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your every step shakes. your footsteps are ever so quiet, yet sound ever so loud in the silent night, where all you can hear is soft breathing. your body trembles, your heart pounds at a million beats per hour, each so deafening they ring in your ears. your hands are cold with sweat, bone-chillingly cold- the nights here were never this cold.
are you really going to do this?
your hairpins slip from your hair for a split second, and you hurriedly push them back with a shaky hand, the soft white shining through amidst the dullness of your skin. your other palm, nearly rubbed raw, sits tentatively at your side, thumb fidgeting with the rope in your hands so furiously it feels it could break at any second.
you close your eyes, leaning against the wall of your cell- the concrete dampened by your weary head. your hands tremble uselessly before you, gripping the rope like a lifeline. if you could just reach that faint bit of metal on the ceiling.
your eyes flicker downwards. your heart pounds even faster, and you realise, you don't actually want to. you don't actually want to go.
but what price is a useless life if paying for a more fulfilling one?
what price is the heartbeat in your chest if it pays for the smile on her
face? what price is the worthless blood flowing through your veins if she can bring her light with her, to step out of this place alive- to stand in the evening sun with her breaths even, to know life all over again?
what price is the breath in your lungs in exchange for the shine in her eyes?
the same shine in her eyes as she holds you close, the very same sparkle in her eyes as she runs her fingers through your hair and cares for you more than anyone around you has ever done- the shimmer as she pins your hair away, the shining smile on her face as she tells you that the worthless 'you' can be loved, can be cherished.
finally, someone cares.
and now, to secure her light, you will bear her cross for her.
you will make her happy and that's all you could have ever asked for.
if a life without meaning finally finds it in death- maybe it was never so meaningless after all.
your back leaves the wall, reaching once more for the cold steel on the ceiling, and the rope finally secures itself around it. the loop hangs ominously before your eyes.
you slip off your shoes, placing them neatly at the foot of your bed. you don't wince as your feet touch the cold ground.
a step, and then two.
and with a final kick, you can only hope your insignificant sacrifice will pay off.
that with every gasping, choked breath you take, with every last flutter of your slowly-closing eyes, her heart only beats even stronger than before.
please forgive muu-san.
---
(a shrill scream resounds within the prison walls as the lights flicker back to life with the toll of a bell.
the girl can only desperately grab at his cold hands, not even tall enough to bring him back down to her.
her shoes fall off as she attempts anyway.)