Pure
by
Grace Ting
A soft wind swept across my cheek, startling me, and I awoke. His
touch was what I had been dreaming of. I had wanted it, but, unlike the
wind, it had not been free to receive. His touch, or his soul...
I looked at her, wondering where she had found such peace of mind.
She wasn't me, I answered myself. She lay sprawled on the blanket resting
on the grass. Her golden hair spilled in moon-lit rivers over the fuzzy
fabric of the cloth, and her mouth hung slightly open as her chest rose
and dropped softly in the motions of sleeping. Everything about her was
so cute. She didn't even have on the sickeningly adorable pyjamas that
she usually wore. Thank the gods for that, though, because I doubted I
would be able to withstand such indomitable cuteness. She also managed to
be beautiful at the same time, I thought, touching with the side of my
hand the flawless skin of her cheek. Perhaps I was jealous?
We were outside, under the trees shadowing the temple. It had been
warm inside, stifling, and I had suggested sleeping outdoors. Bouncing
around in noisy excitement at this idea, she had exclaimed that she
didn't mind, not at all. Not even if it was extremely difficult reading
manga in the dark, almost non-existent evening light. She soon figured
this out, after squinting for a couple hours at blurry pictures of
crime-fighting girls. Who knew why she needed any more of that after all
we'd been through. Damn, she didn't make any sense at all. Silly freak.
A soft wind swept across my cheek, and I stared into the dark night
ahead of me. His breath had felt as it did. It had been moistly gentle,
exciting and warm when he moved close to me. I could remember it so
well...
I couldn't get to sleep. It was too hard for me to do on this night.
I still remembered it. Reaching out my hand to pull dizzily at empty air,
I imagined that, if I tried hard enough, I could grasp a star in my
hands. That I could cup it, cooling from the heat of the sky, in my two
hands and kiss it. I had been imagining this all my life. It wouldn't do
any good. It wouldn't help. I felt a tear slide down my cheek. I thought
he loved me. I had thought so, and those words made up my very soul.
It was that which had brought together all of the painful anger I
had ever had, that I had harnessed and let loose when fighting damn
youma. The others thought that I was fierce, so angry, because I cared
about the honor and pride of us, the sailor senshi, or because I cared
about being strong. They were all so wrong. It was an indirect gift, but
it was a gift nonetheless. He loved her, and I protected her, because I
loved her, and because he loved her, but mostly because I loved him.
Everything had been for him, always for him.
Because he was who I loved.
A soft wind swept across my cheek, and I began to cry, holding
myself, so lonely, with my own arms around each other. Was I better?
Yes, I knew. I saw this as my face twisted and fell apart, drowning in
salt water. He had entered and warmed, like a spring wind, my cold
heart, and then left my soul to crumble into dust.
I had always been so eager around him from the start. Of course,
when I first saw him, a few years from this day, I was coolly polite, as
I was to everyone. There was no need for me to treat him any differently,
though, already, I could feel my head began to lighten and my heart begin
to beat faster. Tha-dum, tha-dum, tha-dum.. the second syllable heavier
than the first. That was how it had thrummed in my shaking body. I had
been shaking, afraid, because this was all so new. I had never felt
anything like it before. But he was friendly, and, soon enough, I came
out of my fear, my cold politeness. And it was all too fast, how I had
spiraled out of my isolation and into his arms.
From the day we first came together, I was always dancing giddily.
Not a real dancing, but in my heart and my spirit. My fingers wanted to
caress, my body to touch, and my lips to kiss. I was like a puppy, young
and happy to do anything for him. I would stroke his dark head also,
sometimes, like he was also a puppy. But he wasn't, not at all, not like
I was.
I had never opened up to anyone before, not even my grandfather. He
was the first. I told him of my fears, hopes, desires. Everything was
laid before him, and I stood, naked and cowering in my mind, afraid that
he would denounce me and laugh after I had confessed the things which
were most sacred and dear to me. To everyone else, I was the cold
priestess, a loner, silent and uninteresting. To him, I was Rei, the
giddy, the dancing, the shy confessor. Perhaps, I was a little annoying.
I wanted to be with him always, to know what he was thinking, to know
what he was doing. I strived to carve an opening into his heart and to
let whatever secrets enclosed inside fall out so that I could gather them
up tenderly in my hands and give them back to him, showing him that I was
worthy of loving him. I told it to him, many times. They were words
which one did not tell many people, but I told them to him even though
he did return my words. "I love you," I had said, so many times. In my
head, I had said them to him a thousand and a hundred times in all the
languages I knew, licking my lips, which were hungry for him, and rolling
the words across my tongue over and over. Aloud to him, I had shyly
spoken them five or six, all in the single language which he understood.
I had stated it with simply clarity, but as if I had meant it. He should
have understood, but I suppose he did not.
A soft wind swept across my cheek, and I rocked back and forth in my
arms now, sobbing. His heart had never belonged to me, had never belonged
to anyone until the one who truly was his came. I was not to be that one.
He had never loved me. I was a friend, and, every once in awhile, he
would pour upon me small complaints of how his day had been, or sighs and
confessions of certain other little troubles which entered his life. But
nothing more. We did not kiss, we did not exchange intimate touches,
even though we were thought of as a couple. He didn't want to. He called
me his girlfriend, but we weren't a couple, not even companions.
He had hugged me, rather impersonally, a few times, and I had
cherished those moments and excited over them. I was so stupidly foolish,
having thought before that I was immune to a disease called love. The
impassive, unreachably beautiful Hino Rei was not immune to love.
It was she who had stolen into his heart like some golden girl, some
golden sprite of the old days. Her clumsy, childish ways had charmed him,
while I screamed silently at him that I, also, had clumsy, childish ways
that he could try to love. He had noticed them, perhaps, because we were
friends, but never the way he noticed hers. Maybe it was because she was
cute in anything stupid she did, and I wasn't. I didn't take being stupid
well, and I knew how red my cheeks always were and how I denied it when I
made a mistake. He forgot me. I think he doesn't remember me at all
today. He doesn't remember what I said, what I did, and how I loved him.
Did he ever see?
It was she who had taken him.
It was she who had caused me to see the truth, to hurt, and have my
pride broken.
It is she who loves me very much.
A soft wind swept across my cheek, and I quieted to silent tears,
because she had awoken. Her blue eyes big in alarm, they must have
stirred his heart the way a breeze stirred fallen leaves in autumn. She
was very lovely.
"Rei!" She whispered. "What's wrong?" She tried to stand and tripped
in the folds of the blanket, landing with a thud on her face. But she did
not cry, only pulled herself up and looked at me again.
"Nothing, baka!" I said light-heartedly. "Go back to sleep or you'll
be even uglier than usual from being tired." Her pretty face wrinkled up
at this, and she stuck out a tongue at me before curling back on the
blanket to go to sleep. By the restless movements she made for a few
moments, I could tell she was worried, but Usagi revered sleep. She was
soon still again.
A soft wind swept across my cheek, and I felt my tears cool and dry.
Black hair which had fallen into my face was sticky and wet with my
crying, and I pushed it back with a light hand.
I looked at her. She wasn't a temptress. She was a perfect being.
She was an impossible being who's very existence contradicted the rules
of the human nature which stated that no one could be like she was. I
could have been more jealous of her, but there wasn't anyone like her,
and that was why I hated and loved at the same time.
I bent down, my lips lowering to touch her soft, sleeping ones. My
hair fell down over my shoulder to have its dark strands mix with her
light ones. That was how we were. I was dark, full of anger, and she
was.. she was.. lovely. Anyone could see what was in her, but no one
could see me. I was always in the shadows, and, if I had any purity,
anything sweet in me, I did not have anyone to discover it. I thought he
would, but he did not. I hated myself sometimes, so I didn't wonder that
he did not love me.
But.. how I needed it. Before, I could say to myself that it did not
matter what others said as long as I knew the truth. I wasn't sure now if
I knew what that was. It was frightening, not knowing who, what, or how
you were, because that meant there was nothing left. It was like falling
into a blackness and having nothing to hold on to.
I needed someone to find that I was unsullied, clean as the soft
wind that swept across my cheek. I needed him to say, know, that I was
not stupid or disgusting or cruel. I needed him to say that I, too, was
everything good and wonderful. Was I flighty? I didn't know. But I
felt pain, and those who did not understand this...for them, I could not
be understood, but I wanted, I needed such things...
I lifted my head to gaze into a dark night. That was why, on this
night every year, I let tears fall for this someone which I had not found
in him, though I still wanted Mamoru to find what was pure in me.
Because, in her own foolish, proud way, Hino Rei had taken it into her
heart to see what was pure in him, and she loved him.
"Oh, ai shiteru, Mamoru. Ai shiteru," I said, crying, into the
night. And so I felt more wetness slip down my dirty face, and my soul
wept inside me as a soft wind swept across my cheek.
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