(GUILTY CROWN)
"You want to know the truth, but seeking is both suicide and salvation. Now, what path would you like to choose to start from this cruel fate you both run into?"
Somewhat cat caught my tongue, her words and the fact that she screams in front of me that 'he' is someone dear in my past is taking the worst feeling of agony inside of me. Maybe I am wrong to ask those things, as it only gave me another pile of questions rather than the answer that I wanted as it worries me somehow. That looking for the things I wanted for years will only bring me pain in the end.
Looking back as everything came in a jiff, turning the person to whom I discovered to be the worst nightmare of an enemy. His mysterious identity is keeping me on both sides to trust him and not. Yet to the one who saves me multiple times, the stranger he once is and becomes not in many circumstances and ways now. His real motive is making me warry of him, but somehow from everything of this. Should I trust the person whose life revolves around a mysterious lie, but the one who is playing the biggest part of my lost memories as what she pertains to be?
'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.'
Crumpling my fist as I held my self and mind to think straight for somehow something at the back of my mind whisper something in return. Words that I somehow heard before, but I could not remember when. Taking a breath, I look at her, as I give her my bet.
"Should I choose if everything will still fall to the worst?"
Satisfied with my answer, she half-smiles in a cunning way as she says.
"Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet."
Giving me a somewhat vague answer to my questions with the prominent name of a figure in the literature world, I cross my brows as she read my mind smiling once more as she explains.
"What if, I will tell you that you are playing a game, would you believe?"
I do not know if she is teasing or testing me in return, but with her tone and the conversation that is getting serious at the time, I brace myself for the worst asking her in return.
"A game, what game?"
"A game with no boundaries as you are the actors in the play to the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet."
As I still could not understand anything, but somehow something deep inside my heart is knocking the pain I could not explain, she continues.
"Reincarnation, death, and rebirth, to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, a tragic end is always inevitable. But he will not stop, he will never give up, until that wish is fulfilled"
Hitting me like a bolt of lightning that strikes in that instant by her words. The burning pain that suddenly engulfs me alive from within and the things that are made known in that instant. The questions that somehow took the tool, clear the path, and left me with a fleeting agony of pain and longing let a tear escapes my eyes.
"The one that should remember, the one who should first realize, and the one who wishes for a reverse, should that be you? For someone that took the other game and who is playing in secrecy for the both of you, should I end everything once and for all, if both of you are foolish enough to forget?"
Forget. The word that hit me hard as that word screams the guilt inside my heart and making me question myself of another bundle of why, how, what, and when? Just, when did I forget, why did I forget, and what did I forget? Does that statement prove that 'he' is someone dear to me in my past which I forget? That everything about him has something to do with the past I am seeking for? And just how could my past and probably his link to the game she calls Romeo and Juliet?
'How about we play a game of cat and mouse? A Seraphim and a Demon as a mortal, ordinary with nothing, but will serve as a guide for the truth and lies as puzzle words are the only thing we can do, then let us see who will end up laughing in victory and the one to which is which, a cat or the mouse? Do we have a deal?'
'Seraphim, Luna.'
Crumpling my fist harder than I did a while back, I wipe the tear away from my cheeks as I try to stay strong, holding the unknown pain that is knocking in agony deep inside my heart.
"I do not understand."
"I do not expect you to understand, not now, not this early, but soon. With the game I gamble upon, revealing everything is a breach of contract as I can only say to you is that, he is more than anyone and everything you ever value in your life as you are to his, but both of you forget."
With my heart finally, give in and my tears fall unknowingly. Her words brought me a terrible pain inside, as it put me in the mix of anger and longing, knowing that he is someone more than I expect of him. His identity that hook from my forgotten past as I am to me, our past that we both forget as she revealed the possibility of him remembering everything by now, I wanted to scream my anger. Just why did he not tell me everything? Why did he hide who he is, knowing that I am seeking for the past that I forget? Is he having fun of teasing me and running around the bush chasing after me? And just what do a play and game have to do with everything?
"The Rigel and Spica."
Taking back my attention towards her as she utters the familiar words, a whisper from the same voice with a vivid figure from my dreams speaks of a promise for me.
'Take this as a sign of our promise and the very thing that will lead us back to each other. The half of the star that will temporarily be away, but soon will become one again, by that time, your half star necklace of 'spica' and my 'rigel' will see each other again. Until that time comes, promise me that you would not ever forget about me. Will you swear?'
Rigel and Spica. Left in utter agony as I am torn with the flood of dreams or perhaps my lost memory that is coming back like a rush of colors unto my mind, I do not know if I can handle the emotions anymore worst as she says.
"Can you still take more, Mika?"
Just as she asked the question, another vivid memory with the same voice of the boy came knocking back into my mind and whispering.
'I promise, I will come back for you, on my 13th birthday, the same day of your 12th birthday, the day that the Sakura tree will bloom let's meet there, and by that time our star pieces will become one.'
Just why? Why from everything of this at the end I am the one who is in utter defeat at the end?
'You would not forget me, right?'
Punching my chest to where my aching heart beats. I weakly stand taking my way out crying painfully as my tears would not stop from falling, accepting the fact that my past is more than I ever imagine it be, and the person I just met is more than a stranger and the branded enemy I call, which I should not. The things that I have heard and the truth that I just claim are ripping me apart from the still left lingering question now, of the game we are playing.
'The one that should remember, the one who should first realize, and the one who wishes for a reverse, should that be you? For someone that took the other game and who is playing in secrecy for the both of you, should I end everything once and for all, if both of you are foolish enough to forget?'
Just what should I need to remember and more? Just what are the thing that I need to do and the only thing that I should believe? From my lost memories, the accident that happened fifteen years ago, the orphanage where I came from, the one that I should hold, and the game that I am playing with him? From everything that I kept on searching, the things that I wanted to uncover, and the lost thing that I cannot remember, am I that stupid that I am the one who should be at fault for everything of this?
"I appreciate your hospitality and for everything." Wiping my tears away as I try to collect my thoughts from the information that keeping me in somewhat a disarray tone like I am in a hangover state, I walk away reaching the door.
'No matter what, I promise I will protect you in anything and any way that I can, Miyu.'
Hearing once more for multiple times now, the voice of the same boy whispers, just when I almost hold the door's handle. Closing my eyes for a second as I shake his voice and words away, the door slides open as our cruel destiny played its joke once more. When caught in my sight and of each other, he opens the door as we fall in each other's gaze. In a large space, yet somehow lock-in that small corner, my heart wanted to sink in outmost pain, longing, and agony as Luna's warning flooded my memory once more like taunting words I could not escape.
'The one that should remember, the one who should first realize, and the one who wishes for a reverse, should that be you? For someone that took the other game and who is playing in secrecy for the both of you, should I end everything once and for all, if both of you are foolish enough to forget?'
I wanted to scream as I want to ask him who he is. Who in the world he is to my life, to my past, and everything that he is? That everything and everyone is screaming that he is someone that I wanted as we both to each other, yet in that second as time slows down, to his panting breath, a mix of worry and angry tone. I wanted to be in transfix to that moment, and in that time, but I know that I should not.
"For someone that is hiding behind a mask and circling his life in the biggest lie. Just who are you into my life?"
Finally dared to ask him the question which took a great deal from my howling heart. I step out passing beside him as my tears fall leaving the only thing that I needed, but could not recognize and bringing out the pain and longing inside.
Walking at the pavement as the lights of the busy street flickers. Luna's words, the truth, and everything from a half of a whole are ringing uncontrollably and repeatedly into my mind. The things that I chose, the facts that became clear in that instant, by all means, I should by now having the worst disappointment and anger towards everything, yet, somehow, I could not. As hate and envy should be present by now, but no matter what I think of, in every way possible now from all the reason that I have that entitles me to be and feel so, I somehow cannot, I could not, for agony and pain is what resides in return.
'The one that should remember, the one who should first realize, and the one who wishes for a reverse, should that be you? For someone that took the other game and who is playing in secrecy for the both of you, should I end everything once and for all, if both of you are foolish enough to forget?'
"The one who should remember first." as I whisper.
Looking at the dark cloudy sky, thinking for a thing or two out of those words and the left phrase that keeps on repeating and none stop, I cannot help myself but ask.
Am I too naïve? Naïve enough to think that everything is just a simple mind game and a puzzle that is too easy to solve after all this time, or maybe I am just a fool? The foolish one seeking for the truth, yet is hurting for an unknown reason that I should curse in anger now after I knew the fact? From everything, maybe I am the stupid one, jumping to conclusions without taking my reality straight. The underlying meaning of her words pertains to a thing that can make or break everything. The one that I had lost is someone that I am afraid to remember.
'Do you not remember, in this place you both promise to each other to meet again, right, Miss Mika?'
Remembering the time when elder Peter directed me back to that old storage house, I cannot help but blame myself for not realizing it then. From the glimpse of the distant past before everything turns the worst out of the good for those eight years ago, what the elder said and means as the one who is left to tell the tale, the one who knew me in an instant, and the one he pertains from those promise, might have been all along is,
'Do you not remember the one who saves you back then. Inexact seven years now, the one who took you into safety that day, the boy you always call,'
Stopping dead to my tracks as the facts are creating a path back to where it should belong, the sky starts to cry as the heavy rain pours, scramming everyone away, looking for a shade out from the rain but for me.
'The one that should remember, the one who should first realize, and the one who wishes for a reverse, should that be you? For someone that took the other game and who is playing in secrecy for the both of you, should I end everything once and for all, if both of you are foolish enough to forget?'
"Eight years ago, the time where I am in the states, the perfect timing after I brought the rights to the farm village, and two years later to where I got a chance to go back for a while."
Whispering the remaining truth from deep within my present memories, the rain that blurs my vision is dragging me back to those times as the memory of that time with elder Peter came back to me with his words.
'He has been waiting for you for the past two years Miss Mika, yet destiny is cruel for the both of you whose been searching forever. You left in time where he came. You protected this village at the same that he took the bet for us. Now finally bringing you both back in this place, but in different chance and time, all that I could hope is for the both of your to finally see each other and remember that the one you promise with is,'
"Rafael."
Whispering his name, the rain stops falling only to where I am. Blocking my sight with an umbrella that shielded me from the piercing cold of the water drops, I slowly beside as I felt someone's presence near me. Up to meet the person and fall once more into his gaze, I call out the name as that same person who I should have hated now appears. To my transfixed heart that stops for a second with the longing tone and missing beat in between, together with by the aid of the hard-pouring rain, and to the blue umbrella that hides us perfectly from above. His eyes met mine for once again coming to a rescue like he always did then.
'You should not have done this Luna.'
'Then what do you prefer me to do? Let us say that I am being unfair to both of you, but what I did to that day eventually lead you back to that place, and you finally remember. Now tell me if the trick I did was wrong if it leads you to remember everything. For the both of you that is too naïve, to the one who finally remembers but could not do a single thing for the other to remember him and fast. And the one who is foolish enough to not realize a thing even a little until now. Tell me to whom from the both of you is the worst stupid one? Remember your time as of hers is coming to a ticking close, Hiro.'
"I want you to remember, but I somewhat am afraid that it will end up hurting you, yet I cannot back down now as I waited long enough to have you all to myself, so I want you to remember me, the one who took that promise with you from all those years ago, the one who gave you that name, the one who saves you that day, the one to whom you knew and call,"
'A deal is a deal as violating the contract to HIM means death, but making her directly remember me in this 2nd life of ours during and only from those eighteen years ago, is the chance to where I will start. The play of Romeo and Juliet, I will not let it end in this time to that same tragedy of our past, nor Shakespeare's play.'
"In your past life, was I not been there? Eighteen years ago, can you remember? To that time, I was there and throughout I was there, until that promise, the one you very knew and calls,"
RAFAEL