A/N:

Hi, I'm back. I realize it is that time of the year again, the Tanabata Festival. I really want to enter this story in the Festival, but I'm not sure if they will hold it again this year, or if this story is eligible since it will be a multichapter-story, or if I can finish it before the Festival ends, yet I'm so excited to share this story with all of you. And it fits so well with the Tanabata themes: about separation and reunion, about love that lives through time (well, lot of time) and hardship

So yes, I can't wait to post it. It's all thanks to jylener22 that I can update this early.

I plan to update once every week, but we'll see about it.

Uhm, due to the nature of this story, there will not be a standard length. Most of them will be short though since I don't want to leave out too much information, LOL. So it should be an easy read for all of you.

(6/2/2013)

Her name was Orihime Inoue, and she was older than she looked. Much much much older than she looked. How much older was she than she looked, you wonder?

Look at her. She was sitting on a huge rock, watching over her grand grand-grand-grand nephews (grandchildren of grandchildren of grandchildren of her nephews, how many generations she had lost counted), still looking like a 16 years old girl.

The truth was that she hadn't aged since she was sixteen, but she only realized it when she was thirty, exactly at the time she was getting married and was so scared of the idea that she had run away from her own wedding, only to brooding over it hundred years later.

She wandered her eyes over the playful children and rested her chin on her palm. How carefree of them, not tasting a bit of life, innocent and naive, like she once was. The ground on which they were playing was the same ground that she had been playing on when she was a little; the same ground that she had trained to become a hunter; the same ground where she first met him, bleeding and preparing to die; the same ground that held her brother's funeral; the same ground that she first used to teach her nephew to become a hunter; the same ground that was to be her wedding's holy ground; the same ground that witnessed her nephew's growing up, his wedding day, the birth of his children, his death… and the circle continued. Oh, thinking about it began to give her a headache.

How many more circles did she have to witness? How much pain did she have to bear, to see the ones she loved die one by one while she was still living, watching their sufferings, again and again, without having any power to do anything? She was so tired of this life, yet she could not leave this world because it was a sin. Moreover, even if she wanted it, she couldn't do anything about it. She took her knife out and sliced a line through her palm. Like always, the wound healed before it could even bleed.

What wrong with her body? When did it happen? Did it happen since birth? Or did it happen because someone had done something to her body without her knowing it or remembering it? She didn't know. She didn't know anything, yet those questions kept bothering her, so she decided to go out to the world for the answers.

Years and years passed. Years and years she travelled and came back without an answer. Years and years she witnessed the death of everyone else but her own. Years and years she wished for a miracle to happen so that she could get old and die, like others. Years and years she wished to have a normal family, to have children, but she couldn't.

It was true that she could get married and have children, as many time as she liked, but it would just double the pain of living. She sighed. Besides, she didn't believe she could love anyone like the way she loved him. She didn't know it was fate or curse, the day she saved him. Taking a bleeding stranger in an era of wars and chaos into one's house was an unthinking thing at that time, yet to a sixteen years old young girl, it was heroic and totally cool. Moreover, she didn't have a heart to let him die. Though he was cold to her the whole time he stayed at her house, she took a real liking to him because to her, he was a real man. He didn't talk but let his action speak for him. From helping her brother with the hunting to teaching the village children how to read and write, he did it with an aloof and disdainful attitude, but he couldn't hide his kind heart from her. She even found his coldness, lack of emotion, and poor social skills somewhat cute and amusing. She loved to pulling him into the forest with her, laughing at his scowl, the way he shook his head in disapproval, the way he scolded her, and before she knew it…. she fell in love with him.

Not until later, she found out he was an agent of the King, and her brother was a member of the rebels. He was a spy whose purpose was her brother's death. Rage overwhelmed her when her brother's body was brought to her house by him, in the rain. He was covered in blood, mixing his own blood with her brother's blood and the rain. He turned his back and left, and she swore never to forgive him.

Years passed, and she devoted her life for her nephew's health and happiness. She knew that he had always helped her in the shadow, yet she couldn't forgive him nor could she kill him. For she couldn't do both, she decided to let it be until one day she found out the truth about her brother's death.

That he wasn't the one who killed her brother. That he actually betrayed his master, the King, and helped her brother to escape. Yet on their way back, her brother's comrades mistook her brother as a traitor and demanded their lives. Her brother committed suicide to prove his innocent and to give the man she loved a way to escape so that he could reunion with her.

The union had never happened until ten years later, when she was thirty.

That night before the wedding she was so nervous, so nervous that she went to meet him though she knew it was bad fortune to meet her husband before the wedding. She just wanted to ask him if she was too old for him, that if he still loved her if she got older and older.

He just smiled at her and caressed her face with his thumb, "you are still the same as when you were sixteen, and my love for you will remain so."

Their lips touched for a chaste kiss. If she had known that it was their last kiss, she would have let it last much longer.

She went home, happy and looked at herself in the mirror. He was literally correct. She looked exactly when she was sixteen. She touched her face. It was youthful and smooth. There was not a single wrinkle to be found on her face. It was impossible for her to look this young after 14 years.

She got frightened and began to think of all kind of possibilities if she was indeed unable to age. She couldn't think of anything but unhappiness. Soon he would realize their differences in ages; that he kept getting older and older, and she was the same. Even now, he looked much older than her. What happened if they have children? What happened if their children kept growing up while their mother stayed 16? How could she be with them? They would be disgusted by her. They would all think of her as a monster.

She was so scared, so she ran away. She had hoped that it was just her over imagination and one day she would age, and when that day came maybe she would come back.

She wouldn't blame him if he didn't wait for her.

Yet he did wait for her, but no matter how long he waited for her, she didn't come back because no matter how much time had passed, she didn't age.

One day he didn't have to wait anymore because his time had come.

No matter how much she cried, he wouldn't come back.

No matter how much she cried, she couldn't come to him.

No matter how much she cried, they would be forever separated.

XxXxXxXxXx

She wiped her tears away and looked at her great grandnephews and nieces. She clenched her fists. Only if she knew who did this to her! She doubted that her body was like this since birth. Her brother and his children were perfectly normal. Someone must have done it since she was little, and if she found him, she would let him taste a little bit of her pain.

"I found it." A youth came near and raised his hands up in triumph. "I don't even know how much time I have wasted, but I finally found it."

A/N: Please do tell me what you think about this story. Constructive criticisms are more than welcome.

Oh, and have any of you had a guess of who her lover is/was? LOL.