Photos in the Photo Book
Kiku and Hercules had been dating for the past five years (human time) and the memories were the most wonderful of their time. But not all relationships, like theirs, ended with a gleeful note.
Kiku Honda, a young Japanese man with dark bob-styled hair and emotionless eyes, knew the feeling of depression, unhappiness and, sadly, loneliness.
Obviously the pain was too surreal for him to bear when Hercules was gone and the fact that it was partly his fault that he didn't stop him from going off to war.
After that, nothing was heard from Hercules for seven months.
No calls.
No letters.
And no traces of his existence.
Kiku remained in his room, sitting on the straw floor where next to him, sitting beside him on his lonely night, was a photo book of his persisting memories that longed to be remembered.
It irritated Kiku and because of this he wanted to dispose of the photo book to repress them.
And it hurt to have the book. Badly.
However, Kiku wanted to look at those photos one last time before dropping them off and moving on with his life.
He took the book with both hands on the edges, brought them over to his lap where he sat most of his afternoon and with his left hand, he opened the book slowly and cautiously like a diary that saved its owner's life of many held secrets.
As he let his eyes wander he noticed one picture dating three years ago of their third anniversary where in black-and-white showed Kiku and Hercules sitting by a park bench, watching the skies together, hand-in-hand.
A man took this picture and thought they were an adorable pair and gave it to them with no cost, it was bizarre at first, but Hercules said it was a generous offer because pictures were filled of thousands of words.
He was right, thought Kiku. I could sum this one with one thousand haikus just for you.
He smiled for a moment, basking at the once happy time, but quickly frowned on it and turned to the next page.
The next photo made him curious as to who took this picture-it showed Hercules in a swimsuit during the summer trip, but Kiku was unable to join because of a flu. He remembered this event however when Hercules came out of nowhere the next day because he felt lonely without him at the beach.
It was the sweetest thing he did for Kiku.
Kiku gazed at the full body of Hercules: a tall Greek man that looked like a dashingly good-looking God whose hair reached down his shoulder blades in curls and the shade was perfect brown. His skin tone in the picture was sexy tanned, his face mysterious yet filled with a carefree way no one could impersonate.
He loved Hercules; despite all that came to be.
Kiku would stare at one picture after another for nearly an hour.
He saw the picture of their first trip in an amusement park, he laughed at the pictures of the photo booth moment and choked in tears at a picture where Hercules was in a hospital bed for nearly two days after an accident.
One after the other an emotion was shown to Kiku, too ordinary yet showed life in his face.
It was both hurtful and understanding at the same time.
Kiku flipped to the very last page where instead of a picture, he found nothing placed inside, much to his sorrowing dismay of seeing an uplifting photo.
"Hercules..." muttered Kiku's voice, choking back new tears. "You have no idea how much I miss you..." he let the tears proceed to drip on his flushed cheeks.
And for that, he cried. He cried the night away, knowing that the love of his life, his muse, his faithful napping partner...was gone. Forever.