A cold grip, an ice grip, and an icicle drips its way down from a frozen ceiling onto the steel grate floor. His heartbeat fluttered, sputtered, a tapestry of words spun out of the arrhythmic motion. The wings of a butterfly echo, and the chambers pulse out of time. The blood flows out of time. The moment was a blizzard by a tree, rainfall in an Indian forest, and simultaneously he lost his breath and both lost himself.
"…if you'd go out with me." She asked without asking. Did she say it? Did she mean it? Did her voice construct those words?
A child's laugh. An unfurling breast. Why couldn't he focus on her eyes? Why couldn't he see her? She was right in front of him, her silhouette was right there. But he couldn't look at her. Did he want to look at her? Did his body want to acknowledge she was there? Or was the refusal so great that the pain was beginning again?
The choke was beginning to try to come out from his mouth, no matter how much he kept it in. He didn't want to speak, but he wanted to talk to her. But he didn't want her to know. But maybe she needed to know, or he might not wake up this time. Did he want to wake up? He didn't have an answer to that, as the pain was beginning to spread into his head.
He was unsteady on his feet. Or, perhaps, the world was unsteady about being around him. It, too, didn't want to be around him. Why was she in this space?
"Ah…" He started to release some noise, but instantly stopped, for fear of betraying the sensation in his chest. She didn't need to worry. It would pass with time. Her body expelled nervousness through every pore, but he could barely see it. He could only see the snowfall, that slow snowfall, the cold pitter patter upon pavement.
"Hisao?"
He wanted to say something. He wanted to tell her that he had wanted to go out with her for so long. He wanted her to know that he was in pain inside. He wanted her to be able stand there and take his tears. He wanted her to take the pain away. He wanted her to be there for him, not just as a friend, or as a girlfriend, but as a rock.
But he knew she couldn't, wouldn't, and more than anything else, shouldn't be any of those things. She shouldn't have to go through the burden of experiencing him.
He turned around, and as her gaze dug longingly into his back, he walked away from her, stumbling occasionally as if in a drunken stupor. There was a wall that had to be kept between them. A harmony of screaming in his soul called out to her, begging her to follow him. The abyss was endless, its clutches tight, and there were not many people who could pull him out. He needed her to follow him.
But she didn't. She couldn't.
She was just as lost as he was.