Chapter Fourteen: Memories
This night seemed unforgettable. It should not be forgotten, because it was New Year's Day after all.
Yet it went by so fast. There was so much more that needed to be said.
Without a moment to spare, the new year was upon them, and no sooner were they were whisked away by their Achilles and the others who now recognized the self-imposed Prohibition was no more. They drank their hearts out, with Touta even dropping into their circle periodically to offer bowls of rice to wash down all that alcohol. They even found Hector, well more like dragged out, the man Diarmuid was mistaken for earlier that night. Slumping around in his room complaining about being old was a no-no in Achilles's book, especially on New Year's Day. Despite his ceaseless groaning about being an old man who cannot handle alcohol, he easily outdrank Chiron and Achilles in a heartbeat, only to fall gallantly into a deep slumber shortly thereafter when the eighth shot of vodka hit.
Thankfully because of their alcohol ban earlier, Arturia and Diarmuid avoided anything more than a light redness and mild throbbing.
It was only until…oh what time was it then? Who knows, and who cares? That the army of Chaldeans fell to their mortal shortcomings, piled together in a comforting heap of body heat on the dance floor. Diarmuid and Arturia took this chance to tip-toe around the snoring masses and bid goodbye to Siegfried, who was maybe the only other conscious person there. Though, he was a bit busy tending to a clingy and drunk Karna, slurring his requests for a piggyback ride. Arriving back at their clean room was like entering a paradise, no, it is paradise.
"Thanks for letting me use the shower first." Arturia padded out of the bathroom smelling of flowers in her fluffy pajamas. There was no reply, so Arturia looked around, trying to find her roommate. Then, she noticed the slightly ajar balcony door and a familiar figure beyond the glass.
Draped over his tall body was the room's complimentary white Sherpa blanket flowing with the night's breeze cinched with one hand, the other rested on his chin. The darkness of night still blanketed their reality, but Diarmuid looked out to the ocean horizon. He watched with his glowing eyes the waxing and waning of the tide, and the ripple of the moon's reflection on flowing waters.
Stepping outside to meet him, Arturia felt a light chill run through her body. Though the weather was incredibly mild for winter, it was still rather cold with each passing gust of wind.
"Hey." She quietly greeted as she leaned against the banister next to him.
"Hey. How are you feeling?" Diarmuid turned towards Arturia and smiled.
"So much better. Go take a shower and decompress. It feels great." She let out a relieved sigh and stretched her arms over the balcony rail.
"Mm. I will, but I want to just admire this view first. I've never seen anything like it."
Nodding in agreement, Arturia also became entranced with the horizon. "Oh yes. It's lovely." She then felt a gentle weight floating onto her shoulder. Diarmuid had wrapped the Sherpa around Arturia's body. It was still warm from his body heat, and it had Diarmuid's comforting scent mixed with the hotel's detergent.
A familiar pair of hands descended on his cheeks and began gently pressing his chilled cheeks. Doing this has become a regular occurrence for Arturia and Diarmuid. It surprised him at first, but he soon came to appreciate the care and did it right back to her until she let go.
"Thank you." Arturia murmured as she wrapped the blanket tighter and around her face to hide her pink cheeks.
"Did you have fun tonight?" Arturia asked.
Nodding, Diarmuid replied "Definitely. Thanks for inviting me. I don't think I've eaten so much delicious food in my life."
"Says the person that works in the food industry." She replied, but happy that he enjoyed himself a lot.
"Haha. Really though, it was a great night. Your coworkers are lovely too."
"If only they would be a little less noisy at times." Arturia sighed.
"Now, now, it's the holidays. You can give them a break this time around, right?"
"Yes, I suppose. They should prepare themselves with a hell of a pre-shift speech next week though." Her eyes glimmered. Diarmuid just shivered.
They silently gazed again. It was always like this with them. Just like before when they fell asleep holding hands, neither of them knew how to, nor wanted to bring up the moment of intimacy they shared that night. Feelings were overflowing, but neither one wanted to lose themselves nor one another. After tonight, however, they both knew they could not go back to how they were before.
What did they want next? What should they do now?
"That was a lie. Sorry." Diarmuid remarked suddenly. Arturia looked at him with eyes filled with confusion.
"Huh?" she asked.
"I lied. This was not the first time I've seen this beautiful view."
"Does that mean you've been here before?" she probed for an answer.
"I mean the beach here."
"Oh, well I have too. Nothing to be sorry about." Arturia said, somewhat relieved.
"Well, it was still a lie."
"But did you see it from this angle? From this building? This room?"
"Of course not." Diarmuid's eyes twinkled in amusement.
Arturia patted her roommate's back gently in reassurance, "Then you did not tell a lie. The view from here is different than from the next room and certainly different from the ground. Don't think about it as what you see, think about it as how you feel in the moment! Something like that I guess."
"Very insightful." Diarmuid nodded.
"When did you come here?" Arturia was curious and took the leap in asking deeper.
"It was when I first came to this city; with my former partner."
Former partner. Those two words escaped Diarmuid's mouth, they hit Arturia's heart with the force of several grenades. Deep in her heart, she knew this was the case. That this was a revelation bound to come, but she did not want to acknowledge. Denial was a great medicine, but the effect undoubtably wears off. She could not be mad though. Of course, Diarmuid had someone before. With his looks and his charm, it would not be extraordinary for him to have had many lovers.
Guinevere.
Ah, that's right. She, too, had something before called a relationship. Given the privilege to share her time with another, that was what it meant to be lovers. What did she do with Guinevere though? Were they really lovers? What did "being together" even mean?
"Is that so…" were the only words she could squeak out. Shame washed over her for the amount of discomfort that bubbled inside her.
"The sea was the first place we came to when we left Ireland. Strange isn't it? Ireland is surrounded by water, but she was never interested in it until we came here. There's something about this view, about this city, that makes it different from anything else." Glancing at Diarmuid's face, she could tell there was a twisted mix of emotions flowing through.
"Can you tell me, what is so special about this place?" he asked Arturia, wondering what her eyes saw.
Reaching towards him, she gently brushed back some loose strands of his black hair and brushed the back of her fingers along his cheek, tracing lightly across his teardrop mole. Arturia's touch was so comforting.
"There's nothing special about it, really. But—" she paused, and her mouth formed a gentle smile, "I'm sure she loved it because you were there with her."
Diarmuid's eyes crinkled with his smile and rose-tinted cheeks, maybe from the cold or maybe from her surprising answer, and he sighed. "Really? Maybe that's the same for me today since I am here with you."
"What kind of person was she? Your former partner, I mean." Arturia asked, wrapping the blanket tighter around her.
A wave of silence washed across their conversation. Diarmuid's eyes were downcast as he pondered her question.
"She…was an incredible free-spirit. I envied her uncanny ability to do as she liked…" He stopped for a second.
"When she held out her hand, she asked me to take her away. To go anywhere except stay where we were. I remember thinking that if I took her hand, I could become free like her and was even jealous as to how easily she could say that. I left college, my friends and family, the expectations and responsibilities, all to gamble on the dream of finally becoming someone I could be proud of with someone who I believed could be there for me."
His mouth recounted his past, but his mind wondered, "why was he telling her all this?" She does not need to listen.
Why was she still here with him?
"It was not her fault. Gráinne deserves salvation, we all do. I just was not the person who could give it to her, and I think she understood that from the start. Nonetheless, she still grabbed the hand of someone like me. I was the person who tore her from her family."
"She was the one who wanted to leave though. You didn't tear anyone apart."
"But, I still agreed. That makes me unforgivable and rightly so. I was just so caught up in it, but here I am still."
Arturia was silent, listening to Diarmuid as he quietly recounted his journey. Even though they came from different paths, she felt certain a solidarity.
She too, was washed away by the wake of other peoples' love. The person closest to her in the end could not understand her simply because there was nothing, she wanted for others to understand. Her only duty was to communicate herself and understand others in return, but she failed even that. Never had she tried to understand the others around her.
The skeletons within her closet have since stayed untouched, so hearing Diarmuid be able to embrace his regrets so openly made him much freer than Arturia had ever been. She admired him for that trait and so much more.
"Yes. Here you are and so am I."
A lone seagull cawed, breathing life into the echoes of water and wind washing over their content silence.
"To this day, I am still not sure where she is, but I'm certain she is happier now than the time she was with me."
"Did you love her?" Arturia asked quietly, slightly changing the subject.
"…I don't know." Hesitation clear in his soothing voice.
"Did she love you?"
"I want to believe so."
They looked towards one another, eyes locking like earlier, then towards the sky where blinking remnants of galaxies and stars dotted their vision.
Diarmuid's trembling hands reached out, seeking the human touch of another, but he resisted halfway through and he rested them by his side.
A sudden gust of wind brushed through, and Arturia, noticing swept her blanket from her shoulders and draped it over the entirety of his tall stature, tugging at the edges to pull him closer into a space just a bit too close for comfort so both were wrapped in a space of their own. A weight was placed on Diarmuid's shoulders as Arturia's slender arms reached across his shoulders, forcing him to slightly lean downwards and meet her glowing eyes, beckoning for him to hold her back. This time, he did not hesitate, and slid his hands in a delicate hold, so delicate that his fingers grazed her waist like feathers floating in the air.
They could hear one another's' hearts beating wildly. What was this feeling? Why does she want to share it with him? How did she feel about him? These sorts of thoughts rolled through their minds the entire time they were connected as one. Even before when they held each other in the depths of the coldest night and just earlier during the countdown, they wondered about one another, but never could they find it in themselves to ask why.
"Have you ever been in love?" Arturia asked resolutely, peering deeply into his soul.
Diarmuid, pondering her question. "Of course," should have been the obvious answer, but the more he thought about it, the less willing he was in saying so.
Because then, that would be the second lie he would tell her this evening.
"I'm sorry. I don't know." Was all he was able to muster.
She did not answer back and instead pulled him even closer, squeezing her hands together before resting them around his neck. "Then, can you tell me what you think is love?"
"Why do you ask?" His breath condensing into transient crystal smoke.
His time with Gráinne, what was that? Those five years of walking side by side, what did they really mean to him? His heart seemed to be squeezed again by the phantom residing within; his thoughts were a complete mess.
What were those five years? He could not remember how he felt, because he was so, so drunk with how it felt to be connected to Arturia for just a moment.
Up until now, he was satisfied that his life had substance, and even if now, there are a lot of things that are not quite clear. One thing is however, and that is the idea that substance is no longer enough. Whenever he was beside her, he felt empowered to feel something and want to change.
He desired meaning.
His past nagged at him every so often but nothing more, but now that she knew, he can lay it to rest, once and for all.
It was meeting her that spurred him to take this path. For him to take the first step of many, and he was nothing but thankful. All of the spur of the moment decisions he made leading up to now should have never led to this.
But they still did.
"I was hoping you could help me understand what exactly I seem to be feeling here." Arturia's forehead gently rested on Diarmuid's chest, her mind pulsed in sync with his steady heartbeat. The heat she was feeling in her chest would not subside, feverishly desiring to take in everything he could offer. This perverse greed seems unbefitting of her, the one who never sought to understand.
From the very start at their first encounter, it seemed like there was a second heart beating in her chest. It marched to its own rhythm, making her mind and body act irrationally with Diarmuid. Right now, the thumping of that beat was louder, heavier, and her soul seems to be losing all control of it. Yet, she did not mind, because she liked the emotions that came with this imaginary second heart. New and unfamiliar expressions of her soul that she only wanted to share with Diarmuid.
Whatever these feelings are, it is just too frivolous to give them a name so early into their conception.
In one swift move, Arturia once again gripped the ribboned edge of the Sherpa and pulled Diarmuid further into her space while stretching up to meet him halfway. The cloth dropped to the balcony floor with a light thud, revealing the hidden tryst taking part to no one else but the ocean and the lone seagull that cawed in the distance.
His eyes widened in surprise as their breath aligned a mere inch or two away from one another, but he did not pull away.
Mouth slightly agape with a light grin, Arturia craned her mouth to his, baring her fangs like she was about to bite into a delicious and juicy apple, but promptly fell back. Closing her mouth, leaving her upturned lips, she instead aimed for his left ear, slightly red from the chilly wind but they felt hot as they burned with heat. They held each other so close that neither of them felt such cold, however and basked in the other's and their own intensity.
Taking but a light breath and nothing more, the young woman whispered.
"Forgive me."
She did this so quietly, that not even the wind or air around them could hear. This message was meant for only one person in this world. Glancing into his eyes, the swirling galaxy within of amber flecks and gold flickered back at her, just waiting.
First her left, then her right, her hands cupped Diarmuid's cheeks, which had once again fell victim to the wiles of the undeniable cold. Her frozen thumbs traced over his smooth skin, just enough for the sensation to blend in with the passing wind. In her mind, she realized he may never forgive her for this, and she knows they could never go back to what they were before. Their only witness was the sea, an immovable existence that will promise to keep her transgression a secret for all time.
Her lips fell unto his quite naturally. It felt like that one snowy evening once again where her body melted into his. A perfect fit of imperfect humans, Arturia embraced the feeling of his soft lips pressed against hers, braving the cold and their reservations. Their first kiss was nothing so seductive or even passionate; it was just a simple kiss that overflowed with this so-called love. To her surprise, she felt a pair of hands rest themselves on her face as Diarmuid pressed into her.
He too, knew that he was falling into a deep hole with no return. Taking Arturia in his arms like this, receiving her care and attention was more than what a simple, traitorous man like him deserved. She deserves a proper love, yet he allowed this moment of indulgence, for she deserved to see the truth of his wretched self just this once.
It was difficult for them to let go, and just as sweet and sticky caramel does, maintaining contact for as long as possible until the space between them proved insurmountable in their finite reaches.
Looking up, Arturia saw Diarmuid's usual soft gaze, but though his usual lopsided grin was bright, it was marred with a certain sadness she could not place into perspective. Taking her right hand into his, he placed a kiss, lighter than a feather, on her own soft palm.
"Goodnight Arturia." He whispered as he let go, and without waiting for a reply, he cloaked his roommate's figure in white Sherpa fleece and made his way back into their hotel room.
Regardless of what Arturia saw in that moment, the feelings were pulsating, resonating with the ghost his lips imbued in her with a wintry touch. The memory they shared during countdown and the moment that just passed, these are all fragments of her that she will treasure until her mind no longer remembers.
All the while, puffs of steam clouded the Irishman's expression. Water droplets shattered upon contact with his exposed skin and trickled down in jagged lines. The echo of thousands of these dripping crystals reverberated between the shower glass, loud enough so Diarmuid himself could not hear his own thoughts. That was fine; he did not mind. He only paid mind to the drumming of his timid heart.
The night, day, and soon months passed idyllically. Much like a dream, their days passed, and soon it was Spring.