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I looked up at Saber. “Hey Saber, what do you think of wish fulfillment fantasies?”
The blonde girl thoughtfully chewed on the spoonful of rice in her mouth as she stared at me and considered my question. Finally, she swallowed and asked, “What makes you ask this question, Shirou?”
I shrugged, faking an air of nonchalance. “See, I used to spend a lot of time as a child dreaming of a world where that fire didn’t happen. Where my parents were alive. They were all ways to cope with my guilt for staying alive while everyone I knew and cared about died but - but it helped me a lot back then.”
Saber placed her spoon back in her almost empty bowl of rice as she nodded. “Sometimes it is only our fantasies that keep us going through hard times. It is not the fault of someone if they dream of a better world, especially if they cannot achieve it.”
I shook my head. “But isn’t it wrong to simply dream about it? I decided to do whatever it took to never have that happen again to the people I cared about, and everything I did from then on, was to prevent others from being hurt.”
Saber had a soft smile on her lips as she stared away from me. She spoke softly, “Not everyone is fortunate enough to have the opportunities to make their desires a reality, Shirou. It is even harder for people to make the world a better place for others, when they do not even have the resources or the opportunties to be able to make the world a better place for themselves.”
I leaned back to rest my head on the couch behind me. Saber silently continued to eat, while solemnly staring at me with that expression that always assured me that everything will be all right. Such a silence usually evoked a distinct sense of peace but my mind was a mess. I said, “It is frustrating. Frustrating to hear that so many people will suffer, and they will not be able to do anything about it but endure. That I cannot do anything about it. That I could have been in the same position as them. That I only got lucky.”
She considered that as she sipped on the miso soup I had made. I hoped she liked it. I hoped she liked everything I made. I hoped she was always happy around me. That’s all I ever wanted these days, really.
I was pulled out of my distracted musing as Saber said, “The world is profoundly unfair. All we can do is to accept the odds given to us and try our absolute best to create the world we desire. You know, before I became a king, I used to idly dream of a better world too. But those dreams were of tiny things. I used to dream of feasts, of a loving family who took care of me, and sometimes of being respected and valued in the village I lived in.”
I smiled. It was rare that Saber would talk about her past - before she was crowned a boy-king - and I would cherish every moment she would share those memories with me. “I’m curious – what was your favorite daydream back then?”
She wore a bashful smile. “I was a young girl then, barely 13 years of age. I dreamed of a happy family, a father and mother who were well off and cared about me.”
I nodded. She continued. “I sometimes would dream of a mother who would call me home in the evenings for a hot meal in a fine house, one like the richer girls had, and would daydream that mother and father and I would eat our evening meal together and talk happily about the things we did that day. Those were simpler times, and I did not know my parents. All I had were my aunt and my uncle, who were very caring, but also very busy. I guess I thought that living with my real parents would have been significantly better than what I had. Little did I know how different the future would be for me.”
I lay in the futon, the heavy covers enveloping Saber and I as she lay in my arms. The smell of her freshly conditioned hair after her evening shower gave me a sensation of belonging that I had never felt before. Her fingers were intertwined with mine and I felt the warmth of her body on my skin. She wore an elegant white nightgown, one that she said “was fit for a king” when she first saw it after I bought it home for her. I wanted to caress her, but I didn’t want to let go of her hand, so I just lay there with her.
Finally, she turned her body to face me, adjusting her position so that her head nestled under my chin, and rest partly on my chest. I took the opportunity to caress her head, and she sighed in satisfaction as I did so. I continued to caress her, as I whispered a question that had been on my mind for some time. “Is it worth it to live on afterwards, if I lose you? If everything we have right now will be only a memory?”
She opened her eyes, but she didn’t turn her head upward to face me. She continued to indulge in my caresses, and it was only after about a minute, that she replied. “If, for some reason, you lose me, then I do not want you to give up on life. You can mourn me, you can dream of me, you can talk to me in your head, but I don’t want you to think that the world is meaningless without me.”
I swallowed and paused the caresses. She turned her head upward, curious about my reaction, and I lightly held her chin and leaned in to kiss her. Her lips parted pliantly and her scent made it hard for me to think of anything but her. As I began pulling away from the kiss, I felt her hand grasp the back of my head and pull me in as she satiated her hunger for more. I relented and she softly moaned as I got myself on top of her as we kissed. It felt like an eternity had passed, after which her soft lips separated from mine, leaving a thin strand of saliva that joined our mouths. I smiled and ran a thumb over her lips to wipe it off. She continued staring at me, with an intensity of adoration I never could have imagined I would get, and never thought I deserved.
“You”, she began, after a few breaths, “are my everything. And I am your everything. Even if we are apart physically, these memories we hold, and the times we shared, will keep us together even in the depths of hell.”
I felt like I was going to tear up. Her proclamation of how she perceived our relationship was almost too beautiful for me to bear. I instead rest my head beside hers, my face nestled in her hair, my body over hers. She wrapped her arms around me, one around my neck, and the other over my head, which was now caressing me as I did her minutes ago.
“Saber”, I said, my voice cracking with the emotional intensity of what I was saying, “I keep thinking of a world, a reality, in which I never met you, and never got to be with you. A world where I would know you existed, but could never see you, talk to you, laugh with you, hug you, and show you my love for you. A world where I was profoundly alone, and the only thing keeping me going were memories of a world with you, that I never experienced.”
She showed no indication that my confession was strange. The subtle cadence of her caresses continued to steadily calm me down.
I continued. “In such a world, is it really worth living, with only memories of us to sustain me? Perhaps that Shirou should try to move on instead. Or perhaps give up on his life.”
Saber hushed me, and then whispered into my ear. “Shirou, darling, it’s all right. Even if we never meet, even if we never laugh together, even if we could never hug each other, and all you have are false memories of times we spent together in a world that only existed in your head, as long as it helped you live a happy life, a life that you would consider worth living, then it is worth it. If you find someone else that can make you as happy, or happier, that is even better. But there is no shame and there is nothing wrong with fantasies of us being the one thing that sustains you in the darkest times of your life.”
Her words were everything I wanted to hear, and more. “Thank you.” I said, and she kissed my cheek in acknowledgement.