Chapter 19 - CHAPTER XIV

(LONGING FOR YOU)

FROM A DEAL OF A LIFETIME, CAN TIME HEAL THE WOUNDS THAT CHANCES LEAVE FOR SO LONG TO PASS?

Sitting across the devil who knows nothing but his tricks and wants. I gaze back at his winning face reading the wish I have inside. Tapping his fingers on the table he confidently made me known with his words.

"It took long, but here you are, as I guess it, no, I knew you will come back and for that same wish." he sinisterly smiled but stupidly in my eyes.

As I take the seat facing him in his tuff and mansion where the odds are all against me. Reading my thoughts and the wish of my heart, he snaps his finger as the contract rites through a blood flame in the air, contently laying the words as the pen writes along.

"For the same mortal, for the second time, yet for the first and finally once in time, your desire, is my command, Ra-fa-el," as he laughs, making me want to curse, but I knew I should not, for now. "Looked at destiny as you might have asked, isn't it pretty damn nice, that you remember everything and the reason for your sin to exist?"

Marking the blame, he proudly speaks off, and the wants that I once had chosen before, forget, bound me to that place to guard for years and now finally remembers.

Chuckling in his amusement, he provokes me with taunting words. "All because of that smile, to that smile, and that one pure smile from the same person you dearly calls, Miyu?" Cracking a laugh pinning the dwindling patience I have inside, the long past that I choose to save her went all and come again to my life as I met her in this life. "Your life that revolves in a thousand years of guarding that place, her last third life, the time you wasted and everything that is none then, still waiting now and finally envied in hate, am I not smart, am I?" As he tried to win over flipping the facts upside down and side by side to have all the cards turn into his faced favored play.

"Well, isn't the heaven just too cruel to play their tricks this way?" he started, started again playing with words moving his finger to the desired stroke of every formed letter to words of the contract. "Your eternal punishment, your heart's desire that was a taboo from the very beginning. Your sealed memories as your never-ending price of agony were broken, affixed to shatter by the same destiny who made you gamble this way, or perhaps destiny became my companion. What do you think?" recalling the past with the same words he had then, his cunning smile and the presence of the fault that I am once more dwelling now is hooking the tragedy I will hold at hand.

Creating the puzzling tone that can be the truth and perhaps be the reason behind it. I don't care anymore and everything out from anything at all. For all I ever wanted and is clear to me now is for that wish to come true no matter what.

Tapping his finger as the final words of the contract are being done, he once more smiled saying. "It took long, but here you are, as I guess it, no I knew it, you will come back and for that same wish." he sinisterly smiled confidently stupidly in my eyes.

"Name your price." As I draw the last straw and give up my final trump card, for what could I do, I fell in love with the same human over again, the human I was supposed to care, the human to whom I should guard, yet the very human I fall in love too.

Signing with his finger slowly laying the formed contract in from of me, he then proposed. "Let's play a game. A game of no binderies, but finding each other again, I entitled Love Will Lead You Back. Isn't it exciting don't you think?" hitting the things that he the 'DEMON' plays and is used to, to the game that he wants and the played part I drag myself into, defying the order once again, but worst, running away from my back I played along falling to that endless pit once again. "The price?" he deduces putting a sinister smile within as he added with the menacing words, ''Your divinity, your soul, and everything that you are.'' He contently smiles, giving his hand in a gesture and a choice by which I do not have in the first place. "The game is simple," he started to explain, "Life, death, and reincarnation.'' He hinted, giving the trill I wanted to curse out of him, as he continued, "In this life and time both off you will take a different path, for a second chance, both humans, both mortals, both of you will play my theatre acts, just like Romeo and Juliet."

Ringing the morbid plan that I cannot escape, I close my eyes hoping that nothing from this worst one will come. For the only thing, I ever wanted is to be with her, even if it means for me to play the gambled game, he proposes in exchange for everything that I am now and what's left of me.

Snapping his finger as a pen appears and falls perfectly in front of me, lying beside the contract at hand, he smiles with the words,

"Reincarnation, death and rebirth, three chances, three lives spin, three events in time, three hopes and three wishes, that's the script. Take it or leave it. You will be my actors as I am the playwright, from those chances you can choose, but remember I already warn you. In a hundred years, fifty, twenty or best be lucky for, after ten years from now, one of you will remember everything when your destiny once again meets and you realize it. Only if you realize it, but the other will not when that time met, I will only give you twenty, you heard it right twenty years to live. To that time your consequences and named price will tick and will never cease to exist. As the time will start your first chance will begin, to a mortal body in exchange equal by you in appearance and every bit of your existence now, our play will begin. After a hundred days, you both will suffer each other's loss, for months you will meet again as I can finally say, let the game begin." sinisterly laughing at his cursed game at hand, the playing trick he gives ends to our beginning adding.

"One of you knows, remember and forever bares your both hearts, as one of you will do everything for the other one to remember before the time runs out and if not, the one that had a deal with me will die. What's more, to make it more exciting, you cannot tell her all about what lies within the contract, because if you do, death will befall her. All you need to do is make her remember. Twenty years is the time needed? Do we have a deal?" he places the agreement confidently. he places the agreement confidently.

I know I should not have made that deal to the devil, but for her, and to protect her, I will do everything to keep her safe. Even if it means I will be defying the rules and dwell once again on that biggest mistake of my past sin.

"Deal."

"Good luck Rafael, until we meet again." He smiled sinisterly into my eyes before he faded, before he completely vanishes slowly as his castle did, like smoke in a windy meadow.

Holding the necklace unto my hands that bears the contract we two made in sign of my blood, to the forest where I could not go back into, and the deal for an exchange with my life. The steps that I took and the pain of hurting her so much in this lifetime. To the demon's plan for our lives, my tears fall as I picture our inevitable deaths that are now written in the script that we are playing for a start.

"NO MATTER WHAT I WILL BE THE ONE WHO WILL REMEMBER YOU,"

"MIYU."

Flooded by the stream of memories that came rushing back into my mind like a switch turning on. I am now swimming into a sea of both pain and glee for remembering the past of both in this life and the 1st where I took the deal.

"Ahh...!" screaming in both hate and anger towards myself.

I pound my chest as the pain burst together with my regret for the time that I wasn't there because of the deal that I selfishly took.

'You wouldn't leave me, right?'

Now having all my memories back, the promise I took in our first chance at life is the same for the second time. The promise that I gave her but I did not fulfill, and from the cruel fate that drags us both into suffering, longing, and hoping, I am the one to blame for the dark ocean we are swimming in a circle right now. If I did not forget if I did not stupidly lose my memory in this reincarnated life. Maybe, no, I may have her in my arms for the longest time now.

"Will you promise me only that, Rafael?"

"I promise, Miyu."

Pounding my chest to where my heart is, I fall to my knees as those years that passed, the tragic night that befall us, and the cruel chance of losing everything came rushing back. Finally completing the puzzle that I struggle with.

"Reincarnation, death and rebirth, three chances, three lives spin, three events in time, three hopes and three wishes, that's the script. Take it or leave it. You will be my actors as I am the playwright, from those chances you can choose, but remember I already warn you. In a hundred years, fifty, twenty or best be lucky for, after ten years from now, one of you will remember everything when your destiny once again meets and you realize it. Only if you realize it, but the other will not when that time met, I will only give you twenty, you heard it right twenty years to live. To that time your consequences and named price will tick and will never cease to exist. As the time will start your first chance will begin, to a mortal body in exchange equal by you in appearance and every bit of your existence now, our play will begin. After a hundred days, you both will suffer each other's loss, for months you will meet again as I can finally say, let the game begin."

Just how did I forget? The deal that I accepted, the chance that I miss, and the tick of the remaining time before everything will end. The puzzle pieces that finally picture the last scenes out are now ticking with a realization that half of the biggest picture is still missing a piece.

"How can you be this foolish, Rafael."

I blame myself, crying hard for the things that I could not take back yet I do not have the strength and heart to regret.

From this reincarnated life and the deal that kicks in for the third chance in that day, I wanted to curse everything out of my foolishness, yet I know that no matter how stupid I became. I would still choose the same path I took then with the deal at hand if it means having her to my side.

"I'm sorry Miyu." I whisper as I remember her cries the day when I left her back then and in this very place.

"Rafael!"

Somehow hearing her call back then as she chases the car to where was I, longing and regret are pilling inside my heart. Thinking that if I did not leave her then, that if I stayed for a while longer or even ask my birth parents in this life to take her with us, we may not suffer the game 'HE' played.

"Wait, Rafael!"

Looking back, as her image running to catch the moving car back then and from her struggling steps taking everything that she can to run. The tears that she shed, as she chases after me. To the cruel destiny that always kept us apart, and our cries reaching each other's hand were in our distance then was too far to reach. Our begging hearts and wish back then ended as I scream my promise.

"Miyu, don't worry I'll be back, I promise!"

"Miyu." I whisper, leaning my head on the wall as my tears fall with the pain in my heart as I remember that goodbye.

Stumbling down as her shadow vanishes in the far distance, the pain that they could not understand and will never be, the puppy love and friendship that they bind with that innocent emotion to any little kids like us then was more than what they ever thought is. Innocent we may be, but the deal, and if they all just knew the truth that lies from our cries, will they have the courage to keep us apart?

"From now on this place will be our secret sanctuary."

Standing up, I took the heaviest step near to the stone wall and to where that one particular block of red stone lies, noticing the carved image of the star Spica and Rigel and the peculiar arc stone, I pulled it out, revealing a secret chamber as a message in a bottle was stored yet it was not the entirety of it.

"Every day from now on, whenever we are sad, happy, or is wishing for a thing. We will write it on a piece of paper and put them inside this bottle, and store it safely in this place. These will serve as our secret hiding stash, so no matter how long and how far we maybe will remember and always be back in this place."

The simple wants we both agreed then, the play we took seriously spending our time recording our days together. With the promise to go back and meet again, the simple game we took then stayed hidden in this place for the longest time.

RAFAEL