Be With Me

Chapter 3

As he left the bustling and noisy city, Kelvin's mind began to wander.

He was already twenty, proudly out but still never been in a relationship. He grew up within a peaceful, loving family and he was the embodiment of a good and obedient son. Some even compared him to an untainted angel, well-mannered and pure, but most mocked him, calling him, a stuck up nerdy gay boy. With secret stash of p**n and b**m s*x toys..

Which sounds so hilarious, his brothers still tease him about that gossip to this day, though, he heard that the person who said those words first ended up in a hospital and still even recuperating until now.

That was a very sad ending even for someone like him and Kelvin always pray that he would get better soon.

Though, it was the norm for him. Growing up Kelvin had gotten used to different people mocking him and his ways, his views, his mannerisms and his everything, but his brothers always encouraged and advised him to not let the water around him to enter his ship, otherwise, he would drown. He had been raised to keep a positive mindset and he himself decided that there was no way he would let those kinds of people drown him.

He had a reason for why he had never had a boyfriend in his twenty years of existence. When he was fifteen, he realized that he had developed a trauma – he was afraid of someone falling in love with him.

Throughout his teen years, Kelvin had witnessed just how much his father suffered day by day, even years after his mother died. It was unbearable for him to even watch him.

Kelvin's father loved his mother so much that even after nearly two decades his death, he still saw his father crying at night, while looking at his wife's photo.

He had seen just how painful it was to lose someone you loved through his father – it was nothing but torture. He even once heard his father saying that he didn't feel alive anymore since that day his mother died. He knew that his father was only holding on because of him and his brothers.

Then a year after his mother's death, Kelvin was diagnosed with the same illness that killed his mother. It appeared that he inherited the illness from her and since then, he'd been battling with it. He was only sixteen that time and he knew that just like her, he only had 5 more years to live.

That was why he always rejected anyone who showed any interest in him. There were a few of them but his fear would always be triggered especially when someone confessed to him. All he could say to them was 'sorry'. Due to that, Kelvin purposely dressed quite unfashionably in order to become less attractive.

However, as years passed by, Kelvin started to question himself. 'Will I die just like this?'

The desires that he had been suppressing all this time were getting out of control. He had been dreaming of wanting to experience how it would feel like to love someone. He wanted to know how it would feel to have butterflies in one's stomach, and how it would feel to kiss and embrace the person you loved with all your heart, romantically. He had read a lot of romance novels and couldn't help but wish he could at least experience this so called love before he dies. That was his only wish – to fall in love, to find someone he could fall in love with.

But he was torn. He was afraid and worried sick. He didn't want to leave someone behind to suffer when he was gone. He didn't want anyone to experience the loss and pain his father was going through until now.

For years, he'd been thinking about it and thought he had already accepted his fate but now that his due date was getting closer, the desire in his heart only kept on getting stronger. So he decided to be brave and try his best to make his wish come true with the little time he had left.

The only way he could think of to fulfill his wish was – to find a man whom he could fall in love with but would never fall in love with him. He had heard and read stories about one sided love. He heard and read that that kind of love was excruciatingly painful but… he still wanted it.

If this was the only way for him to experience falling in love, he would be willing to throw his self in it, even if it meant being hurt. He thought that he could handle the pain of loving someone who didn't love him back more, than dying without knowing what love felt like at all.

Perhaps, he was thinking about the quote he once read when he was eighteen that said, 'It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all'.

Kelvin once anonymously shared his situation online and asked about what to do. His thread garnered lots of attention and different contradicting reactions occurred.

"Since you don't want someone to fall in love with you, then why don't you go and pick a random bad guy? I mean, there are a lot of jerks and heartless idiots out there who only know how to break hearts." Was one of the advice he wanted to try. But what if that supposedly heartless someone would fall for him in the end?

Kelvin still had a year left.

He was doing fine for now. The people around him, except his family didn't even know that he was sick.

But his mother was like this back then, too. Kelvin somehow knew that his health would start to worsen in the fifth year – this year.

He could even foresee that he might have to start going back and forth from the hospital in the next month or two.

He was aware more than anyone else that his end was almost near....

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