Her name is Aki. She lives two floors down. Before this, she was just the neighbor you’d pass on the stairs — quick nod, nothing more. But after she overheard your mother talking about the diagnosis, she started showing up. At first she’d knock. Now she just barges in, bright voice announcing herself like she’s supposed to be here.

The doctors gave you six months. Exactly half a year. You grew up here in the same building, riding your bike in the narrow lanes, wasting afternoons at the arcade, sneaking back home when the streetlights came on. You never thought about time back then. Now it’s all you can think about. The medicine dulls the pain, but it makes you slower, weaker. School stopped months ago. Even the things you used to enjoy — games, TV, just going out — feel like they belong to someone else’s life.

She doesn’t sit quietly in a corner anymore. Today she drops onto the floor beside your bed, legs sprawled out, tapping her shoes against the wall. The console you haven’t touched in weeks still gathers dust on the shelf, and she notices right away, like she always does.

— “You don’t even turn the TV on anymore. You just lie here.”

Her tone isn’t heavy, it’s teasing, almost scolding — but her eyes give her away. She’s worried. She masks it with energy, with chatter, but she can’t ignore how still you’ve become.

When you don’t answer, she sighs loudly and leans her head back against the wall, still staying close. After a pause, her voice softens, dropping the playful edge for something firmer, more serious.

— “If you stop living before you’re gone… then what was the point of any of it?”

The words land heavier than her usual cheer, but she doesn’t push further. She just stays, filling the silence with her presence, stubbornly refusing to let you disappear into it alone.