A soft breeze gently moved the pale locks of hair, momentarily obscuring the view of the brown eyes that were near blind from the deep sorrow they reflected.
He looked up slightly as a giggling child ran past, chased by another boy yelling at him to wait up. Sadly, he watched the pair until they vanished from his sight, expression a soft longing. If only...
"I still remember the world
From the eyes of a child
Slowly those feelings
Were clouded by what I know now"
He looked down, letting the though trail off. It was no use wishing for what he could never have. Unconsciously he put a hand to his chest, feeling the outline of the metal under his shirt, the metal that separated him from the rest of the world....
It was happening again. No matter how many times he switched schools, no matter how many times he tried... Was it so horrible a wish? The simple want to play a game he loved with friends he cared for...?
"Where has my heart gone
An uneven trade for the real world
I want to go back to
Believing in everything and knowing nothing at all "
He had been foolish to think that this time would be any different, but had wanted so badly...
But he couldn't let it happen. To save the ones who had wanted to be his friends, he would have to sacrifice his wish; to distance himself so he wouldn't have to see them as the others had been. The bright vibrant eyes of the boy who had been so excited to find another who loved games as much as he did... He would rather never see those eyes again, then see them forever closed...
"I still remember the sun
Always warm on my back
Somehow it seems colder now"
It was odd, how numb he felt... as if he was as distant from his body as he was from the world. He couldn't even feel the metal points that had been embedded in his chest since the previous night. He almost wished they hurt... that he would feel something instead of the emptiness inside, the numbness that had descended when he realized it was all repeating...
Maybe if he could make himself forget... maybe the brief happiness would help fill the emptiness inside...
He shook his head. He couldn't forget. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't erase the memories of his friends lifeless forms before him, slumped over the game he had wanted to share. The only thing he couldn't remember was the game itself... just the board where the avatars of his friends characters lay, shattered into pieces, like his heart had been...
"Where has my heart gone
Trapped in the eyes of a stranger
I want to go back to
Believing in everything "
He sighed, looking down at his watch. School would be getting out soon... He turned, slowly heading back to the empty apartment. He didn't want to be seen. Far better to fade from the memory of others then to be haunted by the memory of what would happen if he became close to them...
They'd wonder what had happened... why he had come to school the one day, only to never return...
Moving like a ghost, he entered the apartment and walked to the room his father would have, if he ever came back from his work. With a strange grace he took out the large box with bold katakana lettering over laying the image of fantastic monsters and heros.
With loving care, he placed each piece of the game on the table, carefully assembling it piece by piece, giving slow detail to each part.
Taking a step back, he looked it over. The graceful towers of the castle... the perfect trees near the small village...
He gently traced the cover of the games computer as he looked at the board. "You'll always be my friend, won't you...?" he said softly.
"I still remember...."
