Dialogue from a few days ago had become perennial, doggedly persistent, much to my chagrin. But I somehow allowed myself to stray in these thoughts while I could still see him.
The skies dulled even more so when it finally started to drizzle. While the wind was wispy and cold, everything was moving wearily before me. It somehow seemed that way from where I was currently standing.
And even now everybody appeared mechanical despite the faint grins and lively chatters in that area.
I leaned on the yellow railing that held the crowd at bay. The pre-departure area was limited to the either anxious or excited passengers waiting for their flights.
My gaze trailed his smiling face, so piercingly that I was amazed he didn’t feel my eyes on him.
Drops of delicate rain fell on my face as I continued to watch from afar. I could make out my name in his mouth when he said it, his oriental eyes scanning the faces of those who stood close to him.
I waved my free hand before I stepped closer to his crowd.
“What were you doing there?” He asked when he met me halfway.
I merely shrugged before I sensed the coat that I’ve been wearing was again sliding slowly off my shoulder where his last kiss rested. I rearranged the coat for the twelfth time since we arrived in the airport.
He smiled—too brightly in fact as if he wasn’t leaving again.
That twinge of pain was never one to be reflected on my face. I grinned back at him, even if the smile was anyway stiff for my liking.
But of course I still refused to look up to his face as he said his jovial goodbye.
Look anywhere but to those eyes. You know how those could easily catch any emotion in that face of yours.
The awkwardness that this meeting had brought us still hadn’t left me. I didn’t understand why I had suddenly forgotten how to act in front of him now or why he or I was too quiet again.
You didn’t expect how this thing could be much different from the last time. Everything is about to start here, now.
“What?” I gracelessly asked him with a nervous grin on my face.
The question almost sounded like an automatic statement, and as if it was something rehearsed.
His intense stare was unrelenting and steady. But just then I felt it, that contained longing in his gaze that gradually dissolved whatever discomfort I was starting to feel again. Those soft oriental eyes of his roved my countenance with such clear gentleness that I was sure I myself was going to melt.
He didn’t even say it out loud, and I was so sure I could feel it. It was so emotional that I was moved. It left a pool of warmth in me.
But impulse imposed that I should look away, to the rain that insisted on pouring outside the window. I didn’t know what else to say, and I didn’t know if I deserved this kind of attention from him.
That look on his face was just too much for my small heart to take, I supposed.
It was a surprise that I didn’t distract him with a hasty kiss to stop him from staring at my face too much. I figured that maybe I secretly enjoyed this moment with him because nobody ever watched me that way.
“It’s raining,” I commented insignificantly.
That had broken the silence. Nevertheless, it was something welcomed.
In the corner of my eyes I saw him finally turn his attention to the rain.
“It’s raining because I’m here again.”
Ah. Yes, of course.
I turned to him again, wanting to say so much more but finding myself rather too nervous again to utter anything.
He watched me again as if he’d never grow tired of watching.
Things were so much different three months ago. Everything was moving too agonizingly slow now.
“May I kiss you?” I asked rather childishly, suddenly, not knowing how else to say it.
The words sounded clumsy when I said it, but I leaned closer to him anyway and gave him a quick kiss that wasn’t even enough to tell him how much I missed him.
I love you, I wanted to say, you have no idea how happy I am right now just seeing you here again. However, the statement was left unsaid as I took in his stare.
I love you, I suddenly wanted him to say it to me.
I wouldn’t care if he’d say it in a hasty whisper. I just needed to hear these words right now while I could still see him and while the past days where still so fresh to me.
But he simply smiled again, making this dread sink deeper in me when he said his goodbye again in a cheerful voice.
I sighed inwardly.
Sometimes I could be tired of perpetually pretending that things were alright.
“I love you.”
When he said it this time I was caught in a reverie.
“Didn’t you wonder why I didn’t even say it on the phone last night? I wanted to personally say it,” he sincerely pressed, taking in that surprised look on my face. “I love you.”
His voice was endlessly thoughtful and warm like the glorious sunset behind him.
I felt my heart swell with the unforeseen declaration, and I realized that I believed him this time.
Why do you look so happy? Don’t look so happy.
It had been a great effort in my part not to weep over this farewell.
He scanned my face, most likely anticipating a pained expression.
But there had been no indication whatsoever, only a dull brown in these eyes that stared back.
And I knew my eyes were already shining before I furiously blinked.
“Ken-chan,” he mumbled the name, searching this face that was reflective and facing away from his eyes.
I made a small sound that told him I was listening to him.
“What are you thinking? And what’s this look?”
It wasn’t intended when I met his stare.
“It’s nothing really.” I turned away again to the stationary vehicles far ahead and to the white concrete walls behind them.
I had never stopped this bad habit of lying to him this way.
Somehow this limited space that the passenger’s seat offered was making me claustrophobic again.
“Why are you sad, Ken-chan?” He asked a different question this time, knowing I was lying again earlier. “Aren’t you happy that I am here again?”
“You have only been here for two days, and you won’t be gone until weeks from now...but it really feels like you’re leaving anytime soon,” I finally confessed too instantly that my eyes were shining again.
He chose to trail his gaze on anything but my sad eyes.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s crazy, but I can’t help it.”
He enclosed my form in a tight embrace, and I welcomed the warmth that it brought me.
It was easy and useless to imagine that he’d even kiss me in this open parking lot where everybody could see us.
I resolved that it was merely wishful thinking that he’d even lean closer without considering so much of the people around.
He had successfully cut off my words again, silencing me with his warm lips.
“You were saying, Ken-chan?” A familiar smirk was on his face when he asked me, and his eyes, which were actually deep brown when I looked real close that day, were brighter and more playful.
I glared at him again before I started to continue with my speech that he had rudely interrupted for the second time.
“As I was saying, Lee and the others must be—”
There went another interruption in a form of a tender kiss. Though it was almost given in haste, the pleasant sensation stayed behind as blush thoroughly rose to my ears.
When I heard his light laugh ringing in my ears I decided that he wasn’t just amused of my reaction.
Is it because you’re with him right now?
I wish I could believe it.
He looked genuinely happy at that moment with those gentle oriental eyes gleaming in delight.
He diligently fixed the falling coat back to my shoulder.
I simply studied the hand that held the clothing in place.
My breath caught in my throat as I allowed myself an inevitable gasp.
Darkness filled the space as rain kept on pouring and as the dusk persisted on breaking.
He had leaned closer, distracting me with a fierce kiss as he was slipping his adept hand that was later gradually rising inside my outsized coat and shirt.
He managed to release the clasp without so much difficulty, and managed a satisfied smirk against my mouth.
I pouted childishly, somehow keeping my eyes firmly closed.
The touch on my skin was substantially slight at first, almost a cautious experiment. After seeing I wasn’t making any protest he claimed more flesh.
My body collapsed against the stiff upholstery just as he coaxed me to rise.
Slow and deep came in my breathing. I refused to release my sight to this enigmatic reaction.
And you were so afraid the last time.
I must’ve been so much braver now.
That clever tongue of his teased the inside of my ear, making me dizzier of this joined stimulation with his hand that never left my trembling body.
It felt like it have been hours that we’ve stayed this way.
A small hand uncertainly snaked to his neck just before I boldly captured his mouth.
I melted against his strength.
Now this oversized coat was again out-of-place.
I didn’t complain and was even thankful of the only contact I received from him.
Our hands momentarily touched before we parted. I had wanted to feel more of his warmth but I didn’t insist with the urge to catch that hand that didn’t really linger.
Hold me again, for the last time...
I ended up just watching that hand return to his side.
I had sat across him, and he held out his hand to me.
I gaped for a minute before I decided to finally rest my hand on it, feeling its touch, making incoherent patterns on his open palm.
The road back wasn’t as pleasant as the first road we had taken hours ago. But none of us minded.
I thought I was going to find a small smirk. Instead, a calm smile enhanced his countenance. And the tenderness in those oriental eyes swept the uneasiness in me only to replace fulfillment.
I hadn’t been used to the look but I decided it wasn’t so bad at all.
Nobody cared too much of these two people who held hands this way in the most unlikely place, in the most unlikely time, with the most unlikely crowd.
If anybody cared, I didn’t let it bother me too much.
No, not with this one sweet moment.
Cold wind swayed the young trees that surrounded the parking lot, breezing through cruelly. But I was shivering for a much different reason.
Was I happy? Have I ever been?
I casually bid him goodbye, careful not to spill any tears of this parting as I flashed him a wider smile that must’ve looked fake now.
He waved for the last time before he finally disappeared in the throng of busy passengers and airport officers.
Are you happy?” There came the most unlikely question of the moment.
“Of course! I am happy. I’ve always been,” I supplied quite readily.
I was making circles on his free hand again like I always did. The action had become an accepted routine to us.
That subtle glow of the afternoon sun pierced through the smoked windows in his side, the restful shadows of the trees dancing against our own movement.
“No. I meant, are you happy...with me?”
The winding freeway was deserted as he drove us quietly ahead. The empty houses and barren trees along this road appeared rather blurry this time, completely distant and vague.
I didn’t have to look up to him to emphasize my serious reply.
“Of course.”
Because that small smile on my face was enough punctuation anyway.
It was actually startling that I could still feel him near me, could still remember how he smelled—how it was so comforting that it filled my senses.
The sheets and pillows beneath me smelled incredibly of him—fresh, strong, and utterly intoxicating.
I sat still, careful not to move too much as I was afraid I would wake him in his deep slumber.
He looked so peaceful like that, I decided as I found his expression so serene and fragile. It had been so much different from his usual façade.
I fought the strong urge to come closer to his face and kiss him. I didn’t want to disturb this quiet moment anyway.
It had been quite a while before he finally stirred and opened those eyes, finding me staring at him with a small smile on my face.
“Have you just been staring?”
There came the question in the dimness of this room, his voice hoarse.
I finally moved from my position, coming closer to him, almost crawling.
“For how long?”
The second question escaped his thoughts, voice clearer this time.
“For a while,” I replied finally, too calmly, too softly.
He motioned me to come much closer to him.
“Why?”
He was always the curious one between the two of us.
The silence seemed to stretch eternally between us.
“No reason.” I shrugged carelessly.
Those eyebrows furrowed on his forehead.
“Why?” He asked again, curiosity out of the question in his tone of voice.
My gaze deftly returned to his serious face. That look had been previously delicate.
“I’ve wanted to watch you like this since I could not remember when.”
That had been the truth but I wasn’t sure if he trusted it.
He snuggled me close to him, tucking me in his firm embrace.
Right at that moment I could swear his scent was already a permanent memory in my mind.
I suddenly felt the impulse to spin around, expecting to find him standing there again in the same spot where he had previously left me.
But of course, it was what I wanted to believe. Everybody in that breadth was suddenly reminding me of him.
The delusion that this nostalgia brought me was slowly driving me insane.
I must’ve become too used of seeing him, and of being with him like I had three months ago, like these past few weeks.
His speech was fast and light when he carelessly made fun about not being able to come back if he took that flight back from the city in the north.
I balefully glared at him for saying such a thing, hoping in my mind that he wouldn’t jinx himself.
“It’s not really a good thing to joke about,” I huffed, grimacing almost in disgust that he was saying this again just when everything was alright.
“What, do you want to die already?”
Do you want to leave me already?
His grin faded as his face took a serious light.
“Ken-chan...you know how it’s possible, right?” He said grimly, anyway concentrating on the busy highway. “The plane can crash anytime, and I—”
I let out an exasperated sigh as I bashed my left hand on my seat to keep him from saying anything that I didn’t want to hear.
Stop it...I don’t want to hear it, I dejectedly told him in my mind, shrinking almost visibly from where I sat.
“I know how it’s possible, but you don’t need to say this right now!” When I said it eventually I sounded really frustrated, and seemed as if I was about to cry any second from now.
The music that was coming out of his radio was fast and cheerful as opposed to the distressing tension in his car.
Those oriental eyes mirrored remorse. Despite of this he didn’t take back the things he had just said.
“What would you do if it ever happened?”
I forced myself to stare ahead, though I could swear I couldn’t see anything at all in this blur that filled my sight.
“I don’t know,” I muttered in a smaller voice.
He asked me to say it again.
“I don’t think I’d ever want to wake up from that nightmare again,” I shakily replied, but louder this time.
The answer wasn’t probably something he wanted to hear that his frown deepened.
“You should forget about me and go on with your life.”
“But I wouldn’t want to...I don’t think I’d be able to.”
He made a sharp turn around the corner.
“I don’t want you to be dependent of me...I want you to be happy, Ken-chan—even without me,” he told me in a quiet voice.
I bit my lip to hold myself from these emotions.
But that is asking too much. It’s just not fair at all. How could I be happy again?
After he finally parked the car on the side, he held my hand.
“Whatever happens—I want you to remember that I love you...very much,” he spoke to me softly with the most sincere eyes before he pulled me close and kissed the crown of my head. “Please remember that.”
By this time the passengers of the next flight were already boarding the plane that had arrived earlier.
And by this time I was remembering how his hands held me—how they were once sensual and rousing.
I trembled in quiet pleasure as his hands roved from that bind to the oversensitive skin that was burning despite the icy air in this room robbed of illumination.
He had slipped off that seemingly offending garment off my arms and thrown it above my head just before he tentatively caressed the flesh that peaked. His action eventually segued to a balmy massage that stole my sanity away.
I stridently hissed at the cool kiss his lips left and breathed in sharply when those lips claimed that diminutive height.
Did you want this?
He skillfully slithered his hands from my body to my bare legs to my hips.
I didn’t know what I want. I still don’t know what I want. I just know I want to be with him.
An explicit knead on my navel shut whatever reason was left in me.
The things you do to me...
Something inside me was building, excruciatingly anticipating of whatever was to come.
It was only satisfied when I realized he was touching me in that sweet spot with his clever tongue, almost drinking greedily whatever it was he found addictive in that center.
My shaking hands held his hair and the back of his head, almost coaxing and asking for more despite the tremors I was carefully holding in.
It was getting harder to control myself from crying out that I was biting my lower lip for restraints, bruising it again and again.
The satisfaction felt just like the first time.
Blinding colors filled my vision as I almost froze in place. Breathing was suddenly overrated.
I shut my eyes close, shaking myself off of this recollection.
I wasn’t supposed to recall that day, not when his plane was taking off in fifteen minutes.
I wasn’t able to open my eyes for good while, even as I was crazily kissing him and feeling him against me.
Each stroke and touch drove me insane that I was reeling terribly in expectation. Stopping was just an impossible thought.
I never knew it existed in me, sexuality and such. I thought I would be forever a child, naïve and unaware of things. I wanted to believe I was somehow desirable, and that I was capable of making him feel this way. I wanted to believe I had grown to be a woman for the second time this week.
I must’ve grown to be one when I heard a moan escape his lips. That slight contact had made him throw his head back against his pillows.
“Are you afraid?” He had asked me in a flimsy sigh four days ago, eyes hazy and intensely yearning.
If I were then I wouldn’t have come and allowed you to claim me this way. I’m yours. Here, now.
However, I hadn’t said that verbally as I decided it was rather too childish, foolish. I settled for a single word and a steady hold of his face.
“No.”
It was the second time that I suppressed my own sighs with intense inhalation.
I love you, he murmured finally before his demanding kisses wove fascinating patterns against my swollen lips, exciting me in various degrees despite its ferocity. If the demanding kisses had been a punishment for my constant nips on his lower lip and tongue, they were just so incredible to be called one.
My hair, sinewy and tangled, was pooling on his mattress.
I couldn’t feel the cold this time as my blood boiled in exhilaration.
The wind picked up again just before the rain finally poured in, distracting me from my former thoughts that had me wrapping myself when the warmth had left me all of a sudden. The coat was nonexistent against this internal chill.
I wondered if the rain would ever stop this time. The clouds were much darker, much more threatening now. It was only logical to think that a storm was brewing in the horizon.
“The skies...it’s going to rain again soon,” I said thoughtfully, declaring the obvious as I watched the dark clouds loom in the late afternoon skies.
I didn’t mean for the words to sound so miserable, but I couldn’t help myself.
“The skies are grieving because I’m leaving again,” he almost mumbled his answer, sounding as if it was a matter of fact.
He must be right anyway. It had also rained the day before he left three months ago.
My hold on the white upholstery beneath me told me I wasn’t ready to see him go again.
With sullen and monotonous eyes I observed the clouds that developed into stable yet unrelenting rain that fell down in waves.
The plump raindrops shattering against my window would always remind me of him going away as well.
I had mumbled a quiet thank you to Kevin’s older sister and her three other companions who were kind enough to drop me off to my road.
The ride back was silent, dreary and short. Nobody seemed to know what to say to each other after the cab left the airport. I didn’t mind the peace too much anyway.
Just as the cab sped away my shoulders noticeably sagged.
I was alone again. The silence reigned the empty street, and I started to walk under the rain.
Despite the book in my hands I couldn’t concentrate on the humor that the comics where rendering.
I buried my chin deeper to one of his larger pillows, rereading the fifteenth page just because I couldn’t quite understand the comedy.
He suddenly plopped himself on his bed and positioned himself in a way that he’d be facing my side.
“Why do you always insist on sitting on the floor while you read?”
I could feel a curious smile gracing his face as he stared at my own.
I didn’t even drop the book to acknowledge his presence. It was one of the moments that I wished he’d not recognize that sad gleam in my eyes. I wanted him to leave me be to wallow in my grief.
His cologne mingled with the fresh scent that was engraved on his pillows and mattress. It was becoming much more difficult to focus on my reading.
“Don’t,” he said dotingly, kneading my brows that were knitted close together.
I decked his hand away, finding it much more distracting than his mere presence.
“I’m reading,” I rejoined almost sardonically, eyes still stubbornly trained on the fifteenth page.
Two minutes later he removed the comic book from my loose hold and made me look to his warm brown oriental eyes.
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
It wasn’t the usual two words from months ago, but it shattered that fragile comfort I so closely kept inside me.
“Yeah, you’re leaving again. So?”
In my eyes a bitter smile was carefully reflected, my face a mask of poorly disguised pain. However, the pillow prevented him to completely see my whole expression.
His scent floated in the air as he moved closer.
“Will you cry again?” He questioned in a faint voice, holding that gaze.
I chose to stay silent for a while as I lost myself in those deep pools that were his eyes.
They read sadness and longing again.
“I will try not to,” I answered at last, averting finally.
He traced my left eye with a gentle thumb, catching an imaginary tear.
Closing my eyes, I instinctively leaned closer to his hand, almost in desperation.
“It’s alright to cry, Ken-chan,” he whispered affectionately, soothingly.
I shook my head.
But I’m tired of crying.
“I love you.”
He caught my lips shortly in a tender kiss that took away my tears.
It was also one of the moments that I believed in goodbyes.
I was too caught up in my convoluted train of thought to realize that I was already on the ninth house.
How this overwhelming longing I felt earlier was slowly dissipating I didn’t know.
But my feet instantly ceased their action when I heard the shrieking noise of a plane that had took off.
I didn’t know how the rain could be so warm and how it was capable of blurring one’s vision.
It is always the same, isn’t it? This thing called goodbye?
The memories of him had left me empty.
[december 24, 2005-january 7, 2006]
