Longins, part II


I`m going down so frail and cruel
Drunken disguise changes all the rules

Old loves they die hard
Old lies they die harder

I wish I had an angel, Nightwish


Was it revenge…?

Was it despair, or was it something else?

I dread to know the truth I’m forced to face.



As I open my eyes, I can sense my head spinning and swaying with a dull ache pooling at my temples. I’m hit with the sensorial input of unfamiliar surroundings but the slight movement beside me suddenly makes it all clear. I realize my discomfort is not the consequence of the lingering remains of the liquor I swallowed avidly in my futile attempt to drown my sorrows and my weakness. Drunkenness can be a very handy cope-out when you realize you have done something stupid but deep inside, I know my alcoholic stupor is not to blame for my actions. It is only I who carries the full responsibility of what happened last night after I drove Ayato home while coping with the cold timbre of his silence.

Was it frustration? Rage? Despair? I want to believe I did it because of one or all of those motives. Now, at morning, I feel the sunlight has brought warmth and cleansing light to the dark recesses of my soul. With a clearer mind and a somewhat more stable disposition, I find myself trying to recapture the emotions that fueled last night’s spell of foolishness, but as I search my own feelings, I find more reasons, reasons that I would have thought dead and buried long ago. Of course, I wasn’t the only one who, pushed by some unknown force, reacted in a matter most unexpected and acted out of pure instinct and emotion. In fact, none of this would have happened if Itsuki hadn’t kissed me. It would have been just another conversation amongst old friends without any consequences. It would have been another ordinary day and no feelings would have been trampled upon, no wounds inflicted and no dreams would have bee shattered to the ground. But then he kissed me and the floodgates inside me opened wide.

What drove me to be so reckless last night? Did the alcohol stir to the surface what I have been zealously keeping in the dark? Was it the rage that surfaced uncontrollably? Was it the dread of having to face the end of the dream? The only thing I can recall clearly now is that after hours of emptying bottle after bottle of sake and running out of tears to shed, I decided I should let Itsuki have a piece of my mind for his reckless and thoughtless actions. I just wanted him to know how much he had wounded me make him as miserable as I was feeling. But then, out of my own volition as if another part of me had suddenly taken control, I kissed him. Perhaps, even more than the need of revenge, I craved what he had given me in the past: an instant of delusion. How many times in the complicity of the night I had made myself believe the one beside me was Ayato and not a look alike? How many times I stared to those blue eyes wishing it was him?

As Itsuki lead me inside, seeking shelter from the storm that drenched my clothes and from the one that tore me inside, I realized I was just like him. I was also condemned to love in silence without any hope. I could only watch from the distance as an outsider, as a witness. I understood then his fury, his frustration and I felt pity for him…and for myself. We are so similar he and I, both keeping our feelings bottled up, trying to act so calm when we are despairing deep inside. Yes, it was hopelessness, it was rage, but I now see that it was mostly out of compassion and my own need that I stayed the night because in his pain, I could see myself.

We are both destined to be infatuated with what we can’t have but for a few moments, we attempted to cheat our predetermined fate and for one more time, were one in our shared delusion.