Hajimete no Koi ga Owaru Toki

Hajimete no Koi ga Owaru Toki- When Love Ends For The First Time


I laughed into the brisk emptiness that surrounded me. It was not the sort of laugh I would have let out as a child when everything sparkled with life and promise; this was a laugh like leaves too dead to cling to their branches, falling underfoot and crunching with their brittle death, inebriated with autumn’s chill and slickness and rotting sunsets, a laugh of someone who’s eyes had opened to the cruelties of the world.

A winter wind brushes my cheek,
So I blew on my hands and rubbed them together.
The city is lighted dazzlingly,
As if magically casted by angels.

We hadn’t spoken for two years, seven months and fourteen days. But hey, who's keeping score?

I just couldn’t say it.
My feelings I kept inside.
This is what I’ve decided to do.
It’s alright, I won’t look back...

Whenever I recalled the last time I saw him, I was always surprised by how he had grown from an awkward, shy boy to a gorgeous young man with a perfect smile and flirtatious wink. Hello there, ladies, he would say while flashing a grin at some bubble-headed girls from the next class, and they would blush and giggle and subtly flick their dyed weaves in response. Everyone knew him as the rich and gregarious playboy, always laughing, smiling and joking around.

Thank you, goodbye.
A childish, unrequited love.
I want us together.
But hey, this is what we call a goodbye, right?

Sometimes on the bad days when he was being too loud and using too much hair gel, I couldn’t see what it was about him that kept people so enchanted by him. But on the good days when he was being more like himself and wearing his huge framed glasses and sauntering into class with crazy bed hair, I could; I could see the shy, awkward smile, the silly laughter and the clumsy charm he had in every little action.

Is it okay to let this only be a bittersweet memory?
I asked myself if this was true.

I could also see the swing of the fist coming towards me as that horrible lumbering oaf sneered while calling me names; and my best friend and first love, with his huge framed glasses and awkward smile and messy hair coming right into the trajectory of the blow, the one that would send him falling down the stairway and his skull echoing with a sickening crack before it was suddenly silent, silent from all the shouting and fighting and screaming from before. And I didn’t understand what had happened until I found myself cradling him in my arms and uselessly trying to stop the hemorrhaging with the edge of my white shirt that soon turned into a macabre crimson rose in full bloom, spreading its thorns and pain all over my pale skin.

Thank you, goodbye,
I won’t cry;
The moment I thought that,
Softly, the snow began to fall, so flowingly.

I tried to smile, but it felt crooked; for a moment I was worried that it would fall and splatter to the floor like a piece of meat still pink inside and not cooked through.

None of this was the reason I was crying.

I cried because I loved him, and because now I know what it meant to love him. It wasn’t him proclaiming his love for me in a heady garden of crimson roses as bursts of fireworks exploded in the shape of my name, it did not mean I could casually swipe the bottle of pills from the kitchen cabinet and drink them down with poison, though I had once thought of it. But that would be a slap in the face to him, because he had thrown away his life for mine.

I wouldn’t kill myself.

I can’t say a single word.
Just give me the courage to speak, please;
…I have to go.
I promise I'll find you, au dessus de l'arc en ciel…

He had smiled brokenly: Always… the… crybaby… E…lise…

Then, something in him had snapped, and the light in his sunset-golden eyes gave out, leaving an empty doll resting on my lap, nothing more.

Cal? What…?

…Cal?! Callum Amaranthine?!

CAL!!!

Can I cry, just for this moment?
There is no need for words, just keep holding me tightly.
I am happy that we met;
I love you…

When you fall for someone... it doesn't matter the reason, but the moment it's over and they're gone, there's a kind of pain that stays with you forever. Doesn't matter if you find someone better, kinder, sweeter; the memory will remain in some little fragment of your heart, the first time you discovered what this beautiful, bittersweet emotion is without fanfare or show, just honest, wide-eyed smiles as shy as children— forever the moment, when love ends for the first time…