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Dear Scaramouche,
If you’re reading this, that means I have disappeared. Whether I’m dead or still alive, that’s for you to decide. Now stop right there - I know you’re panicking right now and will want an explanation. But as far as reasons go, I can offer you none. What I can offer you is one truth about this world.
Your life is a lie.
Think back to the first time we met. I know you’re scrunching your eyebrows right now like you always do when you’re thinking too hard. But no matter how hard you try, you won’t remember. You may think that I am the blurry haze of a boy smiling at you in your mind, but that is just something your brain made up to comfort you.
We have never met before.
That can’t be right, you tell yourself, so let me direct you to another instance.
The first time we kissed, it was winter. We were still young back then, no taller than the snowman your father helped us make. I threw a snowball at you before running away. You, enraged with humiliation, did not take long to catch up. Except I tripped, and you tumbled right over. Our lips touched somewhere along the way, and it was electrifying.
You had liked me for a while at that point; in love, was what your childish mind had lulled you into believing. Some people say that love at first sight isn’t real, but I’ve loved you since the moment we met. But you never believed me and perhaps that is what changes our future.
Now back to the kiss. You got up almost immediately, even though I was the sun and you were a lonely planet pulled into my orbit. You went against gravity itself to move away from me. Stop here and rewind. Can you truly remember what I did, what the expression on my face was? You always wore your feelings on your sleeve no matter how hard you tried to conceal them, but not me. Now stop thinking, because you’ll never find the answer to my question.
There was no kiss.
Our second year of college was when we broke up. You had given up your scholarship from the most prestigious university in our home country and ran away with me to the other side of the world. You had nothing there- no friends, no interests, utterly and totally nothing. For someone who had always cared about what other people thought, you couldn’t handle the pressure of remaking yourself to fit into this new environment.
We started fighting more. I remember reading about the mitochondria while you cried in the other room because your mom had just called. You loved her so much, but she never loved you. Your sobs were painful to hear, so I just put on headphones and turned the music up. She never called again after that. It was only later, did I learn that she had disowned you.
Perhaps I should’ve figured that out when you started working two jobs because she no longer sent any money.
You met a guy named Childe at your second job. He was everything I couldn’t be. He drove you home when you were too tired to take the bus and gave you his coat when you said it was cold. I should’ve done that for you, but I was so dumb back then.
I broke up with you when I saw the coat. You begged me through tears to listen to what you had to say, but I just slammed the door in your face. I slept poorly that night.
I’ve always wanted to ask you, Scaramouche, did you ever regret your decision to follow me across the world? I already know the answer though. You gave up everything for me, and I gave you nothing. Your trust in me never faltered, your love for me never wavered. You always believed things would get better for the two of us, but they never did.
I suppose in the end it doesn’t matter anyway, because none of that was real.
The last time we met I was with my new boyfriend. We’d been dating for almost a year at that point. I can’t even remember his name, I realize while I’m writing this to you. It’s funny isn’t it, that you were the only person I ever loved, but you were the person I let go of the easiest.
You had become famous, an actor of some sort. I went over to see what all the commotion was about. People were screaming your name, begging you to sign their shirts, which you obliged by pulling out a black marker. Your bodyguards were busy trying to shoo the crowd away, but you never listened to them. You looked so happy, surrounded by an adoring crowd who would do anything for you.
At least that was until you saw me. The expression on your face faltered and I don’t remember much about it except for the fact that there was so much pain in your eyes. Pain, that even after all these years, still carved a scar onto your heart. You capped the marker and for once, let your bodyguards usher you away.
My boyfriend asked me if I knew you and I told him that I didn’t, that you were nobody.
Nobody, I’m laughing at myself for using such a word. I have one chance to fix everything so I am writing this to the most important person in my life. You were never just nobody.
But nobody is also the right word, because it perfectly describes me. I am nobody.
I am not real.
So think hard Scaramouche, think back to the very beginning. Do you see it now? There’s a light at the end of the tunnel and They are standing at the end of it. They are getting closer and closer now but you can never quite catch their face. So think even harder, my love. Do you feel the heaviness of the wires connected to you, dragging you down in the liquid you sleep in?
Yes, of course. They have put you in eternal sleep.
Please, I beg you.
Wake up.
Yours always, Kazuha