Till the End

Was the world always this bleak?

I don't remember it looking so dark and cold before.

It was always so bright and happy.

What happened to that world?

If I remember correctly it started looking this way after you left.

Your smile is still clear in my head. It's painful, but I don't want to forget it. (Don't want to forget you.) Why did you have to go? Didn't you know what it would do to me? Did you not think about how I would feel or what I would do when you left me here alone and numb inside?

I haven't eaten or slept since. You would be so angry at me. (If you were still here.) Life gets duller without you sashaying around the house in your cute (yes cute) working clothes. Cooking with only a master chefs efficiency and talent. Moving with the grace and power of a tiger. (Oh, how I miss watching you.)

I'm so tired these days, but I can't sleep without you nestled into my side while purring in content. (I loved watching you sleep in one of my old, black T-shirts.) I would never have nightmares with you by my side. (When you left they plagued me every night until I just stopped sleeping all together.) Now I have dark circles under my eyes and bags so prominent I look 30 years older.

I drove everyone away from me. Even my brothers, who stood beside me through thick and thin in the Abbey, where pushed away and didn't try to come back. (They knew I was a lost cause.) The thing that surprises me is that I can't (or won't) cry. Even though you've been gone for two months (going on three) I haven't shed one tear. I think it was all that training I was put through to be heartless.

We both know that didn't work out since I fell in love with you as soon as I saw those exotic, golden eyes. Your beautifully long, onyx colored hair that you kept neatly braided and wrapped. That slim (slightly feminine) figure of yours that I loved to wrap my arms around. Those sexy little fangs that gleamed in the sun when you smiled and cute pointed ears that could hear so much more than a regular person. I was infatuated with you.

I almost wish the training had worked and there was nothing to be depressed about. You know what they say though "Better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all." (Whoever said that should be shot with a tank full of explosives.) It is slightly true though. If I never loved you then I wouldn't have had those few years of happiness before everything went wrong and you were taken away from me. (More like ripped away really.)

So here I am, standing in the rain and staring at your final resting place, tired and numb. (I need sleep badly by this point.) There you are sleeping peacefully and here I am at my wits end. Today I'm going to join you in eternal sleep. I can finally be with you. Sleep beside you. After going through the pain of losing you to that stupid drunk driver I will be with you again.

I take out that ornate, Chinese dagger that you held so dear after I gave it to you on our first Christmas together. Smiling as I hold it above my brokenly beating heart my last thoughts are "Here I come, love." I plunge it deep in to my chest and watch as my life essence spills out in scarlet spurts. Laying beside you, I wait for the darkness that swims at the edge of my eyesight to consume me. I smile till the end just like you did.

A week later a casket is lowered for the second time in three months. After the large group of people slowly disperse a new granite headstone shines in the setting sun. On the stone are two separate dates of birth and death under the two names, Raymond Kon and Kai Hiwatari. Under that were four, carefully sculpted words.

"Smiling till the end."