Four Years After…

20*9

DECEMBER 23.

MONDAY.

[7:33 PM]

December 22, 20*5

Dear Taichi,

If you're reading this then it must mean that four years have already passed, ne? And it must mean that we no longer are part of each other's lives. That we've already moved on to our own paths.

It must mean that I decided to completely stop.

"Some women's worst enemy are their emotions. Unfortunately, it's yours too." Agarashi Jun told me this once. And he was most probably right.

Taichi, there were a lot of times when I was controlled by things such as jealousy and anger; when I felt anxious of things that were supposed to be just part of the past; when I was afraid of those that have ended but I felt that they still kept on haunting me. It was like I feared that something might just come back and take everything and every people I have at that time away from me. That fear ruled my thinking and I ended up making decisions that up till now, I regret.

I wish I said sorry for the things I did that hurt you and the club. I wish I said thank you because you guys saved me from the loneliness I was at. I wish… that I listened to you or to Inaba. I wish I let reasons over emotions. I wish I was strong enough to trust you despite the jealousy. I wish I trusted you.

I wish. But I just wished.

I'm sorry, Taichi. For the last time, I love(d) you.

Inaba Himeko

"Yes?"

I came back to my senses when I heard three knocks on my bedroom's door. As I was doing my homework, I got caught up on some thoughts that weren't supposed to be thought of. Not now, not again, not ever.

"I'm going out to get something to eat. Are you coming?" Iori called out as I heard her footsteps walking away from the front of my room.

"Yeah!" I responded as I closed my unfinished homework and pushed myself up from my chair. I paused for a moment as I saw a photograph pinned on my to-do board. It was a stolen photo of Inaba during high school graduation.

That time in high school, we stopped communicating. No "good mornings" nor "good byes", not even minimal exchanges of words. It was not that I didn't want to fix things between us, nor did I want to stop talking altogether, it was just that I saw in her eyes that she was hurting. Too much.

That was why I complied with her wishes.

Maybe I was waiting for the right timing. Or maybe I was waiting for signs. Maybe I was a coward. And maybe I was just afraid of being rejected by her. No matter what of these maybes I have, one thing was sure, I let everything within my grasp slipped right through. I let Inaba go without trying.

"Taichi!"

I was too focused on staring at Inaba's smiling face that I ignored Iori's call. My hand reached out to touch the piece of paper that captured that moment in time when I wished I was beside her but I wasn't. Slowly, painfully I caressed the photograph. "Himeko…"

I heard a loud thud coming from my door, and I uncaringly turned my head only to see a pissed off Iori leaning against the frame. She gave me a mad look, probably because I kept her from her dinner for too long. I pulled my hand from the picture it was caressing, and under the light that was coming from my study lamp, Iori saw what it was that kept me from moving.

She let out a sigh and slowly straightened herself from leaning. "You still miss her?"

We both know it wasn't a question. She just lightened the impact of the fact that I still do miss Inaba.

"Let's go." I grabbed my coat that was carelessly thrown on the bed and walked passed through Iori. I saw her shrugged a bit before closing the door with a small thud.

DECEMBER 23.

MONDAY.

[7:50 PM]

"Where's Aoki and Yui?"

"They went first. You were taking so long that they decided to go first and save us some seats."

"Oh."

"Don't you 'oh' me, smart pants. Say sorry at the least."

"Sorry."

"What the fuck, Taichi."

"You asked me to say sorry.'

Iori rolled her eyes at me, which I accepted with silence.

"What do you plan now?"

I looked at her, not really sure of what she was asking.

"About Inaba?" Her eyes were focused on the road in front of us.

"Nothing."

She gave me a side glance before slightly punching my right arm. "There you go again. Not gonna do a thing again?"

I sighed. "I don't know what to do. I can't just barge in to her life again and say, 'Hey, I still love you!' And we both know that she doesn't want anything to do with me anymore."

"Maybe she was just waiting for you to man up. Maybe she was just waiting for you to stick yourself on her life again. Maybe she wanted you to catch her when she was slipping away. Maybe she just wanted you to do the stuff she did for you during those times when you considered her nothing less than a friend." Iori sighed, "Taichi, don't you think, she just wanted you to stay?"

"But she said she didn't want to be with me anymore, didn't she?"

"I don't know that much about Inaba, but I know that she doesn't let out her true feelings. Probably, those times when she said to stop, she wanted you to keep on going. Those times when you kept on calling out to her and she ignored you, deep in her heart she was disappointed when you ceased calling out to her. Maybe… Inaba just wanted you to spoil her?"

"I don't know about that."

"Because you didn't try to know. You of all people should have tried."

"But she didn't let me."

"So, you're blaming her for your pathetic nature?"

"I… don't."

We stopped right in front of a family restaurant wherein Aoki and Yui said they were waiting. I stared at Iori's back as she pushed the door open. Our conversation ended just like that. And she left poison on my mind.

DECEMBER 24.

TUESDAY.

[12:02 pm]

"I heard about it. Congratulations!"

"It's no big deal. But, I was sure that I was getting a higher mark than that."

"Really? That wasn't a high mark for you?"

"It was. But… never mind."

"You always have high expectations for yourself, huh, Himeko?"

"I'm getting tired of telling you to stop calling me by my first name, Agarashi-san."

"And so am I on telling you to call me Jun."

The voices faded as the two figures just on the other side of the book shelf went to the borrowing area of the public library. I was frozen at the spot I was at, with my hands occupied with tons of reading materials and my eyes glued to the back of the girl. She was wearing a blue cardigan and her black hair now up to the middle of her back. But I was sure, that even though she had grown taller and her hair had grown longer, it was her – Inaba.

I panicked when I saw the two of them leaving, so I put the stuff I was holding on the nearest table and hurriedly followed them out of the building. That Jun guy, from the Computer's club in high school, took a different street, and I saw that as an opportunity to run after Inaba. But due to my lack of luck, I unceremoniously bumped onto someone who was holding an open bag, causing that person to drop all her things on the ground.

"I'm sorry. Let me help you," I started picking her things one by one. I didn't hurry anymore, I knew that I already lost sight of the one I was running after.

"Let me help, too."

I froze at the middle of picking a book on Women's Psychology. I knew that voice. Then and now, it didn't change a bit.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry!"

The woman who bumped onto me, or whom I bumped into, kept on bowing her head in apology even though I already said that it was partially my fault for running on a public place.

"Thank you! And I'm really sorry!" She bowed one last time and briskly went her way.

"Well, isn't she a sweet girl."

I looked at the girl beside me. Her eyes looking at the running figure of the girl she just helped. No, this person beside you isn't a girl anymore. She's already a woman.

And I could tell as I stared at her profile that her eyes spoke of a thousand things that she went through in life after high school. Her aura was shouting that she no longer was the Inaba Himeko I knew of. That this girl – woman beside me was a letter I have yet to read.

"Taichi." She smiled. It was warm. Welcoming. Forgiving.

I wanted to touch her. To know if it was real, if she was really talking to me with a smile on her lips. My hand reached out to her, but I stopped it before it could even touch her. Inaba's eyes looked at it, and her stare lingered on it for a few seconds before she looked back at my face.

"How are you?"

Her voice sounded sweet to my ears. "I'm okay. Hey, say, do you want to have lunch?"

She let out a short laugh.

"Sure."