Deen has once promised to never revert back to when she used to find comfort in alcohol. Always stopping whenever she find herself reaching for the hidden bottle in the top drawers of her kitchen, instead, she'd lock herself up in her studio and paint the places she once loved, the people she once hold so closely in her heart, but there was also that time when she was frustrated at how empty she felt, no matter how she tried, how much canvas she finished, how much paint was wasted, she still felt so empty and frustrated at herself for trying to remember the things she left without looking back. She sat at the darkness and silence of her studio then, but when the silence becomes deafening, she started to gather every canvas that she could and went for a drive in the middle of the night, find a place where she burn everything and has never tried painting something from her memory ever again.
(She thought of it as a punishment, thought that she has no right to think back of the things that she left. She has no right to feel sorry because it was her decision to leave without saying anything to anyone.)
There was also that night when she stood still in front of that painting that Zirrius liked from that exhibit where they met for the second time, she didn't say anything then, about who that boy really is, her friends asked but she never said anything, some of her classmates asked too, noticing the relaxed expression Deen has every time she looked at that painting, but received a shrug as an answer.
She ends up burning that painting, too. It was a moment of weakness, when she started that painting, she thought of throwing it out when she noticed who she is painting but the feeling of homesickness won over her so she finished it and includes it in her works that was meant for the exhibition.
She misses her brother. She misses him too much, and it was the guilt that made her finish that painting. Her brother once told her that she should paint him, she agreed then but he needs to wait for her to be good, for her to be able to paint him without missing a detail, she was still an amateur then and her brother understands how insecure she was in her works so he agreed, pinkie promised and sealed it with a kiss to their joined finger.
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She once promised to never revert back in drinking whenever she feels empty, but it was how she ends up doing when the emptiness feels too much to just ignore it.
She's half way in emptying the bottle when she heard a knock in her studio.
She frowns when the door remains closed, her friends never knock. "Come in." She calls, the door opens and Ryu comes in.
"Why are you knocking?" Deen asks when Ryu's in front of her. He shrugs his shoulders, "I don't know." He answers before looking at Deen's back where a new painting is staring back at him.
"You've been distant lately." He says as he handed Deen a list of commissions. "I only took a few commissions. I know that you want more but the final's just around the corner so you need to focus." He added before handing a cup of coffee that Deen haven't noticed. "Thank." She said before sipping the coffee and goes back to staring at her work, she's been staring at it for an hour while trying to empty the bottle of alcohol that she put down when Ryu walked in.
"You said that you stopped." Ryu says. Deen looked at him before glancing down at the open bottle beside her chair. "I did." She answers, feeling guilty; it was because of Ryu why she promised to stop drinking. Ryu once had an alcoholic father, the abusive type of drunk that hits his family whenever he goes home and cries to never do it again once he's sober in the morning but would still do it again when he's drunk. He ends up dying a few months before they started college due to overdose but the memory he left remains and he's the reason why Ryu stays away from alcohol, flinching whenever Deen gets frustrated and throws her paintbrushes harshly.
Deen always regret it, knowing the fears of her friend but she can't control her mood at times so she tells him to stay away, to walk out if she ends up with her moods but he disagrees, he wanted to be with her, he knows that something's going on but he never dares to ask her because everyone knows that she hates talking about her past. There was that time when Deen got mad at herself while drunk, Ryu was there, he knows that she would never hurt him but when Deen threw a canvas near him – a painting of something in her room back home, he flinches, and from then on, Deen made a promise to stop and to be better.
"Did something happen?" Ryu asks and watch his friend breathes deeply, a habit he knows that Deen keeps on doing to relax herself.
"I think," she pauses. "I think I'm about to meet a family member one of this days." She says.
"And that's a bad thing because?" there's a long silence then, the two thinking too much that no one notices the new presence behind them.
"I ran away from home." She whispers, but is too loud for how quiet the room is.
She never told anyone. Never hinted about how she ran away from home, how everything suffocated her and leaving is the option she has ever thought. It was better than dying, she thought, she's way too weak to kill herself when everything started to weigh so much that she can't handle it anymore, but with what she did, leaving without a word, she might as well be considered dead.
"Sol." A new voice said that startled the two. Deen looked behind her so fast that it almost gave her a whiplash. Ryu shrieks, something that he would deny later, it never happened, he'll say.
Zirrius looks guilty at the startled look the two gave him, wincing at how fast Deen turns around and smiles apologetically at Ryu.
(Ryu knows it's not the time to ask what a superstar is doing in her friend's apartment, his fanboy-self wants to shout and faint but his friend needs him now, so he decides to ignore the fact that Zirrius is in front of him and he seems to be close with Deen because of the fact that the only reason why a superstar is standing in the middle of Deen's home studio means he has a key of the apartment. And Deen seems to be not going hysterical at a stranger in her place.)
"What did you say?" Deen asks, voice wavering.
"I heard you say that name before. You keep saying sorry to him until you fell back asleep." Zirrius says, he looks guilty for mentioning something that is clearly a sensitive topic for Deen, suddenly nervous about the possibility of her getting mad.
Deen thinks back to that day when Zirrius and Ash found her in that sorry state. She remembers crying at one point but everything's hazy that whole night so she thought she imagined how she cried herself to sleep while calling out for her brother.
"Sol." She says, testing how that name would sound like in her voice, a name that she never mentioned for years. It was then that she was reminded that that day marks the fourth year she's been away from home.
A tear escaped her eye; she bit her lower lip to prevent them from trembling. Ryu reaches for the cup she's holding and that's when she noticed that her hands are shaking. She hugs herself and looked at the sky from her open window, not noticing Ryu picking up the bottle of alcohol and goes outside to throw it away.
"He's my brother." She whispers. A sob escapes her mouth and Zirrius went to hug her, Ryu returns and witnessed how close the two are, Deen don't just let anyone touch her, let alone hug her. He ignores their closeness and went to hand Deen a glass of water that she gladly took and drinks everything. She hands him back the glass before speaking.
"He's the most important person for me in this world, but I left him. It was too much, the knowledge that everyone expects something from me, how some people pressures me in some things about the inheritance, the responsibility that I needed to do, the calculated move that I have to do because one mistake would lead to a big mess, I couldn't handle it all. My 18-year-old self can't handle it all so I left. Leaving my poor brother alone in that fucked up world." The trembling stops, but a heavy weight settled in Deen's chest when she remembers the last time she saw her brother.
"He's a bright kid, always understanding, always playful. He's one of the few reasons why I stayed strong when our parents died but the pressure was too much. And I will never forgive myself for breaking my promise to never leave him alone. I wanted to go back, I really did, but it was too late. I let myself fall into the rabbit hole, I'm not even sure if I can pull myself up."
"We're here." Ryu says. "Yes, we're here for you. You're no longer alone Deen. We'll help you get out of that rabbit hole." Zirrius added. Deen cries harder after hearing them says it, she's not alone, she knows that now, but she has a lot of secrets still.
"I don't know if they want me back, if my brother wants me back." She says before finally giving in to the exhaustion that lingers with her for the days that she never slept.
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"Do you think she'll be okay?" Ryu asks Zirrius when they put Deen to bed.
"She has too. And if we need to hunt down every person in her past just to make her happy, then we will." He answers.
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A few miles away from the university, Ezrah paces in the middle of her hotel room.
"Are you sure no one brought a necklace in there? It's been days." she asks the student that handles the lost and found center of the university over the phone.
"Yes, ma'am. We even put a flyer using the photo you sent us but no one has returned it yet. Are you sure that you lost in the university ground?" the student asks.
"Yes, I remember touching it when I exited the university parking lot and I only got to notice it missing at the car when I'm on my home." She explains again as she pinches the bridge of her nose.
They talked for a while before saying their goodbyes.
She let out a deep sigh before plopping down over the bed. She messes her hair and tries to remember that day again.
She remembers stopping to watch a student serenading his girlfriend and asking for a second chance and explain about something he did. She finds it sweet, how amusing it is for the guy to sing in front of a crowd just to ask for a chance, smiling fondly when she remembers her boyfriend doing the same when a misunderstanding occurred, when she thought that he wasn't serious about her and she's just one of those girls who would warm his bed and be discarded later on when he grew tired of her. He proved her wrong by borrowing the MC's mic at their graduation day and announces to everyone how much he loves her and gave her a huge bouquet of roses after.
Her reverie was broken when her phone rings. She knows who is it, there's only one person in her contacts that has a different ring tone.
"Hey there, fiancé." The person says when she answers it.
"I'm so sorry, I think I just lost your necklace." She immediately says, her voice breaking into a sob. The line got silent, making her guiltier for losing something so important.
"I swear I tried to look everywhere, I also asked someone to help me but we can't find it." She says, fully crying now. "Please don't break up with me." She adds when the person over the line is still silent.
"Don't," Ezrah flinches at this and whimpers, "Hey, no. I'm not mad." He says. "Just please don't cry. I know you did your best in finding it but there's nothing we can do if it's really lost."
"But that's important to you. Your cousin gave it to you. I know how much you miss her and that's the last gift she gave to you, I didn't mean to lose it, I'm so sorry." She cries.
"It's fine. I guess that's a sign that I should let go of her now." The man says sadly.
Ezrah cries harder at this.
She knows how important his cousin is to him. She doesn't know her, never heard a name or saw any pictures of her. The first time she enters their ancestral house, she thought she'll be finally seeing a picture of the cousin that her fiancé talks so fondly of, the cousin who accepted him despite of everyone calling him an embarrassment for doing something that is not related to the family's occupation – business and medical, it was also known that he is the black sheep of the family but his cousin never judged him, encourages him even. "She was always bored, I'm convinced that's the reason why she's keeping me around." Rhenar once said, but she knows that the two deeply cares for each other. And when she asked him why his cousin doesn't have a picture, even a misplaced one, in their ancestral house, he only says, "Her name's kinda banned around the family, and I guess looking at her pictures kinda hurts so they took it down. They even spoke of her as if it wasn't their fault why she's gone." He spits, clenching his hand.
"I'm going to find it, I swear, if I have to turn the school upside down then I will, just to find the necklace." She promises.
Ezrah doesn't know the whole story. She doesn't know how much pressure the family put her in, doesn't know why they needed to take her pictures away and banned everyone from speaking about her, but looking at Sol is enough to see how much pain she left behind. Her brother used to be cheerful, they said, but he turned to be the quietest after she's gone, the one who would ignore everyone not unless you have something important to say.
She also once heard from Vien, how much she admires her, "She's always the one to voice her opinions, a frank one, that dear cousin of mine. It's one of the reasons why her father chooses her to be the heiress instead of anyone in the family. I don't know how she did it, but most of us admired her, a force to be reckoned with, I might say."
She tried asking for a name but everyone told her not to ask. It was when she saw how Sol looked so broken when someone mentioned something about his sister that she decided to keep her curiosity all to herself, scared that she might bring unwanted memories to the family.
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Fate moves the swing that he's sitting from. Not a minute later, a new presence joins him and sits at the swing near him.
"This is where the place where that girl made her wish isn't it?" he asks his companion.
"It is." Moon says and moves the swing too. "Everything's going into the motion now." He continues.
"Yes. And from now on, I'll let them write their own fate." Fate says before vanishing.
The Moon sighs before looking at the stars and prays silently, hoping for a happy ending for the girl he accidentally robbed off something that he wasn't meant to take.