They say, when you want something wholeheartedly, the entire universe conspires to get that to you.

For the last forty-five hours, I've been through thin and thick, met new people, formed unexpected bonds, fought off scary beings, and also realized the gravity of that once simple childish phrase and I can't be more thankful than that.

And the person who has been with me all this while, I'll do everything in my power to make sure that he doesn't get hurt because of me.

I stare at his face blankly, maybe with an anticipation to hear his side of story as well.

"We...we should do...something bout the stone," he tries to change the topic.

"Whom did you let die, Misaki?" I ask discreetly, making sure I don't sound rude.

He scratches his neck, looks away from my curious gaze and takes an attempt to laugh it off, but he fails.

"Don't push it," I say while approaching him. "I, out of all people know, how it does feel to keep it all inside."

He looks at me, agony marred on his bright brilliant face, as if the sunflower being shaken off its clever petals.

I take his hand in mine, and enclose it with the other one, while looking deep in the eyes. "It's okay. I've told you my side of story, so now it's your turn, since you believe in give and take rule."

I smile, putting a little logic to my exposition.

He smiles seeing how the tables have been turned. "Okay, you win, birdie! I'll tell you. But yeah, you can't tell that old geezer that I told you anything."

"I make no promises," I taunt.

"Having fun there?"

"Yes, very much!" I crack a small smirk, seeing how it's giving him joy too.

"Birdie?"

"Huh?"

I look up at his face, but suddenly there's this thick flock of dark thunderclouds, lingering all over his face, instead of that cocky smile.

"Do you believe in soulmates?"

He asks, with wistful smile tugged at the corners of his lips, as if he can't even believe his own words.

I don't know how to answer this, without hurting his feelings.

"I used to," I reply, eyeing him nervously. "When I didn't know how good it feels to be alone."

He smiles at my reply. "I expected something like that from you."

He looks at my way. "I had someone like that...I wanted to protect her with all I had, be the reason behind her shy giggles, planned to travel the world with her, or watch the fireworks together in her hometown, Takko, on the sparkling nights of Sumidagawa."

He sighs deeply before continuing.

"She had always accepted me despite knowing how wobble I was. It was always me who was spending the nights at the lavish casinos at Tokyo, kissing girls behind her back, repeating the same mistake again and again. But she was like a fresh strap of sunlight in my life who loved me despite everything."

"Then?" I look at him.

"Then I was sent to Birmingham for studying law, and she came to stay with me, as my fiance. She was so happy, smiling all the time...but I fucked things up."

His face drops as he keeps telling.

"Then one night it all happened. I was drunk, and I made this terrible mistake."

He looks away from me.

"I took another girl home, and slept with her on the bed where we used to make love. And the worst part was, she walked in on us like that."

I gasp, realizing how hurt she must be that night to watch her lover with another woman.

"She ran away from the house instantly. Watching her like that, I sobered up at once and followed her outside. And before I could even make things out, a vehicle blocked my way. After distance swallows it far in the winter mist, I was about to cross the road, but I couldn't."

"She was lying there, all still and pale, blood flooding all around her petite body."

I watch a tear escaping his big black eyes.

"It was all my fault. I was so fickle and irresponsible," his voice cracks as he speaks. "In fact, I didn't even deserve her love. She wasted it on a person like me."

I grab his face tightly, using both my hands, and tilt it up, so that he is looking right into my eyes.

"What do you mean by 'a person like you'?" I snap at him angrily. "I don't know what you've done in your past life, but I've seen what you've done for me, and trust me, nobody does that even for their own child."

"She didn't just give her love to a wrong person," I tell him sincerely. "Yes, you were wrong there, but you reflected on yourself, and that's the big deal. Those hookups meant nothing for you, right?"

He nods his head slowly, but doesn't say anything. The darkness from his face start to dissipate.

"Your love for her was real, and so you couldn't ever let her die. It was all an accident. And that is the one to blame, not you."

"So stop beating yourself up over it, and let's go now. You remember your promise, right?" I cut some humor to soak up the air, as I start to levitate.

"You talk so well, you know?"

"What else can you expect from a writer?" I smile while rolling my eyes.

"Wait! You are a writer?" The shock is legit in his voice.

"Yeah," I reply coyly, my voice low, and eyes distant.

I scratch my nape. "I guess, I forgot to mention?"

"Oh you definitely did!"

"But can we go now? It's not something I really talk about," I tell him genuinely.

I write still now, but not like before. The reason I found my inspiration in writing love songs, has dissipated long ago.

"Wait! I think, this time calls for the flute," he exclaims, but there's no mere hint of sarcasm on his face.

"Pardon?" I exclaim as bewilderment rushes over me.

"Hold on, I'm getting it for you!"

I wait for him impatiently, before he finally shows up with our bag.

I almost forgot about it.

He takes the flute out, and hands it over to me. "Take it!"

Observing it closely, I look at him expectantly. "What to do with it?"

"I dunno," Misaki informs me nonchalantly. "I guess, you'll see on your own."

A frown finds its way in between my thick brows.

"Misaki, don't play around," I warn him.

He puts his hands up in a defensive way.

"Geez, birdie! I honestly don't know. Cause its actions are different, every freaking time. It changes its exertion according to the need of the one who is using it. But whatever it is, the outcome will always be in your favor, so suck it up and hit it however you want," Misaki puts in some courage.

Somehow convinced by his words, and taking a final glance towards the elegant silver flute, I place my lips cautiously against the lip plate, and exhale air in there from my mouth, while pressing the keys in an amateur clumsy order with my non-expertise hands.

Various tunes start to frisk out of there, making me a bit nervous and scared at the same time.

But still I go on playing with a thought of the unknown and uncertain.

After a moment, I watch the glow in Misaki's pale face returning, as he cracks a half-smile diligently.

Following his gaze, I turn my head towards the source of his excitement. My eyes widen as I quietly watch the tiny sherds of the blood stone gathering together up in the air, and right before my eyes, they get united like it has never been distorted.

My lips tremble as I stop playing the magical flute, and a bizarre excitement drapes me for what I'm seeing with my very own eyes.

Never in my wildest dreams have I ever thought of witnessing something so surreal, so magical, so bizarre but miracle. And here I am, inside my astral body, with another soul, venturing out to seek for the lingering strains from my past, crossing half of the globe, meeting mystical entities once I never believe, and witnessing a surrealistic reality.

It's indeed surreal!

*****
75 minutes left.

We are standing before the mundane hospital where he is admitted to.

My heart is thumping rapidly and nervously, with anticipation and agony overlapping with each other.

"Go ahead, birdie! This is all you've been waiting for," Misaki encourages.

Nodding my head slowly, I turn towards him and cast him a mellow smile.

Without giving him a chance to protest, I hold him into a tight hug, taking in the muddy manly smell from his body, and catching him off-guard.

"Thank you for everything," I tell him genuinely, with gratitude legit in my voice. "I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to repay your kindness, but I'll give it a try, I guess."

"Hey, hey, birdie! Now you're scaring me."

I let him pull out of my embrace.

"No, I mean it," I tell him with this smile on my face. "And let me, cause you know, how stubborn I can be when I'm determined."

He stretches his arms, while looking at me. "Yeah alright. But don't come crying to me if Luc kicks your ass."

I chuckle in both mirth and incredulity, being unable to decide which emotion I should side with.

"Don't worry bout that, moron!"

We both laugh at this point. And then we stop ourselves suddenly.

"I will miss you," I break the silence.

"Me too," he whispers while pulling me for another hug.

Sparing a brief moment to indulge in the silence, he pulls away, with a bright smile plastered on his face.

"Let's not waste time, and shoo away."

I nod at him, returning his smile with my own.

I start to float away, taking one final glance at him. He waves at me with his usual excitement.

I laugh as I realize why he said his nickname is Charm.

Before I could enter through the walls of the hospital, his voice stops me.

"Oye, birdie!" I turn my head towards him.

"Show your prince that not every girl is a princess who is in search of a prince like him!"

*****
A sudden rush of familiar emotions comes over me like those incessant rows of ocean waves, as I finally come across his room after a long search through the narrow hospital alleys.

But what surprises me the very moment I enter his room is that his body is lying still there on the white bed of the private lounge of the shiny hospital, but there's his astral body sitting on the couch beside his bed, looking at his own immobile body in a stupefying gaze. And if I'm not that wrong, I see a bizarre melancholy in his both eyes, with which he once used to fascinate me without even knowing.

"Ishaan," I call out, my voice just above the whisper.

All the astral fibres in his body go numb in seconds. He doesn't react in any way for a few moments, maybe being unable to realize the surrealistic reality of the moment, and the fact that I'm standing beside him, calling out to him with the same voice which has received his calls on every 7th of July.

I walk up in front of his eyes, making him look up to me.

"Commie," his deep voice rumbles. "Is that really you? Am I finally dead? Are you dead too?"

It seems that a sudden unexpected wave of solace sweeps over his face, as he cracks a small smile.

"What are you talking about? You're not dead, neither am I," I tell him, while taking a seat beside him, keeping the distance between us.

His face drops with the realization.

"Then what is it? How can you see me? Nobody can see or hear me!" He looks intensely into my eyes. "Tell me please."

"That doesn't matter. Even if I tell you anything, you won't believe, and so I don't wanna make a fool outta myself," I tell him genuinely, emotions brimming in my tone.

"Try me," he exclaims with confidence.

"I don't want to." I close my eyes for a moment to prepare myself.

"What are we doing, Ishaan?"

He stares at me blankly, not getting where I'm trying to go.

"What do you mean?"

"How you got into that accident? We're you driving and calling me?"

"What does it have to do with your question?" He looks perplexed like always.

I hate it when he does that.

"It does," I tell him, my voice a bit blunt as a deja-vu entraps me in a whirlwind of past. "Am I right? You were calling an driving?"

"Yes, I was," he replies after a moment.

"Why you still call me? I told you to not text me anymore!"

"I don't, Commie. I don't," he cries out sincerely. "But it was your birthday! How would I not call? You also do the same for me."

"But I would never risk my life so recklessly while doing so! Unlike someone!" I tell him off.

He doesn't response for a moment, but only lets the silence rasp as he hangs his head low.

"Weren't you the one who told me that you had no feelings for me?"

He looks up to me, and taking this interval I hold his gaze in a fierce grip within my sore one.

"Then why you did that? Why you never fail to stir up my peaceful space? Why you always try to intervene in my life, even it has to be with your mere text?"

"I wanna die, you know?" His voice trembles, as he speaks, and I watch his whole body shaking and there's water prickling at the corners of his eyes, but he's too stubborn to let go.

"I don't wanna live anymore, and...this seems like the perfect chance for that, but I don't know why I'm still stuck here like this!"

"You think, dying is that easy, huh?" My voice swells with anger. "You should be on your knees thanking that you're given a choice! People don't usually get that."

A tear escapes as I thought of both Misaki and Luc. If given choices, their lives would've been better.

"Tell me, Ishaan, why you don't wanna live? What emotion makes you take that choice?"

"Anger!" He looks up to me, his voice trembles as he speaks. "I'm angry with myself and my whole damn life."

"What drives you angry?" I retort. "You took every decisions in your life, liberally on your own. You left cricket on your own, you chose not to love anymore, and even it was you who decided...to marry a stranger, despite...knowing everything."

I take a moment to ease up my pulse.

"Then why are you angry, when you were the one who has made every fucking choice of your life?"

"I don't know," he tells me quietly, pain legit in his voice. "I don't know why I wanna die, or why I do that you. I tell myself everytime that 'I shouldn't care', 'she's no one', 'she must be happy', 'I'm married now and I should focus on that', but...I dunno why I end up thinking about you...all the freaking time."

I think, this is the first time I'm hearing a sincere confession from him. But at that thought, my heart doesn't swell with bright summer days or fresh morning dews.

"I can't help it! Maybe now I know what you meant when you said that 'there's no replacement for important people in our lives'. And I guess, no one can ever take your place away....Perhaps that's why I still call on your birthdays...as an excuse, and desperately wait to hear from you."

"I don't know why I feel like this way," he concludes, while shaking his head.

"There's only two possible things that could be happening with you right now," I speak attaining his focus on me. "Either you're guilty for how I got hurt, or..."

"Or?" He urges.

"Or you also feel the exact same way that I used to do." I let go of a deep breath, without feeling butterflies going alive in my stomach.

He doesn't speak for a moment, his deep eyes swarming with some emotion, I can't decipher.

"Both can happen, right?" He asks, looking at my way.

"Not impossible," I reply lowly.

"So what if..."

I cut him in the middle. "Don't finish it. Nothing is more sadder than those presumptions....I only wish...we had made these presumptions at the same time."

My heart aches with pain, but I make sure that there's no reflection of that on my face.

"Let me go," I whisper discreetly. "I beg of you. Go back to your body, and try to find love where it should be. Maybe it's just beside you, just that you can't see it."

I tell him what Luc has told me before.

"I let go of you, so you need to do the same for me."

He looks at me, his face telling me a thousand things which I wanted to see three years ago, but not anymore.

"Don't contact me by any means, and I'll do the same...Let's only meet if it's by coincidence. And hopefully it won't happen anytime soon," I conclude with a half-smile.

By the time, I pay attention to his face, I watch a tear slide past his cheeks. And then before I could protest, he engulfs me into a tight embrace.

He nuzzles his face onto the crook of my neck, letting his warm breath tickle the skin there.

"I'll listen to you, but let's just stay like this for a moment," he whispers in my ear, tightening his hold on me.

I let him hold me, enjoying the moment briefly, even if I don't feel anything like the before, but it gives me joy to know that the person I used to like, now likes me back.

I pull away subsequently, and cast him a mellow smile.

"Let's meet again by coincidence," he tells me, looking deep in the eyes, with sincerity legit in his voice.

I nod approvingly. "Hmm! Let's do that."

The next thing I know is, that I watch mutely his astral body colliding with his physical form, and in moments, the room gets filled with people he knows, all showering love to him.

I go still when I realize that amidst all these, his eyes are somehow fixed on me, which means that he still can see me.

He smiles faintly to confirm my assumptions. Tears roll past his cheeks, as he looks at me.

Water prickles my eyes as well, but I don't let them fall. I watch his wife wiping his wayward tears, kissing his forehead with so much affection.

Taking one more look at his way, I smile widely before leaving his room.

I take the Homecoming stone out, and hold it firmly inside my palm, and follow exactly what Luc asked me to.

Something swirls inside me as if pulling me downwards with too much force, and then the next thing I know is that my eyes peel open, and I exhale deeply, making vapours go crazy around my mouth.

Letting my eyes run over my surrounding, I realize that I'm back to my dorm room. I get up instantly, pushing myself up with my elbows, and take the oxygen mask off my face. Maybe Jackie had put it on me, since I don't remember wearing this last time, while going out of my body.

"Jackie," I call out for her, the desperation prominent in my tone, as I don't see her anywhere near. "Jackie!"

The room to our shared bath space gets slammed open, and Jackie comes out of there, in her own glory. Her shirt is almost drenched, her eyes are filled with wary, and she gasps for air like crazy as she runs over to me in a heartbeat.

"Woah! Woah! Girl! Looks like you forgot to put your panties on," I joke in a bad attempt, trying to loose the tension in the air.

All of a sudden, she hugs me tightly, taking me by surprise. I hug her back, as I feel something wet on my shoulder blade, pat her back in a slow pace.

She pulls away immediately, her eyes now swollen.

"Commelina Ray! Why you never fail to give me headaches?" She snaps at me.

"What..are you..."

She gestures me with her hand to stop.

"I'm not done yet! Why the hell you start having a panic attack all of a sudden, and your heart rate was falling like crazy?"

I give it a thought, and I think, it might be the time when I was seized by the necromancers.

"Oh! It was nothing! I just..."

She interrupts me again.

"It must be nothing to you, but you don't know how worried I was," she snaps at me sharply, while getting up from my bed.

I get taken aback to see concern in her deep pool of forest green eyes, instead of anger.

"Maybe there's someone who cares for you, worries after you, looks after you, help you, support you...no matter what. Maybe you've ignored it, cause it's impossible or trivial."

Luc's words ring in my ears, making my eyes widen in both realization and terror.

I look up to her face with bewilderment. Her hard face softens, as wary sweeps through her.

"...maybe it's just beside you, just that you can't see it."

"Are you alright?", she asks me discreetly lowering her voice.

Yes, Jackie is the one who has always been there with me through thin and thick for the last three years, looked after me even when we were in different zip codes, put up with all my messy self, supported me no matter whatever path I've chosen, and she is the first one I told about my past without receiving any judgement from her.

I put on a wide smile on my face, making the confusion on her face go convoluted.

Stripping the IV lock off my hand, and putting the cover aside, I get down my small bed, reaching over to her tall frame.

Without giving her a mere hint, I climb of my tiptoes, pull her down to my level, grabbing the collars of her shirt, and press my lips firmly on her soft ones.

I guess, our beginning means the start of a new complication. And I love complications.

I am Commelina Ray, and this is how my story begins.

*****

THE END