Stop. Look. Listen.

See--

--The park, cherry trees not-quite in full bloom, but close enough. Not-quite as crowded as it might be in the peak of spring, but close enough. Couples, families, the occasional solitary, stroll under the canopy of white and pink.

Hear--

--Idle chatter, blending with the rustle of petals blown by playful winds, a low whispering murmur that seems to surround the world in a blanket--a cocoon that spells normality and safeness in its wordless dance.

Listen closer.

/Here/, a girl and her friend, speaking of all things inconsequential. They smile, they laugh, in the unchecked, careless way of the very young.

/Here/, a couple. They hold hands in the way couples hold hands, fingers twined, interlaced. Their laugh is of those who have thrown responsibility aside for a single, fleeting moment in eternity--cheerful, nervous, as they desperately clutch at seconds and believe that they are happy.

Snatches of conversation drift past, only just distinguishable from the wind--the sound of a world at peace.

Stop.

Freeze frame.

Fade the scene, paint it over in sepia and monochrome and pastels. A painting of life, a snapshot of that which is, a thin veneer over that which might be.

Does the world have a stop button? Perhaps--but if so, how would we know, caught like flies in amber should it be used? How would we know, if everything were to suddenly
pause--we, who measure time by change, by the numbers of a watch, second hands that shift incrementally with each moment.

If there is no change, does time happen?

Play. Go. Zoom in.

Do you see him? He, who sits under a cherry tree in full bloom, not caring as petals fall around and on him like rain--a bloody shower, a display of infinity and ethereality and beauty, all at once. His eyes are open, and shade of wild, grassy green, as he watches.

But does he see?

To listen is not to hear. To look is not to see. We live in a world of insincerity and lies, because the truth hurts, of course. The truth always hurts.

People avoid him by reflex--his gaze is that of one who knows only truth. One who has either let go of his lies, or has had them stripped away. His eyes reflect that, and looking into them hurts--even though he is very beautiful. Perhaps it hurts all the more for that.

He has commited the ultimate sin.

He has fallen in love.

Love is higher than obsession, three letters and one step away from hate, and synonymous to pain. It was through love that the first three sins were brought into being--Lucifer's rebellion, Adam's disobedience, and Abel's death.

So few fall truly in love, this day and age, that its illusion has become an object of desire--a mark of self-worth, a subject of countless plays and and books. Yet, the more one yearns towards love, the more unattainable in becomes--for, inevitably, it is the dream and their perception of love for which they wish.

Only those who feel most deeply have a chance of feeling love, and for those who grasp it in its untamed, true form--it is a curse.

Pan out. Pan around.

Still see him, he of the detached, ocean-quiet gaze. He has changed, his hair is shorter, he himself taller--yet somehow, he is still the same as he was that night, nine years ago--the night his sister died, and he with her.

Time has stopped for him, crystallized into a single moment of blood and pain and death and sakura petals.

If you consider life as a series of choices that one must make, then it only stands to reason that for every decision made, there are an infinite number of decisions that were not made. They are the echoes of dreams, but dreams are not the only place where they dwell, as enough possibilities exist to run a universe millions of times over.

For every decision made, there are an infinite number of worlds where a decision was made differently.

Perhaps, in one world, he had died, and his sister was still living--seeking vengeance, and falling in love.

Perhaps, in another, a green-eyed, loud, teenaged girl was the head of a Clan, her brother destined to eternally be her opposite.

Perhaps, somehow, somewhere, a Bet had been won, and three people were living in hard-found happiness...

Should he be glad that those possibilities exist in other realms, or should he be blaming himself that they do not exist /here/?

He does not know, and because of that, no longer makes decisions--unwilling to move forwards, and unable to go back, trapped in a sort of self-imposed stasis of isolation that only two people are capable of breaking.

Both are dead.

The breeze teases past again, toying with the edge of a long, white coat--so inappropriate for the weather, yet so appropriate for him. The gentle riot of flowers overhead shield the park from the outside world, an illusion of escape and freedom. What better place for he, who has withdrawn himself from reality?

What better place to find the one he seeks, who exists outside it?

What better place to hunt the predator than at its own hunting ground?

Predators are the perfect killing machines, because that is how they survive. Many people condemn the taking of life until the choice is forced onto them. Kill or be killed. Predators kill because no other choice is offered to them--yet, for the good of what is viewed as a greater cause in itself means nothing to those who are stepped on along the way.

Predators are perfect in their own way because their life is given to their art--which in itself, spells their doom.

Hunters are predictable.

Shift the camera. Mute the world. Tune it out, so all that can be seen is darkness, and shapes in darkness.

Illusion within illusion--Hear the near noiselessness of petals being crushed underfoot. Define the shapes, so the figure can be seen, somehow--black on black, coming closer, in a place where distance holds no meaning.

Maboroshi.

Shift the camera again. Turn it up. See a single bronze eye and the suggestion of ghostly feathers.

Words are spoken, but nothing is heard.

Press unmute. A sensual mouth stretches in a smile, welcoming and liquid, head tilted to the side.

"Why, hello, Subaru-kun."

"Seishirou-san."

It is true that names have power.

Everything has power, if you let it.

Names, on their own, mean nothing--it is people who attach significance to them, who give them meaning, who accept that meaning. Names cannot tell you what something is.

They are, however, capable of telling you what something is not.

He--who we now know as Subaru--gets to his feet easily, to face the other. He does not smile, but there is something different in his eyes--a more focused, less detached look--

In this reality, he does not fear change.

They stand, in a sourceless shower of petals, surrounded by nothing--black to white, the two opposites of the Yin-Yang symbol. They each complement the other, yet contrast themselves.

White is the colour of purity, holiness, enlightenment--the topside of the world, where everything can be seen and understood.

White is the colour of winter, the season of death. Yang stands for destruction and disintegration, even as it is the embodiment of peace and serenity.

Black is the colour of the unknown, of blindness, of fear--the flipside of reality,where nothing is as it seems.

It is also the colour of night, period of rest and renewal. Yin stands for conservation, for creation, even as it brings about turmoil and chaos...

A click--the sound of a lighter being flipped open, giving life to a small flame, bright and mundane and flickering. Subaru lights a cigarette, dangling the thin stick loosely between two fingers as he lifts it and takes a drag. The lighter is offered to the other with an air of indifferent politeness, but the gesture is refused.

Exhaled smoke lingers in the short distance between them--an gossamer barrier that swirls slowly upwards, occasionally shifted by their breathing.

"You hardly need to be picking up my bad habits, Subaru-kun," the Hunter says, still smiling that achingly sincere smile, which only hurts because Subaru knows it is a lie.

Humanity is flawed in that they place looks above all else. A beautiful person can get away with anything--because they're beautiful, nothing that they do could possibly be bad. In this day and age, where everything is a mask, such thinking is a threat to survival.

Nature has her own way of dealing with this threat, of teaching her creations the truth.

In nature, the most beautiful things are poisonous.

He shrugs, still holding the cigarette, as ashes glow and turn dark and are tapped noiselessly to the ground. There are many things he could say now--he does not. Words, spoken and unspoken, hang between them, heavy with the promises of things to come.

The air is still with the calmness that blankets the world before a storm, because when two such as they meet, the universe herself holds her breath--

The Hunter speaks.

The silence is broken.

And somewhere--

/--it begins to rain--/

"So, what brings you here?" Soft words, punctuated by a far-off, hypnotic rhythm.

"I was wondering."

"Wondering?"

"If you'd come."

The rhythm grows louder, melding with the darkness--a part of, yet apart. With it comes the scent of rain, clean and grassy and fresh. Close in, see the smoke swirl and drift in a thousand undefinable patterns, clouded over by their shadows.

"I thought you would," he continues, "But I wasn't sure."

"You came here just to test a theory?"

"How else to prove it true or false?"

Silence.

If words are defined in the context of other words, then people are defined in the context of other people--how people view them, what people think, all of those are like snapshots, images of that which is real.

Like photos, they are, yet are not, the person themself--and put together, they do not total up to reality. Yet, if a word on its own means nothing, is a person in total solitude truly a person?

They each are the only ones capable of defining the other.

Because of that, whether they admit it or not, they need each other.

Watch, as a single white glove is peeled off, to reveal skin marked with a reversed star, pulsing green and blue and black in time with their heartbeats and the sound of the rain. The unlit end of the cigarette traces that star lightly, gently, in a parody of a lover's caress.

"You marked me with these, nine years ago, and bound me to you..." He speaks almost to himself, but the Hunter listens, patiently--always patiently, because one cannot hasten a chase.

"But in doing so, you bound yourself to me--because there's no such thing as a line that goes only one way."

"So?"

"So... It took nine years, but I finally realised... that you are as much the hunted as the hunter."

He steps closer, taking the Hunter's hand in his--pressing the backs of their hands together, until an equal and opposite mark--an upright star--is imprinted against the other's flesh.

"Are you hunting me today, Subaru-kun?" The Hunter asks, a note of wry amusement in his voice.

"No. I'm just telling you. The hunt will come in its own time, won't it? It always does."

The Hunter nods once, almost imperceptibly, and draws his hand back, taking the cigarette, inhaling the sharp, bitter smoke overlaid with the scent of herbs and vanilla.

"Is that all, then?"

"That's all."

The meeting between them did not last long. They never do. He makes a simple, two-fingered gesture--tracing a line through the darkness. The darkness draws back, because the Hunter allows it to.

There is, however, one last thing to be done.

The Hunter crosses the short distance which seperates them, and he leans into the offered embrace for a kiss, searing and needy and deep. Closing his eyes, he lets his arms drift up to twine behind the other's neck, and pretends--this has become a ritual, those few times that they've met.

What the other offers isn't love, but it's close enough.

He is the one who breaks off the kiss, brushing the hair out of the Hunter's eyes with a feather-light touch. He steps through the rift that seperates reality from the illusion of reality, looking back only once with bright, muted emerald-green eyes.

The date is 31st December, 1998.

The end of the world begins tomorrow.