invincible, like nothing could ever hurt you. Like nothing could ever take you away from him.

But it did.

And now, Sae felt like a stranger in his own life. Like a ghost haunting the shell of his former self. He looked at the picture, your face frozen in time, and he felt a pang of jealousy. Jealousy that you were at peace, that you were no longer suffering. Jealousy that you had left him behind.

He put the picture down, his hands trembling. He knew what he had to do. He had to end this. He had to end the pain, the loneliness, the constant reminder of what he had lost. He had to end it all.

The room is silent, the only sound the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. Sae Itoshi sits on the edge of his bed, a small bottle of pills clutched tightly in his hand. He stares at them, his heart pounding in his chest. He knows what he has to do. He has to end this. He has to end the pain, the loneliness, the constant reminder of what he has lost.

He unscrews the cap, his hands shaking slightly. He pours the pills into his palm, his eyes fixed on the tiny white discs. They glint in the soft light, innocent and harmless. But he knows better. He knows the destruction they can cause.

He takes a deep breath, bringing the pills to his mouth. He hesitates for a moment, his mind flashing back to a time when things were different. A time when he was happy. A time when you were still here.

But that time is gone. And he is left with nothing but pain and loneliness. He closes his eyes, his heart aching, and swallows the pills.

Sae Itoshi collapses onto the floor of his bathroom, his body wracked with pain. He had taken the pills, all of them, and now he's paying the price. He can feel his heart slowing, his breaths coming in shallow gasps. He knows he's dying, and he's terrified.

But amidst the fear, there's a strange sense of peace. He's finally going to be with you again. He closes his eyes, his mind flashing back to the last time he saw you. Your smile, your laugh, the way your eyes sparkled with life. He misses you so much.

He reaches out, his hand trembling as he tries to touch your face one last time. But there's nothing there. Just empty air. He opens his eyes, looking around the room, hoping to see you, to hear your voice one last time. But there's nothing. Just the cold, hard tile of the bathroom floor.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, his body convulsing as the poison courses through his veins. He's dying, and he's alone. And he's never felt more miserable in his entire life.

Suddenly, amidst the crushing pain that engulfed his body, he recalled your voice so vividly that it caused his throat to tighten.

“Please… live for me.”

You said it often. Softly, like it wasn’t something that would outlive you. And long after you were gone, it stayed—less a memory than a wound that kept reopening, a reminder that you were still speaking to him from a place he could never follow.

Sae squeezed his eyes shut.

"I'm sorry, my love," he whispers, his voice barely audible. "Forgive me for being selfish. I just can't live without you."

A tear slipped down his cheek as his eyes fluttered shut.

“…Please wait for me,” he breathed.

Then softly, like a prayer spoken only for you:

“I’m coming home.”

And alone in the silence of the apartment that had once held all his happiness—

Itoshi Sae followed you at last.