Remember.

I can still feel his arms around me, binding me so that I can't be harmed. I feel his breath steaming around my neck as a frigid breeze erupts goosebumps all over my body and tries to stir me from my sleep. I feel his hand in mine as I release something over to him. Right now I can't remember what. I'm just staring at his hand, trying to lift my head so that I can look up at him and I force my head to rise, my view of him becoming waves of TV static. I open my eyes expecting to see him. I look straight ahead of me, searching for a mess of brown hair and his warm eyes staring back at me. But I don't see him. What I see is the churning mixture of oranges and yellows, shooting a now stinging heat at me, very unlike the warm caress of warmth I felt just moments ago. I rub my sore eyes, red and puffy from producing all those tears. I can see a little better and can make out a marble fireplace and fleeting flames as cold air rushes threw the large room I'm in. I sit up and turn my head and look around at the grand, cabin-like room with huge glass windows that show a large open backyard that leads into a forest. The trees are smothered with fresh snow. I'm in a daze and I try to comprehend what's going on and where I am, but before I can, I hear thick rubber soles stomping across the wooden floors towards me. I whip my head around and look up at a tall man with platinum blonde hair and a face covered in dirt and scars. He slurs something at me with a cheery grin on his face but I don't understand it. It's not English and defiantly not Japanese. Then I realize, the groans that sound like he has flem in his throat and the strange way he mixes multiple consonants isn't just slurring. His random stuttering of strange sounds starts forming sentences in my head. So you've finally awoken. Are you OK?

He's speaking Ukrainian.

I fully decipher what he's saying and I manage to spit out a Da, in return. I can't remember how to speak Ukrainian right now, my head is spinning too fast and I feel nauseas. The man chuckles loudly at me, his voice booming threw the room, making the floor rumble. He says Good, and then walks away. I get to my feet and feel the thick cover slide down my shoulders and cover my now bare feet. I lift it back up and re-cover myself with it since it's freezing. I sigh and take another look around. This place is big and cold. There's a spiral staircase leading to a ledge over looking this room, which I assume is a living room. Two big flat white doors swing open and a woman with blonde hair and my father walk in. The woman looks familiar and she seems to know me.

"Izaya, Привіт, I'm glad to see you are well." The woman has a very fake sounding accent and she's definitely not Ukrainian, not even Russian. I glare at her, her face seems much too familiar and it's making me uncomfortable. I look at her features more closely and see the high curves of her cheekbones and the sadistic slant in her eyes. Suddenly I have an epiphany and I mentally slap myself. It's my mother, I can tell because she looks just like me, just now she's blonde. She walks over to me and scoops me up in her arms, embracing me in a death grip. She kisses my forehead and I make an involuntary, "Yuck!" She pouts at me in the way our family in known for: Tauntingly. I ask her where we are, even though I know exactly where we are. She tells me in that slightly sympathetic, tortures voice,

"Ukraine. Now please, Izaya, I told you, even in private you need to speak in Ukrainian, OK?"

I nod and look back out the window. A huge gust of wind must have just pasted over because huge mounds of snow are piling outside the window. I look into the distance at the dark sky and shining stars. I swear if I look hard enough I can see them, his eyes shining so bright they blind me. I don't speak as my mother sets me down. I only walk towards those cold windows as if I was set on a track. I stare at them, I'm sure of it now. His eyes are holding me there, keeping me alive as this longing strangles me. I can't tell you anything other than this, I stared at those eyes through night and day and the sun never once appeared to dissipate them. And I stood there and stared practically every second I was in that house. For two years.

Forget

My head is pounding, screaming. I force my eyes open and feel a painful aching in my heart as well as one in my hand. I can't see straight. I didn't expect to be able to. I have been crying for 24 hours and sleeping for yet another. It's almost 8:30 am now. He's probably asleep. I lift myself up and pull the covers off of me, it's much to hot for them. I feel drowsy and hungry and thirsty all at once and it's making me sick. I look at my nightstand and smile. My mom must have come up and left me something for when I wake up. Strawberry milk and a sweet roll. She really knows how to cheer me up. I take the sugary pastry and take a bite. It's still warm. I set it back down. It may seem stupid and a little creepy but even that seems to remind me of him. How sweet he tasted when we kissed and how soft his skin was. I feel my face flush at the thought. He told me to forget everything I knew about him, but I can't. That's like forgetting your mother after she dies on your birthday or something. It's too painful. I'm trying my best though. For his sake and my own. He left so that I would be hurt, so that nobody would hurt me because of him. He's still protecting me even now. He's the only one who has even tried or thought of protecting me. It reminds me of how weak I truly am.

Pathetic.

That's why I have to get stronger. So that I can bring him back, even if I have to drag him out of that god-forsaken wasteland. And when I do, I won't let him go. Never again. I'll hold him in my arms every second of everyday if that means he'll never leave again. And No one, no one, will ever even try to hurt him. I'll get stronger for him. I'll never be weak like this ever again. I won't hold back any more.

I lie back down and cover myself with my sheet even though it's already scorching in my room. I clench my hand shut and feel a prick on my fingers and palm. I open my hand and look at the little piece of blue plastic. It's a shard of a cast. The one Izaya broke on our second day of school together, after the first day we met.

He's kept it all these years?

It's shaped into a heart and in big black letters written in crayon is his name.

Izaya

I look at it, admiring how perfect it is, just like him. It's fitting. I turn the piece over in my hand letting to sharp edges pinch and stick into my hands. Then I see on the back that my name is there too.

Shizuo

In white crayon it's heavily printed almost in Italics. I smile.

Shizuo and Izaya

Both names sound better like this. They're fitted to each other like puzzle pieces. Destined to be together. I smile again, thinking of how insane my love is. How unimaginable it is. As if it doesn't make sense. But if Izaya were with someone else, it wouldn't work out at all. They wouldn't be able to handle him like I can. No one on this planet could ever think of Izaya the way I do. Like he's a piece of art that is made just for you to gawk at and call beautiful. Something that you have to care for and treat as if it were a fragile glass figure. Someone that has to be remembered as perfect in every way. But now, I have to forget him. He said the best way to forget is to remember.

Remember he's alive. Remember how I love him.

Forget who he really was. Forget why I love him.

It'll be hard but this is the first step to getting him back, to getting stronger. Protect him this time.

I have to forget him, for his sake. I promise Izaya, I will protect you and I will bring you back someday.

"And if you've forgotten me," I say to myself. "I'll make you remember. I'm not losing you."

Everyday when I wake up I take that heart and swear to it that I love him, that I'll protect him. Even after I've long since forgotten whom I love. I've sworn to get stronger and remember that love I hold inside, everyday. For two years.

Last chapter coming soon.

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