5 years later.

Izuna:

I huddled into my knitted scarf, breathed in the warm air created in the purple cashmere. The snow was flying around me, covering my hair in heavy flakes. I looked up into the sky, stuck my tongue out. Izuna, you're THIRTY-TWO, you should really not be doing this.

But HE was thirty-two and he most definitely would...

I found myself stuck in a daydream where we were walking hand in hand in the snow, me pulling him along, him running behind, laughing.

"Where are we going, Izuna?"

I stopped then, turned to him, and he put his arms around me.

"The stars", I whispered into his lips in the daydream, and leaned in to kiss him.

It had been seven and a half years since he died. I was surprised to realise the sadness didn't diminish; it just got easier to live with. I still woke up with nightmares of his torture, but sometimes, I also woke up in tears, not understanding why until his death struck me like a brick wall, over and over.

I held the tulips close to my chest. I'd gotten them in a beautiful little flower stand, and the bouquet was ginormous, with thirty bright-yellow tulips that looked fantastic in the snow.

I walked through the graveyard to his stone. It was a stone directly on the grass since it was an urn grave, that was covered in snow. I reached it, sat down on my knees, brushed the snow off the stone. I pushed away the images of Emil's body in a cremation oven and sighed.

"I'm the same age as you now", I said, swallowing back tears. "It feels so strange. I will keep getting older, but you will always remain the same. You will also be thirty-two. You would be thirty-nine if you were alive." Tears fell across my cheeks now, mixed up with the snow. "I... Oh, God!" I hid my face in my hands. "I wish we had met under other circumstances. I wish we would have met in a bar or online or something, anything but this." I wept softly for a while, my tears landing on the tulips in my lap. I took the bouquet and put them on the ground, next to his stone. "Perhaps, I'm seeing something that was never there. Emil, I've created a world with the two of us in it that might not reflect reality as it was. Am I this obsessed with you just because you died? I'm sorry." The apology was a whisper. "I'm so sorry."

I always hated leaving. It felt like I abandoned him and, even worse, that he died all over again. I let my shoes form soft footprints in the white blanket of snow while I left his grave behind me.

Tobirama never texted me.

I had thought it would be one week of agony, two weeks if I was unlucky, one month absolute maximum.

But it was five years ago now, and he never texted.

After two months, I couldn't stand it anymore, but texted him.

He didn't answer.

I called him, and found his number had been deactivated.

I spent the first year crying myself to sleep almost every night. I didn't understand.

But then I did. It was what he'd said before he found me raped; he couldn't see himself with me after all we'd been through. It would never work. I just wish he would've written to me, explaining.

But he hadn't.

I came home to my apartment covered in snow. It was a different one now; a bigger and more central one which I'd spent tons of money on renovating. It was open, airy, with a high ceiling that I'd painted white and with dark grey walls. It had two bedrooms, one ensuite and one bathroom, both of which I'd renovated so they were dark grey stone with gold details. I'd done everything myself together with Chris and his wife, and I loved it.

I went to the fridge to pick ingredients for dinner, and stood to cook with Julien Solomita on YouTube in the background, whistling to myself. I had been quite depressed the first few years after everything had happened, but now, I felt lightyears better. I'd gotten used to this life. I'd had several sexual relationships and one night stands, but nothing long-lasting. I'd just given up. There were only two men I could think about, and one of them was dead, and the other one might as well have been dead.

It was fine, really.

I sat down with my chickpea pasta salad and bubbly water to do some paperwork. I was the head of the entire police force now, and it took a lot more work than before. But I loved my job still, and I earned a good bit of money which had enabled me to buy and renovate my apartment that I loved so much.

I worked for two hours, then took my dishes to the kitchen, put them in the washing machine and turned it on. I went to my bedroom to lay down and read for a while. On autopilot, I picked my phone up to check for texts.

Five years later, I still did.

He won't have texted, I scolded myself. Stop it. He won't have texted.

I read a few chapters in my book then.

But my mind was elsewhere.