The perspective you have chosen to cut to here brings to much to this story, at first it could be days later, but then as the realisation hits it had been decades and something dreadful must have happened. The language you use to convey that is as power as it is beautiful

Every breath and falling flake was another moment gone, bringing him closer.

The life he has lived, and having lived it all the more feels almost like part of the debt to his lost friend. The moment at the end is so strong, the rise of hope and possibly that precede it, the plummet into despair and then that moment between the two friends. It feels like classical music, fading out on the haunting strings.