I tell myself to update faster. Never seems to work.

So I thank you for all your kind support. It reminds me that my work is read.

So please enjoy.

III

Sometimes, he dreamed of her.

He dreamed of how the palm of her hands, her fingers would trace the length of his body, and hold him, and mold him with heat of her flesh that radiated like a flame against his own. He dreamed of her lips warm upon his lips, his cheeks, his eyes. She was a scorching fire that touched every inch of his being, searing the proof of her passion into his skin that pulsed with an agonizing, insatiable desire. Such nights were entanglements of love, longing and hunger, and of countless memories that became a conflagration he embraced with open arms, as he took in the deep fiery pain that he knew would always stay with him.

His eyes opened and he was greeted by the colors of dawn, a color that sprayed his whole room a deep shade of indigo. He reached out for his digital alarm clock.

06:12

He had plenty of time before his class, which would start at ten, but he got up anyway. He untangled himself carefully away from the warmth of the girl who lay cuddled close to him, with unrequited familiarity. She seemed slightly disrupted, but remained asleep.

He washed, shaved and changed. He turned on his computer, went through his lab reports and prepared for the classes he had that day. As he clicked the "Print" button and listened to the rhythmic drone of his laser printer against the soft cadences of the radio news, he was surprised at times how all those people who had stayed over could always just sleep through all these noise. He sometimes believed that they were not asleep, just pretending to be asleep till the moment to wake came. Now that he thought about it, it was not that amazing a feat. He himself had slept through a lot things. He had slept through battles, through wars, through nightmares, through pain, through grief. So everyone pretended to sleep at times, just drifting in and out of the state of consciousness. He knew that.

Slightly after seven, he was already done with whatever needed to be done, so he made himself a mug of sugarless black coffee and sat down on the ground. His back was against the closet doors and he was only in his jeans, which still proved to be uncomfortable as it clung to his skin in this warm, humid morning. Forecasts predicted rain in the late afternoon.

He reached for the remote and turned off the radio.

June 17th. He knew he was going to leave Minato after his class at five, reach the burial grounds at around six-thirty to seven, and then arrive back to this apartment again before eleven. Just like last year. And the year before last. And the year before last. Four years since he moved away, the routine had not changed. And he did not want it to change.

He raised his coffee mug and felt the warm bitter liquid slide down his throat. He never quite acquired a taste for coffee. Or cigarettes. But he still made a cup without sugar and milk every morning, and kept a packet in his drawer at all times.

The funny things that people did, even when it brought them so little pleasure.

He rested a hand over his lower torso, his thumb brushing over that old scar that would never fully disappear. The scars that he wore like an insignia of his pride and his shame. The scars that he kept for her.

Lingering signs of either mental or physical damage; that was what scars were.

He scoffed.

Lingering signs of damage. He was damaged goods.

The breeze had died within the curtains and the room was already basked in a nondescript shade of an earthy gold. He kept his eyes fixed on the sleeping figure on his futon and he listened to her slow, steady breath as she slept. Her hair was ebony and long, spread like the waves of the midnight sea upon the whiteness of his bedspread. Her complexion was pale but almost iridescent in the glow of the morning light and its texture was smooth like that of a child's. Her eyes were closed, but he remembered they were dark, infinitely dark like the depths of those wishing wells which no one could really tell whether their prayers had been heard. The eyes bothered him a little.

Her name escaped him momentarily.

Kumiko. Yes, that was her name. Kumiko. A good, old-fashion name. Kumiko.

He could not remember if she had told him her last name.

Wanting a smoke, he shook out a stick from the cigarette pack. He fiddled the stick between his fingers and placed it between his lips, slightly enjoying the familiarity of the smell of dried tobacco. The scent of tobacco reminded of days long ago, where his parents would stand and watch him from a distance, his father with a lit cigarette in his hand. His father never smoked near the children, but he remembered how they would return to him, both of them smelling faintly of smoke laced with a sweet scent of cherry.

His father still smoked the same brand and now, so did him.

He stared at the sleeping countenance and then decided to return the stick back into its box, for he was suddenly afraid that he would wake her and break the dream he had realized too late that he had begun to weave. He could see her in Kumiko's heart-shaped face, in the hair that was the color and shine of dark onyxes, and in the porcelain whiteness of a skin that never tanned. With her eyes closed, he could imagine that her irises were a deep indigo, large, fierce and demanding. He could imagine it all so vividly in his head, so clearly he could almost imagine he was holding her in his arms right now.

His fingers circled that old scar again. In the emptiness of this room, where the noises of the morning traffic was a distant susurration, he would start remembering her. Remembering every part of her, remembering how she looked, how she spoke, how she walked. And how she left and never came back.

What had it all meant then? That together they had fought so valiantly, knowing that every breath they took may be their last while miraculously surviving through it all. Why did she abandon her world to invade into his, only to return to her origins in the end? Had she held onto him as dearly as he had held onto her, or was he the only one childish enough to believe that he had blurred the lines of life and death only to meet her?

He had believed in such beautiful lies, believed in the intricate web of fantasy that he had created and had trapped himself in that illusion. Truly, he had held onto her so dearly, believing in the eternity that lay straight ahead of them with no hurdles.

Benjamin Disraeli had said, "The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end."

The reality of those words had repeatedly tried to awaken him from the deep slumber he had willingly succumbed himself to over and over again. Unlike him, she had seen the end before it had begun. But he had obstinately kept both his eyes and ears shut to all the warning signs. He had simply believed in the fantasy. He had allowed himself to relish in the honey-heavy dew of slumber and get caught up in all those foolish, quixotic pipe dreams.

It was so beautiful. It was all so very beautiful then.

Now, he could look back and mock his callow self for having concocted such puerile dreams in the past, but despite all that pretense of having seen the end now, he still foolishly kept that single note of departure with him like a charm. Or a curse perhaps. It just held three simple words of endearment that bore the finality of her tone and in turn bounded him to the memories of a lost paradise.

She left. She always leaves with nothing more than a little piece of paper behind. The first he had discarded; the second he did not have the will to let go. Did she think it chivalrous to leave with such silent farewells? Or was she simply terrified of watching how her desertion would unman him or perhaps drive him to madness? What would he have done then, if she had not left the way she did? Would he have shed his pride and begged her to stay, even when he had seen her frustration and her unhappiness and had understood the reasons for her desire to leave?

He was uncertain for how long he had sat there and simply watched her, but finally Kumiko's eyes opened and they slowly focused on him. She smiled, her lids still heavy with sleep.

"Good morning, Ichigo," she greeted, his name slipping out with such ease, almost like this was the millionth time she had woken up in his presence.

He could hear the alto in Kumiko's childlike voice. He could see the indigo in those eyes that were deeper than the color of her ebony hair.

Those years with her; what had it all meant then?

Perhaps it had no meaning after all, except to teach him the inexhaustible depth of one's regret. But still, he continued to hold her so close, continued to call out her name in nights of desperation, even when he knew there was no meaning at all.

He was falling, descending without grace and without any modicum of sanity to hold him back.

"Ah." Ichigo smiled back at her.

- YL -