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It’s on cold, long nights like these that she feels her absence most. Nights when she looks up at the sky and outstretches her arm to her left, her reflexes not accustomed to stargazing alone; without Sua’s hand in her own.
Mizi struggles to understand the aching in her chest, the muffled weeping in her ribcage which never seems to be the same crying which comes from her tear ducts.
The way Sua’s face lit up when their gazes met always rendered Mizi breathless, starstruck. Tonight the stars glitter down at her, mocking the now-dulled light in Sua’s eyes; and Mizi finds herself breathless once again in the form of thick, suffocating sobs.
She rolls over and buries her face in her pillow, stifling the low, ugly sounds from her heaving chest. Once her eyes have been shut long enough, it’s almost like she’s lying on Sua’s chest again.
Almost.
It’s never enough.
Never enough to mimic her smile, or her voice, or her smell, or her laugh…or the way her arms wrapped around Mizi’s body. The pillow isn’t nearly firm enough or warm enough to feel like a human’s touch, anyway. Not even to feel like Shine’s touch.
Shine…
Shine couldn’t have known what she was subjecting Mizi to by placing her in Anakt Garden, right? She couldn’t have known any better than Mizi herself.
Oh what she would give to wake up in Shine’s lap again, for it to have all been a dream; for Shine to be there, and for Sua to not have sang with her yet. What she would give for it all to have been stage fright.
What she would give to stand on that stage and sing with Sua forever.
What she would give to stop time right before the gun went off, when Sua smiled at her so ethereally and she felt her heart flutter, her body warm, her shoulders relax…
Mere seconds before the gunshot. She had felt so safe.
Maybe if Mizi hadn’t gone to Anakt at all, she wouldn’t have met Sua. Then Sua would still be here to hold someone else. Someone who could save her.
Mizi buries her face in her pillow, out of tears to shed but not of reasons to cry. She puts her own hand in her hair and begins humming My Clematis softly. The weaker her humming gets, the easier it is to pretend her own hand is Sua’s. The easier it is to pretend, the safer Mizi feels; and the sooner she can fall asleep.