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He sits in front of the piano, half hidden in a corner of the library, but his hands are still. He’s turned so that he can see her, where she’s close by, curled up in a big blue armchair angled towards him.
She’s immersed in a book, strangely still for someone who’s so full of the energy all the time. A lock of blond hair has fallen in front of her face. It’s a little wavy since she hadn’t bothered to straighten it up after taking a shower. He likes it like that. It reminds him of the blond curls of his friend, back when they were just beginning. Two children who ran chasing each other in the fields of red grass and dreamed of seeing the stars together. So long ago, before she ran away and he went mad – before all the bad that happened between happened, when they were simply best friends.
How often had he wished to go back to those simpler times? Too many. He likes to think she has the same wish, but he hadn’t dared to ask. For if her answer would be any different from his, well… He has done so many bad things already, just to get her attention. Their endless game of cat and mouse, where she runs and he follows, unable to help it. It’s lethal really, for she loves to run, and he’s never been good at letting go.
And how could he, when she is the only one he has ever truly loved, and she – she loves too much, too easily. Hearts in her sleeves and always for those pets of hers, mayflies who sooner or later – and mostly sooner – will wither and die, or otherwise choose to leave her. And truly, she sets herself for heartsbreak every time, but still always finds someone new, just never him. Not him, who could love her till the end.
But then again, his love has always been the destructive kind. Or maybe what’s so destructive are two of them together. He’s a monster, and so is she, no matter how much she likes to pretend otherwise. They both have been drenched in the blood of countless beings, have destroyed whole planets and races – their own included. Sometimes it’s on purpose and sometimes simply because he loves to cause chaos, loves to see it unfolding and she, she causes it without even meaning to. And together, they feed on each other’s darkness, the madness within them both.
And still, somehow, they always end up like this. First meeting somewhere and both hating and yearning for each other – and utterly unable to help the pull of the other. And when they meet, it’s explosive – often quite literally and she always ends up getting the best of him, finding a way to destroy his plan. And he lets her, for else the game could not continue. And that would be truly tragic.
It’s also soon after – and sometimes during – those meetings of theirs, that they end up like they now are. Spending time together like this, somewhere where no one else can see them. Right now, her newest ‘friends’ as she calls them, are relaxing at their own homes, completely unaware that he is here with her, by her invite. And that neither have any ulterior motive for this meeting, but to enjoy the company of their oldest friend, someone who knows them best.
She has always kept so many secrets from her companions, and even more so with this lot. He knows how exhausting it is for her, to hide and pretend. That’s why moments like these are so important. Because she doesn’t have to hide in front of him. He knows all that there is to know, and some that even she doesn’t know. And for him, to be able to be that for her, it’s a heady rush that feed his possessive side, the one that has always hated to share even a fraction of her attention with anyone else.
Of course, he knows that this won’t last. It never does for too long. Sometimes it’s only a matter of hours. Sometimes it might be weeks or months – decades during their last go around – but eventually they feel the need to pull apart and then they’ll spent a decade, maybe a century or few more apart, before the game is on again and new round begins.
But until then, he will enjoy this.
“What?” she asks, pulling him from his own head. He notices that she has lifted her eyes from the book in order to stare at him, having felt his gaze resting on her. He smiles slightly at her.
“Nothing, my dear. Would you like me to play something?”
She seems to ponder his answer awhile, likely sensing that he wasn’t entirely truthful with his explanation, but they are still in the good place, so she lets it slide and shrugs her shoulder, going back to her book.
“If you like.”
He rolls his eyes, turning to face the piano properly. They both know that she likes it when he plays, but of course she’s never going to come right out and ask for it. Stubborn and prideful as she is. And he loves her for it. Always a challenge, is his beloved.
He starts the first piece and can feel her startling. She wasn’t expecting that he would play anything like this, he knows, but today he feels like reminiscing. The song isn’t completely adaptable for an instrument like the piano, with its limited scale of notes but he finds that it still works quite well. When her soft voice joins his playing, he is surprised, but hides it well. She has always had the lovelies singing voice, no matter the body. Some traits and skills are like that, like his love for drama and ability to play instruments and her love for running. Still, she so seldom uses her voice, and he thinks it’s a real shame. Maybe he should play songs from their memories more often, if this is the result he gets.
And as the words of a language, all but lost, fills the library, he can’t help but remember their home, as it once was. And judging by the silent tears rolling down her cheeks, even as she sings the lullaby, he’s not the only one who is remembering red grass and burnt orange sky, the twin Suns bright above where two children run, playing game of one chasing the other.