I remember a time where we were happy. Where we were together, and everything was bright.
I met her in the spring, a time fitting for someone like her. Her whole being was just that, the embodiment of spring. But like always, spring wasn't always blooming.
There were always thunderstorms.
It was on those days that I met her.
I couldn't forget that day, nor did I want to. We were both broken that day. Withering away into nothing, I began to walk. The rain pouring buckets around me, yet I couldn't feel. I kept walking, that helpless feeling never leaving me. How does one stop feeling alone when that's all they've been their whole life?
Walking for so long had eventually left me in front of a stone bench at the park and face to face with her. I didn't look up, but her jean covered legs and soaked sneakers were enough to let me know she was there. We sat on that bench, each as close to corners as possible. At that point, nothing more than strangers sitting outside in the pounding rain on a stone cold bench, I felt her pain. It radiated off of her, creating an overlapping bubble with my own.
We didn't speak, and why would we? We just sat there, I staring at the ground, her staring at rain drops. I don't understand why, but just sitting there in the cool rain with this stranger next to me relaxed me, all anyone ever did for me was yell and judge, pushing me further away but her, with her I didn't feel like she was drawing me to her or that she was pushing me away. She was a stranger, she wasn't supposed to affect me in anyway, but I liked knowing that. She was nothing, and thus she did nothing to me.
We both sat there for another twenty minutes, it was only when I stood did I see her face. She had decided to stand as well. Flat against her skull was a head of soaked pink hair, her skin was fair, smooth, flawless, and her eyes, a glowing emerald that stared right back at me, her expression probably just as dead as mine.
I didn't wave, I didn't smile at her, nor did she to me. Just a simple nudge of my head, and I was on my way. I didn't once look back to see if she had left too.
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I didn't expect it to be the last time I saw her, and it wasn't. Something was constantly pulling me to that bench. And every time, I saw her again. Whether she was sitting underneath a nearby tree, staring off at the shining blue lake in front of the bench or just sitting with me, well not specifically with me, just on the same seat as me. Though this has been going on for some weeks now, we have yet to say one word to another. I'm comfortable as things are, we aren't anything, I don't ever think we'll be something, but even I have to admit it's a bit strange.
For a while now we've done this. For a while we've been in each other's presence, even without speaking I can tell she's okay with how things are. But I guess somewhere within me, I at least want to hear her speak.
Now with her sitting on the bench with me today, I gazed up at the spring sun. It was overly humid that day more so than any other day this spring. So with my head still angled up in the sky I finally broke that silence… however, I never expected her to be thinking the same, This weather is unbearable. We muttered at the same time.
For the second time since our first meet, did our eyes connect. Her face displaying the shock I was hiding.
As awkward as it was we exchanged out first greeting, though I don't doubt we both felt it unnecessary. Sakura, that was her name. Like I said before, a fitting name.
Only when I told her mine, Sasuke, did her lips begin to form a smile. The first of the many I would see.
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That was how it started. How slowly but surely we grew closer together. On that bench, the distance between us grew smaller and smaller. That bubble of dense and dark despair was now clear and bright. Every second with her was like a new breath of life. A life I had almost wanted to give up.
She was something else even when we both started with darkness. She was a bit higher than I was in the terms of recovery. I would hold her hand and feel safe as if all of a sudden we were both protected by this force. And that first time she kissed me, I knew right then and there she was the one for me. I knew I would never feel lips as soft as hers, as caring as hers, and I would never feel lips more real than hers.
Everything felt real with her.
As much as I wanted everything to just be us, I knew that eventually we would meet other people, other people that wanted to be there for us.
As random as it may have been, we meet Naruto and Hinata. We had decided to take a short trip to the woods, on our way back our headlights revealed a frantically waving blonde on the side of the road with a long, dark haired girl clinging to his back. I was set on passing the couple by, but Sakura always had to be the nice one. Sasuke-kun, they could be hurt, she told me. And I, powerless to her eyes, pulled over.
Apparently, they had been trying to hike back into town, an endurance/survival test they both came up with. But Hinata had injured her ankle and couldn't carry on with the pain. Sakura checked her leg while Naruto stood back watching my girlfriend examine his. Does she know what she's doing? He asked me. I could only scoff at him. If Sakura didn't know what to do she wouldn't try to make the situation worse. And then, the idiot revealed why I now call him an idiot.
He wouldn't stop talking.
The constant babbling over how long and difficult it was to convince Hinata's over protective cousin to let them do this. Even harder to convince him to be the one to drop them off in the woods. I still don't know how, but eventually when we were all in the car heading back to the city his babbling changed course… to ramen. Ramen of all things.
Sakura laughed the whole way home, curtsey of the blonde. Hinata had been quiet, except from the occasional giggles at her boyfriends banter. We did eventually made it back into the city and dropped the two off in their shared apartment. Just keep that leg elevated and wrapped, okay? Sakura called out after Hinata, being carried by Naruto. Thank you Sakura-chan, she called back quietly, blushing madly.
And that was how we met Naruto and Hinata.
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Gradually after our encounter with them, we began to see more and more of the couple. And then we were introduced to their friends. It went on like that. Sakura seemed happier and if she was happy then I was as well.
But with the addition of people, I discovered something new about myself. Just how jealous and possessive I could be. I never told her directly nor did I try to make a scene every time I saw her with some of our new guy friends, but she could tell. In public she would smile and touch my arm to assure me. At home she hugged me and told me not to worry.
I would occasionally snap, curse at our friends, and just be stubborn. But she stood by me the whole time. She accepted it, all of it… all of me. And I found myself further drowning in my love for her.
I never said it often but when I did, I never failed to see her face light up in a deep blush. How right after her arms were around my neck pulling me in for a tight embrace, her lips whispering against my ear, I love you more.
It was two years after we met our new friends, when I proposed to her.
I've never seen her so happy. Her eyes shining with built up tears as she kneeled with me, hugging closely. Her head under my chin as she chanted yes over and over again. I gave myself the luxury of showing my own joy at the moment. I picked her, almost in tears myself, laughing as I spun her around. And once I stopped, she pulled herself close to me again, her legs wrapped around my waist like a child. But I couldn't resist any longer, I pulled away enough to connect our lips, letting all my joy, all my now diminishing worries, into that one heated kiss.
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Our happiness was one of the few things that lasted forever. Or as long as forever could last. After the wedding, we became even more inseparable, my jealousy never wavered. But I would be lying if I said everything was always perfect. Because there was always a blemish on the face of perfection.
That stain was discovered a few months after Sakura became my wife. There was that one thing we both wanted aside from each other; we wanted a family. Neither one of us complained about the all our attempts, but it was getting frustrating getting no results.
We received the news when we had had enough, and decided to see a doctor.
Sakura could not have children.
It was one of the biggest slaps to the face we've ever received. Sakura took it exceptionally hard. For the next few months, that darkness I had seen the day we first met returned. All I could do for her was hold her hand, and hope she'd get better. I held her every night. And encouraged her to go out with her friends, anything to get her mind off of the never-would-be baby.
And only when she was out of the house did I let out my own darkness. There was a corner I had become fond of during that time. I would squeeze myself against it and just let it all out. The tears I rarely shed, finally ran down my face. I let out silent sobs, my hands shaking into fists in my hair, the knowledge that one of your goals in life would never be accomplished, and there was nothing you could do to change that reality.
I let my friends walk into my house, I let them surround me, I didn't care that they saw me like this. I rather they see me broken than have Sakura, and give her more reasons to fall into her darkness. They sat quietly around letting me take it all out, they wouldn't let me be alone at a time like this; they never did.
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We grew old together, watched as our friend's kids became young adults, watched our friends grow old with us, watched them go as well…
We promised that we would not live a day without each other. We kept that promise until the very end.
We found our old bench now old and worn, and sat there facing the still clean lake. We watched the water ripple, our hands, old and fragile, intertwined. I love you, I told her. Even in her old age, she blushed a beautiful rose color. And like always she whispered back, I love you more. I kissed her hand, and she squeezed mine for the last time. I didn't cry, because I knew I would follow after her. I felt it creep over me. And I wondered if this was how she felt.
Having death hover over you. But I let it come, because I promised her. We wouldn't live a day without each other, and with that. I leaned my head against her, and let death lead me through the darkness, my hand never once letting go of hers.
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And now I'm here. In this endless stream of darkness. A darkness I have to cling to. A darkness I can't fully escape.
I'm bound to someone, a person I always knew I was bound to. This red thread-like strand binds me to her. To Sakura, for all of eternity. But only I, who is in this darkness can see. Only I can still recall the days where we were together, together and happy. Only I know of those fifty-six years of being together and of those forty-nine years of marriage. Only I, who couldn't make it to the next life, knows who I am destined to be with.
Sakura lives on. In a new life, a new life which I was not meant for. I will always be by her side, as the darkness that curses her. Curses that aren't meant for her, but she sees them as such.
But the jealousy I felt when I was alive never faded. If anything, this darkness I'm forced into only made it worse. My jealousy at every man she lets into her life increases day after day, to the point where it's powerful enough to manifest into her world. Terrifying her to no bounds, eventually leaving her all alone.
Those men never last long.
She speaks of me, and that gives me comfort. I can feel him here, he's always there and he won't leave, she tells her nieces. She fears me. But there's nothing I can do about that. This thread binds us together, and that's how it has to be.
So that one night, I give her the chance to see me. I let her scream at me, curse at me, hate me. But I never show her the thread. That thread is for me right now. To prove that we happened, that she did love me, and that if I was brought to her world we would be together again.
But as she asks me desperately, Why can't you leave me alone?! Why can't you let me be happy with anyone?!
There was only one thing I could say, and I knew it would only make sense to me and me alone.
"You're mine."
This was inspired by my best friend's aunt who is actually going through something like this. They all feel this dark presence around her aunt and it's very jealous. It has always been by her, ruining her relationships and sometimes friendships.
When my friend told me, being the helpless romantic that I am, I just thought, What if that presence that's around your aunt, in another life, was her soul mate but couldn't make it in this world. So yeah, that's how this was born.
Sorry! I'll get back to my other stories but I just had to write this, especially since I've had no school. Weather is horrible right now. But now there's school again and busy days have returned. Sigh.
Bare with me!
-Ira