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"Don't you worry" she said. "You'll be O.K. You could go running all around here in the middle of the night and you'd never fall into the well. And as long as I stick with you, I won't fall in, either."
"I'm so happy you said that, Really happy," she said with a sad smile. "But it's impossible."
"Impossible? Why?"
"It would be wrong. It would be terrible. It-"
"It would just be wrong-wrong for you, wrong for me," she said after a long pause.
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
_____________
I miss you.
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.
But I cannot say that out loud anymore. I have to stay. Raise those kids so they don't repeat our mistakes - or keep being the victim of someone else's mistakes. You should see them, Suguru. Yuuji, he joined us for a few months now… He reminds me a lot of Haibara, do you remember him? I wish you were here. You would've liked them. Especially Maki, I guess… But this is a conversation for another day.
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.
Never had the chance to give you a proper burial. I can hear you laughing and saying that no one would even show up. But I wish I could've taken your ashes somewhere, and talk to you. Make your little place in this world. Geto Suguru was here . But now all I have left is my own memory - how can that be enough? The worst part of losing you isn't the missions, isn't our classes with Yaga and for sure isn't those moments when someone asks me about you and what happened. I can deal with that, no matter how tiring that is, you know I can. But it's the fact that you're dying every single day inside of me; that day was just the beginning of your death for me.
''At least curse at me a little at the very end.''
Our intimate moments, the secret world we built, our inside jokes that no one knows about. I keep telling myself I will never forget you - and it is true. I will never forget that you were here, how could I? But eventually I will forget how it felt to touch your hair, the sound of your laugh when I told you a terrible joke. And no one knows it - no one will help me remember. I have me and myself only to rely on this. And someday, it will take me longer than now to remember the sound of your voice, to remember how your hair fell when you laughed throwing your head back. It will take me a while to remember what joke we used to make - and someday I will forget that joke. I will forget. And you will be gone, completely erased from my world.
When I look back at that time, it seems almost like another dimension. You know, you used to like to talk about that. How our existences are so small - compared to the greatness of the universe, we are dust. That we tend to think of parallel universes as whole other dimensions, but it is only bits and facets that we cannot perceive. We had our little world, didn't we? Remember that day in April, after a mission, when we went to Ueno Park, and no one but us were there, at 3 am. As hard as I try to remember the whole of that day, I keep missing little details - how was the moon that day? Was it a cold day? Were the cherries already blooming? I cannot distinguish from the reality and what actually happened anymore. I can remember only in blurr, and my heart seems to be shrinking. Can you help me remember, Suguru?
Sitting here, in this room, I built your little world. Everything you like is here - the girls' pictures, some of your favorite food… although mostly I eat when I talk to you like this, because you always handed me half of your food. Is it okay? Your favorite book. It is here, too. And I come here and talk to you. I'm sorry your memorial is just a tiny space on the corner of my room. Hope you can understand that, too. I feel like all I've been doing is asking for your permission. I wish i could say more than that, but an apology doesn't seem enough - or does it feel too much? I'm just throwing random words at this point, hoping you'll reply with few, but the right words. Always right.
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.
I will keep writing these mental notes, maybe put it on a piece of paper, because I need some proof - material proof; evidence; a confirmation that our moments existed, even though you and I were the only to witness. And when I'm gone - who will carry our stories? Sometimes I need someone to tell me that that night of our first kiss was real, someone to convince me that your existence was actually there, that you aren't someone i made up in my mind to feel my loneliness - because the Suguru I met, is different than the Suguru they met. I used to feel exclusive, knowing this side of you that no one else did, but now, all I do is feel lonely. And I laugh remembering that Sonnet you love, do you remember? I still the bit of it on my pocket - the part you wrote on that piece of paper when I was finishing my fruits parfait after that mission in Asakusa.
''Loneliness, the end of all lovers.
I'll be able to say to myself of the love (I had)
Be not mortal, since its flame
Be infinite while it lasts''
The ink on the paper seems to be erasing little by little. I took a picture of this poem, but your handwriting in this piece of paper is one of the few things left. Sometimes, I look in the crowd and ask myself if there is someone who met the Suguru I know, if there is someone I can share and laugh about your hair when you wake up, your habit of marking the page you stopped the book by folding it very thoroughly or with the leaf you found on that autumn night. Suguru, is there someone out there that knows you? Can I meet them?
I miss you, I miss you and I miss you.
But I can never have you back. I made sure of that.
I will keep these words, and hope you're listening out there, in our little space in this crowded large world we used to call home.
Our little infinity.