Kirito drove back home and opened the door. It was half past eleven and the lights were out. Two candles lit on the dining table and Vivian was asleep on the dining table.

"What the--" Kirito looked at that shameless woman sleeping on the dining table like her father owned the damn place! Well, her husband did. He went ahead to pick up her up but then he saw a small note her hand.

"I've put the dinner in the oven. You just need to heat it and you can have it. Next time, tell me before you leave, I get worried. How old are you seriously?" He read aloud and crushed the paper.

"I am not a kid." At the end of paper, in a small font, it read- 'flip'. He flipped the paper and it read in a huge font

"Anyways I love you" Beneath it, again in small font it read "If you're hurting Hiomi, then you don't have to say it to me, I know how stubborn guys can be. Just don't return this paper back to me if you are feeling exhausted, I won't ask for it. If everything is fine, keep it back from where you picked it up."

Kirito read it and looked at Vivian. The platinum ring on her hand shone bright in the moonlight. He looked at the paper and then at her. He smiled and said to himself "Who is the kid now?" He looked at his reflection on the sliding door before and stopped smiling.

Then he kept the paper over the candle's flame and watched it burn and fall on the glass dining table. He went towards the oven and took out a plate of nuggets. The ashes of the burnt paper spread over the table.

He kept the nuggets and a soda can on the table. He ate the food while looking at Vivian. Then, he looked at her fingers. They seemed chapped and were covered with bruises. He gulped down the food and moved his hands towards hers. He pressed his fingers on hers.

"Rough," He moved his fingers away "And she talks about taking care of ourselves-- Someone who can't even take care of herself"
He got up and kept the plate in the sink. He took the leftover soda and walked towards the balcony. He opened the sliding window and a huge gush of wind entered the room. The candles blew off and all the paper ashes flew away in the wind.

"Great, it's all dark now." Kirito took a sip of the soda. He searched for the power switch as he pressed his hand randomly on the walls. He couldn't find it even after he finished the soda. He kept the empty soda can in the balcony and stormed inside the dark-- tripped and fell.

"Ugh! Fuck!" He shouted. Vivian woke from the loud noise which was obviously impossible to ignore.
"Hiomi? Is that you?" She asked as she got up slowly.
"Unfortunately yes- Tss! I think I scraped my elbow. Why is this carpet so hard? Change it! And why are the light switches so far away? Change them too!"

Vivian switched on the lights and looked at him, stuck between the decoration pot and sofa.
"Are you okay?"
"Of course I'm not! Come help me!" He shouted.
"Okay!" She helped him get up.

"Ah--My elbow! It broke!" He shouted.
"No, it's just a scratch" She slapped the bruise. Kirito shouted in pain.
"Oh sorry. Does it hurt?" Vivian asked.
"No, no it feels awesome. Want to give it a try?"
"I'll get the first aid kit"

Then, she sat in front of him and applied a disinfectant over his wound. She blew over it several times and then covered it with a band-aid.
"There" She closed the box.
"My luck isn't going very well nowadays. First that accident, then that dream, now this."
"Dream?" Vivian asked.

"Yeah, a weird one. I couldn't sleep after that. And everything seems so difficult now. Everyone is being a complete jerk and no one is near when I need them!"
Vivan nodded as she picked up the box and kept it back at its place.

"And also I," Kirito wined for about half an hour continuously.

'I'm complaining for the first time. This is so unlike me... but it feels good. I don't want to stop'

He took a deep sigh while sitting on the mat "Don't you feel sleepy?" He asked.
"No, after all, you're talking." Vivian smiled "You usually don't talk a lot."
"Not really. I talk a lot. You should sleep, cause I can speak throughout the night"
"In that case, I'll listen to you throughout the night"

"If you can, sure"
"It's not a not a matter of can or cannot. I just want to do it" She stretched her feet while sitting on the mat. Kirito looked at the fallen candles "Lives are like candles, some of them are blown away before they could burn completely."

"Yeah. But a candle that doesn't burn for very long also lights up the world, atleast for a while it does."
"And what after that?"
"After that, there are more candles. It's a cycle,"
"What if that candle is irreplaceable?"
"Well, it's not the length of life, but the depth that counts. Only when we are no longer afraid of death do we begin to live. It includes every death-- Yours and not yours" Vivian said.

"It's not like I want to live"
"You will eventually, you'll know it as the spring in your heart begins to broth and overflow"
"And how will that happen?"

"No spoilers" Vivan smiled.
Kirito grinned "Spoiler! We all die in the end"
"You never know how far the end is"
"Till we take our last breath" Kirito lay on the carpet.
"Life is not measured by the breaths we take," Vivian lay beside him.

"Then?"
"It's measured by the breathtaking moments."
He looked at her. She laughed as she looked at him. He pressed his hand on her cheeks "Breathtaking moments, huh,"

She stopped laughing abruptly.
"Say, can be people counted as breathtaking moments?"
"I don't know..." She blushed. He moved away and looked at the ceiling.
"Fuck! You know that bastard Kurosava? He is after you! I want to kill someone. And that has to be him!" Kirito shouted.

"I see, so your criminal tendencies come to power when you're jealous"
"I'm not a criminal." Kirito said, coldly and in an offtune manner.
"That was a joke--"
"I don't like such jokes" He got up "You should sleep now,"
"Hiomi..." Kirito moved towards the bed. He covered himself in the blanket, pretending to be asleep while Vivan lay on her sofa.

'I have started to depend on you now.'

Meanwhile, Jericho sat on the Statue of liberty while reading a book, basking in the afternoon sun.
"You know, the tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

You're twenty nine , and you still haven't started living. But well, as mortals always say. It's never too late--Not until you're dead atleast"

- To be continued

Vivian Garnette
My Heart Hates Me