A/N: Hi, maybe because I'm sick and I don't feel like doing anything else but write so I came up with this experiment. This is two shot story. It is uncharacteristically written on a first person perspective which is something I've never tried before. It has a touch of dark humor and a lot of sadness. If you ever had you heart broken before you might relate to these one shots.

I have no idea why my short stories are like that, maybe because I don't want to kill any of my characters on my main stories or because I'm still sick and it was very cloudy and rainy today, who knows. This one is Yumi's point of view.

Enjoy?


1.- Itching scars


It happened on a cloudless day. I was driving my car to college because I had a class in about an hour. After graduating from Lillian University I decided to help a former mentor and covered one of her classes. I fell in love with teaching and now, more than nine years later I continue working as a teacher but now I'm part of the fulltime staff and let me tell you that it makes me really happy to share my knowledge with others.

My name is Fukuzawa Yumi and I teach photography and creative writing in the communications faculty at Lillian University. Why those subjects, you might wonder. Well, everything started around twelve years ago on my first year at college.

I needed some extra credits and I took photography and creative writing to fill a gap between classes and those were the only options available at the moment. Was that or having a hole of six hours between classes that I knew was going to spend doing nothing so I took them.

The moment I worked in the dark room for the first time and one of my photographs magically started appearing on the film after adding some liquids, I knew where I belonged. Finally I understood Tsutako-san and her annoying high school hobby.

I became addicted to capturing moments so I focused my work on a photographic essay and my model was Ogasawara Sachiko, my onee-sama and love of my life.

Sigh.

Oh yes, about creative writing.

Well, I took the class out of boredom but I found it fitting. It was the perfect outlet to express my feelings, along with photography, of course. Suddenly I found myself writing short stories about simple things, to monologues and I even started a project that turned into a series of light novels, that were adapted into a miniseries and that was quite satisfying I may add.

I owed everything to my muse, the woman that I loved with all my being, my soul, my blood, my guts, my skin, my life, my…well, you get the point.

Double sigh.

You might be wondering why I sigh when I talk about her. Let me take some moments of your life to share mine. I promise it won't take long.

Long sigh.

I met this beautiful and way out of my league girl in high school, she made me her petite soeur which is our school version of mentoring a student from an inferior year. We felt attracted to each other and one soft touch here, some blushing there and poof we liked each other but we were stupidly shy about it.

That leaded to several misunderstandings because both were really horrible at expressing our thoughts so I cried a lot, oh boy I was a real crybaby back then and my onee-sama wasn't very subtle so, me crying and she scolding me was a very common sight when we were together until we finally decided to observe our actions.

Onee-sama gave me meaningful looks and I understood her with few words. She could read me better and I knew how to make her smile for me.

Oh god, that smile was able to make me feel warm inside. It didn't matter if it was cloudy or my day was an absolute mess because with one smile from my onee-sama everything changed for the better.

Did I mention that I loved her smile?

Yeah?

Oh well.

Anyhow, we learned from each other and then I realized something. I had fallen in love with my onee-sama and didn't know what to do with those feelings. What I didn't know was that she was feeling something similar towards me and it was driving her crazy but I won't talk about that because I'm not in her head.

So, where was I?

Oh yes, I loved her.

So I wanted to tell her, but how?

Plain and simple, I grew a pair, like Sei-sama flamboyantly described it, and told her. I simply told her because I needed to get it out of my system before I collapsed and the one that actually went kaput was her. She stopped talking to me for a week.

A week, could you imagine? I was literally dying and she was not even looking at me anymore.

The horror.

And then out of the blue, she kissed me and time stopped. You know when they say that if you kiss the love of your life the world freezes and the only ones that exist are those kissing each other? Trust me, it is absolutely true and it is like an awakening. Food tasted better and colors looked brighter.

You literally stop walking and start gliding, it is like before everything in life was blurry and then you put on some glasses and you are able to discover a new world where the two of you are the main characters.

You see? Creative writing was a good choice.

In any case, Sachiko kissed me and I kissed her back. She confessed her feelings and fears, I learned so much about her and she understood me in so many ways that I would run out of time and paper to write.

Thank you Maria-sama for computers and word processing programs.

So yes, we started dating; it was her last year in high school and my second there and she would graduate soon but she was going to attend Lillian University so we promised to work things out, to find time for ourselves, we thought we were invincible, that nothing would tear us apart.

You know when they say that life sucks?

It does.

But that's not the point, yet.

So we dated and Sachiko finished her last year in high school and I took advanced classes to graduate faster. Oh god, those months are still a blur in my mind. I studied so much and slept so little that I graduated just when Sachiko was finishing her first semester at college, I even managed to get some classes together on the new semester, don't ask me how, a blur, remember?.

So she had a class in the evening and I wanted to be with her so I took these two classes that I currently teach as fillers, now you know the reasons.

Everything for her, she was worth the trouble.

Corny, huh?

Months passed by and we celebrated each 22nd the months we had together. We went out on dates and we couldn't be happier. We wrote letters and gave each other presents. I discovered she actually loved teddy bears and gave her a couple; they were our children, according to her. Under all her cold demeanor she was a very sweet and caring girlfriend.

Oh, and she learned how to bake and I got fat. Ten kilos of cookies, cakes and pastries I gained in total. I couldn't say no to her sweet sweets, I know it is redundant but they were delicious.

The best part was the letters. We tended to write a lot and I with my 'creative writing' going on wrote way more and, as I said before, she became my muse so; most of my words were for and because of her.

We wrote letters to each other at least once a month. I kept mine in a small peach colored box in my closet while she had hers in an old crackers tin box. We wrote about our future plans, about marriage heck, even about future children and we even picked the names, we were that lame but I loved each second of it.

The best sixteen months of my life.

And then it happened.

People say that the human heart is just a pumping muscle and does not break.

Oh, but it does, trust me on this one.

Mine shattered in a million pieces the moment I received a call from her telling me that meeting me was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. And then my world crumbled. I called her back and they didn't let me talk to her.

I talked to her father, argued, begged and even cried and the annoyed man passed the phone to her so I started whispering sweet nothings hoping for some sweet words from her mouth again, like always and that never happened.

She just listened in silence and then hung up.

My happiness was suddenly taken from me and my world turned colorless.

I hit rock bottom.

Of course I didn't want to eat so all those kilos of cakes, cookies and pastries were gone in a few weeks. My smile was erased; my eyes became a reflection of how I felt.

Empty.

A plethora of despair was what I had inside me. I started skipping classes and my grades suffered but I didn't care. And one day I received a package with all the things I had ever given her, the letters were torn into pieces, the teddy bears were dismembered. It was a fluffy bloodbath.

You know what I mean.

Looking back it was quite dramatic and a bit funny but at the time, I felt devastated. I believed that I ran out of tears but every time I remember her, thicker ones appeared. So yes, I was a mess and I sent all of her gifts back to her too, that was what she asked for in a small note she added to the package she sent me anyways.

Oh, and I never saw her again.

They transferred her to another college and changed all their numbers, email accounts and everything. It was like she fell in a black hole and her existence was completely erased. And then I found a new low in the rock bottom I hit.

I tried to kill myself.

Of course that is not the answer to anything but, unless you live it you wouldn't understand my reasons, logical or not. When you are trapped in a windowless room and the walls start drawing closer and you are claustrophobic of course you believe that is the only answer.

It is hard to explain but I wanted to put an end to my misery, to my pain, to my never-ending sorrow so I came up with a messy solution, to cut my wrists.

As you can see I failed, thanks to Maria-sama that I did.

Incidentally Sei-sama was the one that saw the signs and the only one that helped me. The others were busy with their own lives and I don't blame them. But the former Rosa Gigantea knew better. Her heart was hidden in a forest of thorns, after all. So she was the one that found me bleeding and tended my wounds. She was the one that listened to me and forced me to eat, the only one that took my side and showed me her undivided support.

Heck, she even fought with Youko-sama because she took Sachiko's side.

I owe too much to that blonde flirt. And no, we are not together, we are just very good friends. So the whole ordeal was a mess and the former Yamayurikai members lost contact. It was like a bad divorce, it just felt that way.

People say that time heals wounds.

But, how about the scars?

Because those ones never stop hurting, they could heal in appearance but deep inside, every once in a while they start itching again.

Have you ever had a surgery where they removed one organ?

And, has it happened to you that some time later that same organ that it is not in you anymore starts hurting?

That is my definition of my lost love.

It is not there anymore but sometimes it still hurts.

That was Ogasawara Sachiko, my lost love.

You might ask why on Earth you needed to know about all of this. Well because everything in life has a reason. And as I said in the beginning of these rambling words:

"It happened on a cloudless day. I was driving my car to college because I had a class in about an hour."

And the accident happened. This imprudent teacher fell asleep behind the wheel and hit my car not once, but twice. The result was whiplash; neck brace for a month and a smashed car for me while a dented car and no physical harm on her side.

Had I already said that life sucks?

Well, it certainly does.

So yes, now I didn't have a car and had to take the subway to work with a neck brace, it was a pain but I have bills to pay.

Oh and I had to take physical therapy and it hurt.

Let's just say that I might have made Maria-sama mad at me or something. I definitely needed to go back to church and pray and ask for holy forgiveness because this chain of misfortunes needed to end.

And then another crazy thing happened.

I saw her.

Let me rephrase that.

I saw her after nine years of not having any kind of contact and I was with a freaking neck brace looking like life just ran over me.

Well I just recently was involved in a car accident, so…

Anyhow, I saw her, scratch that, I stared at her like the first time I observed her when she fixed my scarf at Lillian. She looked older but gorgeous, she still was the epitome of beauty and elegance. And then our eyes met.

And time froze, again.

She recognized me and her lovely azure orbs widened but she didn't move and I was stunned, my feet were glued to the floor and my words never came out.

We just stayed there staring at each other for several minutes that felt like decades until a train came and she got in with her eyes burning my soul once again.

And the doors closed.

And I didn't move.

And the train left.

And the scars started itching again.

When it hit me, a second train had arrived to the station already so I got in and headed to college to teach.

I still remember the exact time because she was standing under a clock and that was the reason I looked that way on the first place. That day I had forgotten my watch.

12:32 pm.

For a week I got earlier to the station to see if I got lucky and at least, steal a glimpse of her with no avail. So the week after that I got later and nothing. I decided to believe that it was just a figment of my imagination, a mirage.

Then, I started dreaming about her once again.

And the dreams were so vivid that I got scared.

Once I dreamed that we were holding hands and I woke up with the longing warmth of her hand in mine. Sometimes I even felt her presence but when I searched for her she was not there.

It was frightening.

A week later I got my car back from the shop and I could drive to work. My neck was stronger and better so the doctor changed the hard brace for a softer one. I decided to keep myself busy with work and started to write once more. Life went on and my routine came back to normal.

I started dating again but no relationship felt as deep as the one I had with her. Those shoes were too big to be filled so the hole in me remained. Happiness turned into a short-lived feeling that I did not trust anymore.

Sometimes I believed that I deeply loved the person I was dating at the moment but I never gave my all ever again because you can't plant a seed on barren soil, simple as that. I was that broken.

That was five years ago.

Fourteen years have passed since the last time we talked. Fifteen and some months since we were happy together and the scars are still there.

Maybe it is about closure.

We never talked about the reasons and I still have questions about what happened but the chances into running into each other again are extremely remote that I just lost hope and left things like that even if I sometimes take the train just to see if I get lucky to run into you again just to see if these scars finally stop itching. And let me tell you something from the bottom of my heart.

You quite never forget your first love.

And Fukuzawa Yumi still loves Ogasawara Sachiko with this broken heart she left behind.


A/N: Let me know what you think in a review and also if you want to read Sachiko's point of view on this.