Nico: OMGGGG YOU GUYSSS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ALERTS, FAVORITES, AND REVIEWS! I can't thank you enough for everything! I really didn't expect much from this one, but I got positive feedback from y'all! Thank you so, so much!

By the way, I'm really surprised that one of you even shared their theories here! (Hi, Multitules! :D) I really love them, and it makes me so happy to see that my readers are really into this story! Again, thank you so much! In case you guys have your own ones, don't be afraid to share them! You guys are free to do so! :D Also, if you have any questions or comments, just leave them in a review or through a private message! :)

Anyway, I'm sorry for having such a long note here. Again, thank you, and here's the fourth chapter!

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Serendipity

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Somehow, he found himself at the middle of a clearing in a forest.

He looked around, trying to find any sign of life, but there wasn't anyone but him standing in that place. Hanging above him was an ocean of blue and waves of white clouds with the summer sun blazing in the skies. Tall trees and bushes surrounded the place as if they where steel bars to keep him from going anywhere. There was no way that he'd be there— last time he checked, he was in his room trying to solve a math problem, so—

'This is just a dream, right…?'

Just as he took a step forward, a sudden rustle from the bushes startled him. He stopped for a moment, readying himself for anything that lurked behind him, and when he turned around, he found a little girl standing a few meters away from him.

"Hello," she said with a smile.

A wave of familiarity then washed over him as soon as he saw the little girl's smile. There was something about it that hit him close to the heart; that a long time ago, he had seen that small yet sweet smile more than a thousand times already. He had no recollection of meeting this girl in his life or any memories of ever seeing her before, but an odd, warm, and fluttery feeling in his chest kept him in a whirlwind of clarity and uncertainty that she did exist somewhere in his world.

'Just—'

"Who are you?"

The little girl paused, her smile decreasing a bit, seemingly surprised by his question, but it quickly turned into an amused grin. She let out a light giggle before she spun around, her long black hair swishing in the air like the feathers of a bird, and she said—

"Silly Ryou."

"What—"

Before he could even finish his question, the girl ran away and vanished straight into the woods. His instincts took over—

"Wait!"

He started chasing after the girl and headed straight into the forest. His eyes traveled one place from another, searching for any sign of a girl with long black hair in a little white dress. His breathing quickened— his heart thumping so loud against his chest, and his confusion only got worse as this feeling of loss and desperation and this paradox of inessential need to see the girl, to talk to her, and to have her answer questions he never even knew he had until that moment when she said—

"Silly Ryou."

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"Settle down now, everyone! We have a new student who's going to join us today!"

Laughter and chit-chats soon died down as the teacher walked in front of the class. He found himself in a class of third grade students, and he was sitting in the exact center of the room. Only silence remained in the place, until the teacher spoke and ushered the new student to come inside the classroom.

One step forward into the room, and a black-haired girl was now walking towards the teacher. When she stopped right beside him and faced the class, he felt a pang in his chest as if lightning struck every nerve and muscle in his body.

For some unfathomable reason, he was immediately drawn to her like a moth to fire.

"I'm Hiraki Shion," the girl said; her voice was calm and quiet. (Something he found very familiar, like a song, a whisper to his ear that he had heard before.) "Please take care of me."

And after she said those words, she ended it with a small smile.

("Silly Ryou.")

All of a sudden, he bolted up from his seat as the sound of a distant voice rang in his ears.

"Kitano-kun, what's wrong?"

What was that all about? There was a voice just now… and 'Ryou'? He began looking frantically around, searching for the source of the sound, and—

'Just who was that?'

"Ryouji-kun, is there anything wrong?" His teacher approached him. "What is it?"

Frightened, he backed away— 'Ryouji?' He looked at his hands, and little by little, cuts, scars, and bruises started growing like weeds and roots crawling on his skin. His breathing soon increased in a rapid speed— his chest kept on sinking and rising as he watched how the marks on his body grew and grew until they reached his face and into his eyes. His vision began fading out, so did his consciousness, and before he faded into the darkness, he saw the black-haired Hiraki Shion mouthed the words—

"Silly Ryou."

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"…forget…me—"

Carefully, his eyes fluttered open, and his vision was soon filled with the blazing colors of the autumn sky. Letting out a groan, he got up from the ground and swept his hair back. He looked around the place— they were in a filled of asters painted with varying colors. In the light of the setting sun, it almost felt like he woke up to paradise. The cool breeze walking through the grass and the sweet scent of the flowers in his nose; it was almost as if serenity was in his hand, and—

"Ryouhei…?"

He turned to his right, and sitting right next to him was a girl with long, black hair. She was quiet, her mouth sealed in a straight line, but her eyes were a thunderstorm on a mid-summer afternoon. From the way she looked, he knew she had so much to tell and so much to ask, yet a calm smile appeared on her face, like some sort of reassurance to something he didn't know.

"How was your sleep?" she asked.

Warmth sparked inside his chest, and he found himself wanting to hold her hand, cup her cheeks, and kiss her lips until the sun bid them goodbye. And this was all strange— he didn't even know who she was. He didn't know her name, or anything there was to know about her. He didn't have a slightest idea about her or even her personality, yet—

"It was alright, Shizuku," he said, and he did it so naturally like her name was something that had always been attached to his everyday life. And he leaned in, like he was metal to magnet, until he connected his lips with hers.

"You won't forget me, won't you?"

In that very moment, he knew— her name, a drop of hope and rainwater, her voice, the lull of the ocean, and everything about her. That in the brink of dawn, when the sun was on its way to the sky, he found out that she had constellations on her body, various marks on places that revealed demons residing in her soul, and that the imperfections of a person make them so perfectly beautiful.

He knew he loved her, and it was something that would always come back to him no matter how much time took his memories away.

When he pulled away from her, she entwined her hand with his, and their fingers matched the spaces between them. He smiled so did she, and the rest of the world seemed to disappear away with only the two of them and field of flowers remaining at its very center.

"Asters, huh…?" she said as she stared at the flowers surrounding them. "I've always wondered why you gave me those."

"Remembrance," he answered. On their first month together, he wanted to give her something special, so he bought her asters she could grow. "In the flower language, it means remembrance."

She let out a small laugh, and asked, "So I won't forget you? Is that it?"

"Yes," he moved closer to her until their skin touched. "So you'll always remember me."

At his words, she remained still like something occurred to her. There was that storm in her eyes again, but as much as he wanted to save her from the cruelty inside her, she stopped him with the same calm smile that gave an illusion of assurance, and she said—

"I'll always remember you, silly Ryou."

Just then, thunder boomed throughout the place, and lightning struck on the ground and set them apart. He went blind from the sudden flash of light, and when he regained his eyesight, Shizuku was nowhere to be found. Gray clouds hovered over the field, and darkness consumed the remaining light from the sun.

Shizuku's disappearance caused him to panic, and he began yelling, "Shizuku! Where are you?!"

He took a step forward, and the violet aster beneath him turned into a red spider lily. He gasped in shock and fell back, and the asters within his touch changed into clusters of red spider lilies. He tried to get up on his feet, but the lilies' petals grew and entangled with his limbs, pinning him on the ground to prevent him from escaping.

Within the blind of an eye, the field turned into what seemed like a sea of blood, and he was floating on the surface, paralyzed with nowhere to go. As tears were forming in his eyes, he watched how snow began falling from the sky, burying everything else in it.

One by one, his memories of her started to lose color— from the first day they met, the first day they held hands, the first day they kissed, and the first day they became one— and right before he lost her, he whispered her name and said—

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i. (May 9)

"Hey, I had a weird dream last night."

The warm spring breeze. Petals that fell from trees and scattered on the ground like drips of paint on a canvas. The colors of red and orange burning above, and the peach clouds roaming about like whales swimming in the sky. A black-haired girl walking right beside him— quiet with her books and her little world.

These all reminded him of bits and pieces of a dream he had last night. He couldn't remember most of it now, and he wished he did. They felt too important to forget— like something that he should remember in detail; something that he should burn into the very core of his mind. He wanted to remember his dreams as much as he did back when he was a child, when dreams were like movies in his head and how he could see them clearly. But as he gradually aged, dreams became more like a glimpse of another world he once took part of, and it was a reality that kept on slipping right from his grasp.

"…remember me."

"What is it about?" Shizuka asked as she sipped on her canned orange juice. "Please don't tell me it's about you being a Victoria Secret Angel."

"No!" Kise replied in protest. "This time it's about… a girl."

"Oh, that's a first," she said, sounding a bit surprised. "How is it weird? I think it's pretty normal for guys like you to dream about girls."

As they walked together, he looked down on his feet and kicked a pebble to her direction.

"Well, the weird thing about it is that girl keeps on running away from me."

She stopped for a second, giving him an incredulous look, before she kicked the pebble back to him and began walking again.

"Maybe it's because you were being a creeper in that dream," she said, laughing. "That or you were just too much for her."

"I'm not a creeper, geez," he kicked it to her again. "And I'm pretty sure I was being normal."

"But," she abruptly stopped, "that's the thing, Cheese-kun." He turned around to her, and she continued, "Your normal self is on a much higher level than most people."

"What do you mean?"

"Just by having those titles always attached to your name, you're already something else, and some people can't handle that. They feel like they have an obligation to match you or something. Like, you know…

She raised her face to look at him in the eye, and said—

"…To become someone worthy of you."

Only silence hung between them, and the wind rushed by, carrying petals of the cherry blossoms standing at her back towards him. Though her voice was calm and almost monotonous, there was something heart-wrenching about the way she said that last sentence like she knew things that he didn't. But he didn't question it; she'd probably just change the subject, so instead, "Then—"

He asked, "Why are you not running away?"

"Because I don't really care about any of those," she answered, simple. "I didn't befriend you because of your looks or your fame or anything…"

She started walking ahead of him, his eyes never leaving her form, and after a few more steps, she turned back and said, "The only thing I care about is this version of you I know, silly Ryou."

There was a ringing in his ears and an echo of a familiar voice, but it went away as soon as it appeared. He was a bit baffled at first; questions swarmed his mind like bees buzzing about. He ignored them for now, because the more important thing was—

"Wait, you just called me by my name."

Her eyebrows knotted together in confusion until realization dawned at her, causing her eyes to widen. She turned away, possibly flustered, and began marching to leave him behind.

Of course, he followed her.

"It's okay to call me by my name, you know!"

"No. You are Cheese-kun."

"You're probably getting tired of using that."

"You are the Lord of the Cheese!"

"Ryouta's easier to pronounce, Shizuka."

"Wha-! You're calling me by my first name now?! We've barely known each other for a month!"

"That didn't stop you from calling me Ryou."

"... Touché."

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When she got back to her house, she ran straight towards her room and locked the door behind. She couldn't seem to focus on anything— her breathing was quickening, the sound of her heartbeat pounding against her chest, and her eyes wild with varying emotion ranging from shock, fear, wonder, joy, and finally to sorrow.

"Why are you not running away?"

Slowly, she slid on the floor and wrapped her arms around her body. She shook right there knowing this was the start of the inevitable, and thinking about it ached her so much that her nails dug deep into her skin on her back and blood came out of her wounds. Tears sprang from her eyes, and they trickled down on her face until they hit the word 'droplet' on a stray book beneath her.

There was a sudden pause in time, and with a bloodied hand, she traced the word across the surface of the paper, letting the red fluid soak through.

'Shizuku', huh…?'

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"Ah, that was my name back then."

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