Have you ever believed in love?
I know that I did...
It was a warm, rainy, day so long ago... I don't even remember when it was. A simple, awkward conversation started everything.
I had known him for a while before this and I was engaged to a different man. But his arms were a shelter from all the problems that I had been having with Gilbert-san. Stolen kisses beneath the blooming cherry trees sent me away from any difficulties of life.
Then, the night he gave me the choice of staying with him. If I said no, he would have left me.
At this time, I knew that I was in love with him. And I had hardly seen Gilbert-san over the last month.
Ludwig-san had been there for me through this all.
He had been the one to tell me everything would eventually be alright.
He was the one who held me the nights that Gilbert-san wasn't there.
He gave me three days. That was all. I had to make my decision in three days.
But my choice was already made.
I approached Gilbert-san, unable to stop the tears.
We talked for a long time, perhaps hours, before we decided that this would be for the best. He kissed me one last time, reminding me that he still loved me. He told me that he was sorry for not being there for me and that Ludwig-san would be better for me anyway.
I ran to him as fast as I could, tears streaking my face, still pale from the nights that I had tried to decide how to leave Gilbert-san.
I told him about the break up and he assumed that he would be nothing more than a replacement.
But this was not the case. I assured him of this.
We cried quietly together that day as we held each other close, promising to never let go.
I can remember waking up those mornings with him beside me, wondering for a moment if this was reality. Then, his blue eyes opening slowly, his hair a small mess from sleep, a reminder that this was all true. I had finally found somebody to love. Somebody to hold me forever.
Mornings in the kitchen, the time we left the food to burn because we were too busy, preoccupied with simply kissing and hugging, and making small promises to each other in the form of loving whispers. Another morning when we had played together, making love on the table, honey covering our bodies in a sweet, sticky, mess. When we decided to spend the day at the beach together. When we would sit together, doing nothing more than holding hands and watching the rain fall out the window.
It was all so peaceful.
I stopped feeling nervous when I was with him, but I could never stop blushing and smiling.
Those days, I knew that I had found true happiness in the loving arms of the man that I couldn't picture my life without. The man that I had trusted and cared about with all my heart. All my soul.
Then the night that he came to me. I hadn't seen him at all that day, but it was alright. I had know that he was busy. He opened the door to our bedroom where I had been simply sitting on the bed waiting for his return. (I had already begun to find it difficult to sleep without him.) He looked in, wondering if I was awake. Of course I ran to him, the same way that I always had. He was blushing and a little shy, holding something behind his back as we kissed. I curiously asked to see, but he wouldn't let me.
He asked me to sit down on the bed, and, of course, I did. I would have done anything for this man.
He was shaking and nervous, and I was sure that I knew what he was about to say.
My heart beat fast as he knelt down on one knee and spoke those sweet words, I've forgotten what they were. I kept telling myself "This is it, Kiku. This is it.". And it was. He held out a bouquet of chrysanthemums and small box containing the most beautiful ring I could have ever imagined.
He made a promise, that night, to stay with me forever. He slipped the ring onto my shaking finger. We were both so nervous that our bodies were trembling. I remember the kisses and tears. The way that he held me, the way I couldn't stop my heart from beating louder than I spoke my words. I remember his soft hair, his delicate hands, his words of love and mine.
I thought that I had found true love forever.
But it changed all so suddenly.
He had a decision to make. A difficult decision.
He had to choose me or the other man, Francis-san.
And I remember that too. I remember the nights that I cried as I held my knees to my chest, looking at the ring on my finger and wondering if everything we had had been nothing more than a lie.
I remember how I hadn't slept for days and I eventually cried myself into a deep slumber, dreaming of only him. Dreaming of only his words. Dreaming of his decision, more of a nightmare than anything. I couldn't help but feel as though he wouldn't choose me.
I looked in the mirror at my pale skin, at my dull eyes, at my thin body.
I should have been eating during this time, but I couldn't.
I felt as though I was dying. And I felt as though I would really die when he finally gave me up.
My thoughts couldn't stop revolving around the same thing.
He wouldn't choose me. He wouldn't choose me.
He wouldn't choose me.
But he did.
For a while.
That fateful reunion when we cried again.
(So many tears we've shared.)
We kissed again and again and he apologized on repeat although I told him not to.
He looked at me with slight shock when he realized how pale I was, how I had gotten smaller from the sleepless nights and the lack of food. He cooked for me (he was always so sweet) and I ate what I could.
We kissed more and held each other again.
I thought that he was truly in love with me.
And I thought that I was truly in love with him.
But things weren't the same.
I worried too often and he took too long to say his "I love you"s.
Nothing was the same.
Then, he approached me a few days later.
"Don't be sad."
He said.
"Don't be sad."
But I couldn't make that promise.
That day, he chose Francis-san.
He had reasons that I don't wish to repeat.
Perhaps these reasons were real, or perhaps not.
All I knew was that I didn't want to cry in front of him.
Not again.
I held in all the tears that I could, trying to tell myself that this was alright, I would fine.
I told myself that if he was happy, then I could be too.
But these were only words and thoughts as I made a vain attempt to keep myself from breaking down.
That night, I packed my things and left his house. I sat the ring on the bed side stand, watching the sun go down slowly, the sparkle of the precious diamond was fading with the sunlight.
I cried and cried as I made my way home.
The place that we had lived together was now too small for us both.
I unpacked a few of my things and choked back some tears. But I couldn't hold them back long.
One of his shirts.
That's all it took to stab my heart again.
I had accidentally packed it with my own things.
I lied down on the bed and cuddled that white shirt as though my life depended on it. I even went as far as putting it around my pillow so that I could hold it tightly to myself and cry harder.
It smelled like him and it was almost a comfort, but one that only made me cry harder, remembering that he would never come back.
Remembering that he didn't love me.
I cried myself to sleep again.
For nights, that's all that I could do. It was the only way that I could sleep.
And this is why I don't believe that love is real.
I don't believe it at all.
Love is nothing more than that feeling that you get when you think that you've finally found somebody who will stay with you forever.
Love is nothing more than a friendship that you expect to last forever.
And we, as people, are infatuated with the idea of something that lasts forever.
We don't want to be alone.
It's absolutely frightening to most of us.
It's a lovely thought, to think that somebody will be with you until the day you die,
But when you really look at it...
Love is a simple lie.
Because nothing lasts forever, and this includes "love".
The only thing that I believe to be true is that you can be hurt emotionally by this feeling that was never real.
Your heart may never be able to truly "love", but it can truly "break".
It's pointless to think that something that's not real could ever last forever.
I had told him I loved him, but it wasn't really love, was it?
It was nothing more than a flood of emotions and thoughts flowing through my head.
But I didn't lie when I told him that I would feel this way about him forever.
Even though he hurt me, and even though I will never believe in love again, I think that I have felt something very close to love.
And it's what I have always felt for him.
It is what I still feel for him.
It's what I will always feel for him.
Until the day I cease to breathe. Until the day my heart refuses to beat again. Until the day that I no longer exist as part of this world.
And if there is such thing as a heaven, then until the ends of time...
I will feel this thing that is close to what they call "love", and it will be only for him.
Because I already know that anyone that I "love" after this, I will never "love" the same way that I "loved" him.
I only wish that he could have felt the same way for me that I did for him.
I only wish that I could have been enough for him.
I only wish that his promises had not been lies.
Because I'm one of those people that is so very afraid of being alone and uncared about.