When he said he'd come back, I believed him. Not because I have to, but because I wanted to. My heart wanted to. He looked at me with those liquid blue eyes, giving me a smile as if he knew what I was feeling. Maybe he did. Maybe that's why he stroked my hair, held his left hand on my cheek, leaned close to me and whispered, "I will be back. In one way or another, I will be back." Because he knew that deep inside, I was crying though my face did not show it.
We used to just spend an afternoon sitting here under this tree, on the garden next to my house. The garden which I have tended with my own two hands. They said flowers never grow in Midgar, but they're wrong. He used to lie under the shade and hold me close. Within those arms I remember feeling protected. That nothing could harm me, just as long as I'm within his embrace. I remember how I used to talk to him about what I wanted to do when I grow up. How I would take my mother out of this place and maybe find a quiet town where no one could come after us. Where no one could bother us anymore. Not those sharks on the street who prey on the already punished people of lower Midgar. Or those people on Wall Market who are always on the lookout for fresh young girls. And especially those terrible people on dark suits. What do they call themselves again? Oh yeah. Turks. I would absentmindedly run my fingers across his broad chest while talking about these. Pretend that each little step my two fingers made as they trek across his body was one mile further away from Midgar and its troubles. And then I would look up at him to see if he was listening to everything I said. Which, of course, he wouldn't be. He'd be sleeping peacefully like a baby, instead. As if he didn't have any care in the world. And then, I'd just look at him like that, and then rest my head against his chest and sleep, too.
Maybe that's what I liked about him. How he could be a ferocious fighter one moment, and then become a gentle boy the next, with that stupid grin on his face. He used to make me laugh a lot. And he'd always have that roguish air around him that might be appealing to most women. I knew how he was with them. Sometimes, we'd walk together in Wall Market because he always wanted to see what's new in the weapons shop. And I'd always notice those women outside of the Honeybee Inn give him flirtatious winks and flying kisses. And he'd always wave back at them. I'd immediately squeeze his hand with mine and narrow my eyes at him. And he'd look at me and smile apologetically as if saying "I can't help it! I'm naturally attractive to women!". Damn that smile. It never failed to work.
Looking back at everything, I've often asked just how lucky I was to be chosen by him. Or maybe it was I who chose him. Or maybe Fate chose us both. I don't know. All I know is that by some random chance we met, and then somehow something jumped across places deep inside of us and the next thing I knew, we're defying odds to be together. As if Fate decided to be fickle one day and chained two completely random hearts together to see how things would work out. These things happen, you know. Not only in Midgar.
But the only thing I can't understand is, if it was Fate that decided that we should be together, then why isn't he here still? Why am I alone? I'm all alone now. Just like how I was before I met him.
In the beginning...