My English left me again, I think it's quite bad this time, because I haven't written anything in this language for quite some time. Sorry. ^^
Uh, the POV is Zell's, by the way. It's a kinda strange story but I hope it isn't as bad as it seems to me right now… T_T Oh yes, it also has a little shonen ai hiding at the end. I hope you don't mind.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Squaresofts. Dance with meBy Kia
They'd even come into my house now.
I never thought they'd do that. I thought it was a place where I could hide, where I was save from them, but I was wrong. But what did I expect? That walls and closed doors would hinder them? That they'd stay away if I kept the windows closed?
Maybe I just expected them to respect my privacy.
Doesn't it sound strange? Speaking like that about the people that mean everything to me? I shouldn't close the doors and hope that would keep them away. But it isn't that simple.
***
I have to admit my kitchen was the last place I ever expected to meet him. Him I expected to find in crowded streets or in bars surrounded by girls, that sly grin plastered on his face, driving me mad. But I have never met him there, in the bars. I guess I could call them a save place if it wasn't for Seifer showing up there occasionally, and only there. I don't know what draws him to such places but more then once I sat there meting with people that could never replace them and when I looked up I saw him leaning against the wall, grinning at me, that dangerous grin I always hated. Or he suddenly sits down on the empty chair beside me calling me chickenwuss, and it sounds so familiar that I get angry just because I'm used to and because I missed it. The others that look at me like I'm totally out of my mind and I know I am. Seifer laughs at me when that happens, so loud that I think the whole world would hear it but his eyes tell me something else. Stay away from him, they tell me, as if I could.
I don't like going to such places since the risk of meeting him is too high. I don't know why I still do.
I don't know why I ever left my house at the time I still thought it would be save. The world is a graveyard but my rooms where a sacred place, protected from evil spirits and ghosts from the past. For a time I really believed that.
And still, somehow I wasn't even surprised when I entered the kitchen that morning and Irvine was sitting on the chair with his back to the window as if he belonged there. He smiled at me and I said Good morning! My hair was a mess and I was still in my pyjamas but he didn't seem to mind. He was telling me something but I can't remember his words. I don't know why his presence didn't bother me but for some reason I even offered him a cup of coffee as I sat on the table in front of him to eat my breakfast. He said Thanks but no, as if he just wasn't thirsty.
For about two minutes I concentrated on my breakfast and when I looked up again he was gone.
***
Seifer only shows up at night. Irvine shows up whenever he likes. The girls never show up at all.
I saw Selphie once, though. She was standing at the beach, admiring the reflection of the moonlight on the water. She was hardly more that a dark shadow outlined by the night sky and at first I wasn't even sure it was her. But then she suddenly turned around and waved as if she'd known all along I'd been there. I waved back and continued on my way.
One night the phone rang. I just tried to block it out when it woke me, feeling too sleepy to talk to anyone at tree a.m. but it wouldn't stop. So I picked up the phone and there was a woman on the line that sounded like Quistis and she was crying and saying something, but I couldn't make out the words. That was the first time they really got me scared and my heart was racing when I put down the receiver. After that I disconnected the phone but it still rang two more times that night. I didn't pick it up.
I lost contact to Rinoa after the destruction of the garden four years ago. Don't miss her. May she be more lucky that I am.
Still I wonder what twisted kind of fate made it happen on my day off. If I had been there that day I could wander around with the others now, getting on the nerves of those left behind.
It's been quite a while since the last time I spoke to Laguna, and I have to admit I'm glad for that. Actually, the last time I saw him was about one year ago, when I happened to met him at a small cafe. He waved at me enthusiastically and when I joined him he told me he had just died. I said Congratulations, and we talked for about half an hour with people giving us wired looks until he had to leave. Kiros called me that evening, telling me Laguna had passed away some hours ago. I said I know, and that I should say hi to him and Ward. After that Kiros never talked to me again. Strange guy.
***
It's one of those nights again, with the autumn moon shining so bright from the sky above and the shadows just deep enough to swallow the world. It's only in such nights that he comes, peeling out of the darkness between the trees in the park like he does just this moment, like a demon coming up from hell, like an angel falling from heaven. The silver light makes his skin shine like china and he seems just as fragile in all his transcuelnt beauty. His hair reminds me of shimmering black spiderwebs, soft as silk. His grey eyes seem to absorb the darkness and yet they shine so brightly as he smiles at me and reaches for my hands: Dance with me!
Breathless I take his hands and we dance our timeless dance of life and death. I can hear the music now. The night is singing for us.
Has Seifer ever seen him smile like that? His jealousy has a reason, even after all this time.
The shadows seem to dance with us thought the darkness but there is only moonlight around us and the absence of time. His skin is so soft beneath my hands, I can feel it, can hear his voice, even as he sings voiceless with the trees and the moon and the stars, and when we fall into the grass I can hear his laughter. I laugh with him and there is no-one to hear us. He is so close that I can feel the warmth of his body when there is no warmth at all and yet there is a distance between us that keeps us apart and we just can't reach each other, no matter how close we might be. We don't have the right.
And still, the night is singing. And I close my eyes and allow myself to forget that the world is a graveyard and I'm dancing on my own tomb as I slowly drift to sleep with him in my arms, embracing nothing but thin air.
The morning comes and the music fades. When I wake up there are leaves in my hair. I am alone. I have never been anything else.
I know that and now I am able to see the truth, because the night is over and he is gone. He is always gone in the morning.
I must have lost my jacked somewhere during the night. It's lying on that small hill a few meters away and now I'm trembling because the winter is coming, and it's getting colder.
-end-
27. February 2003