Disclaimer: Haru-Sari and its characters = keiiii, not me. Aren't you glad?
Author: Empress Sarah aka Sarah Riddle

Inextirpable

Another day, another visit. Soon, he knew, his visits to her would stop.

The door opened to his key that she had, finally, given him and entered her small apartment. Once inside, routine took over and a visit to the kitchen had him pouring water into a glass from the tap.

He then made his way to her side and, though his face held no expression, she smiled weakly in greeting. A cursory glance around her bedside told him that he had been there. He had dared to have the gall to even speak to her after everything that had happened. A weak-sounding cough broke him free from his thoughts and brought his attention back to her.

Her lips looked dry and he gently brought the glass of water he had prepared in the kitchen to her dry-cracked lips.

"Don't... leave..." How could he refuse her request, asked as it was to him with eyes pleading not to be left alone as she awaited Death's cold, tender, hated, soothing embrace? She said no more to him, though he could tell she desired to speak that which was on her mind.

He told her of his day's events, of his upcoming week with his appointments and his meetings. She absorbed it all, grateful for the distraction he provided.

"I'm sorry," he told her - it had taken him months to finally be able to do so. The amusement that danced in her fading eyes told him that she the understood and that she did not blame him in the slightest for what was happening to her body. After all, he had done his best - that was all she had ever asked for. That, and his friendship. They each had been so alone...

The past three years that he had known her, had been her friend, seemed within the brush of his fingertips and yet so hard to reach. He could not even begin to imagine how his life would have been had he never met her. However, the danger, the intrigue, the psychotics, and the ECA he could definitely have lived without and quite happily at that.

A sigh escaped his lips before he could catch the breath. He was so tired. But he knew he could not rest - not until...

A rather fond memory filled his mind of an afternoon that he had spent together with June. It was on one of his days off, and they had gone to the park to enjoy the surrounding nature as they chatted. He remembered, quite clearly, the sun as it warmed her. The softest of glows had accentuated her warm smile, her eyes twinkling with happiness, momentarily hiding the constant pain. That day had been one of her good ones and she spent it to the fullest. Perhaps it had not been her wisest decision ever made, but what did it really matter when you were going to die anyway? Why not take any and every opportunity life threw at you?

His failing, he knew, lay in his self-serving nature. There were only two people in his life that he was genuinely fond of, and one of them was right in front of him, dying from a disease that slowly ate away at her. As he willed her to see past his aloofness, to see the feelings, the regard he held for her deep inside, he thought he saw an answering love in June's eyes just before they faded forever. The hand in his fell limp and his eyes clouded with tears long tired of being held back.

A while later, he released the cold, limp hand, stood, and left her apartment. He had something to do before he joined her in death - something that would make sure no one would ever forget his name. His visits to her were now stopped, but Doctor Chi-Min Huang would leave behind a legacy so terrible, no one would ever forget his existence. Not even him. He would suffer the most.

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