. . . Substitution . . .
Maybe it's a bad thing to substitute.
I should have thought of that before, shouldn't I? Well, maybe. My head hurts and my eyes burn. My stomach is in knots. Not healthy, whatever's happening.
It's about them, whatever it is. It should be simply about him, but it's not.
I have near perfect memory. Always have, even as a child. I can remember a scene to its exact detail: sound, taste, sound, feel, sight... it's a blessing really. I may seem scatterbrained now, but give it five years and I'll remember you perfectly.
Even if someone looks like someone else, even sounds like someone else when they laugh... there are still a few senses missing. It's haunting, having a few pieces but not all. Incomplete.
He triggered my memory, I'll admit. What I imagined the boy would look like as he grew into a man; taller, longish hair, and longer face. I lived for that face. But with memory as sharp as mine, that's bound to happen. The memory consumes the life and over and over...
I'm complaining.
I roll over and hope that he can't tell I'm shaking again. That he fits in all the wrong ways, that... that...
She never was ever brave enough to touch him first. Always at a polite distance, but he would initiate that bit of contact, starving for the reminder that he wasn't a dream of her. Oh, she was a hopeless and silly girl, but she didn't know it yet. No, not yet.
"Mishima," he said quietly, "You look cold. You want some... help?"
She nodded, scooting closer on the bench as he wrapped his thin arms around her. But she was tiny then, and it was all she needed for now. Warmth. He smelled clean as the snow on the mountains around them. Wait... it was snowing now...
"Look! Kamina!" she exclaimed, gloved hand pointing upwards, but the rest of her body staying put. He laughed into her hair and it tickled, an odd feeling that made her want to squirm away from and to him all at once...
I have near perfect memory. He'll never smell like him. Feel like him. It's that gap that hurts me too. No, he's not the only one pained by my substitution. He does too; only he doesn't have my memory... it's something else. Idealism, maybe? I've never felt so clear headed or simple in my life. The present is so hard to focus on.
So when I get up from this small bed, and leave, I know that I'll remember how messy his hair was when he was sleeping, how hard my heart was pounding as I tried not to wake him, and how cold the hallway of his dorm room was. I'll remember every detail, from the smell of his shampoo, or way I used to pull his glasses off so I could pretend.
If he's still out there, if we were ever to meet again... let's hope that this ended soon enough. Oh, please, come soon... I don't know how overpowering these memories will be.
Don't give me enough time to forget.
AN: Dedicated to Luc Court, because of the amazing character studies, and Solain Rhyo so she'll write another RX fic.