Thursday 3:00pm
        She was reading her childhood favorite book, this time though, she finally felt like she could identify and stand her own amongst these characters – not that she had ever walked through fire to save a child’s life, nor had she walked a thousand miles to find her heritage and parenthood, but she had fought through the evils of life and people to find her identity once again and been to hell and back to save the world.  For a moment, she had been brainwashed into believing that she was Lady Takeuchi, she had been swept away by the moment and indulged in her often repressed and forgotten, if not slightly neglected, romantic side, part of her had so wanted to believe that she was loved; but she had pulled through from this impossible dream and re-found her own person, her identity, and rejoin the group.  David, he who only knew himself to be David, and then, he had tossed even that one piece of information away, that identity, to re-confirm his existence as a person, as a part of a family.  She could not lay the same claim, because she knew who she was, she knew her past – as much as her thousands of years, several lifetimes and reincarnations had allowed her to remember, but in those six months that had passed, the loss of her childhood friends, had seemed to wipe the slate of this life clean, it was as though she no longer existed because no one knew of her past.
        Since she had come back, she never grew tired of reading this same book, sometimes every month, sometimes everyday, or like the past few days… everyday.  It was as though these words gave her strength to go on and face the chaos that was her life, and to remind her of what she was doing it for – what she was trying to achieve.  She now sought comfort in a mere fiction tale, but she new that it was only a story that she could escape in for short moments… it was no longer real, but it did not stop her from escaping now.  And so, here she was, skating without music, yet continuing to skate as though she was dancing to the music of life and fantasy; she drew the artistic inspiration from the words.  Those words were not mere words, it had been woven by a special magic that laced the pen of the author, and held the vibrations of life from another lifetime.  She acknowledge that there were better writers, that there were longer words, but there was only one who had captured this world and this torture like this author.  As a child she had seen herself, her life, in David’s shoes, now, she finally found her own shoes.  Reality and fantasy had finally separated, she lived her own life guided by the life of another’s, but she was clearly and distinctly a persona of her own right, she was Ami.
        Her legs were tired now; since her classes had ended at midday, she had come straight to this sanctuary, and had been skating since then.  However, although the muscles begged her to stop, the mind did not register the imploring for she wanted to continue to feel this unique connection that she felt with the ice; she needed this connection in order to think clearly.  It was as though her body became one with the ice as she completed her axles, Lutzs, toes; double, triple, quadruple; perfectly, without being conscious of the work that her body did to rebalance herself.  Her eyes never removed itself from the book as she read from the first to the last page, dwelling on certain passages, she performed her routine repetitively without the knowledge of doing so, when her routine ended, she simply restarted it from the beginning, each time imagining different music to dance to and expressing the different thoughts that ran rampant in her mind.
        As she closed the book after having savoring each and every letter that had woven its web onto her mind, she found herself in the midst of a triple-triple, as the world spun around her, her eyes caught a dark figure in the stands.  Her mind disconnected with the skating, and lost all contact with the fantasy world that she had been in, her subconscious suffered a rude awakening and jerked her full concentration to that figure with blond hair - Zoicite.  She suddenly forgot her skating despite the spinning of the world; as the blade of her skates touched the ice she realized with a start that she would fall - she let the muscles of her body lose so as to prepare for the fall without damaging muscles or ligaments.  As she braced herself, she knew that if she injured any part of her legs it would effectively end her dreams of winning Winter Asian Games and hamper her training for the Winter Olympics.
        She felt the cold hard ice scrape on the skin on the side of her right leg, palm and elbow, as she collapsed to her side, she used her arms to protect her head from hitting the edge of the rink that she was sliding uncontrollably and perilously close to due to the immense speed of her skating.  Her knees and elbow smashed to the sides, her face only inches away from a bloody end; she could hear and feel her heartbeat reverberating against her skull, blood rushing to her brain, Ami blinked hard for a few seconds, clearing her vision that was threatening to dim and disappear.  She rolled to her back and lay in the ice for a few moments, she was already beginning to feel the pain that coursed throughout the right side of her body; it was a healthy sign she noted, it meant that she wasn’t going into shock.
        She groaned, it was all because of that person at that stand, that person who had distracted her and jerked her cruelly into the world of reality – in other words, Zoicite.  She lay in the ice letting it cool her overheated body, she hadn’t even realized that she had been so hot earlier; the rink management was not going to be happy though when they saw a dent and a puddle of water she mused, but she could always use some of her powers to repair the damage.  She closed her eyes, she felt herself sinking in the fast melting ice, it was a strangely exquisite sensation for it seemed as though she was dissolving.  She wriggled her limbs, her toes and ankles to ascertain if she had broken anything; nothing, the pain was all external scrapes, no torn ligaments, strained muscles, nothing; she smiled and remained lying in the cool ice.

        His eyes widened at her inert prone form and quickly moved to the other side of the rink to help her, as he approached, he sighed a breath of relief seeing her wriggling legs moving rhythmically.  He had seen her face when she first caught sight of him; she had been horror-stricken, just like he was feeling presently, seeing her side profile from where he stood and where she lay.  He approached her slowly now, not wanting to further alarm her from the serenity that she was displaying.
        Picking up her book that lay on the side of the rink approximately a meter away from her, he took a look at the title and couldn’t help but smile at the childishness of the book.   He remembered reading it as several decades ago, he had enjoyed it, but never looked back from the more sophisticated reads that he could now take pleasure in.  The simplicity of this story’s ideas no longer fulfilled his needs.  Perhaps a book like that was a reminder itself of a past that was just what it was, the past; one could look back upon the past with fondness, but it was not something that one could hold onto and be satisfied.  But he loved her then, and he was sure that she was the same person, he couldn’t let her go; then, it suddenly fell into place, he didn’t need to give her up, he realized that he had acted to her as though it was still the Silver Millennium, Tsuzuki Asano shook his head, he had to approach her as the 21st Century Ami.  The 21st Century Ami would not appreciate his being here, so he turned sharply, lying the book on one of the seats, as he turned he said with a flourish, “then Zoicite is no more.”

        Another figure stood at the doorway, his body had leaned forward when he saw Ami fall, but he had stopped short when he saw another young man rush to her aid – he still had not found the courage that he needed to approach her.  He needed to find a tactical way, some way to be able to speak to her calmly in order to settle and understand the past that they had once shared.  He cocked his head as he saw the blond who had first gone to help Ami stop a little distance away, hesitate, and turn away.  Ducking aside to a small alcove beside the doorway, he continued to study this person who was now walking towards him; as he came close, he found the face familiar although unable to place it.
        “Then Zoicite is no more.”
        Zoicite… he had heard the name somewhere before, but he didn’t remember where or when.  Once Zoicite had exited the rink, he stepped forwards, and slowly strode down the half-steps towards Ami, stopping at a respectable distance away, he studied her disheveled yet peaceful appearance lying on the whitish surface, the reflection from the ice made her appearance seemingly glow, her body glistening from a lace of white light… she seemed like an extension of the ice and a part of the purest creations, it was as though she was a goddess.  Without saying a word, he admired her from a distance, watching her peacefulness radiating from each particle of air that touched her body, and then to the next particle beside it.
        He was about to speak and call to her when he saw her long dark lashes flutter as her eyes opened in his direction.  There was something bizarre in that knowing look in her quietly serene dark eyes when she looked at him, it was as though she had already known that he was there, and that she had known of his identity even before she had seen him.  His lips parted to speak but his larynx refused to move and create sound, it was not that she made him uncomfortable, but it was the nerves that came as he had been anticipating this moment for so long.

        Ami felt someone looking at her, studying her as though taking stock; she felt the familiarity of the person yet she could not quite place him.  ‘At least it wasn’t Zoicite’ she thought, she wasn’t quite ready to face him; she knew what she had to say to him, but the courage was lacking.  Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes to face the person who was staring at her; she couldn’t have been more surprised to see him standing there looking at her.  Him, yes she knew him, they had shared a past together once, but she had never expected that the past would now intrude in her present and possibly her future.  She wondered how he had known of this place and immediately decided that there could only be one answer; strangely, she didn’t feel the discomfort and agitation that had been in their last encounter.  Perhaps it was his own display of nerves that calmed her, and the sight of him before her, his mouth opening and closing as though he was a goldfish – the very idea made her giggle inside.
        Without a word, she stood and skated towards him, exiting the rink by ducking under the metal fencing beside him.  With her elevated skates, she was almost at eyelevel to him; she looked into his eyes and studied the stunned expression behind it before turning away and retrieving her belongings to leave.  She slowly gathered her book and her street clothes, she did not know why, but she wanted to stay and hear him speak to her.
        “Ami?”
        She did not answer nor did she give any indication that she had heard him as she continued to pack.
        “Mi-chan?”
        She stiffened and stood straight when those words came out from his lips and reached her hearing, she turned to look at him again with the same questioning look to study his intentions.  Nodding, she showed that she had heard.
        “Do you remember me?  Not as Takeuchi, but as someone else.”
        “What if I don’t?”
        “Then, then I’ll never bother you again.”
        “Hai.”  Ami paused for a brief moment, and she spoke with a tinge of a smile, “Bai-S-kun (Double-S), I knew you, but I’m not so sure now.”
        “Then we will have to rectify that,” he smiled as a look of relief spread over his face and approached her with a new confidence about him, picking up her tote-bag they left the rink without saying much else, as though the confirmation of identities had been enough for all communication to occur without the exchange of sounds and noises – commonly known as words and sentences.

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