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You had always loved stars. Do you remember how we would enter the glass garden at midnight every time we got the chance when we were young? We would climb that huge tree at the center, and then we would gaze at the stars together, you pointing out the constellations and I admiring your celestial halo. We would always go back and forth, telling each other it was not a good idea, for it was dangerous, but we would eventually just resolve to catch each other if we fell. When you fell, I could not catch you, and when I did, you were no longer there. You could not stay with me because you could not fulfill your duty to protect me once you got injured, and I noticed that I had fallen several times over only after you were gone.
While you were away from me, instead of hitting the ground or being caught by someone else, I continued to fall even further. In fact, I began to spiral even faster. With every passing day, I felt a void in your place. No matter how many suitors approached me, I could only think of your astronomical beauty. Not one person I met could compare to you, and once I finally realized that, I felt a piece of my heart shrivel. It had been my fault that you had left me. I could not force you to stay. If I had, I wondered whether you would be happy. Perhaps even I would not be happy, because of your own discontentment. You probably would not have shined the same, and the guilty feeling I had felt when you left would have been greater than the number of stars surrounding Earth. Thus, I continued to fall with no hope of ever being caught or accompanied by you, the one I truly needed.
Then, as if you were a shooting star, you reappeared and disappeared again. Although you stayed by me for years more, it felt as if you had vanished within only a few seconds of your return. I thought that, when I held your pale, cold self that night full of beautiful constellations, my heart grew cold and pale along with your body. I could feel it breaking and crumbling and withering. I could feel it crying out along with my voice, calling your name in agony and the realization that I had been the cause of your squandered youth. You had used your life as my shield, but with your life punctured and bleeding, my entire reason for being was as well. I felt a different type of falling. It was frightening and painful, cruel and unfair. I imagined that it was a type of falling you had already experienced once, in our childhood.
I knew it was selfish, but after you disappeared once more, I often dreamt of lifelessness. I asked God to take me, to bring me to where you sat with him in Heaven. You could probably observe all the stars at a closer proximity when you were up there. I wondered if you looked down upon me, if you listened to that wish, if you were upset that I would ever request something that you had so plainly opposed. The thought that you wanted to welcome me with open arms up there also crossed my mind. I found myself thinking that you would have ended up just like me if I had been the one to fall like a star instead of you. However, I continued to brush off such a notion and shamed myself for craving the heavenly release of passing on from my lifeless existence.
But I do not want to keep falling. It is a dizzying feeling to awaken to each day. At this point, I cannot even get up enough to visit the place we used to love. So, Suna, my Sun, my Blazing Star, I hope you will welcome me when I finally run out of the energy I need to keep going.
Your Moon,
Osamu