…

Chapter 9

Sweet dreams, sweet lies

…

The elevator's door closes, and Hachi looms over its steel surface, impassible. The eerie tomb-like silence of the Command station is filled by the looming sound of spinning computer fans of the command terminals, a plastic-like smell invading his nostrils. He then finally turns his back to the now downward moving elevator, facing the messy but not completely empty room, and takes a deep breath.

He now advances slowly between the concentric rows of desks, on which were accumulated mostly recovered communicators, tablets, ripped out memory units and some terminals taken apart, their black motherboards, memory modules and outer shells lying abandoned between screwdrivers and ripped out capacitors. After stepping over some stacks of mixed reality viewers, he grabs a random empty chair and shoves it in front of a certain terminal and lets himself fall on its soft fake leather cushion.

After flicking the screen on passing his finger on its outer rim, an orange laser keyboard appears projected on the desk from the bottom of the terminal's screen. He taps the desk with three fingers on multiple keys of the keyboard, keeping them pressed, and after some blinks of the LCD screen a command shell comes online, prompting him his credentials.

brdnst-cmdter35 login:

Hachi types away at the desk where the keyboard is projected, the light tapping on the synthetic wood echoing in the command room.

brdnst-cmdter35 login: fp35-t1mn-cer008

Hachi enter, then he gets a prompt for his password, that types away swiftly.

password: ***************

He confirms, and a plain text message of the day welcomes him.

Emergency Shell v2.1413.

Support ticket automatically submitted.

No one will be managing that ticket. He hunches back on the seat and launches a shell command to impersonate a service account.

[fp35-t1mn-cer008 | brdnst-cmdter35] $ su tech-323

password: ***********

[tech-323 | brdnst-cmdter35] $ servicemsg -u fp35-t2br-cer007 'This afternoon I'm coming to visit as always. I will not be alone, so please pull yourself together. Don't make them see you in that state.' –force-delivery

He hits enter, then abandons his back against the back of the chair, leaving the prompt flashing, waiting for an eventual response. He unconsciously indulges his gaze across the room, bathed in orange twilight that illuminates the specks of dust floating in the air.

Among the forest of terminal screens, he spots a brown-reddish head directly in front of his seat, some desks away. Like a salt statue, the woman is captured by the intermittent flashing of the orange prompt, waiting for something to happen on his own and give her a hint, a direction to follow.

Minutes pass, then he snaps out and simply logs out from the console, tired of waiting for a message that wouldn't arrive. He then gets up and closes to the wall, opens a service panel and presses a button among many. The rumor of electrical motors fills the room and windows open from the walls in every direction, slowly revealing the beautiful bright light of the now halfway rising sun.

A breathtaking aerial view of the lower Bird's Nest comes into view as the panoramic windows open: the gigantic white ring cradling the three Parasite spheres, the bridges resembling white stripes coloring the blue lake below coming out from each cardinal direction of the complex, the rough salt plain, the swirls of sand kicking up where the golden desert starts, and the clear blue sky crowning the pointy mountain ranges all around the complex.

The bobbed hair woman at first squirms her eyes by the sudden sunlight, but then lifts her gaze from the terminal and her fake smile cracks and parts in awe for the beautiful visage, while Hachi relaxes his shoulders, feeling the ever-warming sun that he lacked for too much time.

This is such a beautiful day, so beautiful he' s compelled in not wasting it.

The moment is interrupted by his communicator ringing in his pocket. He just slowly takes it out and switches on the screen, showing the still image of Ikuno looking embarrassed the other way, with a 'Code 196' green caption. He accepts the call, and her deep voice comes out from the speakers.

"Good morning, commander."

"Hello, 196. What do you need?" Hachi asks her.

"I've seen another one of the young Parasites." A preoccupied Ikuno explains.

Hachi reflexively wanders and leans on a nearby table. "Where were you?"

"Sphere 1." She says, in lapidary fashion.

"I see, Stamen or Pistil?"

"Pistil… About 9 years old, or so."

Hachi nods to himself. "I see. Was she fine?"

"Huh... I guess… The stamen was keeping her away from the others. And she was... quite pallid, maybe ill."

"…I see. Do you know where they live?"

"No…"

"What's the Stamen's code?"

"121."

"Mh. I'm gonna look him up. Expect another call in a while. What are your daily tasks?"

"We're going to… retrieve the trash next, after I'm done storing the leftovers." Ikuno says while sighing.

"Could you check out his room while you're doing that?" Hachi asks her. "I want you to check anything out of the ordinary about the Pistil's situation."

"Sir… are you sure?"

"Pairing two Parasites in wildly different growth ages can be dangerous, especially for the young one."

"I see, sir." Her tone paints of dash of worry.

"I'll be contacting you back to tell you his position."

"Yessir."

Hachi closes the communication. Looks like there's work to be done.

…

…

Down at the wide ring corridor, past the Sphere 1, Ikuno is walking along, driving the empty multiple tier steel trolley in front of her with her forearms on the driving bar, back slouched forward, her communicator held in front of her and on its screen, a 'Communication Ended' message.

"Did you hear that, Futoshi?" She asks while turning it off and holstering the device.

"Yes!" He responds uplifted. He responds peeking from the side, pulling the handle at the front of the cart by one hand. "That guy was a bit sketchy… What was his deal?"

She peeks from the cart, meeting Futoshi. "I don't know. But regardless, we need to just check them out, as Hachi asked us."

"Haha!" Futoshi nods and returns looking forward.

Reached the entrance of the Command Building, the cart is driven up to the elevator, where Futoshi presses the call button. When the cabin opens, he turns around and drags the cart in with both hands, assuring himself that Ikuno's inside with him. Then, he glances the floor panel where he pushes the third subterranean floor, and the cabin plunges downwards.

When the metal doors open once again, a large, long columned corridor propagates from the elevator entrance, dim light coming from inlet neon lamps embedded between the floor and the walls. The rough wall texture, before all painted white with orange details, now darkens in a deep gray with black inlets separating the big blocks of concrete stacked to form Bird's Nest foundation, deep as the deepest point of the lake.

The two push the cart forward through the hexagonal tiled floor and reach a double door on the right of the corridor. Pushed it open, a wide rectangular room lined up by long tables, water faucets and products and a big assembly line comes into view: the food dispenser room.

Composed of four machines in total linked by conveyor belts and transporters, on one end stacks of empty trays are placed on the line where are separated, then sanitized and transported to a paste squeezer where the awful edible goop is distributed on each tray using pressure applied to the food container capsules. Then, at the other end, it's enclosed in a transparent film and placed in a staging area, where it can be taken out, placed on the tall carts lying close and shipped upstairs. Close to it, box containers choke full of tableware, non-perishables and assorted parts.

Ikuno and Futoshi drive their cart towards the others amassed at the end of the line and start grabbing the trays left over on it to store them away on the tables, being not perishable foods. Then, they line up the cart with the others and they look at each other satisfied, nodding.

"And breakfast's done!" Futoshi happily declares while flexing his right bicep in triumph.

"Sure… I'm taking a minute for myself before starting the trash thing…" Ikuno warns her partner, being a bit in a pinch.

"Yes, don't worry." Futoshi assures her. "I need a break too…" He waves his hand over.

They both go out of the dispenser room to turn right and proceed further into the corridor where they found two doors one opposite the other, bearing the sign of gender separated bathrooms. Then each one of them enters its assigned one.

Ikuno closes the door, automatic lights turn on and a wide bathroom with bright-white tiled walls welcomes her, oozing cleanliness and order. On the left side of the room, a row of metal oval columned sinks embedded in the wall, so clean they could act as mirrors, hanging a meter from the floor, with fresh soap and wipes in transparent oval dispensers and air jet hand driers placed just to the side. A wide actual mirror was hanging from the wall in front of the sinks, bearing a watermark of Papa's symbol and not even a speck of dust on it.

"Hell yeah, Goro." She appreciates his companion's thoroughness. "Good that this is not as frequented as the ones upstairs."

She closes to the row of sinks while yawning and taking off her wide, black rimmed glasses. She folds them and places them in the flat part of the sink, pinches her nose, then closes in to the mirror, taking a good look at the gigantic eyebags under her tired and lidded deep green eyes, to frown in disappointment.

"Ugh… now I know why the small girl was afraid of me." She declares, taken aback from her deranged visage. She then opens the faucet and lets the water flow a little, to then lean and make her hands in a cup to wash herself with the freezing cold tap water. She squeaks at the contact of her face with the water, but repeats the same gesture regardless, until her nose becomes cold. Then, she takes off a wipe from the nearby tray and dries her face, rubbing her eyes thoroughly. She puts her glasses on, and while crumpling the paper wipe, she stops in her tracks as she winces from a sudden surge of pain at the abdomen.

"Crap. Really? Already!..." She exasperates and massages her tummy while throwing the ball of paper into the thrash basket nearby. She quickly washes her hands with soap, turns and takes a glance at the bathroom stalls, separated by thick walls and a sliding door, between which are hanged from the walls some vertical dispensers from where she extracts with her fingertips a plastic-packed cylindrical object and enters a stall, closing the door behind.

"…Leaving something behind, huh?"

After a while, she opens the door, walks back to the sinks and throws a crumpled, full packet back into the trash.

"That's what I'm leaving behind." She says with disdain.

She washes her hands again and proceeds out of the bathroom, where Futoshi was waiting her leaning against the wall, some meters away from the door.

"Sorry for the wait." She plainly addresses Futoshi while walking towards him.

"No problem, I'm in no hurry, really." He tranquilly says, while taking off beside her with both hands in the pockets, both proceeding towards the elevator, in a quite relaxed fashion.

Ikuno frowns a bit. She looms back a bit to stare at his stride, then she nervously sighs. "You guys have it easier." She comments.

Futoshi then turns his head and stares at her questioning, grabs his big chin, then has an illumination and responds to the point, smiling. "You girls have it nicer."

She immediately stops in comic aghast, gritting her teeth and getting red as hell on her freckles' area of the face, stiffened. "W-w-w-what did you just say…!" She says outraged in an acute voice, covering herself in reflex.

Futoshi stops and looks at her stunned. "Nicer… as in… physically …?" He pins down his thoughts, trying to understand her reaction. "What were you referring to…?" He asks embarrassed.

He stares at him without words, then she gradually cools down, in the revelation that it was only a misunderstanding. For a moment, she thought that he'd said something outrageous, but her imagination was, of course, taking over her tired mind. She waves her hand, ashamed.

"Sorry… I'm a bit tired." Why would Futoshi say something like that, she thinks… even though, he mentioned girls as 'nice'. Nothing really wrong with that, she agrees.

Futoshi continues along still a bit preoccupied, and Ikuno follows him inside the elevator, where he selects the lobby floor. They reach the main lobby, where they enter the maintenance corridor, where they enter the laundry room and look over at the automatic driers. Ikuno notices a washing machine blinking in standby.

"Ah! Who left his stuff here?" She opens the slanted porthole and takes out a wet Stamen's uniform. She looks at the label inside the clothing to discover its owner.

"Goro? Aha, got you!" She exclaims.

"Ah come on, Ikuno, give him a breather, he should be preparing the cleaning team by now!"

"I'm sure she's already at Ichigo's side, not even thinking of that stuff." You can't keep away a dog from his owner, she gravely judges in her head. She gets a basket from under some waiting benches and gives it to Futoshi. "Could you take them out?"

"S-sure…" Futoshi blinks at her while she opens a nearby cabinet, to take out a set of work clothes and a cap, blue with white inlets.

"I'm going change in the locker room." She warns him, going out.

"Ok..." Futoshi says listless back to her, while she goes out of the room, and enters a door further in the corridor.

…

…

A small Pistil. Bobbed and wavy blonde hair, white dress, brown shoes… was giving her the shoulders. Ikuno tries to close in with her hand drawn forward, but the small girl talks to her with a contemptuous, immature voice, turning the other way. "Go away." She stops halfway, waves of unease hitting her.

"Why are you here? I don't want you." Another voice comes from behind here, and she turns, to find the same little girl giving her the back. Ikuno turns back, but the other little girl standing there disappeared.

"You make me sick. Why are you staring?" Another voice beside her. She turns, to find a male brown-haired Child staring the other way, in the same contempt of the little girl.

"I can do what I want." She says, defiant.

"You're creepy anyways." The male Child replies.

"No!"

"Creepy!" He scorns her.

"No‼" Ikuno exasperates.

"You're a frog! CREEPY!" The child turns to her, with hateful eyes.

"Shut up!" She shouts, in a fit of anger, closing her fists.

"You make me vomit!"

"SHUT-UP‼" She shouts in intimidation.

"Ikuro! Ikuro! IKURO‼"

"AAAAAAAAAGH!" Ikuno goes for his neck with her hands, losing control to her rage. Her thumb's nails drive into the Child's neck, while his smile deletes from his face and is substituted by fear as she's strangling him, while taking off the ground his small body with dangling feet and hands grasping hers, with no strength at all.

"N-No please! Ple-hgh!" His voice struggles, his lungs being denied hair and his hands losing grip from the shock.

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" She loses her mind, shouting like a banshee, while clenching her fingers around the Child's fragile neck, stronger.

And stronger.

And stronger,

AND STRONGER‼

She gasps, and the darkness morphs in to the locker room she was changing into, its door being banged incessantly. She was sitting on a bench, in the act of changing to her work clothes…

"What have I done…?" She asks still confused, looking lost at her own hands.

"Ikuno! Ikuno! Are you fine? Ikuno‼" A preoccupied voice could be heard from the corridor. But she didn't have the strength to reply. She instead wanted to weep. Hard.

"Ah… Futoshi…Ah…" She starts to wince weakly.

"You're…! I'M COMING! PULL AWAY FROM THE DOOR!" Futoshi shouts losing his cool and starts shouldering the door out of its hinges repeatedly. The door comes loose and Futoshi slams it open with his feet on the lock, storming in like a fury.

Ikuno barely notices him, still just in a bra and gripping on her overalls, like they were her only anchor to reality. Futoshi, in his work overalls, throws himself in front of him and grabs her by the shoulders and starts shaking her.

"What happened? Are you hurt?" He shouts at her, in extreme worry.

She recoils and shows her tear-stricken, grieved face, sobbing away.

"Ikuno! Get yourself together!"

"I-I… think I… had a… fell asleep." She starts fumbling in shock. "I-I… a-a horrible nightmare..."

"Aaah…" Futoshi defuses- then he slowly embraces her. "It's over now. It's over." He tries to console her.

She buries herself on his large, accommodating shoulders where she cries her lungs out while shuddering, her glasses slipping upwards her face and pressing against it, while Futoshi caresses her nude back. After a while, she calms down and parts with his stamen, her butterfly clip coming off from her hair.

"Are you OK now?" He asks.

"Yeah…" She adjusts her glasses and removes her hairpin, to recomb her medium, mostly white hair back in place.

"Damn…" Futoshi contemplates the torn open door with satisfaction. "I'm a force of nature! O-Ow…" He suddenly grasps his head, a bit taken aback. "Maybe a bit less of that…"

"Hehehe… although you sure are dependable, Futoshi. Thanks for being present." Ikuno smiles softly at his partner.

"Ah, wait!" He turns to an almost nude Ikuno, connecting the facts too late. "No way! I should have thought that through!" He gets close to the door and starts pulling it left and right, only one hinge still attaching it to the frame, and the lock lying helplessly on the floor.

"Whoops!" He closes the door, but it drifts open again.

"Don't worry, I'm going to change like this for now…"

"How do you even repair this…?" He worries quite a bit: how is he even supposed to know?

"We'll place a curtain at a minimum, so don't worry. Now though, please leave, I'm starting to think you're staring at too much 'niceness' in here!"

"Sure… I'll leave. Don't fall asleep again! There are no doors left to bust open!" He scolds her ironically while smiling full lips, turning and saluting out of the locker room.

She returns the smile, then resumes changing herself, now calmed herself down and ready for the day.

…

…

I feel myself falling, back first.

I'm at terminal velocity inside an infinite clear blue sky.

Guts of air are whipping my clothes, arms and legs, as the pressure of the fall is almost scalping my hair from my skull. A magnificent sensation pervades me, as the sun smiles me directly from above, so big and warming. My clothes feel so comfortable…

I turn to fall belly first and I see my all around me, a sea of cirrus clouds expands towards every direction, filling the sky below me. Towering like giants peeping with their head from the ocean's surface, stark white cumulonimbus keep watch on the celestial arc, from where observe their undisputed dominion. My face feels a warm sensation as I just plunge into an endless fall, adrenaline pumping into my veins fueled by absolute catharsis. Then, something happens, and everything changes around me.

The white sea of clouds paints in orange, then in fiery red of lightning, twirling like a hurricane, of which center is my final destination. My catharsis transforms in fear, as that hellish vision keeps getting closer and closer, twirling faster and faster. Gravity keeps pulling me down and I can't do anything to stop it. I panic enveloped in the strong gusts that blister my face while trying in naught to bob and decelerate, but the sky is too strong to go against. Things are meant to fall, so I'm falling too, towards the eye of the storm revealing a red, nightmarish and dead earth.

No! Stop! Please! Someone help!

A lapse, and I find myself in darkness, buried under a mountain of… comfortable lavender bed sheets, that smell like just washed. I feel lying on my left side, my head on a puffy pillow, but I don't see anything. I try to calm my heartbeat, still affected by adrenaline and fear from that… Dream? Nightmare? I usually don't dream, so this is a one manner of a kind of waking up. It was so lucid and real, so detailed! Also scary as hell towards the end… My head is pumping at the rhythm of my heart, expanding and contracting at each pulse, fragile but crystal clear.

Then I recollect the… really painful way I had in going completely out of myself in Hiro's room. What the hell! I did that in front of my best friends too… That was the most shameful thing ever! My face is going on fire and a sharp sensation pierces my chest… Was it also a dream? Please tell me it was a dream… Hell, no, it wasn't! My hands are bandaged and still feel stingy from the leftover pain in my palms. What was with my reaction? In an instant I couldn't control myself, and everything fell apart, both body and mind losing contact with reality in the rush of the moment. Why did it happen? Am I ill? Some sort of different Parasite Flu that, instead of making you sloppy and fiery, breaks down your mind?

I just let those thoughts sink in. My chest feels like a giant empty cave, so let's not freak out again.

But looming about the stuff that I heard from Hiro, how is he still sane after all of that? Can I trust him of his words, or is it just his imagination being haywire in a high stress and high risk situation? I instantly believed him since he doesn't have a reason to lie to me with that brazenly. But what if his memories are affected by the shock and he's hallucinating, since he got a solid hit to his head? Or worse, got confused while with that weird connection with the Princess? And apart from that, does he actually even care of what he discovered, since 02 is all he thinks about? Because it's such reality-flipping stuff, really… who wouldn't freak out? Papa went in a moment from loved protector of humanity, to indifferent ruler, to oppressor and ended up a genocidal agent of… VIRM? He even confirmed with his own words- what the hell is VIRM? Is it really the race of those violet robots? Why do people followed him, and more importantly, why no one noticed until now that he's a robot? I don't understand anything even about the Adults… were they completely blind?

Why did you created us to make us suffer like that? To what end, if then you decided to… end yourself?

These questions make my head hurt… But I just want to know the truth. This is the only way I can move on.

Some time passes, and the air below the blankets starts to turn a little heavy… my glasses aren't on my nose, I don't feel my shoes and I'm still wearing my Stamen uniform… how did I even get here? Wasn't I… in that room with that hard bed? I guess I was moved somehow. How the scan went? I must ask… Hisui.

Is it fair that I named him instead of asking Hiro, since he named me before? Maybe he just assumed it was me that named everyone, so asked for a name on the spot... I guess that was the best I could do at that moment…

For now, the comfort cuddling me inside these blankets is the stuff that dreams are made from! The first part of dreams... Somehow, the end of them is the worst part, in a way or the other. Now though, I'd like to at least peek around, so… What? Something a heavy is beside me…

Without ado, I resurface to meet fresh air and an almost completely dark room, with just a faint LED light illuminating a switch controller dangling just over my head, with an image of a lightbulb on one of the buttons… so I press it and the lights over the bed lit up.

I lift my head up from over the white covers to see a… small figure resting beside me in a fetal position? Turning to the right and getting close to focus my view, since I'm near-sighted, and…

Yup, that's Ichigo.

Is she sleeping? On my same bed? Yes! She's lying beside me with her head planted on my right flank!

"Oy… Ich..."

Wait, actually! Don't wake up, you cute thing! I want to see how she sleeps, since that's a rare occurrence to be with her in the same room... What marvels will her snoring face bring? Let's find out!

Trying hard to not bump her, I close my face to hers, then use my fingers to move her fringe aside to try to uncover her face. As I do that, I notice she's… not sleeping. She's staring at me pouting like an owl.

"Goro." The frown expands and aggravates.

Abort! Abort! Rule number one: attack before being attacked!

"Why were you lying with your face on my butt?"

She breaks her composure and shoots away her stare, in embarrassment. "G-g-g-g-orororo!" Her face becomes literally a strawberry. "S-s-sorry! I-I j-just w-wanted to stay beside you!"

"Well, thanks Ichigo!" I pat her head smiling like an idiot at that beautiful thought, and her livid visage decolors as she casts aside my hand and lunges for another attack.

"I was scared, you know! You hurt yourself a-a-and…! I was incredibly worried! What the hell happened to you?" She blurts while flinging her fists downwards, lifting herself kneeling on the border of the mattress dragging towards her the sheets.

"I don't know…" I sit up, my body still groggy, and try to prevent the blanket stealing attempt, only to drag her towards me. "That never happened to me. I felt everything… was falling down."

"You should have told me that you were in that state!" She blurted out with a frown.

"I was feeling well up until that moment!" I justify myself dumbfounded.

"The doctor said you were mentally exhausted!" She accuses me.

"I honestly didn't pick that up. I was…"

"Of course, you never do!" She heats up and raises her voice. "Stop ignoring your body! You're not making me a favour if you always disregard yourself and get hurt! You're driving me mad!" She clenches her fists against her chest.

"I'm honest… I didn't…"

"Why are doing this to yourself?" Her expression darkens. "Is it because it's about me, isn't it…?" She utters.

That last sentence just froze my mind cold.

"How much times did you just say 'I'm fine, Ichigo!' and pushed on? Do you think that I want this? Like that one time when you almost killed yourself for me!? Why don't you have some self-care!?" She yells loudly.

Her eyes are begging mercy, telling me everything about how much I hurt her. "I… Please, I… I value you more than just a partner or something." She says, while her eyes become those of a puppy. "I want you to be happy…"

I know what makes me happy.

"I… look…" She makes a deep breath, gets serious and looks me straight in the eyes. "I will repeat myself again… I'm… I'm not sure about how to respond… to that thing you said to me that time. I don't know… what love really means."

Liar.

My gaze drops on the blanket over my knees.

"Goro…?"

Is she saying I'm not wanted? No, it's not that. She just needs time. What is time, really? For her, I would give her all my time to her, all of myself either. Except… It feels painful. It feels incredibly painful. It feels extremely painful.

Not being loved back.

I noticed, but I just… ignored it. The way she looks at Hiro… I really want her to be looking at me the same way she longs him. I want to be that one person that Ichigo cares and dedicates her days to.

But that's not happening.

So, I just take my feelings and shove them where I can't see them, denying reality, lying to myself, only to notice them when reality catches up and hurts me. When I get burned, she saddens and worries about my inability of caring about myself, only to fuel back my desire to…

Ah… now I see.

This love is a freefall towards the ground.

Like in that dream.

This love can't stand up by itself anymore.

"Ichigo… do you want know what love feels like?" I ask her while serious.

I don't want regrets. It's all or nothing.

"I… ah…" I put her on the spot, but I can't complain about that now…

"You're… my first thought when I wake up." I start off, to make a brief pause. I want to choose the best words I can for this.

She stops in place, silent.

"When I'm without you… I wonder what you're doing. If you're with me, I feel a meter off the ground from the happiness."

Her small lips twitch.

"When we talk, I want to make you feel good in my company. Also, when something happens, I want you to be the first to know, so we can talk about it. When we drive our FranXX I feel in heaven, as I know you are the closest you possibly can be to me, in that moment."

I continue, and her sapphire eyes widen.

"When I see your smile, I feel like the sun has just risen over the mountains. When you're sad, clouds gather, and the warmth of the day is taken from me. When you're in pain, I want to comfort you and cast away your fears."

Her frame winces in fast breaths as I further explain.

"Then, when we part, I think about the good day I've had being with you. Then, you're my last thought until I close my eyes. I think that love is just that- wanting to be with someone no matter what. That's what I feel about you."

I feel limpid clarity and my chest fluctuates. Fireworks of pleasure are going off in my head while I tell her how much she's an irreplaceable person in my life. Just now I realize how saying that vapid 'I think I love you' was something stupid, because it's like describing a shining blue lake as a dirty glass of water. This is me opening myself, stopping telling lies and exposing my heart to her, with no useless filters.

Yet she stands there, dumbfounded, scared… Why are you looking at me like that…? Shouldn't this be the most beautiful thing to hear…? Or… it doesn't work if said from me?

I guessed as much…

"Do you know what's the most painful thing to experience while loving someone?" I let my words fall to the ground. She continues to stare me, now tensing her back.

"Knowing that your loved one doesn't love you back. Then disregarding that, lying to yourself and pushing through, waiting for that to revert, but only getting a reminder of why it won't ever happen."

My painful words resound in an echo bouncing in the helpless silence of the room.

"This is what I call love."

She widens further her scared eyes, hiding her mouth with her hands to suffocate a lament.

"Do you relate?"

An eternity passes as she calms down and she falls into insensibility, sliding her hands down to protect her tummy with both hands as her long right bang covers her face, only her upturned nose peeking from her bluish hair and the hairpin I gave her shining in the bed's white light.

"Yes."

I knew that all along... Now I just want the truth, even if it hurts, because lies are just as painful, if not more, to wake up from. A life full of lies is not worth being lived.

"Do you feel the same about me?"

Now, Ichigo.

Please.

Please.

Please, release me of my torment.

...

Sweet dreams, sweet lies - END

...

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