He found himself missing the red-haired girl and her friends. They were formidable. He could no longer remember their names, but it didn't matter. She died. And he assumed the others died too considering how fragile humans were. And she was lucky for dying old and grey, living a small but content life. Living her life without the knowledge that the man she tried to waste would one day stand at her grave. The man she hated for taking her friend and love, for trying to destroy the world, standing at her grave with lost look on his face.
He glared down at the stone with his cold eyes. She was put right next to the host body he created whose name he also cannot remember. All this vast knowledge of history and it is names that slip him. Not faces nor stupid facts. But names.
He sank to his knees slowly, running his fingers against the engraving in the stone. The man did not bother to read them. He did not smile, nor grin, or felt any triumph when his enemy died living the life he longed for.
He felt jealously.
Anger. Bitter. He frowned, glaring down at the stone with such hatred.
Until he felt someone behind him, someone small.
He stood to his full height and glanced over his shoulder. A child stared back with pink and yellow flowers in her arms. She resembled the dead red-haired women so strikingly. He noticed her gaze was drawn to his pointed ears and long hair. He guessed that soon she would ask to braid it like all children do.
"She told me a story about you," she whispered. "About a man so pale and cold. How scary he was."
He said nothing. He felt no need to. The child feared him.
"You look like the man from her stories. She said he died-"
He snorted, and she took a step back.
The child swallowed. She held her flowers more tightly. "You look scary. But pretty at the same time. And sad." She took a step forward, and another, and another, until she stood next to him, looking up at him with such wide brown eyes. "Are you sad?"
What surprised him most was his reply.
"Very," he turned his gaze back to the grave.
"Are you sad she is gone?"
"No."
The child set a flower down on the grave. "Why are you sad?"
Children and their many questions. He sighed and sank down to his knees again, continuing to trail his fingers over the stone. "For many reasons. Reasons you would not understand."
"Are you lonely?"
He hesitated. "….Sometimes."
"And that is why you are sad?" It sounded like a question, but it was more of a fact. He was not only sad because he was lonely. However, he did not feel obligated to disclose his whole life story to the granddaughter of the person rotting in the grave at his fingers.
"Do you want a friend?" She asked after a minute or two of silence.
"Friends are not permanent," he said bitterly. "They come. They go. And I stay."
"And you can't go with them?"
He always was impressed with how children were able to pick up cues better than the adults. He supposes they were more sensitive to emotions and mood shifts. That would explain why his youngest follower always turned back to give him a long stare after meetings. The child knew. But he never said anything.
He stopped his tracing and placed his hands in his lap, refusing to look at the child.
"Why?"
Ah yes. The question he was anticipating but wanted to avoid. A topic he hated but cannot run from nor hide. It always managed to poke its ugly head in conversations somehow. His jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached. The subject of his immortality was a heavy one and one he wanted to not speak about. Especially to a naïve child who asks too many damn questions. He shook his head.
"I would rather not say," he whispered, mainly to himself. She looked disappointed in his answer. She obviously was a curious thing and wanted to know more about the pale stranger in the blue robe. His secrets were his own and definitely not a child's. "My story is my own. I will share it if I wish."
She seemed more satisfied with that answer. Her look did not falter though. She turned her small head over to the grave with a pink flower on it and set a yellow one right next to it. She took the rest and began to weave them.
"You knew my grandma when she was younger right?" she asked. He lifted his shoulders as his answer. "You didn't?"
"I knew of her. I did not personally meet her acquaintance." He had no reason too. Her life was too short. Everyone's life was. It did not matter if her befriended her nor would he want too. He tried to have her race destroyed after all. "We would not have been friends."
"Why?"
"I am me. She is her," he vaguely answered. "We do not get along."
"Was it the ears?"
"No. She befriended others of my kind. I am the exception."
"Because you are scary?"
"Yes," he chuckled slightly. "Because I am scary. And I was mean."
Her face scrunched up. "You were a bully?"
"Something like that, I suppose." Vague answers and allegories to what really happened. She was understanding without knowing. He was not spewing lies but merely telling the simplest of truths. He had no reason to lie to a child. But he felt she should not know everything. Let her be ignorant and pure. Maybe one day she will grow up and know the truth of his actions then. "I was very mean."
The child frowned and stopped her weaving. She gave him this look, her face continuing to scrunch up into a frown. He expected her to cry, lash out, do whatever a child did. He expected her to leave.
"You don't look mean now," she said and continued weaving the pink and yellow flowers. "Just sad." She stood and placed the crown she made on his head, smiling warmly. A child's smile. "There! Now you don't look scary."
He let out a huff, trying to hide his surprise. He wrinkled his nose, allowing the crown to rest on his head. A child was innocent; he would not make her cry.
She grabbed his hand and shook it. "We are friends now. Visit again?" She held out a pinky. He knew of the human promises made by children. Swallow a thousand needles, right? His finger was large compared to hers. "It's a promise! You cannot break it." She let go of his hand and he stared at the finger he made a promise with. A vow then.
"I will," he found himself saying.
"I'm Hanako," the child smiled.
He will forget this name, he always forgets the names. But the faces of those he knew lingers in his mind forever. Her face he will not forget. And…he will try not to forget the name of the child who gifted him the flowers sitting on his head.
He stood, the wind picking up and blowing about his long hair. Ice eyes stared down at her and he flashed the smallest smile.
"My name is Deep Blue," he said. Hanako blinked and the man in blue disappeared. There was no trace of him, as if he was not even there in the first place. He did take the crown of flowers. Hanako giggled and ran back to her parents. She would tell them she met the man from Grandma's story. She paused.
Or.
This would be her little secret.
xx00xx
Word count: 1298