The Silence of the Seventh Song - KY

The Silence of the Seventh Song is my first attempt at writing a short story.
A story about KY. =)

~~~
9th March 2004

He was a poor songwriter, poor as in penniless, poor as in lousy. Up till now, his attempts at songwriting were labeled as worthless and all the record companies that he went to with his works regarded him with thinly-veiled derision. Of course, being Japanese, they were polite enough to start snickering only after they had sent him out the door.

He was a pseudo-NEET, part of an increasing number of young people who graduated from university but were not working full-time. He was an average student during his university days, smart enough to be in the top half of his cohort but not diligent enough to be considered the cream of the crop. Of course, he knew that he had the potential, but he did not feel like making the effort to get the straight As that would make his parents feel so proud of him. He preferred to put his head in the castles of the clouds, and compose verses and songs in his head.

He was supplementing his income from his part-time job doing translation at an insurance company by working as a waiter on weekends. The days went by, the way the seasons changed colors from red to white to pink to green and back to red again. So he continued with his mundane routine day after day, working part-time at the office translating documents and donning his waiter's uniform on weekends.

The place he worked in as a waiter was an old-fashioned Spanish restaurant where he and another part-timer, a girl studying nursing in a local women's university were the only employees besides the owner, a quirky half-Japanese half-Spanish old man, and his two full-time staff.

He was the strong, silent type, utterly reliable and never one to grumble or whine, so he got along with his colleagues, who liked him despite his tendency to have his head in the clouds sometimes. The owner took a fancy to him from the day they met when he applied for the part-time waiter's position. He treated him as though he were kin.

Despite the disparity in their age; the owner was old enough to be his grandfather, they shared common interests. Both were the type who could enjoy the company of nobody but their own shadows, and they both enjoyed sitting by the sea, listening to the lapping of the waves and gazing into space, seemingly staring at something somewhere out there, far off into the distance.

What they saw, nobody knows. Did they see the same thing, only God knows.

3rd March 2007

Before he knew it, he had been working at the restaurant for nearly 3 years. The other part-timer was relatively new, having joined only about 9 months ago. Despite their age difference of about 4 years, they could click and he treated her like his kid sister, while she would bully him and make fun of his age, calling him "Jiji". She was not exactly a head-turner, but she had this natural charm that attracted suitors like bees to honey, and the restaurant was especially crowded when it was her shift. Unlike him she worked on weekdays too (twice a week on weekdays, making it a total of four times a week). She was very popular with the male clientele, and often customers could be seen asking her for her number, which she politely declined to give, of course.

She was a medieval ice maiden, and she told him half-jokingly that her heart was frozen. Frozen by what/who, frozen since when, she wouldn't say. He did not probe, though he loved to make her laugh because he liked the sound of her laughter; he told her several times that she sounded like tinkling bells when she laughed, and he loved the way her eyes sparkled too.

Of course, they were not interested in each other romantically at first, no, that would be incest, wouldn't it? They were just 2 people who happened to click, and that was all there was to it. The days rolled by, sometimes as though the seconds were little paper airplanes zooming by so fast.

14th October 2007

It just happened one day. One day in autumn, to be exact. It was a Sunday. Their shifts were the same on that day, and he was clearing out the rubbish while she was washing the dishes. The full-time staff had left first, while the owner was feeling the effects of an autumn cold and was resting in bed upstairs. "Lock the door after you are done and I'll see you next week, Y-chan", he reminded him in a raspy voice. He locked up and found her waiting for him outside the restaurant.

"お待たせ(O matase)", he said to her.

"Let's go", she replied.

And they started strolling in the direction of the subway station, side by side. Somehow, it had become customary for them to go home together. He would send her home, to the gate of her dormitory. Although it was forbidden for guys to enter the premises, sometimes she would invite him into her room for coffee, although usually he was the one who ended up pouring the tea or Calpis for her.

According to her, one of her favorite drinks was Calpis. People who saw them from afar would think that they were a couple, but both of them did not acknowledge nor deny the fact that they were together, because in a way, they were together. Of course, he was not her girlfriend; neither was she his girlfriend. Somehow it felt more easier that way, because she preferred to keep things simple, and she wanted to enjoy her freedom. He, on his part, proclaimed that he was as though a rockman, unable to love anyone.

"Love me if you dare" was his catchphrase, and he told her half-jokingly that maybe he could never love anyone because he did not know what Love was.

"It's cold tonight", she declared.

"Well, I am the Sun, so I'm not feeling cold at all", he replied.

"The sun should have set by now, don't you think so?", she teased him.

"Well, I'm the kind of Sun that rises at midnight", he retorted.

"Humph", she mumbled and continued walking. The silence accompanied them, but it wasn't an awkward one, just something that could be felt but didn't need to be filled.

"ただいま(Tadaima)", she told him when they reached her gate.

"お帰り(Okaeri)", he returned.

Usually, he would then turn to leave, and she would go in to her dormitory, but tonight was different. The atmosphere was different, in what way though, neither of them could describe.

"待って(Wait)", she said, and suddenly he felt the impulse to just hug her, which was what he did. They embraced tightly, and that ephemeral instant seemed as though an everlasting eternity.

After that, they held hands, and he told her that her hands were cold.

She said, "Just imagine that you are holding metal bars".

He chuckled, and replied, "If you don't mind, I'll be your human heater."

She looked at him and asked, "Are you serious? You might get frozen instead."

He gazed into her pretty eyes and said, "I'll take my chances, after all I am a rockman, and rocks are tough.hahaha"

That night, they got together. Days flew past, and the crimson and orange hues of autumn were slowly fading, as the leaves fell from the trees, blown about by gusts of windy sky.

27th December 2007

Winter descended upon them. On the white streets where snowy crystalline stars were falling, they built a snowman and a snow girl, and decorated them with sticks and a scarf that they wrapped around the necks of the snowman and snow girl.

But snow melts; and somehow their feelings for each other only lasted as long as the falling snow. Or so it seemed.

Unknowingly, they started to talk less and the silences grew longer; unlike the silence of old that only needed to be felt, these were as though bottomless pits that could not be ever be filled. It was as though there was an intangible barrier that grew up of the ground like an endless row of stalagmites between them.

16th January 2008

In the end, he could not resist the urge and he asked her out to clarify matters.

"It's not the same, anymore, right? You have changed." He accused her.

Are you talking to her, or to yourself?

I am still the same, it's just that your expectations of me have changed.

"..." She remained silent, her eyes not meeting his.

Why won't she look at me? Is she hiding something?

If I told you how I felt, would you understand?

"Why won't you say anything?"
He continued, his pent-up frustration getting the better of him.

Say something, say anything so that my sense of insecurity can be eased.

Because I am so afraid that once I open my mouth, it will be the beginning of the end.
Why can't you realize that I am just a girl, and not the supergirl that I told you I was. I do like you, but I have my moments of weakness too, and when I feel uncertain about the future, about you and me, about us, I just feel like running away.

"I just want to be friends"

I knew it, something is bound to go wrong when everything seems so perfect.

Why did I say that? Now he will think I am breaking up with him after leading him on.

"Ok, if that's what makes you happy"

Who do you think you are, the hero in a Korean drama?

That's not what I wanted to hear from you.

"Goodbye then"

I have lost. To myself, so it's time to wake up.

"Bye"

For now at least. Call me again when you get home.

And so it ended, they turned and walked out of each other's lives.

He didn't call.

~~~
1st March 2008 : 1:03pm

Till that day, 2 days before her birthday, she got a call. From the police. "Are you Miss K?"

"Yes, speaking. Is anything the matter?"

"Do you know a Mr. Y?"

"Erm, yes I do."

"Could you come down to the station? We would like you to help us to confirm his identity. He was involved in a traffic accident this morning."

"..." Her room phone dangled in mid-air, two feet from the ground, two feet too far to reach.

"Moshimoshi, Miss K?"

~~~
1st March 2008 : 3:03pm

At the station

"You are sure this is him?" the police officer asked her politely.

Her expression told him the answer.

When she had calmed down sufficiently, another officer, a female one this time, came to her and said, "Here are his personal effects. He had no identification on him, other than a letter addressed to you, and this. If it makes you feel any better, he showed great courage in saving the little girl from the speeding car."

Looking at what he left her, tears started streaming down her face.

~~~
3rd March 2008 : 3:03am

In her room

The music that was being played was his favorite Aqua Timez song "千の夜を越えて".
She was reading. His final letter.

"Dear K,

Surprise!!! Happy Birthday!!! Miss me? =p

Hope you will always be as pretty and charming as the first day I talked to you. =) I was a rockman, but meeting you changed me, for the better or for the worse, I leave that up to you. All the walls that I put up to prevent myself from getting hurt again fell before you and your alluring presence; somehow you made me feel alive, that I wouldn't mind getting hurt just to feel that way. It was not too long ago that we were still happily holding hands, but now, when you are reading this, it means I can no longer be by your side physically, because there is some place that I must go to.

I still cannot forget you, so I have decided to leave. I am going to Europe, mainly Spain, for a while. I don't know when I will be back. I may go to South America too. As you know, it has always been my dream to go visit Peru and Columbia, the former for the ruins of the Indians such as Manchupicchu, and the latter because it is where my favorite author Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born.

When you read this letter, I will no longer be in Japan. But I am sure we'll meet again, someday, somewhere. When you won't feel weird, and I won't feel awkward.

The words that I did not tell you at that time are just 4 simple words, 'I love you, K'.

Why? Why didn't I tell you at that time? Maybe because of my pride, or was it my cocky confidence that reflected my sheer lack of confidence? Because I was wondering, 'Could it be true, someone like you, could love me, love me?' Still, you have never told me that you love me, and somehow I never felt that you did. Maybe, maybe we felt the same way, we cared for each other in our own ways.

Was it Love? Does it matter whether is it Love or not?

All I know is that you and I, we were happy then. Maybe we did not know what Love was, but we were happy then, weren't we? And that is what mattered, no?

All I know is that at that time, and maybe even now, you matter a lot to me, more than you know, and perhaps even more than I know. I was here, because I cared.

Things happen for a reason, but sometimes the reason may be as simple as "I want to".

I want to be with you. I hope you will remember the times that we shared, and live every moment as though it were your last, because you were the one who told me, 'we might not live to see tomorrow'. Now I'll tell you what I realized, on this day that I am writing this last letter to you before I leave.

'What matters most is making the choice to open your heart, to let in the strong yet tender, firm yet gentle wind that brings warmth into that crystalline crimson chamber. Even if you may get hurt, even if it makes you reveal how vulnerable you can be, because that is the only way to love and be loved. Too late, I realized this simple truth, but for you it is not too late.

' さようなら大好きな人、逢えて良かった！(Sayonara, daisukina hito. Aete yokatta!)PS: In case we never meet again =p, I want to let you know this: K, I love you."

Yours truly,
Y

She finished reading his letter to her, dated 03:03am, 1st March 2008, the day he left this world to join the angels in their eternal chorus somewhere up there, and she smiled, with shimmering eyes that reflected the happiness in her heart, because she felt his love that was like a cushion that warmed her in the coldest nights, providing her with enough light to see the photo of the two of them on her wall.

The photo that was found in his wallet together with the letter when they examined his body after the accident. He had shielded the little girl with his body, and the truck had hit him head-on. It was amazing that he managed to retain consciousness after the impact. What was more surprising was that the first thing he asked was, "The little girl, is she alright? Take good care of her."

The way he had always been there for her, like a guardian angel. Thanks to him, the little girl was unscathed. However, he did not make it. He left Japan before he could reach Europe, before he could visit the ruins of Manchupicchu. Maybe he left it too late. Then again, maybe it is not too late. At least, not for the little girl, and not for her.
~~~
What matters most is making the choice to open your heart, to let in the strong yet tender, firm yet gentle wind that brings warmth into that crystalline crimson chamber.