(UNKNOWINGLY YOU)
'If we're given a chance in another life, would you resent ever meeting me? Would you care to remember, or stay asleep forever?'
'HIRO!'
Walking up as I struggle to breathe somewhat, being chased by someone for far too long, but could not figure out who, I took the deepest breath in as I crumple my fist, pounding my chest to where my aching heart belongs.
"Tsk!" I smirk in disappointment and irritation as the same dream knocks me back up awake, but worse than an empty jar inside.
Leaning on the sofa where I fall asleep resting my body, I look up at the ceiling as the unbearable pain is hunting inside my heart. With the dream that is poaching me for years now, the longing that comes with it, and worst as it keeps on repeating like I am in a deep chamber strap in a torture bed, I could not explain what. From the girl that I know, yet not, I always hold, but I could not touch, in that dream where the only ones who existence is the both of us, yet I could not recognize. The agony and unbearable pain worse than having cancer is slowly killing me inside.
'You will not leave me, right?'
Shaken by another vivid memory or perhaps a nightmare I created myself, standing up, I walk past my bed to the penthouse of my owned hotel as a façade. To the multiple masks, I wear within my created kingdom, and the life I made within the dark den I curse myself for ever regret is never an option as suffering is my paid consequence.
"Wake up." I reminded myself in a whisper, as I somehow struggle to stand up with my wobbling knees and still racing heartbeat I slowly take breaths calming myself.
The longing that's rolling at the back of my mind and worst for my heart is the reality and one of the things that I wanted to figure out but could not recognize.
Standing in front of the closed plain glass window, I shove the curtains on both sides as the ray of light passes through, illuminating my sight with the overlooking city of Rose. Meeting the scene and the far distant place where my undesirable desire kept me ongoing for the puzzling eight years now, the death struggle I had on the first five years of waking up with nothing even a memory to own leads me to this place.
"Death, 2nd chance of perhaps rebirth, could I gamble a thing to achieve everything?" as I ask myself, searching for the thing that I have lost.
To the power, richness, fame, and everything that my life turns out to be, everything is just a stupid lie in return for the pedestal that I am standing on now, I still could not have the thing that I ever wanted. From the horizon and beyond, the memories that I halfway reclaim are not near enough as the things unknown are creeping at the back of my mind, for a piece is a curse I could not run away from. The things that I thought that I already found, the reason behind that tragic night of ten years ago, the place where it all started, the ones who wanted me dead, and the orphanage where I came from, but I still could not remember. Everything started to that place, the sanctuary in my dreams where I found protection. The same place with the person from the past promise to also protect, and with my identity now as a mystery, but somehow, we both share a familiar mask to conceal our very presence. The loop we are into is the passage we pave ourselves to see as we secretly live in the shadows, unknown to anyone.
"Sakura Farm Village." Whispering out loud as the pink petal trees from the near-far blooms in the distance to where I stand. I look back as a knock on my door continues for the third time.
As the door opens and the familiar sound of footsteps echoed to my ears, her voice comes with the same tone as the words I knew off.
"Finally woke up." Greeting with a cunning smile as the door closes, I reply with an unfazed face and the surrounding silence. In a calculated move, she carefully places the cup of coffee on my temporary office table a few steps from the front door. She sat on my chair, arms cross, and with her penetrating gaze signed a death warning to my face.
"You perfectly knew above anyone else that I will not stop." Clearing everything as I immediately took my coat and headed to the front door out, she immediately snaps her finger, signing me to stand still and wait.
Placing my hand on the doorknob, I look back with a cunning smile and rebellious stare asking her to give up, as I always left everything just like I used to with a victory against her over the same old conversation.
"You above anyone else know what I'm capable of, right?" as she threatens with the same old routine that is too much for me to take seriously now.
With conviction and a clear authoritarian look, I smirk a sinister smile before nodding as I ask in return. "How long should I wait?" stopping her on the ground as I left that thought, I look outside the pavement into the cherry pink trees of the land we secretly hiding in protection, as I remind her for the core of what's makes me hold on to this life.
Gasping she reminded me in return with the words, yet rather another warning. "The bargain is almost done, once we get a hold of everything then you can be free."
Assuring the same old-same old thing from those eight years past, I replay with a smirk and disbelief as I open the door and step out. Leaving the words, "You made me learn everything except for one thing, but rest assured that death is not in my dictionary. Not until I'll remember everything. I'll be back before dawn, Luna." I ended calling her name.
Closing the door as she took a sip of the coffee, I smiled back taking the hallway and out. To another day of chasing and fighting with the city as the hunting ground in a death and life hunting spree, I swear to be the hunter and not as the prey.
'To live, you must learn how to survive, to survive you must learn the art of war, kill or be killed, that's your life now, as your late parents in trust your life to me, I will teach you everything that you need to know. Power to stay on top, money to manipulate people, and self-defense to stay alive. No one will protect you now, so you must protect yourself, Hiro.'
Recalling the past with Luna's words setting the path of my life, and the fate that I woke up into after those ten years from that tragic night. The life that I must endure to live, the past that never been clear, the orphanage where I came from, and the family that I have lost is the game that my hidden enemy is lurking, and Luna never fails to remind me as my price to pay. To the past years that I need to fight for my survival, to the one who thought me everything, proven herself to be the only one who I could call my ally, but I could not trust, and the scar for running away to come back safely and in one piece. My life, my known sister, this luxury, and everything of who I am now, is her idea of safety beyond the boundary and holding the thousand secrecy she still holds out from me. With her words, everything started and must end in that place.
'To trust and not is all up to you.'
Eight years ever since that day, the times that I almost had everything to where my lost memories lead me back. The power that she promises, the money that turns everything of my life into an easy swoop into my controlling palms, everything leads to that place where our common goal lies. The place where my dreams and feet lead me into, as my entire being urges me to see and where I need to know something. The reason for my assassination and the one who wants me dead lies there as the one they all telling me is in disguise, the one I forever wanted to see, the girl in my past, and the one I promise to.
'Let's just say, you've got the wrong man to deal with, Ra-fa-el.'
Walking alone as those words keeps me on the burning side of hate from the past that I could not remember. I crumple my fist as the elevator descends on the second-floor parking lot of the hotel's separate car building. Looking at my reflection, all that I wanted and what keeps me going is to know the truth.
'You want to know the truth? Then all you have to do is find her.'
Holding those words like I've been drag back to the past and only then shot outback, in reality, just then the elevator door opens. I took the steps out walking, thinking of the last left clue, the one that I need to find, the one that I need to see, and the person they call as I whisper.
"Miyu." calling, I immediately stopped dead on tracks as the sound of the parking floor turns into dead silence and steps of tracking ones filled the air. "They're here."
Declaring the danger, I took a sprint as the echoing shriek of the raining bullets are directed at every step of my way to where I dash into dodging everything down from the last piece. Driving into the nearest car, I hide not far away from my own. Taking a glimpse at my surrounding as I turn the side-view mirror, I calculated the angle that counted my assassins.
"Three on the ground," I signed, reading the footsteps from behind, reminiscing the bloodbath of the past from the art of war, I learn where bloodshed is needed to survive.
Taking a gun out from my back, locking a reload magazine, and installing a silencer in the muzzle, I took a peek seeing everything.
"Two snipers from the north, the other in the south, and a direct surprise attack. Tsk!" smirking, I aim my gun in front, taking the perfect angle in the middle of my bulletproof car window. I took the shot as the bullet directly slides slipping besides, scratching a bit and into the head of the one hiding two meters in the far corner twenty steps besides from a 40-degrees position and down into his death. "One down two to go and snipers at hand."
Taking a small block box out, I set the red timer into thirty seconds, throwing it on the left side as it slides in the middle. I dash, docking my face down as the bullets rain directly at me. Beeping the auto command of the Maruti Suzuki Alto 800, the door slide up and open as I jumped inside, locking the door, pulling the gear lever up into a gearshift, and start to drift. I stepped on the accelerator as the wheels shriek into a full-speed out, sliding my way down breaking the gates. As the bullet's rains from the back that only left a scratch, the box exploded, sending flames inside as I drove away from the thick black smoke knowing that I left all the damage to the assassins.
"Now." Shifting the gear locking the ignition as the speedometer turns into a full speed. I turn the wheels in the corner, pulling the windshield down in my side passenger seat and aiming my gun five meters away from the ten-story high building. Firing in that distance three bullets on the sniper's arms and head, he rolls his doom down into death.
Taking another turn just a few meters ahead from a straight then cut crossroad. I pull my windshield down and enough for the gun to peek through. Clutching the trigger and firing, I hit the other with the same distance, but with a bullet directly unto its head. Descending as fast in a jiff from the scene, I hit the highway as two black Mercedes Benz chase me from behind. They both took me in the middle, pushing against and from both sides, wreaking the side mirrors into a pulp. Pulling out as I speed up, I aim my gun, sending a bullet right back in one of their wheels as it explodes, creating the shrieking sound. Lost in control, their car directly hit a sixteen-wheeler truck, plummeting below, as I dock covering my head and face hearing the glass plane as it wipes the hood of the car down from the back until the taillights break into pieces of like an unrecognizable flute. Left with the havoc and trap in between, gas leaks leaving a trail as the flame is rapidly engulfing it alive, noticing, immediately I jumped out, rolling down a hill as it explodes a second past blazing a thick black smoke above with the ranging flame below.
Easing with pain, I take my phone answering the call, "Point B." as I gave the coordinates, while my blood is dripping from the wound on my head. "83." I hardly whisper, as I slowly pull out the three inches shard of glass that struck on the left side of my abdomen. Covering the 3 centimeters wide opened wound with a cloth to make the bleeding stop, and under my shirt, hiding it from the possible crowd and suspicion as I escape, I gave the order. "Fifty-eight street." I blunted the meeting place, taking the emergency order from the other line before hanging up as I muffled my voice easing the sting of my wound as I tied the knot securely near the other side.
To the wailing sirens of the police mobiles that echo in the distance and with the fire trucks that swarm, taking control of the scene, all visible onto where I stand. I immediately made my way standing up, taking my careful steps as the shadows of my assassins lurk in the near corner hiding from the rest but pointing their gun out, searching for my head.
"Tsk!" smirking with disgust as I press with my right hand, adding pressure on my wound to stop the blood from bleeding before it could be noticeable from the rest. I slowly walk with the sweat, wiping clean the blood on my face and forehead with a heavy step and deep breath. I turn from an alley supporting my weight by the wall and found my way out to the shopping district, yet,
"Everybody, run it's a bomb!"
Taking a step back, I stopped dead in my tracks as the crowd screamed and panic from a box that landed in the middle of the street, as someone screams.
'I promise that no matter what, I will always stay and be with you no matter what,'
Somewhat taken by time, yet drag back and quick unto reality, the promise I always had in my dream suddenly knocks.
"Miyu." Whispering the name out loud in my world from the glimpse of the scenery that came out from unexpected nowhere, my world turns slow. The name that just came out, but I could not find the recollection of too who, an adrenaline rush kicks in.
Catching a glimpse of someone beyond my reach, waving with that mischievous smile. The pain that I must endure from my injuries for a second ago is shift with the longing one to which from the back of my mind is screaming that I knew the person my eyes just got a hold to see.
"Stop!"
Adrenaline rush within me, as my extinct tells me otherwise. I rush running in her direction as my entire body and soul is one with the screaming fact that I needed to protect her, even though that hitting question of why is lingering. Without a clear reason as I'm trying to dig some clues out from my brain as to why, how, who, and what was I'm doing and thinking. The girl that a second flash to my mind, the promise that the boy made, the person who just by seconds I saw upon, and the voice that sealed a mark in an instant everything from the very second as it pushes my luck on the side is screaming her identity I could not recognize. Running fast as my entire reasoning is the need to protect her, the stranger that I never meet before, the girl who somewhat shares the same boat as mine, the one to whom I called the name to where I could not recognize leads me back from the shadows and playful fate of our cursed lives.
'No matter what, even if the world will separate us apart, I will look after you. I will find you,'
"Miss!"
Someone screams as a horn beep the shrieking warning. To my heart that never cared for anyone before. The life that fate trained to be a stone-hearted one and destiny played the biggest trick from the very beginning. My existence, and everything I believe in, changes in that time, in that instant, in that cruel fate, as I held out my hands taking her by my side, I pulled her out as I ease the fear that suddenly creeps out of me and almost took me all in one gulp alive. In a flash of the moment as everything continues to spin, somehow slowly in my world. I held her forcedly in my embrace, to the second now busy road that turns the red light to green, everything freezes and glued me in from the familiar pain and longing that hit my heart.
'You wouldn't leave me, right?'
As everything falls to the ground, it left me in captivity. When fate and destiny agreed, my puzzled brain shakes as our eyes meet.
'Forever, even if our time ends and a cruel fate will run ahead. I will always be here, as I will always stay by your side, I promise you that.'
"Miyu."
Letting the longing to make known as I utter the name that took her eyes by surprise. The seconds finally fade as my eyes meet the responsible ones. My assassin and her life ticks into the howling danger ahead. Wanting only one thing for the first time in a millennium, I held her hand close, gripping it tightly, thinking of nothing else but to protect her. Dashing our way out hiding by the swarming crowd that walks past and went, I swear near and out loud the same old words, the moment, and the circumstances I knew forever from the reincarnation of our faiths.
"Just run, do not look back and trust me." holding her hand tight as those fleeting words brought something back returning to where everything should be, the time that has already been started for the past twelve years is dwindling to an end.
"In here."
Pulling her inside a narrow space, I immediately pull her back hugging her into an embrace facing mine. I tighten my grip onto her waist and arms I looked out, making sure that no one is at our back, assuring myself that she's protected.
Taking a slow breath out as the pain of my bleeding wound crept back out, I caught her gaze as I lock mine. To the crowd that's making their distinct sound, the busy street that gazes upon the high up sun from above, the noise that is too clear to not make known, become in that instant a dimming shallow echo from afar. As her tears fall and my heart aches, a glimpse of a hurtful truth strikes, to the fate that I kept on fighting onward, the bloodshed that this hand of mine drips from, the person who's with me now, the one to whom drive me into an unbearable missing agony, lead me back questioning my heart.
"I finally found you,"
MIYU