I am not surprised to find myself in a luxurious hotel room such as of Babel. I am also not surprised when I find out that I am naked and not all alone in bed. I am not at all surprised to find out that the person next to me, sleeping contentedly so close to me, will be June. Everything that happened between the two of us last night... I can remember every single detail of it. And I don't regret what happened.

Since I finally started to slowly get to know June again, throughout the last few days, layers and layers of memories have started to return. At first, I thought of them as dreams. But when Eden told me about most of them, weeks ago before that banquet night... I could say that life had never been too good for me. My teenage years was wrapped by complete tragedy and sorrow, that there was even a very small glimmer of light among such thick dark clouds. Still, whoever I was before shaped me to be this person. I'd been dying once, and here I am completely alive. I'd been haunted once and countless of people tried to kill me, and here I am pretending to be someone whose memories were still tampered to the woman I'd loved years ago.

June stirs next to me, and I suddenly close my eyes and pretend to continue sleeping. I know too well that June has been the observant one as always, and she'll instantly realize that I am just pretending. She knows—as I do—too well that a person's breathing pattern when he sleeps is different from when he is awake. But for some reasons, she doesn't seem to realize it since I feel her turning to look at me fully. Also, she has been so bold as well for her fingers to trail my cheek lightly, even to the extent of shyly touching my lips. I have every intention at that very moment to embrace her and kiss her once again, equally as passionate and as hungry as I did earlier. But I will myself not to, and I even tell myself not to smile because it will give her a hint that I love what she is doing even if those actions are completely out of character.

Few seconds later, as if she realizes what she is doing, she pulls away and turns away from me and to the other side of the bed. I hear shuffling and shifting. Only when I conclude to myself that she is moving out of bed that I finally move to wrap my arms around her, pressing her back closely against my chest, wanting not to lose her yet, wanting her to remain here with me.

She doesn't even elicit a sigh or tried to let go. She allows me, and I allow her to succumb closer to me. Few minutes passed again, and I am slowly feeling sleep pulling me back that I hear her mutter, "Why?"

"Huh?" I inquire, feeling my eyelids about to droop close.

"Why did you?" she asks again. "I thought we were to keep our relationship on professional level. Anything going on—"

"So you admit that there's something between us," I interrupt, and once the words are out, I so wish that I could take them back. But I know too well that there's no way that I can cover it up anymore, and June is not someone who will take such words easily.

"Two times that I've lower my defense to you," she answers, visibly shy with her words. "Still knowing that I've done countless of horrible things in the past that caused you too much pain. All the while knowing that you may not remember most of it and I used it to my advantage to—"

I hold her much tighter, stopping her right there. I bury my face against her dark thick loose hair. She smells like roses and lilac, of strength and beauty and intelligence all at once. I mutter, "I know. But it is all in the past. Nothing that you have done in the past can make me stop loving you."

"No," she replies as she looks at me. Her eyes, with visible burning tears, glimmer in the dim light from the bedside table's lampshade. "You don't even know. How could you love someone like me?"

I move to hover above her and place my hands on her cheeks, looking at her straight in the eye. It breaks my heart seeing her this way, seeing her doubting my love for her. Well, I can't blame her. After all, I am the one whose memories were lost for quite some time. It is I who've been gone from the Republic just to be in Antarctica for a decade. It is I who've fallen in love with her before my memories returned, and will always love her still. The man who is bound by fate to love her despite the circumstances.

I brush the tears that build up in the corner of her eyes with my thumb, and I kiss her once on her forehead. With a smile, I tell her, "I love you, June Iparis. That's just the way it is. I endlessly love you alone."

Her tears start to fall down her cheeks and I almost chuckle on how I genuinely love her expression. I don't hesitate to lean closer to her, kissing her on the lips intently. And even if she doesn't make me know that she equally feels the same thing, everything she does completely makes me know that in some level, she also feels the same way.

* * *

The next time I wake up, it is about noon already and I am all alone on bed. Not to mention that when I move out of bed, calling for June if she's still in, I don't hear any reply. Also, knowing June, she is not someone who'll decide to spend the whole day completely not doing anything. And just as expected, she has left a note by the vacant side of the bed. I know too well that it is her note, since it is one scratchy handwriting, completely an opposite from what I expected of her to have.

It breaks my heart to wake you up.

And I want you to have all the rest that you can have.I've ordered a lunch for you, all prepared on the table.Pierre also called. He told me that Anden needed me.It seems like there's a progress with the investigation about those rebels.Don't worry, we'll find Tess as soon as possible.- June

Being able to read June's note instantly draws me back to reality. I instantly move away from bed and rush to the bathroom, take a quick shower, and finally, dress up. Since I really don't bring any clothes or things with me, just myself alone, I don't hesitate to call the front desk for my checkout. I see the meal that June mentioned at the table, and having every intention to reach her right away at the capital with their investigations, I decide to only reach for the toast bread having no appetite for a full meal at all.

* * *

It is unnaturally cold for August. I am glad that I'd brought my jacket with me yesterday. I've hidden majority of my short blonde locks underneath my baseball cap, and I pull on the hood of my jacket to complete my disguise. I keep my cap's shade low enough to hide my face since the last thing that I actually want is for someone to recognize me.

People will occasionally turn to my direction since I arrived here. Of course, they know who I am. I am the Day who the Republic calls their hero, their Champion. And though I've questioned it before, I start to realize that the other one they are calling Champion of the previous Great War is June. Surprisingly though, they don't try to reach me at all to have a photograph or an autograph of me. Perhaps they are too shy, or whatever.

I keep my hands buried in my jeans pockets as I wait for a taxi cab to pull up the driveway. But all of a sudden, I hear someone shout just across the other side of the street pointing a finger at my direction, clearly catching my attention, "Look out!"

I don't hesitate at all to turn my direction to where the man across from me is pointing, and looking at the side of my peripherals, I notice a man in a suit wearing a full white mask pointing a pistol at my direction. The people close to him start to notice him and cower farther from him. But it is no doubt that the man has his gun aimed directly at my direction.

As I stand there frozen, three men in suit as well but instead of a white mask, wear dark tinted sunglasses, instantly pulls me down to the ground, completely holding me down.

Then, the man fires the gun, the crowd screams, and the JumboTrons in front of me erupts in flames.

It is a riot within seconds. The unmistakable huge crowd of people starts running and screaming in all different places. But I keep my eyes focus right at where the man trying to assassinate me had been previously standing. His target at me had been a complete miss, and the smell of gunpowder and blood in the air just so close that I could guess that someone was hit by his false shooting.

"Are you all right, Mister Wing?" one of the suited man that surrounds me asks, a little hint of worry on his voice. It is surprising to find out that someone will still keep a close watch at me. I thought that I manage to divert their attention and escape them under such disguise. Perhaps they are those I'll try to practice to one day successfully avoid.

"Yes," I manage to reply. I pull away from the guards and I wonder if they hear me amidst the different voices around us at the moment. I start to break away from their circle and start pushing them away to move on towards where the man had been. I mutter, "The man..."

"Sir," another from my guards snaps and holds my arm to stop me from going any further.

But I shove my arm away from him and break into a dash while dodging people after people heading against me.

"SIR!" I hear them shouting out for me all at once and I can bet that they are all trying as well to move towards where I am heading.

Years of not running away from a group of people always chasing after me might be a disadvantage. But survival instincts and secret wish for some chase suddenly clicks inside me, pushing me to the limit of my running that I thought I've lost already. I easily duck under different people, keeping a sharp eye at the familiar man in a suit. I can easily see him with his white mask still on, glaring behind him to see if someone is following him. And when he notices me, he suddenly turns one corner.

I follow afterwards, always on his tail as he enters the fire exit of one building, and when he starts running the narrow stairs of whatever building this is. By the fifth floor, he glances beneath him to see me still following him, and he doesn't hesitate at all to point his gun at my direction again - three floors beneath him. When he fires a shot, I'll duck and avoid getting hit. It continues on until he reaches the last floor, coincidentally ending in one hallway at the eighteenth floor, and out to a rooftop with turbines, pipes and exhausts littering the floor.

"Who are you?!" I shout at him once I see him standing on the baluster of the rooftop, looking at what's beneath the building or perhaps the view. "I don't have any intention to hurt you. I just want to know who you are."

"And that question of yours will be followed up by why I am trying to kill you," he counters, turning to face me.

Goddy hell, of course! I'll try to divulge that one as well.

Curiously, he places a hand by the side of his mask. He lifts it up a little, enough to show only the shape of his jaw and his mouth at me. "I promise you, Daniel Altan Wing," he begins with a confident grin. "The Old America will arise. And when it does, it will take everything you love, everything you hold dear. Even her." With that, he jumps off the edge of the building.

I dash to the edge, gripping onto the handrail intently as I peek below. There's no commotion on going down there, and no hint of a dead body lying on the ground. That only makes me think much more of where he has gone.

Yet, his words to me... it is enough to make me insane with worry.