Painting was created by me
Caroline, oh, Caroline
The night has fallen down, in the chaos of hope. I tangled my fingers in her silky hair as I welcomed her back to my arms after a long daytime.
"How was your day?" My voice echoed around the chamber when I held her tight a little longer.
"Liesel, you know how it went." Her head dug into the soft sofa, she might have not known that I was caressing her blushing cheeks so far.
"At least you got a new career." My cracking laughter got her attention.
"Thanks to you Liesel, or the iron banner would have fallen on me." Her lips bloomed into a white chrysanthemum, the exact smile having fooled me for hundreds years.
"I couldn't hold back that fear. I should've been faster, so your small hand wouldn't have been injured a bit…" I looked at her hands relaxing on the sofa, a sense of guilt emerged in my chest.
It came to me like a guest, the thought that I would lose her again, squeezing harder and harder as a chain around my heart. I have been staying beside Caroline ever since she was months old. Her vintage golden hair, sparkling oceanic pupils, and those plum petals on her mouth were the same to Lyliac's. Sometimes I got stuck between the thoughts of her being Caroline or Lyliac and if I was loving her for who she had been or for the old contract my past had sinned.
"Have you told him?" But no matter how deep had my affection been, I had to have it trimmed.
"He'll pick me up tomorrow." If I heard her right, a sigh had just slipped off her larynx.
It had been tormenting me ever since the date I accepted her feelings towards a colleague. What should I have expected? To be a ghost haunting her for life? To be a phantom incapable of giving her close touches at nights? Love was still there, obviously, through decades and decays. Even so, it should never mean to be a foolish wait. Maybe I would just bury all the memories along with Lyliac decease, and let Caroline create her own new thrills with her beloved. How corrupt was I, to be not delighted with her happy future where I would no longer exist. I looked at the fatigue slowly draining from her angelic face, wondering whether she could ever feel my fingertips.
"Liesel… "
She grasped me at my wrist the instant. Her gaze fixed on me as if she was seeing through my soul. I could sense her familiar warmth from the tight grab and my own utterly surprising gasp.
Once my mind turned back, the wall between two seemed to have been cracked.
"Please… our first and last." She pulled me on her soft lips as tears started streaming down her cheeks.
What was happening?
Whatever. I was so overwhelmed with our clear interaction that I merely dived into her kiss. Glee flowed like a creek, from my empty ribcage to her bursting haste.
Night swallowed us both in its gentle stroke, what I was laying my hands on was more alike to her soul than her body, despite the heat and all those seemingly impossible moisture.
"Who do you love?"
Amidst the madness of desire, her voice shoved me onto our cracked might.
"Lyliac, or Caroline?"
As she hammered on my twisted mind, it was easy to tell our endings were dependent on my decisions. I would make a lie which would cause me to go against our contract again, otherwise, it would be unfair for Caroline, or Lyliac, or her. Yet, she deserved the physical touches I failed to give due to the hideous war.
"Love means to let go, sometimes."
After pulling herself together from the heart-break I triggered, Lyliac told me so. And I promised her an intact return from the war, to offer her a supposedly happy family. However, fate was not my comrade. I was imprisoned, tortured, and was traumatized by the opponents that resulted in the obsession for the rest of my life. I tried to not let them break me, still, what welcomed me home was her portrait on the altar. She was given my death paper from my troops, my cheerful Lyliac did not quiver, nor shook. She just took too many pills to conduct the deal with Death. Only half of my soul was left, while the half had gone dead, but the two were insistently seeking for an embodiment of her. So that I could fulfill my vow to lift her from the low, and to protect the rare jewel I had been bestowed.
I had gone under a long journey until Caroline’s heartstring pounded the first beat. Fortune was truly a hindrance bonding her heart and my soul, a death sentence to our newly blooming sprout. I had spent a prolonged time praying for her to be aware of the pain I had to endure. Then it came the ups and downs in her heart beats that I finally understood her resistance to be left utterly alone in an almost desperate nuance. One day, her heart retraced its old path to bear love once more time, for another man who could propose to her the intimate rights. What could I have done other than convincing myself her drunk fondness would bring her an endless glee?
"Liesel?"
Her high voice startled me. My greed was craving badly to let her see, yet lie to be told.
"Lyliac."
Although I wanted to tell Liesel about his intentional falsehood, I understood his wish as they vibrated the waves of my thought. I lost myself in his deep down grief, however, his wholly passion lulled my sorrow to sleep.
"Will we meet in another lifetime?"
All the memories of Liesel and Lyliac flooded inside my head the moment he saved me from the iron banner. His torn out figure dashed through the dust and the crushed bygones soon came into light. My guardian angel turned out to be a wilted knight, as they usually said those who went through the flame of war would never remain the same.
It ached to burn up the cool-off flame, and even more throbbing to know it had become a shame of the ether. Along with the memories, the agony he took during the time passed by and nurtured my forgotten feelings ardently.
"How can it be?" Liesel shifted his eyes to the other direction.
"I'll find you."
"If then… Find me soon, Caroline…" His lips broke into a misty crescent, smooched me suavely on my forehead before dissipating to the chilly morning fog.
He had gone out of my sight as the sun started shining through the windows. I sobbed like a child and my tears glowed in the shadow of the room corner, trying to gather myself for the beginning of the future.
She might have never known, he continued waiting until the day she said farewell to her peaceful world,
"Neither Lyliac nor Caroline, I just love you.",
so that love would wing within their sharing heartstrings.
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