[ENG] MARMALADE SKY -every love should last forever-

MARMALADE SKY -every love should last forever-

[written for a contest, this is an edited version. The theme was Kanon Wakeshima's album "Lolitawork Libretto", and the short story had to include the title of a song from said album and the words "Maru Music"]

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My dreams are strange.

My mom used to sing a song for me when I was a child. I couldn't understand the language. I thought it sounded sad, but it still could send me to sleep, like the sound of the rain. 

When I grew up, I eventually found out the song's title. 

I sang it for you and you told me, "It's Kanon Wakeshima". That foreign name rolled out of your tongue like a magic spell. 

In my dreams, you are always walking in front of me. I want to reach you, but I'm far behind. 

Then you found the original song for me and we listened to it and I said 'it's strange, because my mom used to sing it like a sad song'. No happy cello, no happy drumbeats. She would drag the words, make them longer, make it slower, till it sounded more like a goodbye song than a crush song.

'I wonder why', I pondered. I wonder why she sang it like the rain, sending the Earth to sleep with a melancholic lullaby.

I call to you, but you can't hear me. 

' Ne, Maru...'

I didn't know your language, but you had told me that 'ne' meant something like 'hey', and I found it much more enticing and elegant then its English equivalent. 

Your name was so difficult to pronounce, too. So I shortened it to Maru. I wanted to feel you closer, nearer. By shortening your name, I could call you and your answer would be faster.  Tatsumaru. Maru. Can you feel the difference? Our name is like a leash, and I wanted to make it shorter and shorter. I wanted to have you near me, standing near my leg like the cutest and most faithful pet.

'Ne, Maru...'

Sometimes I had nothing to tell you. I just wanted to hear your voice.  

I run to you, always. The sky is so clear and blue above us. 

I am so afraid that the people around me will disappear, like my mother. 

'I will never disappear', you always told me. And one day you gave me your notebook, the one you had filled with you melodies; it was deep orange in color and had the words 'Maru Music' written on it, in black bold ink and your childish handwriting that made you look so much younger. 

'And even if I disappear, my music will stay with you, don't you see?'

I opened the notebook and went through it. There was a song called 'To Jade'. 

You had written a song for me. No one had ever created something thinking about me.

I held you so tight. I just wanted to hold you, do nothing but hold you from there till the end of time. 

Then you stop, and you finally turn towards me. I see you face, and your smile is brighter than the sky that surrounds us. It's brighter than the sun on a highway, brighter than the light reflected by the colorful shells of the cars that pass us by. 

Had I held my mother tighter at some point of our lives, maybe her sanity wouldn't have escaped her. Maybe I should have held her smile, her round and plump body, her wrinkles, her gentle and sparkling eyes, everything, everything, I should have held everything as if passing through a hurricane, and never let go till there was no wind in our ears anymore.