Two Broken Hearts
Whether it was warm outside or cold, windy or bone dry the weather was always changing just as the people of Midgar changed. But there was one thing that never changed. The same red head of spikes always sat at the same table right next to the same window with the same cup of coffee. It didn't matter if the weather was nice or terrible the one thing I could always count on would be that beautiful man with the same forlorn expression always sitting and looking the same way as he did the day before, with that longing face that gazed out the window endlessly as if searching, waiting, for someone…someone who, in the end, was never really there.
I don't really know when or how or even why I continued to visit that old dinner. Tifa, the owner, never liked me and her cousin Cloud hated my guts. Every time I walked in always received daggered glares of hatred that wanted me to leave. I never did. For some unfathomable reason I felt compelled to sit in what soon became my own table which sat across from the statue of a man clear across the dinner. And everyday he would be there, in that same seat with a cup of coffee that was always banished to the other side of the table, long before I ever walked in.
And so I would hold a cup of my own coffee between well heated hands and gaze at the lonely man over the brim of my cup. But no matter how long I stared him or how long I tried to capture his attention he never once turned around. Not once did he ever take his sad face away from that window.
And when Cloud inquired about his untouched cup, as he always did, the man would merely mouth the word 'no' without ever moving another muscle. To the other customers in the dinner he was like a thin statue of burning red that appeared to have no muscle and life. The color of his eyes I couldn't tell but someone mentioned them to be green. A brightly light green that may be the only alive feature he carried besides his flaming hair of spikes. Though I was sure he heard the girls gossip as one courageously approached he paid them no mind, as if he heard nothing and saw nothing except whatever was outside that window.
And on it went just like that. Though the customers changed over the year, as did their tastes, he didn't. That cup would continue to sit neglected just like the man that refused to touch it. The outside world would change nearly every minute as expected of Midgar but still he would search and wait.
I wondered idly to myself, not for the first time, who would dare to leave someone so openly broken to pick up the pieces by himself.
Until one day I pulled Cloud aside, despite his glare and protest.
"How long does he stay there?" I had asked gesturing to the red head.
The look on the blonde's face was that of shock and puzzlement. Clearly he hadn't been expecting that but he answered my question none the less.
"From opening to closing." came the simply if a little solemn response.
I just stared dumbfounded at the blonde my shock unmasked. And then, for whatever reason, I asked about the coffee.
"The way you drink it. Black, one sugar, no creamer." was my answer and then Cloud was gone. I could have cared less about him.
My taste of coffee was an uncommon one so I wondered if maybe his tastes changed but never bothered to change his order.
Whatever the reason another month had come and gone. The trees were all now bare and a white coat had been pulled over the city. The small dinner had soon gone from nearly empty to overly cramped before the weather was too bad. Only those brave enough or close enough traveled the distance in the cold to the Seventh Heaven dinner, myself being one.
Oh but of course the red head I had come to watch until I knew every curve, twist, turn, and color of his clothes and body was there. If I had been asked to I could give a perfect description of this statue like man from head to toe until a portrait was painted. I knew every structure of physical aspect except his face.
Oh, how I longed to see his face just once. Then I would happily die just as Cloud and Tifa wished it though at some point I stopped receiving death glares. Perhaps it was after I asked Cloud of the quiet man. Or maybe sometime before that. Honestly, I didn't care. I was happy enough to watch the red head of flames.
Until one day the table he always inhabited was left empty and alone. There was no statue, no trace of red. Not even a cup of coffee was left in his place. It was as if he had came and left in less than the year it was.
I wondered in a panic what had possibly happened to him. Had he fallen ill? Was he in an accident? Did he move? Too many possibilities swirled around in my head until an answer dawned on me.
Oh, I thought in sadness. The person he was waiting for must have shown.
The realization made my chest ache and my body numb. I hadn't even asked his name let alone given him mine. Then again I was too cowardly to speak to him in the first place. Stupidity was my undoing.
After that he still continued to go to that dinner full of hope that would be shattered the moment I walked in. That empty table just seemed too wrong in my eyes.
There was suppose to be a red head with coffee there. I wanted to scream. But I didn't. Because there wasn't a red head with coffee.
So instead I began to sit at that too empty table. Not in his seat, of course, but in the one where the coffee should have been. I would then order said coffee just the way he ordered it before and I would set it in front of me. But I never touched it. Even though I knew who it was intended for, who it was always intended for. I never touched it. Only looked out the window in much the same way as he had.
I had become the statue with untouched coffee. I became the longing man who wondered when he would return. Who wondered if he was ever really there.