This story is set in our modern world where computers, cell phones, internet, social networks are too much of a thing in our lives that pay a toll in how we connect with each other. Technology bring us closer together, but at what price?

Since this is my first fic after many, many years, reviews and comments are much appreciated!

Hope you like it!

Yasmin

I look at his name on the screen with a green dot by his side. For a moment, my heart skips a beat, hoping that he'll talk with me. Then the voices in my head try to dismiss it, already making excuses for what I know that will happen. And, as quickly as it appeared, the green dot is gone and my heart crumbles a little.

It has been like this for days and days in a row. It started with excuses like "I've been so busy lately", barely replying to my messages, and I know I'm becoming yesterday news in his life. Our long distance non-relationship is drowning right in front of my eyes and there is nothing I can do. This is how break-ups happen nowadays, when you've never even had a real relationship to begin with.

How did I get myself in this situation? How did I let myself fall for someone impossible and, worst of all, accept a non-relationship relationship with him?

Although I berate myself, I know the answer to those questions… It was the way his purple eyes sparkle with golden threads when he is excited and the way his smile lights up his face… and don't even get me started on his low-pitch voice with that cute irresistible accent! Or the way he subtly teases me, with phrases full of double meanings, provoking me, making me wonder, wanting more… oh God, I've fallen really hard for him, haven't I?

Once again I feel the urge to check all my social networks, looking for signs of my slippery man. I know it will be in vain, he's almost an internet ghost, but I do it anyway, as the maniac I've become. Damn, I hate to feel this trapped! And the fault is all mine!

Frustrated, I abandon the computer and walk to the veranda. There is a bright blue sky around me and I stay there for a while, trying to put my heart and soul at ease, but my mind keeps wandering to him, the cause of my current miseries.

It still astonishes me how important he has become in my life in such a little time. After all, I've just known him for a few months and I can count with my two hands the days I actually have been with him in person. This is especially ironic since most of my adult life was spent with someone else by my side and instead of despairing because that person fell out of my life, I'm suffering for this almost stranger guy who was able to breach into my life at the speed of light and destabilized my precarious balance. And now I'm rambling with myself.

My eyes wonder in the distance as I loose myself in the past. Looking back, my relationship with my ex, Enishi, was always chaotic. We were college sweethearts and we manage to stay together for years after that. But the truth is that we had been facing problem after problem since the beginning. We were so different… but I loved him soooo damn much and, as the naïve girl I was, I excused him too many times, let him falter as a boyfriend for so long that, in the end, it was hard for him to respect me as a person. It didn't help that he was a selfish person: he always come first, no matter what, and he was never there when I needed. When he finally moved out of my life, I barely missed him because his input in my life was almost inexistent. It almost felt like I've been sharing my life with a ghost. We lived together, slept together, had sex, watched movies and did things together but we barely talked, for real. We forgot how to reach each other soul.

Over the years, we both changed and, little by little, we've grown apart. But we were so used to each other that we honed our skills in the art of ignorance, refusing to acknowledge the elephant growing up in the room: we were not good for each other. How empty it become… and how painful. There is nothing worse in the world than felling utterly alone when the person you love is right there, by your side...

Although inevitable, breaking up was not easy. We had been together for so long, there was so much history between us that complications arose in every corner... First, our family got completely devastated with the news. Then, our friends, that almost considered us as a unity, had to pick up sides and choose one of us to support or had to divide it between the two of us. And the internet, what a headache! We were a couple long before Facebook become a thing so both of our profiles were full of each other photos and comments – hence the doubt, should we keep it all because our past exist and we accept it or should we just erase everything and move on? And how about our life together? We had a house together, furniture, a bank account, household bills, cell phone contracts… Our lives were tangled with each other. Until Enishi walked out the door and left me alone in our apartment, with our furniture, our books, our records, our photos, ours everything… including the shards of my broken heart. It still hurts just to think about it…

Because that was the worst part. Until I was able to move to a new apartment, I had to stay there in "our" apartment, the homiest home I've ever had, built together with such love and care, until that fatidic day in which it become everything but "home"… and more like my personal hell on earth. To help things further, when my ex left, he took only a little bag of clothes with him. So, for days and days, it seemed like he could come back home at any time: his favourite yogurts were on the fridge, the book he was reading was still by his side of the bed, his portable computer was by his desk ready to be used, his shoes were by entrance door and his underwear was still in the drawers. I would even find his dirty clothes in the middle of my laundry! Even harder was to supress conditioned reflexes: my heart jumped every time I heard a car parking around the time he was supposed to come home or when I heard the sound of the neighbour's keys opening his door, mistaking it by being my own door being opened. But the worst part were the lonely nights… Too many nights I slept in the couch, unable to face "our" big empty bed by myself.

It was just too much for me to handle… I was drowning into myself, running from the harsh reality my life had become, hiding the truth from myself and the people around me… hoping he would come back? Then, one day, I woke up and snapped out of it. I found my strength, my will to surpass whatever was happening in my life. I whipped my tears away and decided to act. I packed his stuff and put it out of my sight. I throw in the garbage what was superfluous. Even his pillow was razed and, that night, for the first time since he left, I slept in the bed, right in the middle, claiming it all for myself. And I enjoy it!

Little by little, I recovered the little bits of me that had become shattered by the end of our relationship. Each piece helped me figure out who I was outside that relationship that had been there in my life for so many years, marking me, defining me. And I discover such a peace… for the first time in my adult life I was by myself and I didn't have to worry about what anyone else thought and wanted. I leaned to enjoy my loneliness, I grew into it and I embraced it, accepting that, now, this is a possible future for me: growing old alone, just me against the world. And that that is okay.

It's not that I enjoy being alone, nor I desire that for my future. It's just that I'm learning to enjoy myself as I am by my own. And I think that is important. I don't need someone else by my side to define me and I don't want to have someone by my side just to plug in the hole left in my heart or to occupy the space left by my ex in my bed. I firmly believe that first I need to heal myself, fix myself and forgive myself, before I let someone else into my life. And when that happen it will be because I have something to offer and not because I have something to compensate.

But then, "He" happened. Kenshin…

Damn, why am I smiling? In the end he is just a careless idiot, like any other male member of the Human race. But I didn't know that when we met…

And we met while my relationship with Enishi was drawing it last breath. One day, Kenshin Himura walked right into my professional life. I was appointed to an international project and he was my contact from a foreign country in the joint account, hundreds of kilometres away from me. We used to talk or chat several times a day and, although we sometime shared little pieces of our lives, our relation was mostly restricted to business.

It was not until my friend Misao enthusiastically commented how much of a catch he was that that thought crossed my mind. She looked up his profile on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn... well, in any social network she could think about. She even searched for him on Tinder! I guess that a piece of hard word… Anyway, every time she found something, she would come to me blabbering the information, praising him as if he was the last man-cookie in the jar. I laughed at her antics but, I could not help but agree with her… Kenshin was really an impressive guy and every bit of information only further corroborate that…

I was never one to "look" at other guys while being in a committed relationship, but I could not deny Kenshin's attractiveness, with his exotic features and athletic looks. Furthermore, he was funny, intelligent, keen… talking with him was always a pleasure… something I appreciated more and more each day, as my personal life crumbled apart… he always managed to put a smile on my face when we talked. Somehow his voice become imprinted in my memory… But I never thought of him as more than a co-worker. And a distant one, as a matter of fact.

I never expect to actually meet him in person. For me, he was just a face behind the computer. But then, he decided to fly into my country for the final meeting of our project held at my firm's office.

Is visit took place some weeks after my relationship ended, when my life was completely in disarray and turned upside down. But the timing didn't inhibit Misao to try to play the match-maker, putting ungodly thoughts in my head about Kenshin, as if he was my personal knight in shining armour! Well, truth to be told, her words were more like as if he was a sort of man-sorbet, to be used to cleanse the palate… while remembering me that my professional life with him would be due by the end of his visit. Yeah, right, because that is totally my thing…. I've never been a one-night stand kind of girl and I don't intend to start now, just because a "boy" broke up my heart.

But, of course, her words had to plague me when I finally met him. Although, in person, Kenshin was smaller and slender than I expected there was something undeniably irresistible about him… I'm not going to imply that Misao is right and he is the last cookie in the jar, but, for sure, he made me realise that my ex certainly isn't.

I was supposed to be one of his chaperons around the city during his stay, so we ended up spending a lot of time together and we sort of become friends. One night we were out with some co-workers, drinking and talking, when he asked me what my thoughts about working abroad were. For a moment, I didn't know what to answer. Truth is, that was something that I and Enishi had talked several times and decided it was not out thing, so we excluded it from our future plans. But Enishi was gone and that future had disappeared with him. And, with his astonishing deep purple eyes piercing my soul, I realize that an entire world of opportunities had opened up for me. I smiled and replied that I hadn't really considered that but now, that I'm single, I would certainly do.

Previously, on our work calls, I guess I had mentioned that I was in a relationship and he was completely unaware that my relationship status had changed meanwhile. So, after I said those words his eyes flickered with… surprise… or was there something else as well? For a brief second, he looked at me differently... or so it seemed, but I kind of dismissed it, and he didn't question me further.

On his last night in town, I was in charge of taking him back to the hotel after the dinner throwed up by my company. At that time, for me, going back "home" was always the worst part of day. Don't know what rattled me out, but Kenshin realized something was wrong with me and somehow I ended up talking about my situation… how unnerving it was to go back to the apartment I've shared with my ex-boyfriend and how anxious I was to move out. It felt so natural to open up to him…

Then, by a flick of chance, Enishi's car passed us by. Oh, the irony! I laughed and explained the situation to Kenshin. He looked right into my eyes and said that my ex luck was that he was in a car, because if he had met him in person, he would have reminded him of the incredible girl he had just lost... Of course, I was taken aback by his words but, truth to be told, I've heard similar things from my closest friends after the breakup, so I didn't take him too seriously. Or, at least, I tried not to…

Nonetheless, I feel like a sort of connection formed between us that night. We've talked all the way to his hotel. He told me some details about his love life and the mistakes he made in his previous relationships. And he made me laugh.

Saying goodbye was a little awkward. Our cultures crashed and we kind went for a hug / a kiss in the face at the same time. Then he walked away, and didn't look back.

I stayed glued in the same spot he left me, watching him disappear into the hotel. All the lectures I've heard from Misao resonated in my head… She was right, from the beginning. Kenshin Himura is, for sure, one of the most extraordinary man I've ever met. But, extraordinary or not, he lives hundreds of kilometres away. And, in the next day, he flew back home.

With the conclusion of our project, our professional relation ended as well. I thought that that awkward farewell would be the last I would see/hear of Kenshin Himura.

But, I was wrong. So wrong… You see? This was just the beginning.