FALLING SLOWLY ||Complete||

Cage

Her fingers are slender, white and long, they fit against his, in oddly comforting ways. The closer they are - the further his thoughts wonder and the more distant she feels when their shoulders brush. Like stars - he thinks fleetingly - he had traced them countless times, trying to appease the raging voices - together yet universes apart. 

He wishes love was blind as people say. He wishes he was blind to her anguish. 

It takes only weeks, he reminds himself, weeks and her skin would renew itself - weeks and every last cell that man had touched would be gone. Looking at her eyes, glistening in the streetlights he realizes how foolish a thought that was. The voices rage at his own incapability and Jun tries to swallow them down - he thinks of stars again - of stars and the man who taught him stories they tell - anything but the diabolical schemes that the voices whisper caressing against the welts on his soul - anything but her - he promises them - anything but that. 

She stops abruptly - at a random place, in a deserted sidewalk. 

“Oh she is still there -” she says with a faint smile, her eyes leaving a trail for him to follow - to a stall where a graying old woman sells ice cream. She hurries over and he follows. In the distance paper lanterns dangle and the scent of caramel waft in the air. The old woman greets her with the same enthusiasm that leaves him bristled - the entire evening spent retracing their old haunts, leaving him a little more than ruffled. 

So many memories - he thinks - he despairs - so many moments stolen from him. 

“Isn’t it too cold for that?” He asks, wishing desperately to drag her away, the look in her eyes prickles him as if she could see past his facade. He looks away quickly, before her gaze throttles him. 

“You should’ve learned after all these years -” the old woman admonishes him with a chuckle as she hands her a cone with an extra scoop of cookie cream. “She’s not going to listen.”

She walks away aimlessly - he wonders if her lips are cold - if they taste sweet from the ice cream or bitter from words she withholds. It seems too heavy a burden to carry - that he finds he could follow no more. 

“Do you remember the time when I -”

“I don’t.” He cuts her off abruptly and her feet stops on the cobblestones. Every word she had spoken all evening - they had scalded his soul. He tries to shut them out of his conscious, instead of imagining each time she had held the hand of another - each stolen kiss - each shared laugh. “I don’t.” Because it was not me. Have you ever - didn’t you truly ever - realize that?

Instead he walks up to her and allows himself a scrap of her warmth, a fragment of a moment when he rests his palms on her shoulders. He wishes she stops with her act, with each calculated stab she takes at his soul. She knows. He knows that she knows and he no longer dares hearing it from her lips. 

She fidgets away from his touch and instead offers him the rest of her ice cream. Mercy - she has none for him. 

“When I brought you here,” her voice is distant, laced with a smile. “That misplaced bet and everything leading to it - I really wanted you to -” she pauses and inhales deep, lights shift in her eyes. “I wanted you to kiss me. I thought you would if I planned it well enough. I was meticulous like that.”

And she still is - he realizes. Meticulous - patient enough to wait without batting an eyelid as he crumbled under her well versed blows. The urge overtakes him - he wants to hurt her. 

“He is not coming back.” 

Her eyes widen, her lips tremble. He allows himself a gulp of air - laced with poison as he watches the first tear trickle free of her restrains.