Who
Wants to Live Forever? Chocolate brown waves of hair flow around her face, accenting the youthful beauty that lies there... As I watch, my vision blurs, and brown bleeds into silver, the curves of her face become deeper, reminding me of how water etches paths through the dirt when it rains. However, I know it's just my imagination, and that if I close my eyes and open them again, she will be young again, untouched by age. But now I know that someday I will wake up, and no matter how many times I blink my eyes, she will remain the same. There's no time for us,
Rising from our bed, I make my way to the window, at the moment fogged up from the temperature differences between the heated room and the frosty autumn weather outside. My reflection stares at me from the glass, and it seems that it smirks at me, mocking me with its absence of age. And I wonder at what I have become. Who wants to live
forever? Some would call my discovered heritage a blessing, but I think I know what it is now- a curse. They say that I have wonderful luck, being able to come back after not only my first death, but my second as well. Now I wonder if I really had any luck in the first place, or whether my entire life has been some kind of joke, leading up to the moment that I would realize what has happened. I will live, and thrive, like a flower unblemished by age. Obviously, she will not. When she goes, what will become of me? Of the person I have and will be, my life with her? Will it die with her... or will it fester and goad? What will become of Urameshi Yusuke? There's no chance for
us, I think what bothers me the most, is that I was never given a choice. The first time, sure, Botan asked me whether I wanted to try, whether I was will to give life another shot. However, the second time there was no perky (yet surprisingly soothing) spirit guide from the Reikai to explain my choices to me. No one to tell me the consequences. Fate truly has a cruel sense of humor at times, don't you think? So now I treasure the time I have with you, knowing that it is slowly ticking away, but always remembering that no matter how long it may seem to take for a day to end, it does eventually finish. I will not let you leave me until I am sure that every last second has been stretched to its thinnest point. Who wants to live
forever? Golden haze begins to appear over the distant horizon, as the sun prepares to make its entrance into the new day, as majestic as ever. My mind wanders to Raizen, and I wonder how he could unload this burden onto my shoulders, how he was able to bear it himself for so many years. If...(when?)... Keiko left me, I know that I would only be half there- how was it for him to be a mere specter for so many centuries? Most people wouldn't believe it, but true love (now that I admit that that is what we have) is as much- if not more- pain than happiness. But, as it has been said, one must take the bad with the good, and a triumph is never achieved without first a sacrifice. When I came back from the dead a second time, was that my sacrifice? Did I trade my happiness for life? But touch my tears with
your lips, Behind me she stirs, and I look over my shoulder to see her sit up, the fuzzy veil of sleep still hanging over her. Outside the sun finishes its daily struggle to rise, and yellow light streams through the window, bathing her with its seemingly divine life, and for a moment she is an angel with a golden halo, dressed in a white nightgown. "Ohayo, Keiko-chan," I greet her, finding myself marveling at her beauty again, something that never fails to amaze me. Rising, she walks over to me, leaning her head against me. I wrap my arms around her slight waist, and thrust my face into her hair, inhaling the scent that is Keiko. And as I do this, I feel reassured, like a small child being comforted by its mother. Who wants to live
forever? Maybe my transformation into a youkai isn't the curse I make it, after all, no one lives forever, and someday I will die. Most likely she will leave this world before me, but I believe that she will wait, and I know that she will expect me to. After all, we do know that there is life after death, and after all the things that have happened to me, I somehow know that she will come back. Reincarnation doesn't seem all that impossible anymore... |