Love Empire

It was two o’clock at dawn when I came to catch up with him in the hospital. Little did I know what happened to his mother when we both fell asleep that night until weeks later when I come to visit him and his mum after weeks of being away for work purposes.

I woke him up the same way he did to me weeks earlier with everything reversed.

I was almost always joking around him that day, except for the excruciating pain that didn’t really leave my usually enlightened face. But of course, he knows. As much as I know him is how much he knows me – a really perceptive mood reader.

“So, mum okay?” I asked him while walking to the kitchen to eat lunch after joking around for a while.

“Yeah, she’s good. But I gotta decimete from work a lot now. I gotta look out for her the way she did for me in my infantile years”

“What happened, though? Like, legit what happened?”

“She’s had seizures. Turns out it was a tumor in her brain which thankfully was already taken out of her.”

“She’s healed? I mean, they’ve cured her?”

“Yeah, thank God. Even though there might still be a small chance for the tumor to grow back, it’s just really small. She’s a fighter, you know. She’ll get better. She need some time to re-learn some things, but hopefully she’ll do just fine from now on”

I exhaled a relieved breath.

“So, what’s up with you? You seemed... out of breath.” He continued after we finished all the cooking and are ready to eat.

“Nope. Hella fine” I tried a fake smile which didn’t travel to my eyes.

“Uh huh, no. Your eyes tell me different things and therefore, I object to believe. It won’t be a bad thing to tell me, you know. I really want to help,” He puts his palm on my left cheek, warm and soft while saying the words.

“No,” I said, pulling his hand away. “I’m alright, really. It’s just that I’m tired from too much interaction. I am drained, have almost always am”

“Is that so?” he asked. With a crooked smile he turned me around with a hand and gives me a hug from the back; kissing the top of my head soft.

I let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah. That would be a good question to not answer to”

“Alright. Let’s sort it out together, then. Cuddle and sort this shit together tonight? I’ll be performing somewhere, so you can have the night to yourself. Sounds good?”

I smile and nod.

I turn around, caressed his face and exhale.

He let go, and I closed my eyes.

...

Later that night, with thunder and lightning’s companion I called him. A cry escaped my mouth as soon as I hear his voice. I am crumbling down, my world torn with it’s edges burnt.

That night, a tragedy happened. My parents both died of a car accident.

He came to my house minutes later – he never finish this one performance. He came with a warm milk on his left hand, a wide embrace in his right. I sank into this animalic state where I felt so numb, so out of this world as soon as his hug engulfs my body like a warm blanket; right on the porch. We stand in for hours; me crying and him continuously embracing and landing a kiss on my forehead.

But we both stood in silence as the minutes fell; time went slower into deep sadness as he finally lets go; as he let my body crumpled towards the wet earth.

It was 3 in the morning when I ran out of tears, when the both of us finally went inside and sat on the corner of one room, me wrapping my legs in my arms – just like he did weeks ago.

“I guess you now know why I did just what you’re doing right now when my mum went in to the ER,” he said, commenting on my doing. “The pain becomes too unbearable. I wish I’d vanish so that I don’t need to bear the pain alone – at least not in this world.”

I didn’t answer. I just keep staring forward.

“But what’s better to relief pain, when you’ve got us?”

He hands me the coldened milk he brought with him. I hugged him from the side, trying to feel contained again; trying to feel real again; trying to bring the warmth back to my heart. But it never happens; not now, at least.

For the rest of the night, we cuddled on the couch, sometimes in silence and sometimes drifting off in sleep. But he is here for me just like when I was there for him in his lowest moments.

...

And as days go by, things move on.

We moved on.

But our love for each other kept prompt within our very hands.

Years moved, but our commitment remains.

And it’s been 5 years eversince the story of how our love was founded in the lowest days of our life. Though his parents stayed and my parents didn’t, we endure it anyway. And I can’t be more grateful than what we’ve been all along.

“It’s weird isn’t it that you wouldn’t want me to see you when you were crumbling down” he says.

“Well, doesn’t the same apply to you?” I smile a crooked smile and stare at him fully.

“Yeah”

“Maybe it’s because only you can sharpen me and only I can do it the same to you. Maybe it’s why it never worked with anyone else, you know. Beacuse they’re not that sharp,” and I surpress a smile.

“Boy, I do love you. I do hope those good ol’ perceptive genes passed down to our desendants”

And I blushed. –red

The End