AN: This is fanfiction. Hope it’s clear.
—000—
Dear Time.
***
I first loved him when he was a sovereign. A descendant of a glorified royal line whose main obligation was the fate of the kingdom and its people. A duty that was never to be broken even by the sacrifice of flesh and blood.
I was a mere court jester. And my duty was infinitesimal if paralleled with his. I was merely there to entertain his and her majesties, to elicit a smile from those untainted, noble lips.
He never smiled. He never spoke. He never glanced at me.
Every gesture, every word was a calculated move to meet the expectations of a future role defined by grave responsibilities and a moral burden.
And he could never defy the rules bound by a society he was chosen to serve. A kingdom he was born to lead.
In this life, I died with a broken heart that only knew pain and loneliness.
While he–he died with a steel heart that never opened.
***
I found him next in Kyoto. During the era of the noble samurai.
Once again, I fell fast. And just as hard.
He was born a woman in this lifetime. The most beautiful geisha whose silent allure rendered even the toughest swordsman wordless and weak.
I was a dutiful, brave warrior–a samurai.
Her graceful movements captivated me. The pitter-patter of his dainty feet, the smooth sway of her gentle hands accompanied by the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, and that classic beauty hiding behind the mask of white and colorburst.
If I had a choice, I would have laid my sword beneath her feet and surrendered not only my integrity but also my heart.
But I couldn’t. Not without grave consequences that involved something bigger than my personal desires.
In this life, I had the bigger duty. My honor as a samurai was far more important than the beat of my heart.
In this life, I died with a blade in my stomach.
While she died dancing for strangers.
***
I realized how perversely forbidding fate was when in my next life, I was born as a pirate.
And he was a mermaid.
It was a retelling of a classic tale.
A storm. Captain falling. Captain drowning. Creature of the sea saving a son of the land.
And then another falling. Of a different kind. Of a different beat.
But unfortunately for him and me, fairytales didn’t happen even in an altered truth of an alternate world.
In this life, I died waiting for him.
While he died watching me wait for him.
***
I was a werewolf in my next life.
He was a vampire.
Another forbidden love between two dominant species of a different world whose lives depended on blood and death. A forbidden love incarcerated by an ancient feud that was never settled even by time.
This world was harsh. There was nothing but the spillage of crimson and slicing of flesh.
While our love still bloomed, the call of the blood and the pull of the ancient bonds couldn’t be ignored.
We were enemies. I had to kill him. He needed to end me.
In this world, I died with poison in my blood and with the heart of the one I love in my grasp.
And he died with a huge chunk off his chest where his dead heart used to beat for me.
***
By our next lives, I had already accepted that I was being tested by fate.
How long would I last? Will my love for him transcend even the boundaries of otherworlds?
He was born a demon. I was born a human.
We lived in a world where humans lorded it over the monsters.
Demons were slaves and were powerless. Humans were masters and were powerful.
I was his Master. He was my slave. His kind was treated like animals, tortured and shamed by even the weakest of us.
But I never treated him as such. I only ever saw him as a human. That same human several worlds ago who still had my heart on his palm.
In this world, he ended up killing me in his quest for justice for his kind.
In this world, I died in his hands.
***
Different worlds. Different lives.
Unchanged feelings.
I remembered them all. I remembered every single version of him. I remembered every single version of me. Every time I was reborn, I gained a memory of him.
Of me. Of us. And how we never were. While he simply lived and outlived a life where we started out as strangers and ended up falling in love whoever we were, whatever we were.
Time has never been right for me to love him, and for him to love me.
Time moved against us, never with us.
And yet here I am again about to test fate who has never been kind to us. Here I am about to challenge destiny in a world we can finally consider normal.
In a place that is so ordinary it is almost boring.
At a park right in front of my office building.
***
I am scared.
If I touch him, will he recognize me?
In our previous lives, in those worlds of fantasies, he was my only reality. But now that we are finally in a world which I could consider my reality, would he become a mere fantasy?
***
I see him.
He looks very much the same, perhaps just more peaceful and if it is even more possible, more beautiful.
I walk towards him, feeling my heart create a mess inside me. I can hear the rise and fall of its beat, the sound similar to a ticking time bomb ready to detonate.
My mind is in a cornucopia of scattered thoughts; of worries and doubt, ready to push me to the brink of senselessness.
Will he finally meet me halfway?
***
I utter his name in a breathless whisper.
It sounds so familiar yet it tastes so strange.
Metawin.
I witness him still for a moment, before he finally lifts his head from the book he is reading.
His gaze meets mine. He stares at me with those familiar enchanting pools of glistening, brown-black orbs.
My heart ceases to beat.
His gaze is blank.
They are, once again, the eyes of a stranger.
***
“I’m sorry.”
I mutter a dejected apology.
Perhaps, we’re still meant to be parallel lines. Walking towards the same path, but never destined to meet.
I will never bother him. Not in this lifetime.
With the suppressed pain clutched inside my chest, I bid him goodbye.
“Vachirawit”
***
“Vachirawit.”
God.
“Turn around.”
I did. And it’s there. I see it.
He’s smiling. That same wide smile that reaches his eyes and turn them into the most gorgeous pair of crescent moons.
He knows. He knows me.
He recognizes me.
He recognizes us.
***
“Metawin”
“Vachirawit”
I offer my trembling hand for him to take. And this time, he takes it without the slightest hint of hesitation.
And we know. We just know. How right it finally is.
It is the perfect time. Our perfect time.
In this lifetime, we will be happy.
Together.
***
We start out as two lone souls, searching for their own places in numerous different worlds.
But now we are here. And we are finally one.
Halves destined to merge into a whole. Amalgamated souls which can be parted by naught.
A union finally granted and blessed by the spirits of the universe and the ever magnificent deities of fate.
When we finally fade, we will fade together.
Dear Time.
This time.
We win.
Signed,
Us.
