Alberto granted me the dignity of not saying "He would have liked for you to live" or "He would be happy for you to move on".

I think I would've killed him if he tried.

I stayed in bed for a week, wasting away. If anyone came near me, I would ignore them, not out of spite but because I couldn't do anything else. It was just impossible. My mind was somewhere sticky, like the bottom of a pond filled with black oil, and to answer I had to swim up.

I wasn't strong enough to swim.

When anyone touched me, it awakened something primitive within me. I would stand up, my blanket falling off revealing my naked body, roar in outrage, try to kill whoever it was, but never knowing who had woken me because my vision was black.

"You will die if you don't eat."

I knew it was Alberto because no one else cared for me enough, but I didn't recognise his voice because I had lost all cognitive capacity.

"At least eat so you can go out one more time."

He fed me, very, very slowly. One bite of freeze-dried strawberry, one spoon of blueberry cream, one dried mushroom, one bite of dark chocolate...

I managed to get out of bed and shower.

My body ached for him. I remembered his body, pressed against the glass in the shower in his room in the orient as I had done him from behind.

I smashed my fist into the glass.

It shattered into a thousand pieces.

It was still more whole than my heart.

I dressed, walked to his desk. On it was a paper with his latest calculus. It wasn't finished. Even if I wasn't anywhere close to his level, I wasn't bad at calculus myself, so I understood what he had tried to do. It was just for fun, I understood, using an integral to come up with a formula to calculate the volume of an orb. I sat down. 

It took me one hour to finish the calculation for him.

I went outdoors.

Everything was grayer than I had ever seen it.

I looked down over the cliffs, almost choking as I expected to see his blood on the rocks still.

Of course, they were clean, the ocean having licked up his blood after it had swallowed his body. 

Tears fell from my face, landed on the water above his body.

Then, something struck me.

It struck me from the skies like a blow to my face, and I staggered back.

And once I got the thought into my head, I knew I wouldn't be able to get it out until I had carried it out.

I walked down from the hill in a hurry, taking the steep side where the rocks were treacherous. Nobody ever used it to go down, only up, and I fell over and over, scraping my hands. I welcomed the pain.

At one spot, I stopped, seeing a stain of blood about a week old.

Izuna...

He had climbed up here. Alberto had seen him climb and had decided to follow him. That was why Alberto had been able to kill my old mentor, Izuna's killer, before he could kill me.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I started shivering. That shiver turned into a tremble. Soon, I couldn't stand, but was down on my knees, my face inches from the blood.

I put my tongue to it.

It tasted of salty stones.

I wanted to scream-cry, but I refused. I took a deep breath, calming myself enough to keep going down. At the beach, I stopped, removed my cape but not my clothes. I did not want to swim naked.

I dipped my toe in the water. It was freezing cold. I walked in anyway, without hesitation now, then started swimming.

Swam to the rocks straight beneath the cliff.

The motion of the waves would've kept Izuna's body against the cliffside, not washing it out. As I swam in between the rocks, I took a deep breath, dove down. It was deeper than I had expected. I swam and swam, down and down. I had inhaled far too little air for the depth, but I didn't dare to resurface to try again; If I did, I might not be brave enough to dive back down. So I swam, and after eight metres or so, my ears aching from the strain on my eardrums, my lungs aching from the strain of holding my breath, I reached the bottom. I searched with my hands, desperate for him, my hands clasping sand.

Until it touched something hard, blotchy and smooth.

I grabbed him, grabbed my dead lover, pushed with my feet. I shut off the part of my brain with any capacity of contemplating what I had in my hands. My lungs were screaming for air, but I couldn't give it to them just yet. My ribs buckled out when primitive parts of my brain told me to breathe in, while the parts I had control over told them to hold, just a little bit longer, only a small second more.

I tore through the surface, roared in pure relief to be breathing in again.

And only then did I allow myself to think about my catch.

I started trembling, not from cold but of shock.

Izuna... I have Izuna... He's in my arms.

Tears streamed uncontrollably down my face as I realised the magnitude of what I had done. I still held him with one hand, not looking at him, using my other to swim, but when my feet touched the bottom and I could walk, I pulled him into my embrace, carried him while hugging him.

His body was hard, having absorbed a lot of water. I still didn't dare to look at him, but only held him close, burying my face in his chest. I clambered onto the beach, sat down, put him in my lap, hugged him and cried, and cried, and cried.

I dared to look at him then, and was so frightened, I screamed.

He wore his beautiful coronation clothes, and his hair was as silky and fantastic as ever, but everything else was distorted into unrecogniability. He was blue as if he'd drunk the colours of the sea. He was so swollen, his eyes were shut unnaturally harshly, making him look incredibly uncomfortable. Some sea creature had torn away a big chunk of his left leg, but seemingly not found him tasty enough to finish the meal.

It was unbearable.

I vomited.

"Tobirama, what in God's name... Oh my God, what have you done!?"

It was Alberto, and he screamed.

I didn't understand what he said. 

A few days later, I stood at the cliff again, looking down at my lover's former grave. I had wanted to put Izuna's body back where I'd found it, but Alberto had refused.

"No. You will never be at peace if you're always wondering. Wondering if he's still there, or if this is the day his body has been washed up on the shore. When you're an old man, you might go dig for his skeleton. No. Let's bury him with his parents and his brothers. That way, you both will find peace."

I was shocked by the thought that I would live until old age, that I would still be an alive human being while my lover was a skeleton. I just hadn't considered the possibility that surviving without Izuna was possible.

I have promised to tell you before I leave. But now you have left, how can you hear me tell you?

I stood at the cliff, my face set with determination. My dove-blue coat flowed behind me pleasantly in the wind. Today was a beautiful day, the sun scorching from a turquoise sky.

On a day like this, I would make you a basket of all of your favourite foods, and we would sit here on a blanket and eat, and we would never leave.

I looked out at the ocean, walked to the edge.

I wish I believed in the afterlife. I wish I was arriving at a place where you would be. But I'm just leaving a place where you are not.

"I'm leaving now, Izuna", I spoke.

I took one step out, my right one.

Felt the air beneath it.

Nothing safe connecting the sole of my foot to the treacherous rocks beneath.

I leaned forwards.

End