Cold summer day hurts
Warm winter memory soothes
As we part our ways
-Anonymous Haiku
The sound chanting finishes, and I watch the priest speak. Words too familiar float past his lips. A dreamed memory of a different life babbles through my mind. Like everyone else I put on a polite applause as you marry him.
I'm not so arrogant or selfish to demand that it should have been me. It should have been me walking with you towards the happy guests. You love each other, I can see that.
Truth be told I don't know why I'm here watching this. You'll never hear my words, I can't do that to you. To make you wonder what could have been like I do. Maybe this is just a farewell to my past. Well that or the sake talking.
Do you remember how we met so long ago? Of two young children meeting at the winter court for the first time?
The thing that I always remember is this snow, and you teaching me how to make a snowball. We were kids I didn't love you then. But you were one of those rare girls that my seven year old brain decided were 'not gross'. I wonder what you thought of me.
So every winter when the festivals came and our sensei let some semblance of warmth through and gave us permission to meet our families at the castle. We would try to find each other again. It didn't always happen, but often enough that by our gempukku, we were friends. Friends who only knew each other Yuki-chan and Aoi-kun, but friends all the same.
If I had to point to when I first saw you as more than just Yuki-chan bringer of fun, I'd say it was that first winter court after our gempukku. You moved differently somehow, or I just realized it. But you were beautiful, and as per my sempai, I attempted to court you.
It was a complete disaster, I can look back and admit that. Those haiku, that flower, what was I thinking?
But you laughed and said okay anyways.
I thought I could take on the world in that moment. We were still just Yuki-chan and Aoi-kun with each other. But walking under the cold winter nights, holding hands, even now I feel like those were some of the most intimate moments I ever had.
We agreed to continue this at the next court.
Next court neither of us came. Both sent out to fight and die for our clans. I don't know what happened there, and to be honest I don't want to know. What I do know is you came back changed. So did I. We tried, Fortune's know we tried, but we needed different things.
You, you broke it off, and in that moment I wondered why I fought so hard to come back. I won't lie and say I didn't grow obsessed with you. My words and mind stayed focused on you, tracking you as you drifted through life.
Which leads us to now. I heard you were getting married. You know the crazy thing is that I tracked both of you down, and was prepared to surprise you both and give this big dramatic speech.
Yet, I saw you both in that garden of stone and flowers, not saying anything, you didn't need to, you both radiated this joyful contentment.
In that moment realized that we both had different things for each other. That my choices had pushed you away. So I slipped away that day not saying anything. And I'll do the same today, I'll slip away Yuki-chan...because I love you still.
And because I love you, your smile today means more than the pain I feel. He makes you happy, and that is more important than my own happiness.
Arigato Yuki-chan for everything.
-
I walk down the aisle, in red and white my beloved by my side. My eyes scanning the assembled people to find my friends and family mixed with his. The warmth I feel in my cheeks is partially from him and partially at how many seem to wish me well.
Of course there was one I wanted more than any other. My first love, I hadn't invited you, but somehow, I knew you would come. Maybe I hoped, for closure or something.
The memory of us first meeting so long ago under winter skies still remains precious to me. You were so serious, so...utterly and comically serious that I couldn't help but see someone who desperately needed my cheering up. So I threw a snowball at you.
You threw it back thus falling into the category of boys who aren't jerks to my young mind. We played together as often as we dared during that court. Yuki-chan and Aoi-kun.
Sensei always did encourage us to live as well as train, so every winter it became tradition for us to try and find each other and just live a little. Growing all the while.
Truth be told you were a gawkly angly teenager, not the man you are today. I'm getting married to the most handsome man in the world, but I'm not so blind to not give you your due as handsome in your own right.
Gawky and gangly you might have been, but you were sweet. Terrible poetry and flowers and all I knew you did it entirely on your own, and I was charmed...puppy love really. But that court was still magical, and I couldn't wait for the next one.
Then we marched for war, and thoughts of love fell apart as I found myself in the mud and blood of the battlefield. I don't even know why we went to war, but I trust that there was a good reason. Enough to seem my squad killed, enough for a reason why.
Whatever the reason I came back changed, what we had seemed, childish, I want to mature to be well a young woman who had seen war and was trying to cope. You wanted to go back to the way things were, and Fortune's know I can't blame you for that.
But it wasn't what I could give, so I did the only thing I could, I broke it off, and the look on your face was one of the most painful things I saw even with the war.
I left, I left you, I left that life, content to just go through the motions serving wherever I was sent. It felt empty, no one really was trying to understand, and despite it all I still loved you.
Then he came, not loudly but quietly. Never intruding but just being there, my beloved slipped through the emptiness to understand without judging. To help me cope. I struggled with my feelings for him and you for a long time. But in the end, when he confessed his feelings, all I could say was yes.
I haven't regretted it since.
One thing I do miss though is your company, your friendship. In the end though I think what you taught by that is why this marriage will work. I have to be able to give and take...not only give.
You think I don't see you as you leave. I do, I know you Aoi-kun, that you're in pain, and a part of me still desperately wishes to change that. The gentle squeeze on my hand reminds me why I can't.
Because as much as I love you, it's not the kind of love where a man and woman embrace in heated passions. It's the kind where you do what is right to help both of you. The kind where you let go so that life can grow. I know it hurts right now, I do, it still hurts me. But I know you, and I know that one day, we'll be friends again, neither of us hurt.
Thank you Aoi-kun for everything.
