Disclaimer: Higuchi Tachibana is the master of this art.
"Happy endings don't come in the middle of the story." My stories are not always happy. I come not from a fairytale, but from real life. There is no such thing as happy-ever-after. Happiness is not absolute. It lasts for mere seconds, and when it leaves, there is the development of a desire, and a blank space signifying the presence of melancholy. Tragedies are inevitable, and what I write is what happens in real life.
Wilted Roses
CrimsonAuRevoir
No matter how many times I avert my eyes or grit my teeth, I can't help but look and smile whenever you're around.
I wonder if I can keep this up; that is, hiding my feelings.
It's hard, you know. It's like wanting to shout the one important thing to the world but you can barely whisper it to the one concerned. I just hate myself for that.
I don't have the guts, I admit. When I finally have the courage to speak with you, you walk away to attend to your own matters or someone taps you on the shoulder (but as expected, you also walk away).
If only I can tell you about how I feel about you, I definitely would.
But I'm afraid, I'm afraid of the chance that you don't feel the same way, too. I'm scared that you'll ignore me more and be ashamed that I was the one who liked you.
As your brown hair tumbled over your shoulders, I watched; the image of you getting farther and farther away. How I wish that making you mine was as easy as just glancing at you from afar.
You're the reason why I can't sleep, why I fidget in front of the class, why I peek through windows, why I wake up feeling nervous every single day. You're the reason why I can't give up on living until I can finally be the one who makes you laugh and be happy.
One day, you weren't around, and I was disappointed. It was the day that I had been waiting for in the whole school year.
Valentine's day.
I had brought a dozen red roses, chocolates, notes, and your favorite book. I was utterly prepared.
Problem is, you weren't there.
I was planning on leaving the gifts on your desk, but I figured out that maybe someone would take it and tell everybody that the presents were given to her. So, I went home with all the objects, looking like a rejected loner.
Somehow I felt like I really was.
When I got home, I placed all the romantic trinkets in my room and immediately proceeded to the sofa near the tv. I flipped the channels, not really interested in each one.
I stopped at a broadcasting network, which was showing the picture of a girl I hardly knew.
Back up a sec.
Hazelnut eyes.
Nope, I don't know her.
Flashy teeth.
Well, many people have flashy teeth.
Long brown hair.
About three fourths of the population have brown hair.
There would be nothing weird if it wasn't for those characteristics.
They all pointed to you.
And the reporter was clearly saying that you were dead.
Dead?
What?
I mean- I just saw you smiling that beautiful smile of yours, I just saw you giggling with your friends.
Then, one day after, you're just…dead?
How am I supposed to react?
Angry? Sad? Frustrated?
No.
I'm hurt and regretful.
Why would fate even do that to you? You haven't done anything wrong, for Pete's sake! You're possibly the most innocent girl I know. You always share your sandwiches with those who don't have lunch. You smile at everybody.
You didn't deserve to..just..die.
It felt like the roses have wilted on my bed, along with the hopes that I can finally confess to you. All of them gone in a matter of seconds.
It hurts so much. I can't breathe properly, I can't even blink. It takes a long time for the fact to settle in my mind. I can't accept that.
I wish that I said everything before you were gone like that. I wish that I can bring the past back, so that even if you died, you would've known that I loved you since the beginning.
It's your funeral, and although I'm a stranger to your family, I come, with the wilted roses and fading notes that I've handwritten a week ago. It felt like eternity without you.
I can't look at your coffin. I can't keep my tears in my bloodshot eyes.
I just can't do anything now.
Your mother sobs, and everyone else does. Even me. I'm not humiliated since I'm a guy, because it's you that I'm crying for.
When they give me your key to your locker, I hesitate, but then again, I couldn't do anything but accept it.
I go to school at nine o'clock in the solemn evening, not even embracing the fact that there was a typhoon. I ran to your locker, which was five steps away from mine.
There it was.
Hastily, I fumble with the key and open the locker.
I'm nervous.
The moment the light hit the inside of the locker, I held my breath.
But there was nothing to see.
I dug my fingers deep into the stack of papers- science homeworks, paperworks, thesis papers. Nothing much but more of school stuff.
Then some envelope popped out of nowhere, cascading into the floor in a kind of sad grace. I guess I'll have to open it.
I opened it, and there spilled letters, pictures, everything. A single name was written over and over again.
My name.
I picked the images up and scrutinized them- pictures of the class, pictures of me hooting in the rollercoaster. Then letters- letters addressed to a certain person. Me again.
I read them. My heart was crushed.
" To the guy who can't tell how he feels,
Ha! I caught you with that one.
But, honestly. I can see you everytime you glimpse at me. That's because I'm gazing at you, too.
You grin like a brain-washed moron. It makes me smile.
When I'm there, I'm expecting you to talk to me like we're good friends. But you can't get your feet to move and somebody beats you to it.
You can't tell how you feel. Right.
I also can't tell how I feel about you.
I wonder if someday you're going to know about this- and how you're going to react. I'm afraid that you'll call me a coward.
This letter is going to be stuck here for a long time.
And by the time that it's no longer here, I would be happy since I finally gave it to you.
"
I sank to my knees and cried- I didn't know. I didn't know.
I'm such a coward.
We're both cowards.
But even if we never got to tell each other, I'm telling it to you now, hoping that wherever you are, you'll listen.
I've loved you for such a long time.
And I'm sorry if you never got to know when you were still alive.
Like the wilted roses, you died.
But remember…
My heart died along with you.
Real life is not a fairytale. Stop wishing it was.