CHAPTER ONE

***Thoughts through the Solitude

 (Rukawa's POV)

I reminisced all those happy moments I've had with him one more time, perhaps the last time, if I could help it. I know by and by I have to move on and go back to reality, the real world I'm in. It's over, I told myself firmly. It's over…

A nice stroll along the seashore would make me feel better, I decided… But alas, it only made things worse. I couldn't bring myself near the waters, for I could see him and myself... How we used to be, how happy we had been. But it's over…

A tear trickled down my cheek. I didn't bother to wipe it away; I didn't care if anybody sees me. In fact, I don't care about anything; all I want now is to be alone and think.

"I'm sorry, Kaede.. but please understand, we're just not meant to be..."

That phrase echoed over and over my mind, causing deep wounds in my heart. I felt like hell, I wanted to scream. But somehow, I can't. Why, Hana… What did I do wrong? I asked myself silently. More tears flowed from my eye, rolling down my cheeks down to my chin.

I sat down on the sand, about five feet away from the sea waters, hugging my knees like a kid who lost his favorite toy. It was cold, the sea breeze blowing, ruffling my hair… Sending chills on my body. I wasn't wearing any jacket, but I don't care… I don't even care if I just died right there on the spot. I practically lost everything when I lost him. I even lost myself.

"We have to put a stop to this… and the sooner, the better for the both of us..."

I remember every detail of what happened. How he looked at me straight in the eye while he spoke, the sincerity of the tone of his voice and the body language he shows. He meant every word he said, I could tell. And there's nothing I could do to reverse things. I begged him to take back what he said... To tell me it was all a joke, but there was nothing that I said that moved him. His mind was made up, no matter how I cried all my tears just to make him come back.

Then he walked away, just like that. Leaving me alone under the sakura tree where we used to meet all the time, where we built our dreams together, shared our utmost ambitions and escape from the cruelty of the world we lived in. It was like he did nothing more than dumping a piece of paper in the garbage can, like putting his dirty clothes in the laundry... like throwing away the toy he once liked but gotten tired of.

And me? I felt like the air I'm breathing had been taken away, like the ground where I stood had just swallowed me whole. I felt devastated. As I looked at him fading away slowly, tears began flowing through my eyes without even realizing it. I know by then that he had completely expunged me out of his life.

He's the first person I ever trusted with my heart, with everything I have. He's the first to see through me, whom I trusted with the deepest secrets I behold, the first to ever make me smile for real. I was happy when he's around, he makes me feel complete, so loved, so secured. There wasn't a time he ever let me down... Until that dreaded moment where he left me, without even telling me why.

Was it because of another person involved? A woman perhaps? The thought broke my heart into tiny bits. Did he finally come to realize that he and I could never be because we're the same in the things we ought not to be? Why didn't he just leave me a long time ago? Why did he have to make me fall for him completely then just dump me just like that? I wish I hadn't met him on the first place. That way, I shouldn't be here, crying my heart out and feeling like a rotten shit.

I was sobbing so hard I didn't realize there was someone approaching.

-TBC-

---------à Who's the mystery man??? Find out in the next chapter!!!

Author's Notes: Please review… so I'll know if I'll continue or not. Lolz!