The day L died, Roger didn’t cry because of a detective – he let out a gasp of horror as he checked the phone that Quillsh had given him, meant to notify Roger should L (and Quillsh himself) die. But as long as the timer run down, as the numbers didn’t all reach zero, there was still hope, and the very first night, when the numbers read 29 days and some irrelevant numbers, for the first time, Roger prayed – he prayed that it was just a false alarm, or a bad dream, that Quillsh would come back, smiling like he always did after a successful case, that it would be a test or a faulty device – anything but the death of the man he had loved.
Roger kept checking the phone, waiting for the numbers to disappear or Quillsh to call, waiting for the countdown to suddenly stop and a text confirming that the founder of the Wammy’s house was alive replace it, he even glanced out of the windows to see familiar figures of the elder and the detective standing behind the gate, or perhaps walking closer, or maybe the black car stopping in front of the house – but whenever he did, Roger was met with dread. The numbers kept ticking, no call came, and no figure of the elderly inventor with snow white hair accompanied by the crouching detective came, except in Roger’s dreams – and what dreams they were. The most vivid one, the one Roger dreaded the most, was the one where he was in a church, standing in front of two coffins, one of the black as ebony, full of white flowers that looked like freshly fallen snow, Quillsh resting on them, as if he was asleep, eyes closed and face calm. Roger always woke up, tears in his eyes, hands trembling and desperate plea to whatever god existed – that when he’d look at the phone, the numbers would stop changing, that there would be a call from Quillsh, or perhaps even Quillsh would be next to him, asleep, but breathing and alive, his arms around Roger.
But Quillsh was never there, and the numbers never stopped.
10 days passed, and one of Roger’s plants died. As always, in the evening, after the dinner, Roger carried it into the small forest behind the orphanage and buried it, holding a small, private ritual. Usually he shed a few tears, or just felt a slight heartache when one of his plants died – but this time, for the first time he remembered since his childhood, Roger wept, kneeling next to the small, freshly dug grave – he wept for Quillsh, for L, because he knew that they won’t come back, that it was hopeless, that Quillsh was never going to accept the sapphire ring in his pocket that Roger had wanted to propose with – that it was all for nothing. But still, he refused to accept this, because there was still a chance that they would be alive, that it was nothing but false alarm, right?
Roger clung to that hope, like a human that is about to die from falling clings to a rope, even if the said rope is about to give up, even if there is just one single thread holding it together.
And when 20 days passed, Roger still waited for Quillsh, still waited to kiss these lips that tasted like metal, salt and Earl Grey, still longed for these warm, comforting hands around him, still looked forward to the nights they were going to spend sitting in front of the fireplace, after the children had gone to sleep, Roger’s head resting on Quillsh’s chest or shoulder, still wrote letters… but he never sent them. The letters full of love and longing stayed in his bottom drawer, locked into a separate box, never sent out. And Roger waited, glanced out of the windows and kept watch on the numbers mercilessly going down.
And on the evening of 29th day, as he was about to go to bed, in a fit of rage and hopelessness, Roger threw the phone to the other side of the room and wept for hours, as the realization hit him like a fist – Quillsh was never going to hold him again, he was never going to wake up Quillsh from nightmares anymore, he was never going to play the piano for Quillsh again, he was never going to taste the lips that were like metal and salt, reminding of machines and sea, he was never going to rest his head on Quillsh and feel completely at home again, and there was nothing, nothing he could do about it.
And on the 30th day, when the numbers hit zero, Roger felt a part of himself die with Quillsh.
