//Terrible Love

Its a painful thing to have to let go of someone whom you have set all of your hopes for the future on. Masake was the first guy that convinced me he wanted to be my everything. 

I could never understand the way it felt, the way that grasp of love he had on me made me think that it was going to be my life from now on back then ;to think we might have been married now. I might have even had his child by now, instead I'm carrying my luggage out of hotel and moving into my first apartment that’s just all me. 

After the move back from Masake's place in Paris, I realized I had never been by myself since I was on my own, I’ve been on my own, but not alone. Here, I had always either had a hotel room full of friends or my manager, or staff waiting on me. I never ventured on my own, and now, at the age of 23, I feel it's long overdue.

I remember when we left L.A., one last look at the Rothschild Hotel, luggage at hand as well, wondering how Seiko spent her summers in that penthouse. Always waiting for her father to show up, or call her, it was a nice place but Seiko was always alone. When she invited me to live with her I never really thought she lived alone, but when I found out she did, it was impressive and confusing, I would wonder “isn’t anyone going to check up on her?” She had been an adult all but a year, and she ventured on her own, away from her family, but she told me she never really felt like it was her family, not only was she adopted, but she was raised by various Nannie’s throughout Europe, when she moved to the United States she had just become a teen and began to rebel against the idea of who her family wanted her to become. She would laugh, “become a soulless ghost in exchange for what? Some money and an annual trip to a mausoleum in the woods where even your own family refuses to recognize you so you become the black sheep amongst the herd who already are distant from eachother? I took what they owed me and bailed, I don’t ever want to be defined by those ghosts or their expectations.” Seiko was always so cool, she would tell me stories of boarding school, but she rarely made friends because of her interests and general angry defame or trying to get expelled or worst disinherited. She laughs at the idea even now, she has petty criminal records but her family ignores it, telling me the sole reason is that the old man who adopted her had an Asian wife, she passed away with their only child, Seiko was a baby when the woman died, the father adopted Seiko but could not form an emotional bond with her though she says he tried. He would see her every few months when she was old enough to realize he should’ve been around more. Home school and private school shaped Seiko, but she always told me she was more than anything lonely. “I think music is the only place I’m not alone, even when I feel like no ones coming, there was always a beat in my head I wanted to let out, and the guitar helped me express those sparks in my head, and its lead me to you, I don’t know where we would be if I never heard your horrible karaoke that night, it was just the sound I’ve been looking for,” Seiko reassures me on the phone that she will help me organize everything in my new apartment once she’s returned, she was on a secret collaborative mission not even I know about.  I think about leaving that place and what it meant to Seiko, and where we are now, that after all this time I have been lucky enough to meet such an ethereal kind soul like her, my best friend no matter what comes our way. I send her a message as I get in the taxi to the place, a nice little five story complex I found last minute, its easy to leave when you don’t care where you’re going, the first step is to walk away from how things used to be. 

"When you need to pick up new furniture let me come with you, I know the perfect place!" she exclaimed as the cab driver shut the door, and she opened the side passenger door for me. I go in and reassured her I would count on her for help. "Is Yokohama that far from this place?" I wondered, she shook her head, "I think it's by the bay actually, who knows, I guess we'll figure it out when wed get there,"

She got into her car and spend behind us, the cab driver didn't make small talk, I put my ear pods in and enjoyed the scenery.

I looked through my phone and found my last messages to Masake. 

"I need to know if you're in this with me, please, I need some proof that you care, don't ignore me like this, it hurts."

I close the application and put my glasses on, grabbing them from my bag I slip the phone in there and the sadness came over me, I should delete these, these stupid words I said thinking they would change anything. I took a deep breath and tears came soon after, not as many as the last time I talked to him, but the burning in my heart is still like a hot coal, its smothering my throat, and I have to push those feelings down, and swallow my shame, I cry and close my eyes , just hoping the feeling passes over me, all the while wishing this was a dream I still have not awaken from, sometimes dreams feel longer, right? This is just one of those, surely. 

I never wanted things to end like this, so....ambiguous.

I dont even know why they had to go like this, Masake was like a whole different person when we first met, before we became better aquainted I did noticed how he would dote on me, specially at the party Gorious happened to be at that night. I wonder if he knew about me and Haruka before he approached me. It never crossed my mind that our meeting was anything beyond what I saw a was just a cute artist telling me he wanted to be in my world and bring me over to his own. He would make me feel like the only girl in the world, sharing his soul with me, telling me the places he wanted to take me, and how we would always be together, how stupid of me...to actually have fallen to the oldest trick in the book. Some men will say and do anything to have control over women. That was what it always was, I was shinning and he was dimming, he took my light, I don’t think i would have gotten it back if it wasn’t for my friends. Three years wasted, almost, we never made it to our third august. 

I wondered for a time now, ever since new years ball, if he met someone else.

I call him and he's already on the phone, he never explains himself, and I dont bring it up, because I don't want my feelings hurt.

I swallow the betrayal down, and hold it in the pit of my stomach....where it can't hurt me anymore.

I don't know if he'll ever tell me what was happening. All I know if that he doesn't want me anymore, he should have been clear with me when he figured that out. He used to be the type of man to take responsibility for his faults...to let me into his heart and his mind, and not hide from me. I think that he really began to change after I had aborted his child, it was like a betrayal to him, I was not ready to become a mother, and he had been waiting to become a father. I remember our life before it happened and after, he was only lightly indulging at drugs at parties, but after he would get high in the house, away from me, but I knew what he was up to on the balcony. I wanted to make him see that it was going to be okay, that we could try again year after, but at the same time, I listened to my friends, I was too young to stop singing now, he wanted to trap me the only way a man knows how to break a woman who stands on her own and doesn’t even know it. I didn’t know how much power I had when I had first entered that room full of people, the party in Agatsu, the localities of influence and the connections I made with my strange broken Japanese and when I sung for Takuro that night, I had become someone else than the person i thought I’d been my whole life, I just never knew it, until this very moment right now. Standing in my new door, the other side when I’ll live my life as I want to walk it, how I want to say it, what I want to keep and what I wont allow inside. I turn the key and pull the suitcase behind me, I take my shoes off, place them on the wooden floor entrance lift. I look around at the room ahead of me, furnished partially, courtesy of Takuro, an old leather couch, he said he wrote “nagisa’ on and a huge framed picture of ZeNa, the night of our first opening concert. I walked in with tears in my eyes, I was overwhelmed by the feelings of security, because even though I will live here, I will never be alone, and my friends made sure of that by making sure they look over me even when they aren’t here. My heart aches for them now, I send out a massive message in the chain. “Come on over soon, ZeNa has a new karaoke spot!” 

 The place is in Yokohama, some small building with a security guard and a scan only feature that lets its residents in, Erin has already furnished it for me as she's not only my Manager but we've grown to be close friends.
I'd be no where without her in this condition, a mess from my break up, a mess from the drugs, my heart hurts and I cant show it, to show it is to feed the piranhas that want to destroy me. I learned that it's a constant that will never go away.

I push those thoughts down, and turn my attention to where she's standing, boxes with french postage on them. "Are these?" I point over to them, "Yes, I had someone I knew gather your belongings from Paris and ship them over to me," 

The rest are in the living room, let me know if there's anything you want me to put in here, the basics are met, the fridge is full of nutrition, and the wine fridge is full of your favorites, anything else you need me to bring I'll bring it tomorrow before I take you recording in the afternoon."

I give her a hug as I toss the luggage on the hard wood oak floor. "You are my rock Emily, thanks" he gives me a squeeze and as I pull away I see that her sadness is back remembering everything that transpired to get me to have my own place in the first place. 'Hey now, I'll be okay, I'll be ready by the time you get here tomorrow, ok?" She gives me a nod, quickly reassembles my luggage the right way up and leaves.
I gathered a few boxes and took them to the bed room, a nice room with a luxurious western styled bed, my favorite kind, it was plush and the comforter was a grey shade with black leaves. I threw the boxes aside and lunged into the bed, I was so tired it didn't take long for the lseep to cling to my eyes and soon the darkness overcame me, it was time to sleep.
That dram was like a haunting, Paris...I was back in Paris, I could hear the voices below, but I didn't smell masake...no, these rice flowers....I saw them on the veranda, a vase filled with rice flowers. Like madalienes on the forth of snow, they rained in their scent and lured me towards them, the faint moring light guiding me, and as I reached for the vase, I felt him on me, my first love, my Saturn. "Haruka?" Light.  The dream must've had more to it, but all I could recall was the scent of those flowers on the crystal palindromic glass. The water dancing in dew as the Parisian sunlight made it  star. Haruka....I missed him then, and my heart yearned to feel his warmth on my skin, so have that scent on my breath, I needed him , and selfishly, I called him. Five in the morning, and still, he answered.
"Hey,"
"Hi,"
"You want me there?"
"Yes...how did you know?"
"Because I know you, is that okay?"
There was a pause in m voice, I wanted to be upset, but it never came to that when it was him.
"Yeah, that's okay."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Okay."
I sent him the code to the gate and the code to my floor on the elevator. I waited for him by the entrance and when he arrived he picked me up and took me back to the bed. We were western raised, he didn't take his shoes off at the entrance just like I never did  as well. I was so comforted when he was there, I kissed him and feel asleep as soon as he lay down beside me. I had a good dream. We were back in Los Angeles, he was walking with me back to our place in Korea town, we were walking by the bridge back into the city and I turned around to see him, I smiled at him as he changed the should that was carrying his guitar, I caught up with me and held my hand, I leanded on the free shoulder and asked him were he wanted to go if he could go anywhere. "If I could go anywhere, I would go to Mars, Maybe Jupiter, or Saturn, would you go with me?" I remembered this conversation, I said "Would be alive?" He thought about it for a second. "I don't think so, would you go with me no matter what?" "I would, if you gave me a good reason." I saw his lips for the first letter, but he stopped, he just gave my hand a squeeze, and I was left wondering for a while if he would say it. "I wouldn't be .." he began, "I couldm't go without you, because I can't leave you alone, is that reason enough?"  so in other words...you love me? Thats good enough, something came over me, a layer of numbness, because he avoided the words, because I could see that layer come over him as well, he's afraid to say it, well then, ok, I wont say it either. The walk home was awkward, two months later he would leave for Tokyo, and I would be crying on this very same bridge, wondering why he didn't say it, why I had to have this constant pain in my chest. It hurt so much.
The whiteness woke me, and Haruka was still beside me nestled on my breasts like he likes to sleep with me, his arms around me, I tried to move but he held me back, "a few more minutes, yeah?" "Okay," I patted his hair, and he squeeze me a little tightly. "i love you, I love you..." He breathed.
He says it now, as much as he can, whenever he can...I guess, he regretted never saying it back then.
"I love you..." I breathe back. The pain of Haruka...that pain of Masake, they cancel eachtoher out and I am left wondering why it still hurts so badly, even though I have this wonderful person wit h me now, whom I do love...I guess it is because of how it happened.  was thrown away. That, has somehow scarred me.