| Fan Fiction |
by heartsong
I am not yet fully awake when he stirs and crawls closer to me, murmuring, incoherent; into the cove of my shoulder.
I smile sleepily – a reflex action – and snuggle closer into his warmth. But a moment of bliss later, he seems to retreat.
It is as though his presence repels everything negative.
The moment he pulls away, I shrink into myself. Just like that, I have come unraveled; lose and the hems and torn at the seams. All my insecurities flood me and I do not realise that I have started to cry. He kneels gently before me, thumbing my tears away. His hands are tender on my cheeks, warm against my trembling lips.
“Shh,” he soothes, “Shh, Ella,” The ring on his finger presses against my skin as he kisses me, cupping my face. It feels like a promise.
“Go,” I tell him, quiet as I bow low, “Go before it gets worse.”
This, in essence, is how closely woven we have become.
---
After he leaves, I collapse, limp, back onto my bed. It has taken me all the strength I have not to pull him back to me. If I ask him, he will come to the ends of the earth with me. I know – it is that simple. All I have to do is make that request; to breathe that little command. It goes to say the same for me. Wherever he leads, I will follow.
I press a cushion over my head, shifting slightly. I watch as my fringe falls heavy over the triangle of vision I have. The single movement makes me think of stars falling loose, of the rain beating down on the cityscape. It is the kind of rain that maps the courses of our lives, washed away the moment it takes shape.
Through the shredded, lace-like work of my hair, I watch shadows dance across the ceiling. I focus my gaze, instead, on the strands that block my vision, a veil to shield me from the world.
Oh, I think, it is like that.
Life is like the macro function on a camera – not matter how professional the camera lens is, how good the function can be; you cannot focus your gaze on the things near and far, all at once. Likewise, there is no way to focus on the future and the present at once. One of these visions is bound to blur at the edges; its colours bleeding into each other until all you will see is a kaleidoscope of uncertainties.
Somewhere alone the line, no matter how carefully you’ve mapped out the entire course of your life, you’ll be bound to trip.
---
Oh, I think, it’s coming back.
I stare into the mirror and it hurts my eyes – all I see is a lump of Sin. I cannot stop my tears from clouding my vision. I want this badly to be thin: I will willingly puke my guts out after every single meal, and even shave my weight off.
That is how bad it gets.
I lean forward slowly, holding my breath – as though it will magically make all this sin disappear – and I can feel the weight against my thighs.
I lift my shirt; unwilling, hesistant; and I see the brown-silver creases where my skin has stretched to accommodate the fat.
I start to rake my nails across my skin. The marks burn and rise under my merciless scratching. I am trying to scratch out the fat, I think. My nails are hot coals, they burn and sear and threaten to rip apart.
My tears are the sweat of my labour.
For this, I am not afraid of Pain.
One nail catches against the skin on my stomach and rips the cover apart. Fascinated, I watch myself bleed. I do not feel the pain.
This, I suppose, is what detachment must feel like.
I watch with a certain amount of palpable hunger as the skin peels back like a curling fish flake; as the blood gathers in a red welling of blood.
I think, Chun does not need a needy, insecure person like me. He does not deserve this.
I think, for the very first time since I’ve started this relationship; this clandestine affair, that maybe it has finally come to the moment in which I have to let go.
Just like that, I have decided our future.
---
“Chun, honey,” Ariel whined, and Chun made a mental note to get ear-plugs – God, she was noisy when she wanted to be.
“Yes?” he answered, flashing her a sweet smile worthy of a Cherub, “What is it?”
“I want this!”
Ariel bounced excitedly on her toes as she pointed to a huge, pink cat in the window of a Japanese store.
A cat with no mouth.
Inwardly, Chun groaned. Ella had never been like this – Ella was just Ella; his sweet, endearing, charming Ella.
The Ella he missed so very much now. The longing was an ache in his chest and the throbbing in his brain, and with every beat his heart made his brain chanted her name.
God, he was going to burn in hell for this.
By the time they got back to the cold, empty en suite hotel room, Ariel was prancing happily to the shower, after tucking the Hello Kitty doll onto the chair happily.
As the water ran, Chun made sure to rumple the sheets so it would look like he has slept there for awhile. Ariel took an hour – at least – to bathe.
He slipped out of the room, handphone in hand.
Anticipation thumped in his chest, loud as a baby’s cries.
When her groggy voice came over the phone, he smiled, imagining her mussed hair and beautiful face, glowing in the light of the morning sun.
“Ella,” he breathed, anxious and overjoyed to hear her husky, delightful voice.
“Hey you,” she murmured into the phone, but he could hear her wince on her last word as she shifted slightly.
“Ella,” he called, beginning to get worried, “You’re okay, right?”
“I – uh…yeah.”
But there was enough hesitation in her voice to warrant an alarm in Chun’s head, flashing like lightning that ripped the sky apart during thunderstorms.
“You’re not. What did you do?”
“Nothing, Chun,” Ella lied, her voice quite and calm. It did not quite suit her inner emotions, shifting within her bloodstream like freak tornadoes that did not quite exist in this world. She shifted uneasily and coiled the phone cord around her arm, wondering if it would all be over when he came back.
“Chun?” she asked softly, when he did not answer her, “I love you. I just wanted you to know that.”
“I love you too, sweetheart,” he replied, smiling slightly. He would make this work out no matter what it took – God help him, he was in love with Ella and he couldn’t help it if she wasn’t her sister.
Ella laughed lightly. He loved her too. The thought made her giddy and sent her senses spinning with joy. He loved her.
Too bad it’d be over when he came back.
---
When night fell around Ella like a cloak that smothered yet protected at the same time, Ella found herself turning in her bed.
She felt about as sleepy as a nocturnal snake.
After the hours passed slowly, crawling past her and over her until she finally decided it would be fruitless to try to sleep, Ella crawled out of bed.
Ever since Chun had spent the night with her after that first union, Ella had found herself unable to sleep without his presence.
She’d counted sheep, taken warm milk, even sleeping pills – but nothing seemed to work.
She drew herself out from the protective cocoon of her sheets and pulled out a book, and she started to draw.
Soon the blood beat fast in her brain, and her strokes, too, came fast.
She’d drawn the eye of her sister, watching over a couple. And in their faces she’d filled in the soft, rounded features of her own face. On the face of the man were the sharper, more defined contours of an image that could only belong to Chun.
Their hands were reaching out to each other, and it came as no surprise to Ella that when she finally drew their fingers, they were brushing. All at once her strokes became harder, faster, as she drew in the outline of her sister’s other eye around them.
She moved her hand swiftly over the smooth surface and drew until her heart ached, until she saw what a traitor to her sister she had been. She drew until on the paper she would see nothing but the black, thick strokes; black as the night asphyxiating her, irreversible as Sin itself.
---
“Chun?” was the one word that fell from her lips as she opened the door, wide-eyed and breathing just as hard as he was. She wondered, too, if his heart was moving just as rapidly.
Because hers sure as hell was.
“I came back early,” he panted, “Ariel got off with some guy, in Japan, but – but she thinks I don’t know.”
Ella felt her heart drop. This was going to make her task more difficult than it had ever, ever been.
“Ella?” he questioned, even as his hand came to rest on her cheek bone, light as flight itself; light as how her heart felt at this moment.
She could feel the whole of her pulsing steadily with the impact of his surprising arrival. She drew in a deep breath; and then his mouth fell upon hers with a desperation that had to be illegal.
“Oh Chun,” she murmured, her small hands already seeking out the smooth, firm planes of his back, drawing him closer.
She would tell him, she decided, but only after this one last time.
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My greatest most sincere, most filled-with-love apologies for keeping you waiting so long but life has been a bitch. A bitch, but with the tendencies to be nice. Let's just say I've found my other half(: It's beautiful, really, but I guess you all don't want to hear about my love life.
Culmination is finishing soon. Very soon. By that I mean in around five chapters? Won't get very far there, I'm still working out the ending so it won't seem hurried and all. But Culmination has been great and I've loved writing it. But it's too early for a closing speech, I'll save that for the last chapter. I'll also tell you how I came to write it and who were my muses when I started on this baby.
I love all of you so much. Comments will be replied shortly(:
P.S: HOW'S THE NEW POSTER?
P.P.S: I'M THINKING OF CHANGING MY PENNAME TO LIA. WILL YOU GUYS STILL SUPPORT ME IF I DO?
Love, heartsong