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Summer was particularly heavy with memories of spring that year.
Sayori distinctly remembered running her fingers through her hair, shaking off the soft pink petals that had rained upon her from the cherry trees. Her own laughter echoed in her head, mixing with Kazuya's, lithe sounds carried through the evening air — a testament to their bliss, witnessed only by nature’s quiet soul.
They used to walk beneath those trees every night during spring, arm in arm. Sometimes, Sayori wondered if the trees still remembered them. If they missed the daily company of an immortal couple so joyful it was damn near infectious.
Immortal. That's what humans called them, but it was not quite true. Just because they didn't age and could withstand what would kill a regular mortal didn't mean they were indestructible.
Sayori wished she hadn't had to learn so soon how fragile even the most resilient lives could be.
Only a handful of years had gone by since Kazuya turned her. It was supposed to be forever — all the rest of eternity was meant to be theirs. It gleamed upon the horizon as if it were destiny, so warm and bright it blinded them to the much more sinister reality looming beneath.
A sigh spilled from Sayori's lips as she knelt down at the edge of a marvelous pond, keenly aware of the temple behind her as if the building was staring her down. Avoiding her reflection, she dipped her hands into the water, laving them in the calming cold until the blood washed off.
She despised making a mess like this. Kazuya had been her guide into this new life. She'd never fed alone when he was by her side — she didn’t have to. But now, he was gone, and over these past few months, she had realized that she couldn’t starve herself on top of the burden that was grief.
Sayori rolled her shoulders and groaned. The scars on her back — where her wings had once been when she was still a creature of light — ached terribly. Scooping up a bit of water, she continued to wash up: Hands, arms, chest, face. A few speckles of red had landed on her clothes, but the maroon fabric of her dress hid them well.
Darkness had long fallen, offering a gracious shield from the daylight's searing cruelty, yet the air was still thick with summer’s warmth and the last traces of jasmine incense emanating from the temple. Fireflies dotted the night with their glow, and cicadas rasped their dissonant songs in the distance. With the pale wash of moonlight on Sayori's skin and its reflection rippling across the pond, it was almost a reprieve. Almost peaceful.
It would have been if Kazuya was here.
But Kazuya was lifeless in the ground back in Japan, a stake driven through his undead heart by a reckless hunter too ignorant to understand that not all vampires resorted to violence. Sayori had buried his ashes in his hometown of Otaru, and hadn't been able to bring herself to leave port for a full month after. Every week, she had booked a passage on one of the ships going to the mainland, only to cancel at the last minute and stay behind a little while longer. She hadn't known what to do with herself, so she'd clung to the memories that rose from the grave every night she knelt on the dusty dirt path before it, hopelessly watering the long-dead lilies she'd brought.
By now, she'd made her way to India. Not without leaving a trail of bloodless corpses behind, though. Her self-control had faltered rapidly without Kazuya there to guide her. He had been her salvation, and now she was trapped in the flaming purgatory of his loss. In the past, she had dreaded the day she might forget herself and hurt someone. Once, she would have wept for the dead, but now, the faces of those she bled dry didn’t haunt her. There was no room left for regret. Only hunger and despair.
Easy, my love, she remembered Kazuya whispering, his face buried against the crook of her neck as she fed from a stranger's wrist. Remember: Don't take more than you need. There is no scarcity when we leave them alive and well.
But the echo of his voice was already fading, like the faint hint of perfume on a long worn-out coat, and she didn’t know how to stop herself from swallowing everything in her path just to fill the aching emptiness inside.
Her stomach twisted, not from hunger anymore, but from the tangible absence that gnawed deeper than any thirst.
She wasn’t sure where she would go from here. Europe, maybe. Far away from the heat of Asian summers, she could hole up in a forest's autumn shade somewhere, soothe herself with a passing traveler's blood every now and then while waiting for the gloriously gloomy days and drawn-out nights of winter.
As her gaze drifted across the pond mirroring the shining stars in the sky, Sayori noticed the closed lotus flowers floating serenely on its surface. They were almost the same light pink as the cherry blossoms back home, and she couldn’t help but smile to herself. They were no cherry blossoms, but with the pink blooms’ intrinsic tenderness, they would have to do for now. A flower was a flower, after all.
Beauty is everywhere, Kazuya had used to say. Even in the darkest of places, there will still be joy.
The blessing of Kazuya's love was as fleeting as the beauty of the cherry blossoms in spring — an honor to experience, and a tragedy to let go of.
Even though it felt impossible in that moment, deep down, Sayori knew that she would survive somehow. She had fallen from heaven once, lost the very essence of her being to a petty dispute with her creator; earthly sorrows were no match for her resilience.
Just as the cherry trees would continue to bloom anew every year and the lotus would soon unfold beneath the morning light once again, she would have her renaissance, too. She had to believe that it would come in time.
Nature always found a way to grow and flourish, even in the most dire circumstances. She, of all people, should know not to underestimate God’s creations — including herself.
In the grand scheme of things, even grief was transient. Some day, it wouldn’t matter that what was growing from the ruins no longer looked familiar.
Maybe the weight of loss would never lift from her shoulders entirely, but breathing would become easier again — slowly, steadily — until one day, she might feel full of life once more.
Sayori had to hold onto that. She would.
Kazuya would have expected nothing less of her.