A slow unfurling, a graceful dawn. The darkness settled, yet it burned.
I left the window open, the curtains flapping like the flutter of butterfly wings would. Cold breeze seeping into the dark of the night, filling the void. It pooled in the corners of my room, slithering and laid upon my chest until it felt tangible, a weight so unbearable. I rose and slept, rose and slept, a tide of consciousness ebbing and flowing upon the shore of this boundless night. Each time I surfaced, the room seemed less palpable, the boundaries of the bed less defined.
The line between the world outside and the one within began to blur, the threads of slumber and wakefulness bleeding into one another, slipping between the folds of dreams and reality until the seams tore apart.
And somewhere, in that rosy haze, you came to me.
Not as a memory, frigid and painful, but as a presence, woven from my desire and guilt. Your voice wasn't a sound my ears captured, but one that reigned over my regret, blooming in the silent spaces between thought and breath.
“I cherish the time we spent together.”
The words arrived as a single, perfect specter. A smooth stone of truth dropped into the still pool of my being. It rippled through me, a warmth that momentarily dispelled the shiver.
“I miss you, I really do.”
This time, your voice was closer, tinged with sorrow that felt like my own.
It was that version of you I ached for. The one that made ruin bearable. The one that made me bearable. I told myself I only needed that part of you back, but in the silence between my messy thoughts, I knew better.
I needed your hands, your warmth, your impossible capacity to choose me even when I faltered. For a fleeting moment, I almost believed you would. But then, your voice sounded so crestfallen, sharp as the taste of regrets.
Time bled strangely when the only clock was the throb of my own pulse, ticking in my ears. Maybe it hadn't even been that long at all. Maybe it had stretched into dawn, the bleeding sunrise. Seconds swimming through daydreams. Hours slipping through the hollow of your clepsydra.
The world outside ambled on, slow and indifferent, while I linger on the aftermath of what your voices left behind. The air grew heavier as the horizon began to pale, the fragile gray hour when shadows cling to every speck of miniscule little things which refuse to let go. I watched them scatter slowly across the floor, dissolving into the dim light like guilt turned into confession. Maybe that was dear, maybe that was darling, but your voice still echoed through the dim cavity of our precious ruins.
I swore, once, in the silenced prison of my mind, that I wouldn’t return. That I wouldn’t mistake the light pouring into my room to hold your smile.
For a moment, I thought I saw you in the reflection of the window, standing where the light met the dark. You looked the same, tired yet kind. The same look you wore before every goodbye.
My feet felt like slabs of lead when I desperately dragged my own body closer. My fingers met the space where your hand sat, the beading condensation felt cold to the touch. For a moment, I mistook it as your warmth. As something alive. The door slid open beneath my trembling hand.
You didn't enter right away.
You stood by the threshold, framed by the rising dawn, the city’s distant heartbeat pulsing faintly behind you. Your own heartbeat. For a second, I wondered if I had conjured you whole from memory, each detail stitched together by longing. The slope of your shoulders, the worn gentleness in your eyes, the quiet exhaustion that had always settled in your smile.
“Is it really you?” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if it was recognition or the sound of my disbelief.
You smiled then, the way you always did when words failed us. It was a small, tired smile, but it was real enough to hurt. You walked toward me, slow, careful. As if afraid you’d break the fragile boundaries between our spaces.
Your chest heaved, your lips trembled, yet your voice was disturbingly steady, frightening in its own familiarity. I remembered that adherence, the calm that descended before storm. And in some twisted mirror of yours, I saw mine. Steady and composed, while everything within me cracked beneath the weight of my own restraint.
“It's me.” Your eyelids blinked.
I wanted to speak, to ask if this was forgiveness or punishment, but my throat was tight with the kind of silence that begs to be understood. So instead, I reached out.
Your hand met mine. It was warm. It was cold. It had something that trembled between both, something alive in its impossibility.
The curtains stilled. The wind died.
You looked at me, and in that gaze I felt everything we never said. The apologies left to rot, the tenderness too heavy to carry, the quiet ache of almost.
Then, with a breath that sounded like command, you said, “Wake up.”
The world folded.
I sat up, cold sheet slipping from my shoulder. My breath came shallow, heart still running from a dream that felt too vivid to be called my own. Like it hadn't learned that you were gone. The room was dim, drenched in the last shades of dawn. I turned toward the balcony.
The door was closed.
No wind. No sound. No trace of night’s passage.
No trace of you.
But the curtains, they were still (I swore they'd moved). The floor beneath faintly glimmered with moisture, a trail of condensation leading from the glass to where I lay. I could almost swear the air still held the echo of your voice, faint and tender, like the ghost of the last dawn.
It was a proof. Of something. Of you.
Everything I need to delude myself that it was real. That you were real.
But then, maybe it was always like this. Me, left grasping at your wings, forced to mourn your flight ashes.
Because, if I stopped seizing your shadow, if I stopped believing, you'd die twice.
This room lined with muted walls, adorned with nothing was still too quiet.
The tilted photograph, the empty nightstand, and the soft bedding, where I curled in that day's clothes, pretending the world outside didn't exist. A false sanctuary.
And I but a fleeting fragment of memory, borrowed existence of the glory I once was.
Of the eminence we once were.
It should’ve felt familiar by now, yet the stillness only made the ache louder, heart grimacing in loneliness. In the silence, I realized I wasn’t built for solitude. And yet, here I was again. Left to untangle myself in a room that felt like don't belong to me, in a life that never quite fit.
Outside, through my blurred perception, there were no magnolias on the trellis. But the tree should be blooming as I lay down, grieving. That’s what he would’ve said—like the certainty of petals in spring meant something was still functioning out there. That the world wouldn't bother stop breathing the way mine did.
Harsh? Definitely. But as I perceived it, it was aggravating as it was... soothing.
The first ray of spring felt strangely cruel without you by my side, I thought to myself.
Sometimes I picked up a faintest trace of truth I could call mine, but dropped it anyway cause I'd pull back like it burned me. And in a way, maybe it did. Then I'd laugh, a broken little thing.
Maybe the truth had felt it too, cradled in a gentleness that betrayed the storm brewing inside my eyes. I wanted the truth—him—because he was everything I had lost, every memory slipping through my fingertips, every ache that had ever lingered, every throb in my chest that still wondered if it could survive.
I thought if I reached far enough into the dark, maybe I'd find the shape of him again. But there was nothing.
There were people like me, who felt everything to nothing until they chose to disappear under it. Who long for someone who cares enough to risk vulnerability. Someone who doesn’t flinch when you unravel. Someone who doesn't call your crying a burden.
And he was that person.
That day in the station, fleeting moments and cruel, where crowds alternate between farewells and reunions every day. I watched them from a distance, wondering if I was ever meant to be on either side.
One’s thoughts would drift easily under all that. Under the noise. Under the waiting. He leaned against the wall, suitcase in hand. His smile looked easy, effortlessly captivating. I stared at my own suitcase, trying to have just a little bit of nonchalance flashed on his bright grin.
“You used to calculate, consider every little things,” he once told me. “Sometimes the choices are already there, but drowned instead somewhere between your packed mind. Will you remember what others chose to forget?”
I didn't know.
Sometimes I thought I was the forgetting. The discarded thread.
And yet, even in the midst of all that filth (my own, his, the world’s), my hideousness might at least be diluted. Not erased, not forgiven, but softened by the quiet fact that I was still here. Still breathing. Still trying.
Even if the trying happened alone.
Even if he wasn't there to try it together with me.
The station loudspeaker crackled. Somewhere, a child laughed. Amidst the crowd, a broken sob. A train screeched its wheels like it, too, wanted to stay. His smile was still bright, his grin was still easy. I curled my fingers into my palm.
Now, they curled against my crumpled bedsheet.
Last spring, the station witnessed, he'd tucked a magnolia petal in my palm. He hadn't met my eyes when he said it, "For luck."
But maybe what he meant was, "I'm sorry."
My fingers traced the air, remembering how the petal had crumpled there, how its edges browned by afternoon. Now my skin was bare. Just like the trellis. Just like the side of his bed. My suitcase still sat by the door, unopened. Neither here nor there.
That petal was already a lie, a dying thing masquerading as hope. And now, I was also called a dying thing. And that petal, was the kindest parting he could offer.
Just so I could learn to wilt without him.
The magnolias could bloom, the spring could flourish, people's joy could emerge along. But our magnolia; the wilted, crumpled petals, couldn't. He'd plucked the poor flower from its roots, just like he plucked his blossom from my heart. Then as it wilted, I did, too.
Spring would soon turn into bright summer. Summer then turned into mute autumn. Autumn finally turned into pale winter.
My gaze found his face and undeniably saw a betrayer, yes. Yet, in that same moment, I also saw the sole individual in my shattered existence who ever truly perceived me, even if that meant seeing me through a distorted prism of his own biases.
I almost laughed.
But there was no humor left in me.
I pushed my body upwards. The room spun for a moment before finally settling. My gaze fell on the suitcase by the door, to the window slightly covered by the blinds. The light cut through the gaps, and for the first time, it felt like just light. Not cruel nor kind. Just, light.
My fingers absentmindedly tapped the desk, along with the beats of the soft music. The overhead hanging lamp cast dim lighting, seemingly softening his figure beneath it.
A cup of long black sat untouched between us. Condensation beading along its sides, trails slid slowly downward. I reached out, tracing one with the tip of my finger. It was cold against skin, fleeting. Like things we never said. The drink's surface caught the dim light. Still, unyielding, bottomless. Just like him.
Opposite me, his chai latte steamed gently beside him, the scent of cinnamon curling in the air. Warm, deliberate, convincing. Everything I wouldn't be tonight.
The way he smirked in disbelief after sensing what card I'd play this night. But then again, we'd long passed the longing of simplicity, romance, and cajolery since we agreed to cross the threshold of this café, of our guarded boundaries.
The clock said it was 11:45 P.M. With every tick of the second hand, we were being pulled away from today.
But I preferred not to be exposed.
And perhaps, he did too.
So I tried to stretch my patience. Savoring each second like a bite of dessert meant to be denied, squeezing his patience thin—if he had any left. He looked at me like he was solving a puzzle I didn’t mean to become. Every glance he gave felt like it was prying at the seams of my silence to see if it would unravel at the earliest tug, trying to read the folds I thought I’d kept hidden. But I was not worried, because I hid them well.
If he really wanted to see through me, he'd have to earn it.
Then, a sip of the bitter liquid and I was ready to lay the first bait.
“I wonder,” I muttered lightly, right after the music faded into another. “If you ever mean the things you say, or if you only say them to watch how I’ll react.”
He tilted his head, the way he always did when he was hiding something clever behind a wall of quietude.
“And if I told you I meant everything and nothing at once?”
“Then I’d twist your words on purpose,” I whispered, “And use them to catch you.”
A breeze slipped past the open glass door when a new customer stepped in, brushing the side of my face like a phantom touch. My fingers grazed the edge of the cup on my desk—still cold, unfinished—just like the thoughts I keep about him.
I wonder how his latte tasted.
I wonder if warmth could ever cling to something so determined to stay cold. The past me, the echo of his silence, traced down the memory lane when the comfort of his chai latte was still mine. Ours.
He had always been careful with his truths, laying them out like loose threads and waiting to see which one I’d pull. But I had long stopped chasing.
The music faded, changed again into another. A low thrum of piano tinged with distant hum of guitar strings. Like someone’s sorrow (maybe ours) being plucked bare beneath the static. The sound rushing in and around every person in this cafe. Some nodded to the rhythm, others continued in chatter, but always, it spoke to them in some manner.
For us, maybe the last part of the symphony was the music he loved the best. Maybe the unfinished notes reigned in my head like my Roman Empire. He let the silence dragged for three more heartbeats before those stormy gaze slid back to mine. Anguish masked by archaism.
“That ache in your chest? That’s the part of you wondering what if.” His smirk was saccharine. “Being too gentle for too long can blur lines more than silence ever could.
“What…” I swallowed the bitter sensation gathering at the back of my throat. “What kind of ‘what if’ do you think is that?”
“Wondering if you should end this…” His gaze found mine, practical yet detached. Our shared space was there behind his eyes. “Or end me.”
His words hung in the amber light. Sugary and acrid at once. I tasted them like burnt saccharide; acrylamide, poison alike lingered on the tongue. I watched the steam coil off his cup and wondered how many half‑truths could fit inside the sliver of space where mercy and cruelty almost look the same. The clock nudged toward midnight. Outside, headlights streaked past the window pane, each one a threat that time was willing to move on. Even if we were not.
I wanted to reach for his hand, or throw my drink at him. I wasn’t sure which.
I wanted to laugh. Not because anything was funny, but because it was either that or cry, and I couldn’t tell which would humiliate me even more.
I hated how calm he sounded. Hated how he looked at me like he knew I was feigning ignorance. Like he was waiting for me to flinch first. I used to find beauty in the inevitabilities, yet when I was the one in the picture, I saw only a brilliant dissection, theory and symbolism laid bare with unnerving precision. Harsh, unyielding, and indifferent to my trembling hands. How cruel, to finally understand the composition only when you're a subject under the blade.
I wanted to say something cruel. Or stupid. Or honest. Maybe all of them. Maybe neither. Maybe a confession.
Anything to rekindle the spark. Anything to bring back the smile.
But I didn’t get to rewrite his story just because I didn’t like the ending.
Maybe guilt is just love with no place to go. And right now, love had nowhere to land. Not within him. Not within myself.
Maybe, that was why.
That was why he looked like that, face a battlefield of things he couldn’t name. Regret hung in the line drawn tight by his lips, and glossy eyes tethered by the storms brewing inside.
And perhaps, that was why there was still warmth there, faint and flickering, but it sounded like a memory already. The ghost of the boy I used to adore, holding on just long enough to let go.
That was why he sounded like a goodbye.
The pages would scatter, the quill would fall. Remnants of our past were drenched in both victory and defeat.
And later, I'd hug his recesses in the back of my mind whenever I longed for one.
It wasn't a grand decision, really. Just a quiet retreat, like pulling my hand away before anyone noticed it was ever extended in the first place. I was hiding out, before any soul even sought (like there was any in the first place).
It began in October—perhaps?—when the world turned to rust and the wind carried the scent of partings.
Or maybe it was February. That hollow month, its frostbite masquerading as clarity. The cold didn’t numb, it hovered. My gloves wore thin at the fingertips. I became a thing of edges, all fractures and frost, a silhouette dissolving into the bruise-colored dusk.
Maybe it was March, June, or we were back to October again. Or maybe it was just another day that felt like winter. Y'know, the kind where the air tasted of words halted mid-saying or unsaid things. The sky stayed gray no matter how much light you pretend to carry—or how you pretend not to be.
I drank silence now, steeped like bitter tea—sipping it cold. I carried my wounds like hidden chondrosome, and those burdens even when they bruised my palms. Not because I craved solitude, but because proximity felt like a debt. I didn't want to give too much, lest someone felt the weight of having to return it. I didn't wanna ask because I feared the silence hanging after.
To be known is to be owed. And I refuse to be a ledger, a tally of needs.
When the storms come (and they always did), I let the rain soak my skin damp, relinquishing the shiver. Let lightning fissure the sky. I did not knock on doors. I did not name the tempest. Better to be the shadow that slipped through crevices than the hand that left fingerprints on someone’s pulse.
I did not let avarice stain the cuff of my sleeves.
Because, what if they say yes, and regret it?
What if I say too much, and become too much?
So I stayed just enough. Just light enough to lift myself. Just quiet enough not to echo in their minds when I left.
Then, it was May. The trees were full, the days longer, but I still walked lightly, afraid to leave footprints. I still packed my heart in small containers, sheltered with tight lid—easier to carry that way. Easier to lose without making a mess.
June arrived, lush and loud, all honeyed sunlight and swollen roses, suffocating saccharine-like warmth. But I was April’s ghost, the cruel thaw on winter's wake. I walked through meadows, wellsprings with a mouthful of frozen hearsay; my laughter a moth-eaten fabric, fraying at the seams.
There was a version of me which still knew aches—knees scraped raw from crawling towards warmth, throat burned from swallowing stay, stay, stay.
But I’d buried her deep beneath the roots of a dead oak in winter, down by the ermine's nest, ground swept clean by a ptarmigan's passing. Now, I was but a flicker in your periphery, the reflection that warped in the mirror when you blink.
Because it was easier to disappear gently than to be remembered as a burden.
September then. The earth rot sweetly, apples fermenting in the grass. I let the decay cling to me—a second skin. You might call it armor, I call it myself.
Ask me if I’m afraid (I always am).
But I’d folded my fear into origami cranes, let them migrate south without taking me. I'd made a home of the distance between here and almost.
Dread? I breathed it like oxygen, I metabolized it. Let the wildfire lick my ankles, let the floodwaters rise. I would not hand people my chaos like a grenade. I would not let them mistake my scars for an invitation.
December again. Or was it forever? Time blurred when you live in parentheses. The world celebrated in glitter and gasoline, but I was the static between murmurs, the unlit star amongst the lit ones.
You would search for me in the wrong places—in the warmth of a campfire, in the pulse of a crowded room. Don’t.
I was the shiver you couldn't name. The exit without a sound. A question folded into a paper boat—so small it cut my palms, set adrift on a pitch-black river.
It was easier to vanish than to explain why you were always already gone.
And now, it was May.
I knew I was far from home.
But at least I hadn’t made anyone carry me there.
If you wanted to, come closer. My palms, they were cut and battered. Yet any grimaces would be found absent on my face.
In my silent nights, I looked at the tomes you've gleaned through, in this rime-kissed land. The brittle pages crackled as they were turned, each corner bore the weight of your touch. My fingers traced the indentations your fingers left behind, a quiet longing nestled in the spaces where your presence once was. Your ink stains, your careful annotations, those forgotten footnotes. I followed the silhouette of yours.
"I'm sorry, I hold you too dear."
And the pages fluttered.
To the last page.
"I'm sorry, it's on me."
I thought I said the truth, yet the words tasted bitter upon my tongue, felt odd grazing my lips–like alienating myself. I felt dishonesty coursing through my veins–yet betrayed by my own act, my lips curled upwards into a sickeningly pitiful smile. Nearby windows reflected a pathetic visage.
But you just stood there. Brilliant eyes clouded by regrets, eyebrows drawn taut. I kept hoping your voice would arise, to say any words—anything. But those upturned lips, now cast downwards—sealed tight, even when I knew the sound of your heart was deafening, whispering apologies you couldn’t finish—because there were too many.
Because you weren't ready to accept it like I did—even if I was feigning honesty.
So, why?
Our trust was built on a web of deceit anyway. The way it was so easy, spitting lies as though we were breathing. We didn't need it, the sincerity.
So why was it so difficult for you to lie once again?
Our eyes locked. Once, but it didn't last. Your eyelids quivered, and your gaze averted like they hadn't lingered a second too long before. You didn't know how a pang of ache struck my heart. My right hand reached for yours, intertwining our fingers, searching for warmth which once was there—to get you to answer, to look at me in the eye.
A flinch, then our hold broke as you scurried away.
I blinked. Hands outstretched, reaching for empty air.
Then, the realization hit me like a sudden crash of tidal wave.
You've done playing, and it meant you were done with our little game. A fictitious playhouse on top of a thin ice, crumbled and sank to the bottomless sea. I didn't know. A growth, perhaps? Or maybe you've grown tired of play-pretend.
Then I let out a smirk, a counterfeit of yours that always managed to make my heart race. I looked at my extended hand, and brought it to my lips—a kiss, savoring inches of our touches. Maybe it would be our last.
"I wish I had lied better." Maybe a prettier lie could've kept us together. A sigh, quiet resignation. "Then maybe, you'll choose to sugarcoat yours too." The end of my voice cracked, brittle—the first little truth that slipped out today. Eyes fell to the ground.
But then, honesty arrived too late to matter.
"Don't." Your voice greeted my ears, sending waves of excitement through me which died down before—one I hoped wouldn't rekindle after all.
"You didn't need to lie better." Now those eyes—God, those eyes—braved mine, held something far worse than hatred—pity, a terrible kindness reserved for strays and dying things. "You just needed to stop."
A hollow, brutal silence.
My lips parted. But, what could I say? That I had wanted it to be real? That lies were the only way I knew how to keep you close? That all I was doing was just to preserve a little of what we couldn't have?
I swallowed my trembling breath, so you'd know I was being—was trying to be—truthful. "Did you ever want it, want us, to be real?"
A pause. The ghost of our touch still lingered on my fingertips, smoldering—burning our last hope.
"I did. Once." The past tense hung in the air like a verdict.
You hadn't stop just because the lies were too heavy. You'd stopped because somewhere along the way, you'd started wishing they weren't lies at all. You began craving the weight of something true.
And I—
I didn't even understand what was true, what was false.
I just knew you were mine.
But I knew better know. What was mine—and yours—were just our lies. The only thing that ever belonged to either of us crumbled like it was never there.
I laughed. The pathetic visage on the windows grinned back at me. I had grown numb, no tears came.
We built our cathedral on a rotten beams. Lying, sugarcoating, dishonesty were our mother tongue. We wore deceit like wedding rings.
Nothing left to mourn, when you decided to let go.
"Have you, maybe, wanted to rebuild everything?" There was it, my last inquiry.
Your creased forehead, faraway gaze, like reaching for something deep behind your mind, something that didn't even worth remembering. A mockery to my hopeful eyes.
"Yes, some times back then." A hesitant nod, uncertainty tinged your words. Were you going to say no? "But you never wanted it. So why bother asking?"
I let out a bitter scoff. "Did I? How do you know?" I tried to smile, at least to appear stronger. "It was you who were never bother asking."
The air between us grew thick with unsaid things. Your hesitation was a language I’d learned too well—the way your jaw tensed, a flinch of your hands, so slight I might've imagined it, before they found your pocket. After all, it was a habit picked up by a good liar. And I knew you studied mine too.
You were already leaving, even as you stood there.
I stepped closer, my shadow swallowing the space you refused to fill. "You never asked," I repeated, voice slightly trembled. "If you did, I would’ve answered. Maybe with truth, maybe with anything."
A flicker in your eyes—recognition? Abhorrence?—before you turned away. Twin storms brewing inside. "What’s the point?" you whispered. "We’d just rewrite the same story."
Ah, rewrite. What a choice of word. As if we were nothing but drafts. As if every I love you had been a rough sketch, every kiss an edit.
I turned to the last page.
Blank.
Of course. We’d never learned how to end things properly.
I came back to the present. The tome lay open where I left it, its spine cracked like the fault lines between us. My fingers brushed the last page—the one you’d dog-eared before leaving, a silent confession pressed into paper. Its corner ruined by fiddling.
"I'm sorry, I hold you too dear."
The ink had smudged, blurring the words into something incoherent. Had you wept over them? Or had time eroded them, just as it had eroded us?
I closed the book. The cover sighed, exhaling the weight of every lie we’d pressed between its pages. Outside, the wind rattled the windowpane, a hollow mimicry of your laughter. I traced the indentations your fingers had left—once so warm, now just grooves in the parchment.
A single footnote stared back at me, your handwriting fading but unmistakable.
"We could have been a tragedy. Instead, we were a glossary—terms defined by absence."
Outside, the storm was still raging. And maybe, it was inside me too. I caressed the book's cover, as if I could sink into the memory of your hands holding it. As if it still bore any ounces of your warm embrace.
But it was cold.
I'd spent so long believing we were a story worth telling.
Now, all we had were just footnotes.
I sighed. Pushing the old creaking chair aback to set this poor book back to its place, where it was ready to sit there—collecting dust again.
Then, a knock on the door.
My heart skipped a beat. A knock? Whose hand? A random strays or the ghost of my own expectations playing tricks on me?
Or, was it you? It had to be you. Who else would come here, to a husk of a place we once call ours?
I swung the door open, a little harder than I intended. My heartbeat pounded into my ribcage, I panted. Breathless. My eyes felt blurry, as I frantically search for your figure—your shadow, a shred of belongings, muddy footsteps—anything. Something that proved that you were here, knuckles against the door just now.
But the hallway was empty.
It was empty, silent, untouched.
I knelt, the cold floor seeping into the bone. Then, I laughed. Sharp and broken. Of course. What did I expect?
Maybe this place, too, had been lost in your memory.
Metaphor's cheap. But this one's free. Then, let's stop defining ourselves by what we couldn't say. Ask me, properly. And this time, I'll listen and feed the honesty you'd want.
It's a promise.
I left the book on the old table. Walked out, and didn't look back.
The rain was soft today. More mist than droplets, clinging to any surfaces like a lingering longing.
I hadn’t planned to come here.
The café was still the same, tucked into the street corner like a secret base sheltered from outside world. The wooden chairs creaked the same way. The same old lamp flickered by the far corner. I'd sit at the same table by the window pane, ordering the same menu that still roused my appetite.
Then, we'd just sit here aimlessly. Some times talking like an endless convo, but some times just sit there in silence—taking in the way your gaze made my heart race. Or just mindlessly watching the bustling street turned like a blur in our eyes.
Then, the next second broke my train of thoughts.
The sound of footsteps behind me—too deliberate to be a stranger’s. I turned. And then, I saw you.
There you stood. Not like a ghost. Not like a daydream. But you, real—yet older, calmer. A little heavier around the eyes—the kind of tired that doesn’t come from sleep, but from living too long with unsaid things.
Our eyes met. No flinch this time.
You smiled first. Not the smirk. Not the performative grin. Just, careful. Gentle, even.
As if afraid I might break again.
You held your drink in your left. And I noticed the book clutched in your right hand, slightly covered by the hem of your coat. I still noticed the way your knuckles turned white, signaling the uneasiness your face masked too well.
But I had known you better than to be fooled by that.
“I read your note,” you said after a while.
I blinked. “Note?”
“The one you left in the book. You wrote some new notes. You never did that before.”
My gaze turned to the book. Then, a beat of silence.
"You left this," you repeated, hearing no words come out of my lips.
"No," I replied. "You did." Not just the words, but the book.
A beat. The space between us hummed with all the things we’d never named.
You exhaled sharply, almost an amused laugh. "You always did that, twisted my words into something I didn’t mean."
"And you always hid behind them."
The accusation hung in the air. For once, neither of us rushed to soften it.
You stepped closer. The book trembled in your clutch. "What if I asked now? Properly?"
I could’ve laughed. Could’ve walked away. But the rawness in your voice pinned me in place. This wasn’t the polished deceit we’d mastered—I mastered. This was jagged, uneven. Real.
"Try," I dared then, braving your eyes.
You swallowed. Pulling the chair across mine, you leaned closer to put the book on the table. It fell open to the last page, where your ink and mine bled together at the edges.
"Was any of it true?" you asked.
The question was a blade between my ribs, or like a thousand fists—promising death. Not Do you love me? Not Can we fix this?
Just, Was any of it true?
As if our entire history was a crime scene, and you were sifting through the wreckage for fingerprints. For proofs.
And I drank in the way the hesitation slowly clouded your eyes, the same storm started brewing inside.
I took the book from you. Flipped to the very first page, where your earliest marginalia curled around the printed text like vines. See footnote 42, you scribbled, years ago. I’d never checked it.
Now, I did.
There, in tiny script at the bottom of page 143. "This is where I first thought of kissing you."
I looked up. You were staring at me like I held your still-beating heart in my hands.
"A huge part of it was," I said. "But, maybe, now it is."
A pause. Then,
"Enough to start over?"
The vulnerability in your voice undid me. This wasn’t you lying, or me performing. This was the wreckage after the storm.
I closed the book. Held it out to you. "Not over. Through. One honest word at a time."
You took it. Your fingers brushed mine—warm, alive—and for the first time in years, I didn’t wonder if it was a trick.
I held my drink, condensation beading on the rim—soothing my racing heartbeat. “I meant it. I held you too dear. Still do.”
You looked out the window, where rain traced memories on the glass. “I kept wondering what would’ve happened if I asked.”
“And I,” I exhaled, “kept wishing you had.”
The silence between us wasn’t bitter now. It wasn’t regret, buy something softer. Mournful, maybe. But gentle, warm.
“I’m different now,” you said. “I’ve learned to speak before the silence gets too loud.”
“And I’ve learned,” I answered, “That the truth doesn’t have to be beautiful. Just real.”
You smiled again. This time, there was no pretense. “We could never rewrite it, could we?”
“No,” I whispered, “but we can footnote it properly.”
We didn’t rekindle anything that day.
But we rewrote the ending.
And maybe—just maybe—that was enough.
The next footnote was ours to write.
We stayed until the rain stopped tapping, an exchange of many things we missed from each other flowed effortlessly. Then the rain stopped, sun peaked from behind the clouds.
Perhaps the definition of love she held so dear was indeed corrupted, painted her heart raven-black. She'd believed love was a light. But lights cast shadows, and hers had grown into chiaroscuro, akin to nocturnal veil. The darkness lived in where her heart had been, gorging on rot, pecked on her ribs—demanding to be let out. And by heart, once rhythmic and vital, now pulsed with necrotic resolve—throned at the center of all that lives and dies, it had corroded past recovery.
Love metastasized inside of her—unhindered, malignant, feeding off each soft tissue of thoughts. And she wanted him to taste it too, choked on the same ruin.
Maybe his love was purer, held the same echo of corruption but didn't meet the devastating end. So he still had the sane control. Whilst her, she let it embrace her ideals of love, trying to haul his heart deep into her umbral presence.
He—of course—put on a restraint.
Then they locked eyes. She stared. Stared. And stared. Time bled like quiet decay—hemorrhaged, dragging out—testing the boundaries of what was still acceptable between them. Like euphemism for her fragile heart, commonplace analgesic to the injuries she couldn't suture.
So that he could recognize himself in her cracks. Every bruise beneath them. Her fractured being and splintered hope. Her chest a cage for the breath she couldn't seem to hold, like barbed wires in each alveoli.
And yet, when his long awaited voice emerged at last, it trembled not with empathy, instead a quiet disdain. Disappointment laced every syllable, a subtle scoff wrapped in civility. It belittled her fear, reduced the malaise into something so trivial—amusing, even. As though it was something so laughable, something to be sneered about.
And those cracks ruptured a little deeper, yet the rot had long tendered the flesh beneath.
He turned, ready to leave. Ready to leave her stabbed wound without mending it. Like a surgeon abandoning his incision, leaving the wound to clot and breathe its own poison.
And she fought the urge to call back. To draw the time with him a little longer. To bask in his cruelness once more. To stab more of the blades his voice had become.
Cause maybe she knew—not only had he planted a pain in her ribs like a timepiece ticking backward, but also excised her capability to feel anything else.
He left, his departure carried her final heartbeat, that last pulse only his hand could compress from her veins.
His last steps sounded so bitter in her ears as they faded away. Each one a spoon scraping the marrows from her bones, until nothing remained. Not even the ghost of ache.
Empty space lingered in her heart, as life carried on. The corpse of her heart, and the gaping maw scattered in her mind—these were the remnants of life once so beautiful she didn't dare to imagine. The wound indeed clotted on its own, blood reconstituted by its own poison—circulating her veins as counterfeit breath of life. What was left of her humanity was suspended, confined beneath her sternum—like unclaimed viscera.
And she waited—for the time, light, love?—for anything that could make her life real again.
The night was eerily silent. The way my own breath sounded too loud in my chest, ragged and uneven. Biting, cold wind blew through the ruins, like a faint whisper carrying distant echoes of what once breathed.
The fight had been ugly, increasing Death's reap. The air was thick with aftermath of the battle, acrid scent of smoke and decay, unsettling remnants of what once stood gracefully. Buildings slumped into their own skeletons. Jagged pieces of asphalt, twisted metals, and broken concretes littered the ground. As if the earth itself had been turned inside out, showing its rusted veins. Proof of when the destruction reached its apogee.
The streets no longer held the same shade of gray. They were smeared with something else.
Crimson.
Mine.
And also everyone's.
I pressed my hand to the gash on my side, feeling the slow, insistent seep of warmth through my fingers. It didn't hurt, yet. Shock was a merciful thing. But, I knew. The pain would come soon.
So, I dragged my limp body, with limbs already half asleep.
Towards him.
He knelt beside me. His presence as cold and distant as the moon above.
"Does it hurt?" A cold, clinical tone.
I almost laughed then. No urgency in his steps. No grief in his eyes. No concern in his voice.
When he spoke, his breath didn't fog.
My fingers slipped on the wound. A half-deliberate slip, a finger pressed into the gape of the torn flesh. The pain came sharp and bright.
Good. Let him see it.
I seized his wrist and forced it down. Find out, my silent inquiry. His eyes widened just slightly.
"Hold this wound with me," I whispered. "But don’t try to stitch it."
I could hear the rustle of my own blood flowing and drying on the concrete.
"Don't pretend this can be fixed."
I caught him hesitating, before pressing down more onto the wound, firm yet impersonal. A touch so befitting of him, teetering between duty and something else—pity. Help, but only just enough. Not enough to mend, not enough to heal.
I watched his face under the dim light. I wondered if that felt like a stab? His eyes were like a quivering ember amidst raging wind. It was indeed faint, but the fire was still there. A flicker of uncertainty.
A bitter smirk tugged at my lips. Then, I let out a light scoff. "You're always good at this, aren't you?"
It was like a quiet plea, the way the resignation dawned, but I hadn't stopped hoping.
His jaw tightened, yet no words escaped his lips. And I exhaled a shaky breath. It was indeed a pathetic little rebellion. But beneath this dry scab, the blood was still silently flowing. A wound never truly closed, just ignored.
Perhaps, for him, this was mercy. Perhaps, this was cruelty. A smoldering fire with harsh ice squalls in its wake. Yet, his hands—stained with me—were the warmest they'd ever been.
I should've known better than to accept him into my life. But his presence alone was divinity, and I was a devout. His voice a hymn, a hearth in the winter, a promise of warmth. Until I realize that even the faintest ember burns, and if being let out, it swallows whole.
Now, in the room where it was just two of us, I felt it again. The slow creep of embers beneath his skin, his lullaby coiled around my ribs.
Love, I've learned, just another word for surrender. He whispered the word like it was a pardon, but his arms were a cage, his heartbeat a countdown. But, I pressed closer.
And I told myself, perhaps I wasn't drowning.
I chose to sink in.
My ears caught even the slightest tone of the sweet cadence, the lilt of his gentle lullaby, taking it deeply—savoring it. My body was ensconced comfortably within the cradle of his embrace, caging me in like an anchor amidst the raging storm. His warmth was akin to slow drip of a drug seeping into my skin. My reaction was anything but natural, feigning indifference as if this was just another walk in the park, crossing the boundary I tried so hard—too hard—to build since the first day our eyes collide.
You should've pulled away.
A voice in the back of my mind. A warning, set by another side of me—the logical one—was a shard of ice, fracturing the honeyed haze he'd poured over me. I inhaled sharply, momentarily awakened from this bewitching spell, from this fake sense of security.
Right, pulling away.
So, I did.
I shifted away just an inch, slightly, just enough to make him stop humming. A perception, the way his soft gaze harden just a little, before it diminished just as sudden, disappearing behind an inquiring gaze. I could guess as much, maybe his head was filled with questions right now. His parted lips answered for him, too many questions, too little air between us.
"What's up?" he asked. His sickeningly sweet tone betrayed by the eyes which pried into me right now. Suddenly, I felt so small under his scrutiny.
I swallowed dryly. "This is..." my voice trailed, my protest dissolving as I felt my logical side gradually drowned out by the way his hug tightened, fingers absentmindedly tracing idle patterns on my back, bringing back the same sense of security from earlier. Each touch was a quiet undoing.
"Not right," I continued, my breath hitched. I tried so hard to stay lucid, to keep me from being enchanted under his spell. This close proximity was making me dizzy, the warmth enveloping me making me sleepy. My eyelids grew heavy, each blink a quiet surrender to the dark honey of his voice. His chin hooking over my head like a claim, and I let it stayed there.
"Why so?" He asked, humming a simple melody while shifting just enough to make me more comfortable. "We've got all time in the world." The melody he hummed now was my own pulse, throttled and slow. It was no longer mine.
I knew he meant it. Every guiding touch, every words said to me, I knew—he knew I treasure it deeply. And that was the horror of it. The storm raging outside, my crossed boundaries, tossed aside like none of it ever mattered from the start. Here, at the moment, there was only the sink of his warmth, the drug of his patience.
All things he did were intoxicating, a drug so addicting.
"We're in no rush," he murmured, warm breath fanned against my temple. His right hand sidled up to me, cradling the back of my neck, calloused fingers burned soft against my skin. His left hand rose, cupped my jaw, gently tilting my face toward his. Our eyes locked. From here, I could see his affectionate gaze—taking me in, reflecting me, as if my whole being was there inside his irises.
"Let me take care of you. Just sit still." A soft kiss planted on top my head. "Just... let go."
And God, I wanted to.
The weight of his words pressed down on me like something tangible—a velvet chokehold. My muscles slackened, my breath evened to match the rise and fall of his chest, merged with his breath.
Yes, do that.
Another part of me already gave in. A desperate part of me, which always yearned for affection, a protector.
No more storms. No more choices.
I felt dizzy, forehead creased into a frown, my eyes tightly closed. Amidst the war of my mind, his fingers reached out to smoothen it—the frown in my forehead.
But, then...
A flicker. A jolt in the dark, like a dying ember spit sparks.
Run.
It was barely a whisper, that voice, drowned under the narcotic drip of his promises. But it existed, it was there. A faint calling tugging me up to the surface. And so did the tension in my jaw, the nails I’d dug into my own palm. Tiny acts of war.
He felt it—of course he did. His thumb moved from my forehead to my hands, brushed my clenched fist, prying my fingers open with terrifying gentleness.
"Shhh," he soothed, intertwining our hands, locking them together into a secure, firm grip, tinged with something inevitably darker—something possessive. It served as a warning, a reminder, that I didn't have anywhere to run.
Maybe, I didn't even have the chance from the start. Or maybe, I didn't even have the will to.
"I know. But fighting it hurts worse, doesn’t it?" His voice, dripping honey, drowning me again, pulling me deeper.
A lie. A truth. I couldn’t tell anymore.
If it was an anchor, then it wasn't steadying you. It chained you to the depths.
I had always yearned. For something, to mean anything.
That day, I thought I found it. Something to yearn for.
It wasn't anything grand, a mere coincidence which ain't even a thread in the fabric of fate. A single glance I instinctively made. A stray remark you chose to respond to.
"You're cute," I blinked, realizing a second too late that the words had already espaced my lips.
"Flattery won't get you anywhere," you quipped, amusement dancing in your eyes.
"Doesn't matter," I shrugged, trying to mask my own embarassment. "Just one more compliment among all the ones you get every day."
It was nothing.
The interaction felt too subtle, barely tangible, yet it left a lingering ache for the rest of the day. A small, pathetic sense of belonging curling in my chest.
The next day, I told myself I wouldn’t think about it. It was nothing. A meaningless exchange, words spoken and discarded in the same breath, light as a feather, barely there.
But then, it was all in vain. I found myself hesitating, replaying the moment in my head like a broken record. I wonder if you remembered, if the playful exchange had settled anywhere within you the way it had in me.
I chose to humor myself, going to the same place again. You didn’t act any different. The same lazy posture, the same nonchalant gaze which made you impossible to read. You passed by without pause, not a single glance my way.
I should've left it at that.
But the words itched, crawled at my throat again before I could stop them.
"Would it have mattered if I meant it?"
This time, you did stop. A flicker of surprise crossed your face, not much, but enough to make my stomach drop. Then realization dawned in your eyes, as if recalling yesterday's moment.
Then, a smirk. The kind that meant you weren’t going to give me a real answer, but I chose to take it anyway.
"That depends," you said, tilting your head slightly. "Did you?"
It wasn’t a challenge. It wasn’t even teasing. Just a question, calm and effortless. Much like a test, trying to dig deeper through my reaction. Sure it didn't match my erratic heartbeat.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Would it make a difference?"
A pause. Just long enough to make my pulse quicken.
Then, a smile. It wasn't a smirk, neither playful nor teasing. It was a soft smile I never thought you could let out. "Probably."
Days passed by like a blur. So did our interactions.
Somehow, we were friends.
The transition was seamless, like stream mendearing gently through the meadow. It started with fleeting conversations, quick remarks exchanged between chance meetings. Then, it gradually became something more. Shared spaces, shared silences, an unspoken understanding settled between us like a quiet thread pulling taut.
You spoke in half-truths and riddles, making me work for every answer. I had to learn to read between lines, catching meaning hidden between your pauses. But beneath the dry humor and detached demeanor, I caught glimpses of something softer, an almost warmth, though you never let it linger long enough for me to grasp.
We weren’t like other people. A constant conversation wasn't needed to fill the gaps. Sometimes, we just sat in silence, existing in the same space, breathing the same air. And somehow, that was enough.
Until it wasn’t.
I didn't know since when did we drift away, or rather, it was 'you'. Maybe in the way you spoke, still playful, still teasing, but with a new distance that hadn’t been there before. Maybe it was in the way your replies slowly grew shorter, more fleeting, like the door I had been trying to open quietly closing at a sudden.
Or maybe, I had been too caught up basking in the comfort of knowing you to realize I had already started losing you.
It wasn’t close to any drama scene I forced you to watch together. There was no falling out, no cruel words exchanged. Just a slow thread unraveling, a gradual slipping away. The spaces between us kept getting deeper. The silences, once made my heart flutter, then felt hollow.
The last time we spoke properly, we both knew what it meant, even if neither of us said it aloud.
A deliberate pause, then the next second our eyes met. A hesitant curve of your lips, my unsure gaze. We were standing amidst a web of deceit, and yet, for a breath, I thought perhaps we could stay.
The conundrum of it all lay in the simple truth, an amalgamation of all that I loved, all that I lost. Your words, once brimming with a plethora of possibilities, now briefly cut down into a few seconds conversation. The brevity was almost insulting, yet it held the concise answer for our lingering enigma. There was no mischief in your eyes anymore, no hushed laughter shared over some thoughtless tomfoolery. The contradiction was straight up a quiet mockery.
And now, looking back, I wonder, if I was the mistake or if meeting you was.
That day, the sorrow lingered in the air far longer, thicker than it used to be. I could feel the trembling of my fingers race against my heartbeat. When time ceased to be a mere limitation, grasping at what remained, a fleeting pipe dream of mine. That I would trade a thousand present moments for just one more escapade of ours, reckless and untethered by consequences.
A few mistakes ago, I met you.
Perhaps, somewhere, beyond the stars, lay another lifetime. One where the meeting didn't happen anytime soon. Perhaps, that would be kinder. And perhaps, at the very least, I wouldn't be mourning something that still breathes.
Frosted ground met the sole of people’s boots, each step had snow clinging on them, thick and heavy. The cold gnawed at us, slithered beneath the coat, coiled around the fingers, and pressed into the bones. I pulled my coat tighter, but of course it did little to nothing to keep the chill from creeping under my skin.
Trees shivered in the bitter wind, their naked branches had long been left by the leaves, replaced by heaps of snow. White blanketed the building, from the towering skyscrapers down to the derelict wreckage of old settlement. It was indeed a bitter fact, but those mostly belonged to people who didn't survive this harsh weather.
I looked at the cloudy sky. How long was it since the last ray of sun shone down to us?
It was the kind of winter that settled in so long, far too long even, until I was having a hard time remembering what it was like before the constant glistening white snow enveloped the whole city. Funny, cause it was quite hard to even remember what our neighbours looked like under their heavy layers of fabrics and scarves.
The dropping temperatures froze even the most muddy quagmire, let alone the richest spring.
I hated it, this winter.
I hated the way it stole warmth from everything it touched, how it turned mornings into sluggish battles against frozen limbs and nights into endless shivering under too-thin blankets. My mind drifted to my home, the dimly lit appartment where we huddled together, wrapped in whatever layer we could find. The heater had died weeks ago, leaving us to share warmth in the only way we could. I pictured my mother, cradling my little brother in her embrace where her last warmth settled, whispering reassurances she didn't believe. Then, my father, who was the strongest, always left early at the crack of dawn with a wavered smile, battling harsh coldness to fuel our dying furnace, to keep our life going.
Then, there was my work.
The endless cycle of exhaustion, the impatient clients, higher-ups who barely acknowledged their staff existence. If I were to be specific, that one manager supervising my division was one of them. Relentless work pace, with worst micromanaging and minus understanding. People were always meaner in this cold. It made their tempers short, their demands sharper. And I was just another insignificant existence in their eyes, working quietly behind the counter, fulfilling their orders.
How I wished this all would just either go back to the things they were, or just lost altogether.
I was so lost in my thoughts, until almost missing the first sign of the latter wish.
The temperature plummeted, not gradually like the usual chill creeping in. It dropped instantly, viciously, like every single ice petal blossomed in such coldness at the same time. The air turned razor-sharp, searing my lungs as I gasped. A deep, guttural groan rumbled beneath my feet, a sound so alien and vast that it sent a spike of fear through my being.
Then, shortly, the snow changed.
The flakes were no longer soft. They were jagged, crystalline shards slicing through the air. I barely had time to flinch as one grazed my cheek, leaving behind a thin, stinging cut. The street lights flickered, their glow dimming, as if the very light was being drained from the world. A gust of wind roared down the street, carrying with it a sound that didn’t belong in our harsh routine, something between a whistle and a scream.
And then the sharp snowflakes started melting through everything they touched.
I watched in horror as a single flake landed on a parked car several meters across the street. The metal warped, bubbling, and dripping like molten wax. A nearby streetlamp suffered the same fate, a crack spider-webbed through its pole, its structure hinning until it crumbled, glass exploding in a spray of sparks.
Panic roared through the once quiet street in an instant.
People screamed. Doors slammed. Some ran, slipping on what little ice remained, others stood frozen in horrified confusion. Discordant, deafening cacophonies erupted through the chaotic landscape.
And then the sky split open.
A cascade of colors spilled through the azure, shimmering like ribbons of liquid ember. Aurora lights, hauntingly breathtaking and violent, surged downward in sagging streams. The ground quivered under the weight of the impossible. The wind had taken on a voice. It was low, whispering, threading into bones, filling head with something ancient and unknowable.
And then came the avalanche.
With a shuddering crack rumbled mightier than any sky-born thunder, the snowpack split in two. I turned my head just in time to see it, an immense wall of snow and ice barrelling down from the mountain, accelerating the frozen ground with growing speed each passing second. The body of it crushing and violent beneath the hammering blizzard, devouring everything in its path. The tide wiped the mountain, buildings shattered beneath its weight, nature landscapes swept away like mere toys, before finally reaching the valley beneath. The roar echoed between the mountain peaks, vibrations returned to the city by thousands of tonnes of massive boulders.
The ground shook again. It brought me back to reality, just how lucky am I standing here, quite miles away from that unrelenting tide of destruction. The world around me was collapsing, swallowed by glowing fractures in the sky, devoured by the melting snow, buried under the roaring avalanche.
It wasn’t until someone grabbed my arm that snapped me back into reality.
“Move!”
I turned to find a familiar figure, raven hair tousled in untamed waves, blue eyes wild with urgency. His breathing was ragged, sweat trailing down his temple amidst the bitter cold. My mind stopped working. A face I knew too well.
It was my manager, that manager.
The same man who spent months breathing down my neck, nitpicking every minor mistake. The one who never looked up from his clipboard when I spoke, who saw me as nothing more than a cog in the relentless grind of our workplace. The one I swore I would never depend on.
Yet now his grip was tight and unyielding. He yanked my body forward, forcing my legs to remember how to run. The ground fractured behind us, a deep, unsettling crack forming where I had stood just seconds earlier.
“This isn’t real,” I murmured in disbelief, my voice barely a whisper over the chaos. But the sting of his fingers around my wrist told otherwise.
“This is happening.” His voice was sharp, cutting through the daze.
My pace slowed, trying to comprehend the sudden change of situation. Why is he here? The same hand who once pointed all my flaws was just now saving me from death. It was absurd. Of all people, why him? And furthermore, why did he choose to save me?
Seeming to sense my reluctance, he pulled me tighter. “I have lost enough people today. You can hate me all you want, but you’re not dying here. Now run!”
For the first time, his voice wasn’t sharp with criticism. It was sharp with fear.
And so I ran. Past collapsing buildings, past burning snow, past the familiar streets now unrecognizable ruins beneath the mayhem. The world I had known was disappearing before my eyes, but my heart pounded with something different now.
Fear, yes. But something else, too.
Because after today, winter would never be the same again.
Hurried steps echoed past the hallways, accompanied by happy squeals and cheerful laughters. The air was thick with chatter, voices overlapping in a carefree melody. Backpacks bumped against shoulders in a blur of motion, doors swung open and shut with careless urgency. It was chaotic yet heartwarming, quiet a contrast to the stillness that lingered in the library's farthest corner, where silence reigned over dust-laden shelves and the faint rustling of turning pages.
Her gaze flicked to the watch resting on her wrist and bid her friends goodbye. With steady steps born from repeated routine, she made her way towards the library and slid the door open with ease.
"Hey," the librarian greeted her with a short nod. "Finished with class?"
Her eyes perked up. "Hello, Miss" she replied, flashing a small smile. "As you can see. I wanna continue my readings."
The librarian, had gotten used to her frequent visits, chuckled a little. "Enjoy your time."
She didn't waste any time taking her favorite light novel from the shelves before settling into her usual spot. The table here had the best view where she could do the reading while absentmindedly watching the packed school grounds beyond the window. She hummed a random tune while scrolling through her playlist, choosing a song to best match the book. As she leaned back, pages flipping idly between her fingers, the distant laughter outside gradually faded, muffled by the towering bookshelves.
As usual, her eyes drifted to the scenery beyond the window every now and then. But when the doors suddenly slid open and unfamiliar footsteps broke the quiet atmosphere, her focus immediately shifted, almost too quickly.
She didn’t know why, but her eyes instinctively followed the newcomer, tracking their every step from the entrance until the person stopped.
At the far end of the library, the spot where he sat comfortably bathed in warm glow of golden hour, where the light fell just a bit gentler. The sunlight framed him delicately, catching the strands of his slightly tousled hair. Light and shadow danced, accentuating the mirth in his eyes.
He leaned in slightly every so often, seemingly heavily intrigued with a book that rested lightly upon his long fingers. The taut of his eyebrows and the creases forming between, the way his lips parted just barely, his focused eyes alight with quiet satisfaction, the subtle tilt of his head, every tiny shift of his expression didn't escape her eyes. And for a fleeting seconds, she wondered how it felt like to be the thoughts that hold him so still.
Her gaze drifted down to the book on his hand, catching the title curved on the glinting cover and reading it slowly. That was when the realization dawned on her. She read the second volume, and he read the first, unknowingly tethered by the same story.
She thought that day was nothing more than a mere amusement, a coincidence she found quiet endearing. Her attention quickly back to the book she read. But as days stretched into weeks, she found she came to the library more often, and his presence became a familiar rhythm.
She took her time holding the second volume, keeping it close yet never reading it in his line of sight. She stopped halfway, fingers traced the spine haphazardly, deliberating wether to continue or stop. Some other times, she place it on the table while flipping through another book. She would put it in plain view, yet never within reach.
Deep in her heart, a new hope arose. Maybe, just maybe, he would spare a glance her way. He would talk to her, asking about the same book. And the spaces between them narrowed just a little.
So, she decided to continue this little game, one only she knew the rules.
Every afternoon, she would patiently wait on her usual spot. She would watch as he stepped into the library. With a steady pace, he treaded to the far end of the library, putting his backpack. He scanned the shelves, fingers grazing the spines of books with a fleeting touch. He always paused at the gap, where the second volume should be. His brows would knit together, lips pressing into a thin line before he let out a sigh and returned to his table.
She hid a smile behind the pages of her book.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after.
She was in no rush.
But tomorrow came, and so did the day after, and then another.
There was no changes. She would sit in her usual spot, eyes drifted between the unread pages and the scenery beyond the window. And he would sit at the opposite corner, lazily flipping through another book pages without even realizing she was there. Sometimes he brought different books. She remembered the title as one of many books she happened to read one or twice, but many more didn't.
His frequent visits gradually ceased. Before she knew it, she started seeing him less. More times didn't than did.
One week passed without him visiting the library, and that corner felt lonelier than ever.
"You always go there. Won't you go with us this time?"
She chuckled, hearing her friends nagged her a bit. She looked at the tray on her hands. She's right, she thought. It's been ages since I go out with my friends.
"Hey, don't say it like that," her other friend jumped in. "Her favorite novels just arrived. Of course she needs time to finish it."
"But, must you go there every day? C'mon, let's just go at that new cafe! There are so many things I wanna talk about."
She laughed, then quickly drowned to the conversation as her friends were talking about the new place to go after school.
That was when something caught her eyes.
There, she saw him. Not in the library, instead here, during lunch.
Her heart skipped a bit.
He was standing against the counter, several feets across from her. He casually leaned on the wall with bright smiles, sometimes he let out a soft laugh, engrossed with a conversation. His presence was effortless as ever. His existence blurred the world surrounding him, merged together under the embrace of the sunlight.
But, she realized something. It was his eyes.
She followed the gaze to find it resting on a girl, his eyes lighted up with a glint of admiration and longing.
He wasn't alone. He was talking to a girl.
Her breath hitched, but she forced herself to look away. Forced herself to take slow steps toward an empty seat, though her fingers curled into her sleeves.
Just a coincidence, she told herself. She tried to take a spoonful of salad, ignoring their presence even when it stood out like a sore thumb.
Until she heard them speak.
"I still can't find the second volume," he said, scratching the back of his neck. An apologetic smile rested on his lips. "I wanted to get it for you, but someone must’ve borrowed it already."
"It’s okay," the girl laughed softly. "I’ll just wait. Don't think about it too much."
Her stomach twisted.
Her eyes caught on a phone charm dangling from the girl's phone. A small, silver charm shaped like a book, the same design as the limited-edition merchandise from those novel series. A rare one. Something only a die-hard fan could get their hands onto.
She stared at the untouched meal on her tray, at the condensation beading along the rim of her drink. The cafeteria noise, the cheerful conversation of her friends gradually muffled and blurred into a distant hum.
She could only think of how he visited the library every day, how he sighed in disappointment finding the small gap between the shelves, how he aimlessly wandered the towering bookshelves to search for the book he wanted.
And how she once thought it was a chance for her.
But no.
It would never be.
The second volume of the novel sat on her desk that evening, untouched.
Next to it, the keychains set she had once bought out of excitement, one for her, one for the person she hoped would understand the story the same way she did.
She stared at them for a long time, for what felt like an eternity.
Then she exhaled softly.
She just needed to let go.
Maybe she should just stop there, at admiration alone.
Maybe she was just too caught up on the hope.
She held the book close, as that night something else that teetered on the edge of jealousy and dejection swallowed her into dreamless sleep.
The next day, she arrived early.
At the far end of the library, where golden light painted long streaks through the air where the memory felt the loudest, she placed the second volume carefully on his usual seat.
Beside it, the two keychains rest idly. One for him. One for that girl, that was never meant to be hers.
And finally, a small note, scrawled in a neat, unwavering letter.
I happened to see you this past days. Here, I got what you need. Good luck!
Then, without a second glance, she turned and walked away. Her phone lighted up, showing a new text messages.
"I'm happy you decided to come! Let's go. We'll wait for you at the school gate."
The sky was boundless, shifting between dusk and dawn in a certain mistimed rhythm. The color was shade I had never seen, hues shimmering and pulsing like the surface of a living canvas. The ground beneath me was neither turf nor air, not even water. It wasn't something in between, more like fluttering pages torn from incomplete stories. Each passages clad with unfulfilled promises, memories intertwining. Cities, mountains, sea rose and fell in the distance, coalescing and disassociating into myriads of constellations.
Here, past, present, and future were mingling into one, slipping through my fingers like they would the sands in a pristine, ancient hourglass. Throughout the ever-changing mist, loud chatter, echoes of grieving, desperation and longing grazed my ear. They bore mixed feelings, derived from the bottomless ocean, somewhere I couldn't find.
Then, suddenly, the whistle had been blown.
A hovering, mystifying train stood before me. Its formation was embodiment of flowing liquid silver, neither old nor new, neither present nor forgotten. Its very presence somehow stilled the world, halting the shift of the sky, the flutter of the ground, and the upending of the scenery—as if time itself has paused synchronously.
The whistle blew once again, the doors slid open not long after.
At the entrace, stood a figure cloaked in phasing time. The silhouette was flickering like a dying ember. Their face remained unseen, but they felt overwhelmingly familiar. Like a childhood friend you met once and never see again in an amusement park.
"You've come a long way," the figure's words echoed, making my heart trembled. Their voice layered, like spoken by many and none at the same time.
"Where is this?" My own voice felt hoarse, a stark contrast to the serene ambience surrounding us.
"A place where all you were, all you are, and all you will become, exist as one," they answered. "It also holds the answer you seek, should you be willing to ask the right questions"
I hesitated. The trains seemed to hum faintly, tethered to the invisible tracks. It wasn't just waiting. It was expecting me.
"Where does the train go?"
"Forward, backward, through," they said. "We have no destination. It takes the passengers to the path they have walked, the turns they have missed, and the doors they have yet to open."
My fingers twitched, clutching the hem of my shirt. A strange weight pressed against my chest. A fleeting sense of familiarity slipped through unseen cracks. Perhaps, echo of the moments unlived yet intimately known, lingering in the air like forgotten melody, one I had danced to between the quiet heartbeat.
"Have I been here before?" The questions came out quickly than I had anticipated.
Strange, I couldn't see their face but somehow I felt a smile settled in their lips.
"Each time, you always ask that." I thought I heard their voice somehow shifted into more familiar tone, tinged with light touch akin to feathers.
"You always hesitate here." The layered voice spoke again.
A chill ran down my spine.
"So this time, I hope that hesitation has ceased into firm belief."
A long silence stretched between us.
Then, without thinking, I stepped forward.
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the world fractured. The ground beneath me lurched as the doors sealed shut, its metallic clunk swallowing any way back.
And as quickly as the figure fading away, the darkness swathed the interior of the train. The world blurred, dissolving into smear of colors as the train marched forward through the time.
A soft glow bled through the crystal clear windows along the train hallway, spilling onto the polished flooring. Distant echoes drifted through the gaps. I could hear laughter, hushed murmur, heart-wrenching sobs, the feelings each words bore seeped into my heart.
My chest tightened.
I knew what lay beyond the window.
I knew which scene of my life scenario this train walked in this very second.
I knew what I had chosen that day. The split-second decision I came to regret, as swift as a heartbeat.
The reality I tried so hard to bury was akin to tidal waves, ebbing and flowing, receding and increasing, and with each surge I cracked a little deeper. It was only lately, I realized the shadow was always there. Hovering over my life, tethered to dark clouds looming over my heart.
And this train would continue bringing me deeper and deeper, into the memories I tried so hard to escape.
People always have their regrets. For me, there were three.
The first station arrived quickly.
A sudden lurch. A sharp whistle.
The door didn't open, instead the window revealed everything.
It was a small cafe, where warm golden afternoon light filtered through the glass pane. She was seated by the window, fingers curled around a cup of untouched coffee. Her fingertips, stained crimson, traced the red color onto her lips, painting love through quiet stroke in its purest form. It was youthful—wild and untamed, burning with reckless fervor, fiery as the rising sun.
That was me when the sun had yet to set.
Across my younger self, sat a familiar figure. His expression expectant, waiting for me to say the words he always longed to hear. His stormy gaze met mine, a reassuring smile grazed his lips. But I knew his patience was wearing thin.
And then, that courage never came. His figure leaving the cafe, reflected in the same window.
My lips trembled, repeating the words I should have said back then, over and over again.
The view blurred and shifted into something else.
The second station.
A rainy street. My drenched figure stood beneath a flickering lamp, soaked to the bone. This time, there were more than one person—my old sanctuary, some dear friends I cherished, stood a few meters away. They were holding out their hands. A quiet invitation, one that had once been mine to take. Yet I didn't.
I hesitated for too long.
I remembered they withdrew their hands, shaking their heads with a sad smile. We wish you the best, their last words sent a lingering farewell. I remembered the rain stopped, yet the cold never ceased. I remembered the ache that tinged my heart as I watched them disappear into the night.
I pressed my palm against the train window, but the scenery quickly changed into new memories.
The third station.
A dimly lit room, shadow pooled in the corner. Dust swirled in the still air, settling over untouched old books, an unfinished letter, and a half-filled cup of coffee–had long gone cold on a lone table, surface marred with faint scratches and coffee stains. A single chair sat before it, slightly pulled back. My younger self, had once sat there in hesitation, hand holding a pen hovered over the scattered paper. Several words were written by that pen, before I crumpled the paper and threw it away aimlessly, joining others to make a mess on the floor.
The letter was never sent. Neither to my first love, my old friends, nor my family, whom I had last contact with for as long as I could remember.
I sat there, succumbing to loneliness. The loneliness I created myself.
Tears welled in my eyes as I felt the regrets washed over me again.
"You cannot change what has already been," the cloaked figure whispered, standing beside me once more. The tone was that of sympathy, as they watched me wallow in self-pity. “But still, you return.”
“Why?” I asked, voice barely a whisper. “Why do I keep coming back? Why do I have to feel the pain over and over again?”
The train lights flickered. The speed greatly dispersed.
“Because you're searching for something.”
My fist clenched. The weight pressed against my chest felt heavier. I turned to the outside scenery blocked by the windows. Along with the intricacies of the minutiae, it dissipated miraculously like a mirage amidst a vast, scorching desert. It turned into something.
The last station.
The train came to a halt. The doors shifted open.
And at the end of this long, seemingly endless journey,
The sky was a black tranquility married to the stars as they alligned, with a vast field under greeted her sight. Her boots sank into the untrimmed grass. The dew was beading finer than any jewel, effortlessly tracing the curves of the earth before kissing the sole of her boots. The field was a canvas of fresh green. And in the middle, lay a patch of earth marked by its stillness, a place where no flowers dared to bloom. It was surrounded by a quiet sea of blooming lilies—white, pink, and yellow. Each one placed by trembling hands and whispered prayers.
All for a person buried six feet underneath, someone who once shone brightly, brighter than the glimmering stars above.
She fell on her knees, on the same spot she did every single night, beside his grave. The cold wind caressed her tears-stained cheeks, rustling through the trees. The scent of lilies wafted up, sweet yet suffocating.
He had always loved flowers. They both did.
But him, his love for them wasn't because of their intricate petals, their vibrant colors, nor the graceful curves of their corolla. Their beauty is fleeting. Their life is brief, momentary, ephemeral, and fragile. They are the things that made them so intriguing, he once said.
He was just like those flowers. His beauty was brief, and in the end, he, too, wilted.
The day after he died, they said, "Good mourning," and something along the lines of offering their deepest condolences. As if there was a glint of sadness while reminiscing, as if they took comfort somehow. Each attended the funeral and offered bouquets of flowers—his favorites—but neither of them spoke of love.
Grief is the price we pay for love, he said, amused by the days spent on her being devastated upon the loss of her beloved cat. "No need to cry. All life will wilt and die eventually at the end."
"And then, life will still go on." That was the end of their simple conversation.
Indeed. Life actually goes on after you die, her mind spoke to herself. But the thing contradicted his words was, that she thought it's okay to weep, for not all the tears are evil.
Just like the day when the light had left his bright eyes, how her chest tightened with each sob, breath catching in irregular gasps. A grimaced pain was searing inside her mind, her whole body was trembling uncontrollably as she struggled to wipe away her tears.
For her, the clock at that moment was a held breath, suspended in the glint of dust motes.
For her, the time had stopped.
That was the second thing contradicted his saying.
They had always been opposites. He was pragmatic, believed firmly that death was merely a part of nature's cycle—perhaps even admiring its inevitability. He dealt with everything as a matter of fact. Whilst her, she was sentimental, seeking meaning in everything, from the way the leaves left the trees in autumn to the last drop of snow melting under the first ray of spring.
"You're too poetic," he once teased. "Not everything needs to mean something."
"And you're too heartless," she retaliated. "You think world goes like a machine."
He just scratched his head. An awkward, apologetic smile rested on his lips, as if to pacify her frayed nerves.
Still, he never judged her for her melancholia.
If anything, he always listened. He was there, sitting next to her in comfortable silence as she cried. They would talk about memories, even when he didn't understand what made her so immersed in them.
She wished she had done the same for him.
She wished she had gathered his words like pressed flowers, tucking them into her page of memory before they withered. She wished she had memorized more of the cadence of his voice, so she could loop it in her mind like a broken record. If she had known their conversation would be the last, she would've taken in the way his presence filled the space, before silence was all he left behind.
The news came on an ordinary morning.
There was no warning, no augury, no sign, no last goodbye. No lingering warmth either.
Last night, they were just talking about mundane things. Discussing a book he had been reading, and casually picking a new cat she was going to adopt.
He had been alive, then he wasn't. In just a blink of an eye, he was a name spoken in past tense.
People talked about him in quiet voices. They said, it was quick, painless. They said he wouldn't have suffered.
But, she did.
Time had fractured, leaving her stuck between reverie and reality where she kept expecting new chat bubble would pop up in the screen.
Of course, it would never come.
For her, life didn't just go on.
And here, amidst the sea of flowers where his eternal resting lay, her fingers curled around the hem of her coat, knuckles pale against the dark fabric. The nature played a hymn of bereavement. The time had long passed since the tears had stopped flowing, yet her heart was still beating out the dry cadence of time passing.
She stared at his name etched into the cold stone. She remembered his words, "Life will still goes on."
Maybe, she thought, maybe the cogs of life gears were meshing together as they turned, but the part of her that had known him–the part that laughed together with him, the part that spent the days with him—that part would never move on completely.
And yet...
She inhaled slowly, feeling the scent of damp earth carried by the breeze seeped into her lungs. The sky with streaks of red hues stretched endlessly above her.
Her fingers relaxed and unclenched.
Not all tears are evil, she thought.
And for once, she was glad.
The tombstone stood lonely in the dawn was an end to a story, for it was the final testament upon the last page.
But, perhaps, a whole new book could be born anew, transpiring the heartfelt farewell as its epigraph. Written by yours truly.
"I'm sorry, it's just that my egoistic self couldn't stand my heart shattered anymore, be it my salvation or me waking up against my dreadful companion. I paint my own reality, and nestle among my pipe dreams."
Gloomy clouds hung closely above them, completely covering the rosy tinted sky by the time the girl finished her saying. Eyes wandering, didn't even spare a single glance at the person beside her, didn't even register the desperate plea beneath his glossy eyes.
He thought about many things. Thin flowy frills against her delicate figure, dancing along the whispering breeze. The way the setting sun kissed the edge of the cerulean ocean, marred by the fiery red hues casted along the dusk end. The waves pooled around their feet, incoming tides bathed the grainy sands—they were the most gentle hue of gold.
But if everything was this peaceful, why did her words hurt him so? He clutched onto the sharp words like tiny fragments, piercing deeper as the blood trickling towards the ground.
"I don't understand," he breathed out. Voice as distant as the sea, as bitter as the blood gushing from his body. It was red, like the color of love. "If you've painted your own reality, why am I the only one left outside your canvas?"
A hand extended towards the bewilderment clouding his curious eyes, but they just wasn't enough to quench the flame raging inside her ruthless heart. Her eyes had thorns in them, and as dazzling as the sun they be, he fell for them more than his remaining breath. And those eyes locked on him, relinquishing what they couldn't return, the way she always saw through him.
Here stood a man with unwavering strength, reduced to something so fragile for the first time. His face full of desperate sincerity as he laid everything bare. Abandoning pride and dignity as he showed her everything he had. It was a sight so endearing, that made her heart bloomed in warmth.
But it had long gone from her agenda, to fall for someone who clung so tightly to what she already let go.
The end was nigh. The waves now reached their calves, rolling and crashing along the shore. They were like dreams, ending and ebbing. It felt like a forgotten memory, sometimes heavy with bittersweet, sometimes like a long drag agony. How the waves used to craddle her among the folds of their embrace, promising solace where none could be found. And, look, now they seemed betrayed her, begging her to stay where she no longer belonged.
Him and the waves.
"I'm not leaving you out," Her voice was soft, yet to his ears, it sounded like a contradiction. "...nor am I planning to fit you into it. Can't you see? The dream wasn't mine to begin with." Their heart was hit with a pang of ache. His, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. While hers, colluding with the sheer longing of belonging. And that didn't escape his watchful eyes.
"I don't care," he bit his lower lip hard, hesitating–knowing his words could chase her away. But he pressed on, desperate. The glimmer of an opportunity, though fleeting, fueled his resolve. "A whole new dream can be created, just you and I. Just us. One that's yours only. Nothing would stand in the way."
But the tenderness in his resolve burned worse than the pain she was trying to escape.
"You think you want me," she said, her voice trembling. "But you don't. You long for the me who once believed in those dreams, full of baloney. She, who could hold the sun in her hands without the fear of getting burned. And I refuse to drag you down with me into the abyss I've chosen."
The tide surged higher, lapping at their knees now, urging a choice to be made before it swallowed them whole. He reached out again, more desperate. But she took a step back, her silhouette sharp against the dying light. The wind picked up, blowing through her hair, and for a moment, she looked as untethered as the sea itself.
"I can't let you stay," she whispered. Her words quivering like thousands blade, promising swift death. "If I do, I'll start hoping again. And hope, isn't something I can bear anymore."
The waves roared louder, drowning out the silence. And also, drowning out the unspoken plea of his still outstretched hand. He stood in place, nailed to the ground, as he watching her turned away. Her figure framed by the last vestiges of light.
Just when the distance between them felt unreachable, she halted, turned to him for a second. "If there's another dream," she whispered, her voice carried by the wind. "Maybe then, we'll meet with a better picture. Where everything is ours only."
And with that, she walked into the horizon. Her footsteps dissolving into the restless water as the last ray of light claimed her whole.
He stood there for what felt like an eternity, long after the sun had set. The waves crept up his calves, felt somehow icy and indifferent, as if her warmth had disappeared without a trace. He whispered to the wind, a farewell she would never hear.
In the icy stillness of a winter night, two hearts stand on the brink of unraveling. As the silence between them deepens, one question lingers—was love ever truly enough to hold them together?
It was a cold winter, the kind that gnawed at your skin and lingered in your breath. The frost clung to the air, every inhale stung like a needle in your chest. The wind howled softly, bringing with it an icy edge that crawled up your spine, uninvited and unrelenting.
Under the soft glow of a street lamp, a shadow–long and lonely–was cast over two figures, a tall boy and a girl. The silence stretched between them felt colder still, for the spaces deepening with each passing moment, a stark contradiction to the fact that they were walking side by side this very second. The unspoken truths hovered around them like a mist, thick and suffocating.
Tonight, it might be just twice as cold, twice as bitter.
Tsukishima Kei, with his long strides trying to match your pace, at a loss for words. His headphones rested idly around his neck. Hands buried deep in the warmth of the pocket of his jacket, pondering as to should he strike a conversation with his lover, you, who was unusually quiet tonight. He stole glances every now and then, hoping to catch a glimpse of the thoughts you wouldn't share through unreadable expression. But each time, his confidence faltered before he finally looked away, eyes fixed on the snow crunching softly beneath his feet.
While you, the figure running through Tsukishima's mind, walked just beside him, your steps steady but distant. You held your gaze up, admiring the faint silvery glow of the moon, casting a mystifying light over the barren trees and the snow-dusted ground. How you wished you were just as calm as the moon, but the storm inside you was raging relentlessly. A testament to the pain subdued over years of your relationship.
"Kei," you breathed out slowly. A puff of white cloud followed suit. And through your peripheral vision, you saw your boyfriend lifted his head to the sound of your trembling voice.
"Why did you agree in the first place, when I asked you out?" There. The biggest enigma you couldn't solve, no matter how hard you pondered. Then, maybe, his answer was the only key to your confusion.
"I don't know." But it betrayed your wait.
"I thought I'd feel satisfied for once." You chuckled bitterly. "But maybe it's me whose hopes are too high." A faintest flicker of guilt crossed his nonchalant eyes.
"That's the problem, Kei. You never know." Your steps halted. "And you never bothered to know." And Tsukishima's too.
"I bet you also never know how much effort I put into holding on to the last straw. How much I've tried to keep us afloat."
Your words stabbed deep into his heart. You had nothing to lose, so you bravely stared into his uncertain eyes, fighting against the fear rising slowly in your chest–and perhaps in his too.
"But one thing you can be sure of, (y/n). I chose you, and that fact is enough for everything." That was a pathetic excuse, it was known to both of you. You felt the ironicity, he was only willing to "try" when you were ready to let go.
And that wasn't even close to the effort you had put over years of this relationship.
"Choice, was never enough to begin with," your voice cracked, like the brittle branches weighed down by the snow. And this time, his gaze faltered, slipping to the ground as if the truth you hurled at him was too heavy to bear. "I tried, Kei. I really did. Maybe you'll say you did too, but love isn't something you could just choose."
He flinched, just barely. Maybe your words cut deeper than either of you anticipated.
“Love isn't a decision you can just make and leave to rot. It needs work, real and relentless work which comes from both of us."
You took a shaky breath, fighting to steady yourself. For a brief moment, you thought you saw something–guilt, regret, or even shame–in his averted gaze.
While Tsukishima stood in silence, throwing back to old days when you two first met.
Just how did you two meet?
Maybe it was his curiosity for the brave retort to his sarcasm, sharp gaze that never backed down. Maybe through your love of many things they shared. A cute apatosaurus keychain dangling in your bag. A guileless girl, having her first crush.
It surely did sparked something.
He yearned for your company—perhaps those conversations had stirred a faint longing in his quiet mind. How your cheerful laughter echoed, lingered in his lonely room; your warm greetings set a mood through the customized notifications in his phone, the gentle sweetness of those strawberry shortcakes you baked, and how his exhaustion ceased the moment he saw you welcomed him after practice.
So he embraced the commitment, thinking it might bring light to his dull, monotonous days.
But his heart was never truly ready to love. Such a profound and meaningful emotion felt foreign to his routine. For him, love was a weight too heavy to bear, a burden that pressed too hard against the boundaries of his solitude.
And just now, as he heard your slightly breaking voice–demanding an end to this relationship, only he realized how much you give, but never take. His mistook the familiarity for something as big as love. And his light–you, finally exerted your shine.
“I love the memories we shared,” his words came out unexpectedly low.
“To me, you are my light,”
“And you said, to turn to you anytime,”
"I have you, don't I?" Those words came out barely audible from his lips.
A single tear cascaded down your cheek.
“If that's what you really feel, then why am I the only one trying?” The whisper etched with the biting breeze.
His mind replayed the scenes he had ignored for too long. The soft vibration of his phone silenced by indifference, the untouched bento left to cool in his locker, the fleeting glance you gave him in the hallway–filled with the hope he refused to meet.
Your vision blurred, each blink releasing another drop, tracing a hot, stinging path down your trembling chin.
“And if that light is what you've been holding on, to keep us in this situation, even though it's falling apart,"
"Then, just kill the light. Just kill me in your heart."
The moon peered down on you, pitying you.
“You have me, Kei. That is true,” your voice breaking at last. “But I never have you.”
Your words settled over him like the cold of the snow. But he said nothing, he couldn't. Because he realized he couldn't hold on to something as radiant as you.
And maybe that was what hurt the most.
“We should end this,” you said firmly, after what seemed like unbearable silence. The words tasted bitter at the tip of your tongue, but it carried the end you two needed.
He didn't stop you.
You took a step back, then another. The distance between you grew quickly, but he didn't do a thing. He didn't know how, and you had nothing to hold on to anymore.
As you turned away, you dared a single last glance over your shoulder. Tsukishima Kei, still standing beneath the light of the street lamp. His headphones still rested idly around his neck. Hands still buried deep in the warmth of the pocket of his jacket. His expression was a mix of guilt and uncertainty.
And though, you couldn't see the flicker of emotion in his eyes anymore, you knew it was there.
Because this time, you were the one walking away.
And after some time passed, Tsukishima's eyes held upwards. An empty street with snow blanketed in a muted hush. But it was not only the street that was empty. It was also his heart. And the vastness of the night only amplified the weight of what was gone. What never could return.
Those stinging, hurting, twinging in pain when the ignorance hit you right off the boat, hard as rock, knocking you out cold
Say, if they're coming like a steady tidal wave, will it hurt as much as it did the first time it got here?
I could see myself there, stranded in the far corner, hidden away from every curious sight, afraid it'd take another year to heal the scars.
Then, how do you describe "companion"?
Someone saved you from oblivion, brought you to all the places your feet couldn't take you to, and made you realize that they're there. You're not alone, they said.
And, just like the light from a firefly fades away amidst the pitch dark of the night, they're gone.
And one fact I could learn is :
Spare a space for people inside of you, but dont let it ruin your safe space. Make one place where no one could touch you, hurt you, or ruin you.
This intangible comfort knocked my heart; once, twice, no need. You already had the key.
The first time you showed your undeniably kind heart, I came undone.
Sorrow was what I was drowning myself into, and you said, no, pulled me up and turned it into happiness, gladly.
Solitude was what I desired, but you introduced to me the joy of company.
Or as simple as you were there, and I felt like I was ready to lose whatever I was holding at that moment just to spend the time with you.
Serenity was what I sought, and you brought it to me.
As aloof as I am, I became the most cheerful person I could be in front of you.
I ditched everyone, much to everyone's dismay, but, look, you kept showing up, as I was getting swallowed up by guilt.
Even we have yet to meet, even if our eyes have yet to collide, even when our words have yet to connect, I just want you to know. You brought light to me, somewhere I could call home.
