(THE STAR IN MY PAST)
'Love is something that only you humans may feel, the thing that no one in this world can defy, the emotion that I can't give for the little girl I treasured, the day that I first held your hand.'
I wanted to believe in the impossible as I wanted to trust and not fall into the pit of nothingness. But to the immortal, that is sentence to guard a sanctuary until the last breath of time, can someone like me will have a chance to fall in love and hold on to its beauty if everything is a forbidden want and a taboo I will once again dwell into?
"This is not about losing or winning," as the highest angel warns me, coming down from the heavens taking a risk to pull me out of the delusion I once dwell into, and for the second time, I am about to take once more and worst to the same mortal with her reincarnated 2nd life but considered as the 1st. "As is it has never been love but greed and lust, as you should know it more than anyone else, guardian angel Rafael."
Calling the name with its past honorific and the dent of my past as a divine guardian, but is strip and sentence to forever guard the forest without my memories as my punishment. All those decades that passed as I sat guarding alone and waiting for something and someone, I did not even know who or what, everything came down to this millennium when fate or destiny's cruelty lead her back to me.
"Tsk!" I smirk as I wanted to ask the question of why?
Why do I have to suffer and pay the consequence of my sin if the supreme one will lead me back to her? Is it too unfair for me to fulfill my sentence if my heart had long gone been hers and not just in this time but way before her first original life? Yet, I know I should not ask as it is a taboo and a sin to begin with. Knowing best and the right path, I could not stop myself from dwelling on the same mistake once more as I remember everything from our past that is too hard for me to let go of.
"A taboo, and even a part of the deadly sin, I do not care anymore. As I will not let her go this time, I will be a mortal just to be with her even if it means I will take another contract from the devil himself." Holding that conviction out loud one thing is for sure, I could not take back what I already gave.
'HIRO.'
Do you believe in angels?
How about an angel who falls in love with the mortal that he supposes to protect? The guardian angel of the person he loves so much? An angel that defies the order and punishes for eternity to guard a land all alone. A foolish angel, who falls in love with the same mortal and twice. Trade everything to the devil, to be with the mortal that supposes to him not. The angel that should not supposed to know any single thing about the Eros of love and worst to a mortal. He took the greatest sin a guardian could ever commit and the angel who defies God and now is in prison to guard the land after the last breath of time.
Can someone understand? Can they have a single tiny thing to sympathize with a sinner? For the angel that is me that paid the price of the deal, I should not have, strip everything of who and what am I, and worst it took everything that I knew and holds about her.
"IT'S BEEN A WHILE, YOUNG MASTER HIRO."
"It has been a while, elder Peter." Greeting him with a smile, we both walk the narrow path inside the vast forest, going slowly up to the steps of the man-made stone staircase to the mountain above which they created.
To the children's laughter and excitement that slowly fading in the distance as we walk farther and farther to the Village, where for a minute they all greeted me with glee and prepares for a small feast. I now found myself in the deep forest I had never been to, but my heart and the back of my mind knew it all along. The familiar image of the path I'm taking now and even the gentle sound of the rustling leaves aided by the gentle wind is knocking the past chance of five years ago, which I fail to go back to and now is urging me to take and remember. Looking back as the silhouette of the Village is somewhat like a small toy to where I am standing.
The nostalgia that always knocks something deep and heavy inside of me. The place that holds everything of my past is here to hunt me in exchange after those years that I did not return and once more miss my chance to see her. Looking back and ahead as Elder Peter shakes his head and taps my arm, he smiles and almost screaming with the word.
"Finally!" elder Peter exclaims, laughing in return as I held his hand, guiding his every step up slowly and carefully.
"This time you will see each other again." Claiming the news that I doughtily believe from the proposed day of her homecoming. I just smile, nodding as an agreement.
"I'm sorry for not being able to return for five years straight."
Claiming a smile from him in return, he taps my hand as he made sure saying, "Francis did well, from being the fool that he is to someone who carried out your every command."
Nodding as a response, I added, "He's been away for now for an important 'meeting' so I wasn't able to bring him along with me."
"As long as he's doing well it's enough for us." Knowing the meaning of the words we coated like wearing a mask, we stopped now standing still. Where on the plain sight surrounded by the cherry blossom trees a few distances before the burned orphanage once was, to the forest that claims everything in return and the field that turns into a meadow, the sight of the familiar place rings a bell as I lay my sight to the almost run-down cabin.
"You never got the chance to visit this place then, but I knew you remember so well, the one that you both treasures. The only thing that left standing after all these years."
'From now on this place will be our secret sanctuary, our 1st sanctuary.'
Hearing the same voice and tone of the boy I often see and dreams off inside the fantasy by which is my lock memories. I stare from a distance as the familiar scent lingers within my vague memories, like the wishful glimpse that flashes and knocks the same glee and longing inside my heart. I walk close and near enough, reaching for the rustic knob as a scene flashes, with the same boy in my dreams and a glimpse of a picture scene who turn the knob opening the door which I am representing in this time.
'In this place, we will hide the things that will remind us of the happiest days of our lives. In this place, we will put our little secrets as this place will serve as a reminder of our promise.'
Somewhat flooded by those vivid pictures like scenes and words from the unknown, yet I very knew of who. The place of my dreams where to my entire life is urging for me to go. Where I wanted to see, but time, destiny, and chances prohibit me then, the place from the words behind the name that rings the bell.
'Is there a place in the orphanage that didn't burn with it, a place the only place where I treasure then and close for me to forget?'
"Tsk!" I smirk hiding the pain as I stop my heart from aching even more when flashes of the boy's words and promises are hunting me way deeper than he ever did before.
"So, in this place," I whisper, asking myself for the answer that I knew, but could not remember.
From those past years and desperate times asking for the same old thing, yet I did not find the answer, now here I am facing the key to my past that leaves me without a choice but to move forward and hold on. The chance that destiny forbids me to have and death circled my life that somehow rush in the exact moment where the underlying truth is just a step from me to grasp. My heart sinks into an unbearable longing as I tightly hold onto the door that stores the same tone that I still could not recognize only burdens me more.
"Just take a breath." Holding my hand as Elder Peter assures me in return, reading my expression and the doubt I have inside. Nodding slowly as he looks back, he gave me the time where this place happens to be our secret sanctuary.
"It's the orphanage storage house that we used to store food and supplies during winter since the orphanage was a bit of a long drive from the nearest city. The very place that during spring and summer you two made and claims to be your place and playground." laughing as he let go of my hand and urges me to open the door and step inside.
I slowly turned the knob open as dust flew, and the door that's echoing a creaking sound. I step inside as a boy from a near past did the same, but smiling in a shadowed way from where I am in time. Standing at the doorstep as the light passes through the windows, the empty shelves that wave the picture of the past yet in a second faded, and the place that's somehow frozen in time. It pulled a lingering feeling deep inside my heart. To my eyes where a picture scene is present and words that whisper in my ears in return, a girl and a boy smile at each other in return, as they made a promise that is sealed with a pinky swear.
'You wouldn't leave me, right?'
Hearing the promise and more than a plead, pounding pain kicks in from deep within my heart and with my tear, that fall unknowingly upon the longing want that took place. It left me falling to my knees as they call each other with a promise.
'Will you promise me only that, Rafael?'
'I promise, Miyu.'
'Please don't do this.'
'I have to I have to protect her no matter what, even if it means being a fallen one.'
Howling in silence to that ringing presence, the pain that's been piling up from all those years, and the things that I knew, yet I was not able to remember. The identity and the memories I once had and the deal in exchange for a short chance just to be with her, lead us into a circle of chance and reincarnation from the devil whose trick is known for its greed and envy, which I foolishly took the hand for a deal.
'You are not the only one that can be foolish enough to sacrifice everything out from love, for we are created in that same powerful thing as I can't bear to see you suffer before my eyes, so no matter what I will fulfill your desire.'
'Well, well, what do we have here?'
'I came here to make a deal that you can't resist.'
'As you said it, highest rank Seraphim, Luna.'