Eclipsed Echo

CHAPTER TWO

 
 
SYHA

   For fifteen minutes, we have been sitting in perfect silence on the shore. To be honest, I have no idea how to act or behave around him. It's been 4 years. The look on his face when he stood from his seat to ensure who is behind him, making me doubt if he even recognized me. I should've just walked away the moment I spotted him. He was the last person I wanted to run into today. But I was curious, really curious about what is he doing here at this hour, in this spot, in our spot.

Yet, I couldn't gather enough courage to ask him anything. I'm struggling to decide if I should say he still looks like the same person I used to know or not. Puberty had a huge bliss on him. His face is flashing with maturity. I sense it in his attire, as well. Black vest over a black shirt, sleeves folded up to his arms revealing his forearms and hair perfectly styled. The gray tie looks so good on him. I don't think any other tie would suit him as well as this gray one did. This is the first time I've seen him this smug. Even from this distance, his cologne is making my head swim. I wonder if he got ready to attend any occasion.

If that so, then why is he here?

I want to ask him so many things. I want to know how is he? I want to know if he missed me or not? If he ever tried to contract me or not? If he, if he is happy or not? If he ever regretted for the decision he made 4 years ago? But instead, I made the conscious choice to stay silent, giving my full attention to the view in front of me and not to him.

This lake, there was a time when this lake used to erase every painful memory of mine. Even though I now consider the lake itself to be among my worst memories. A warm drop of tears roll down my cheek when the memories flashed in front of my eyes. I ran my index finder quickly over my cheek to wipe the tear. I shouldn't cry right now. At least not here. But instead, I brought my legs toward my chest dropping my head between it and started crying out loud. He was just sitting two feet away from me and I couldn't care less. I kept crying until I felt his fingers wrapping around my arm pulling me closer to him. He made me sit next to him resulting my arm touching his. Still neither of us dared to talk. As if, our voices got lost in this dark, quiet night. My loud cries stopped after a few moment but the tears kept dropping from my eyes. Why the hell am I crying for? None of my actions making sense since I came back to this place.

Suddenly, the thunderous sound of clouds reached to our ears and heavy drop of rain started pouring. I'm sure I heard him cursing under his breath before taking my hand and started running. I looked down at my hand where his beautiful, long fingers were wrapping around my wrist. We're still running I don't know to where. But suddenly it feels good to run behind him. We're not getting fully soaked because of running but part of our clothes are getting wet by the big rain drops.

We stopped, particularly he stopped and I bumped into his huge back. Of course. Because, my whole attention was to his hand touching mine. I ran my gaze around and notice a large building which looked more like a edifice. And realization hit me. No way. It's that house, where we used to visit now and then. How did it turned into a palace?

Iyan walked toward the front door and I followed him. He opened the door.

"Go inside", he says before pushing me inside and running toward the same way we came here from. I kept looking at his back until he went out of sight. I closed the door behind me and took a quick glance around . Even though, I couldn't recognize this building from outside, the moment I got inside, I started feeling nostalgic. It was pitch-black and deserted in the downstairs. I took a few hesitant steps forward gulping down the urge to just simply walking out of the door. Eventually after circling around a bit I found the stairs. As I started to ascend the stairs, the sound of music from the upstairs got clearer and louder.

I let out a sigh of relief when I spotted some human figure in the lobby. Strange, why in the world is everyone dressed in black? If this is a secret assassination association, then I'm done for. I pushed every irrelevant thought away while walking toward them. But before I could cross the corridor, I bumped into someone.

"I'm sorry. I __"

"Oh my god. Is that you, Syha?"