Happily Ever After
I wish I could remember.
(I wish I hadn't changed…)
So weak…
(She's weak too,) she rationalizes, amethyst eyes subdued and glassy, glinting with the starlight—and she briefly wonders which acted best justified as "bright": the moon or the sun. The park is empty; the swing sets are still wiggling, a memoir of their last encounter with some overenthusiastic child. The rusted chains jangle if only faintly in the chill breeze. (She's…very weak.)
The moon is full. The moon is always full in that game. The moon is full but sporadically in the real world, and she'd nearly forgotten what the slivers of ivory and gray looked like 'till she saw them with her own eyes.
Sometimes, a fragment is plenty better than a whole. Muddled emotions and complexities now denounce a once almost-simplistic existence, swinging a staff and casting spells to defeat otherworldly foes with no other intent other than to kill. It was an orderly universe. Her body would deteriorate, but Tsukasa would live off of the virtual morsels offered in the thriving saloons.
The only uncertainty now, she owed to none other than a woman oft labeled her savior, and nothing else. Somehow, Shouji An did not feel saved.
Trapped, am I?
(No! No, not trapped. Saved—)
Ensnared.
That was a good word. Ensnared by obligation to her savior, a cerulean-haired woman who loved her more than life itself, who wanted to save her (and succeeded in doing so) from her descent into madness.
Somehow, the throes of The World seemed more interesting, and far more tempting. She didn't understand why, though; she pressed two fingers to the slant of her nose, nearing her temple. (I am in love.) (This was meant to be.) (She saved me from myself.) (She understood me when no one else did.) The sound of a wheelchair, whirring and buzzing, approached; An looked up.
(Her smile is so warm.) And it was, really…a curved line of black etched unto a milky face. The hand of friendship, sans the hand. A beacon of light when Tsukasa was shrouded in darkness, and nothing else.
But you're not Tsukasa anymore, are you?
An attempted weakly to mirror Misono Mariko's smile barely succeeded. "Good evening, An-chan," the wheelchair-bound woman says softly; her voice is an unadulterated softness, and she doesn't utilize the voice modulator when in The World.
An is still in her gray sweater, a red necktie jutting out from beneath a sheer white collar and a pleated skirt neatly accentuating her mild curves. She grasps Mariko's hand, and their fingers intertwine contentedly; wisps of pink fleet across Mariko's face. She loves me. Somehow, that knowledge isn't enough.
Times like these, An can almost believe that there is more than passion—more than compassion…sympathy, and the urgent, yet basic desire to love and be loved.
Her heartbeat quickens via an uninvited surge of adrenaline, summoned by terror and anxiety. Her grip tightens imperceptibly on the fragile hand, but Mariko doesn't notice; the latter's amber eyes are fixated on the stars. (The quiet moments…these are the ones I treasure the most.) Falling, but not in a good way. She was terrified—because falling means that, essentially, you will hit the ground. The impact sounds painful—she never wanted this to happen; if she could have resurrected whatever died than she would have so long ago…
Mariko was looking at her; her eyes moved languidly to meet her lover's gaze in a manner very reminiscent of Tsukasa.
"We shared a night like this in The World," Mariko says lovingly, trying to transfuse all the warmth in her heart with a squeeze of An's slender, calloused hands.
That was then. That was…precious.
(It was.)
"It was…" The pause echoes that of An's steely inner realist—far, far different from the weak entity embodied in her Wavemaster. "Precious."
Not Tsukasa, not Tsukasa.
(This was meant to be.)
I had choices; I made them. But no matter what I could have chosen…
(Is it always…?)
"Meant to be," An whispers inaudibly, fearfully; Mariko accepts it as a breathy sweet-nothing, easing sideways tantalizingly slowly. An…leaning in reflexively knowing that this was happening and she had no right whatsoever to stop it because, after all, like she had said, it was meant to be. Every little decision, every dispassionate dismissal and every submissive agreement lead to this happily ever after—and yet, the phrase "happily ever after" was objectionable when pitted against everything An had believed in. It was also, in a sense, something Tsukasa had quietly longed for…
She could not stop it, but something—something disciplined and rational and not stupid desperately screamed, informed her none-too-gently that in spite of her half-baked hopes and ideals, in spite of what could have been done right…she was here, and gravely unsettled. This was fate. This was preordained. This…An did not ask for, but received nonetheless.
Eyes flutter shut.
She shivers, not of hunger but rather of cold; two pairs of pale lips (one slightly tanner than the other, admittedly) meet, and though Mariko wraps her arms around An, runs her fingers through strands of thick, silky brown hair… Inwardly, An ticks off her fingers: passion, compassion, everything and nothing, more specifically the latter than the former.
Happily ever after. (This is what I wanted.)
This is what Tsukasa wanted.
Tsukasa had fallen. Shouji An had hit the ground.