Girl In The Winter's

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

But don't you remember?

But don't remind you?

Don't you remember?

Don't you remember?

The reason you loved me before

The reason you used to love me

Baby, please remember me once more,

Love, remember me again

When was the last time you thought of me?

When was the last time you thought about me?

Or have you completely erased me from your memory?

Or have you completely erased me from your memory?

I often think about where I went wrong

I often think where my fault is

The more I do, the less I know,

The more I do, the less I know

A piece of verse from the song that had a beautiful flow in her ear made Ayumi take a deep breath and slowly throw it away trying to lighten the burden that was squeezing her chest. His eyes looked back at the crowd as he felt someone standing beside him. His heart suddenly skipped a beat when he saw the figure of the man who had made his heart feel love and pain together.

"I know you will definitely be here" Erik said casually as he looked forward as the girl had done.

Ayumi again felt the pain and disappointment that plagued her heart, she turned around to leave Erik when the man said something that made the girl stop her steps.

"So he's your mother's husband?" Erik turned to face Ayumi, his body leaning against the wall fence, his hand stuffed into the pocket of his black pants.

There was no reply from Ayumi, she just kept waiting for what the man would say next, "I see you have accepted their presence, even you have a Big Brother, really?" He continued but there was still no response from the girl standing before him, "Good, I'm happy for you. But why didn't you tell them about your lover?"

Ayumi snorted at Erik's words, "You want me to tell them about you?" Ayumi said in a cold voice, "You want me to tell them about you who left me without news for almost three years, and suddenly appeared in front of me and already has a fiancee, you want me to tell them about that?" Ayumi continued in a voice filled with emotion and anger that made Erik slightly jolted in shock.

"Not me, but your other lover," said Erik who made Ayumi frown.

"What do you mean?"

"No need to pretend like that Ayumi, I know everything." Erik advanced towards the still-silent Ayumi looking puzzled, his sharp eyes staring at the girl coldly, "Ah, is it because now he's an artist that you're afraid of becoming a scandal that will destroy his career?" Furthermore Erik who made Ayumi frowned did not understand.

"What exactly are you talking about?" Ayumi asked who only made the man before her look even more angry.

"I told you not to pretend in front of me!" Shouted Erik who made Ayumi flinch, "I know everything, I saw with my own eyes how the two of you hugged each other, even this afternoon I saw him from above how the two of you had lunch together, he said, smile at each other happily regardless of the people around."

Ayumi tried to digest Erik's fiery words, she furrowed her brows thinking until she finally found out what the man before her meant.

"You think I'm dating Kevin?"

Erik raised his eyebrows, "Isn't that true?" She said coldly, "And let me guess you moved here too for following your lover isn't it?" Continue with a cold voice.

Ayumi took a deep breath, now anger pressed against her chest, with her unsettling eyes looking at Erik who was also looking at her.

"You!" Ayumi exclaimed in a growling voice, "You left three years ago without any news from you. Like a madman I'm waiting. Like a lunatic I send you messages every day that you never answer. Like crazy I miss you!" Ayumi took a deep breath before returning to shed all her frustration, "And now you stand before me with all that nonsense." Ayumi snorted for a moment, "Today I know how stupid I was for waiting for you until now, how stupid I was for crying every night missing you, how stupid I was for believing you would come back to me, how stupid I am, and how stupid I am for loving you!"

Erik flinched at Ayumi's words, staring at him with a look of hurt eyes, "But you, you didn't even tell me just to cut off our relationship after you got engaged, you didn't even admit to knowing me and now you're even accusing me of betraying you?"

Ayumi tried to catch her breath gasping with emotion, both of them were silent, not a single word came out of each mouth for a while, the sky was reddened, showing a twilight shade that highlights two people who used to love each other is now only silent with flogging emotions.

"Now, who's betraying? When you had a fiancee and I. I was still late with my own feelings, the same feelings I had three years ago when we were together," said Ayumi breaking the silence after being able to control her emotions and return to normalcy.

Erik was still silent, his heart was pounding when he heard Ayumi's words, the girl still loved him until now just like him, but that night he saw it for himself and it had proved everything.

"I saw her Ayumi, I saw her with my own head how she knelt before you while grasping both hands before she finally hugged you with a fluffy smile on her lips."

Ayumi frowned not understanding what the man in front of her who was looking at her sharply.

"What do you mean?" Ayumi's question made Erik's anger reappear.

Ayumi's face paled, there was no more fire of anger in her eyes that was now a look of sympathy.

"My family introduced Yuri as my lover, but my heart didn't acknowledge that, my heart looked for another figure, a figure that always made me look up at the sky without knowing what I was looking for, until I finally saw the rainbow and my heart was pounding when I saw it, without being commanded my lips said 'Iris'."

Ayumi's eyes now look teary hearing Erik's story and the reason his lover disappeared all this time.

"Your name is the first thing I remember, Ayumi!" Erik exclaimed in a quivering voice, "They forced me to get engaged immediately, but I always rejected her because I knew, that girl was not Iris who made my heart flutter, she's not the girl that makes me so fond of snow and sunsets, she's not the girl that makes my heart feel warm."

Ayumi could no longer hold back her tears that began to flow down her cheeks, and she roughly wiped them away.

"I've been looking for that figure for almost a year. Slowly my memories began to return, the pieces of images as I spent time with you that first appeared, until finally all my memories returned a few months ago," Erik took a breath before resuming his words, "After I remembered everything, like a madman I went to Canada for missing you, even I was against my parents begging me not to go back there and accept the engagement they had arranged. But no. I'd rather go back to your side, Ayumi. It was with a feeling of happiness that I went on that journey hoping you were waiting for me under the maple tree in Stanly Park accompanied by the novel and music that came out of the earphones as usual, and you're gonna run around after you see me."

Ayumi wanted to scream that was what she had always done in her spare time for almost two years, sitting in the garden hoping that her lover would appear behind a tree.

"But when I got to the hotel lobby, I saw you coming out of the elevator looking pretty in a blue dress, you were walking hastily towards the back garden, you know, I was about to catch up with you when I saw Kevin chasing you complete with his official outfit."

Ayumi remembers it now, the events of her graduation night and the same night she learned Kevin was her half-brother.

"I lost track of the two of you for a while, until I finally saw you sitting on a park bench with the man kneeling before you, your hands clasping together before he finally hugged you happily," erik said in a voice full of emotion.

Ayumi looked at Erik, "Did you hear what we were talking about back then?"

Erik smiled mockingly at Ayumi's question, he walked back towards the wall fence, his body leaned back, his legs crossed, his hands put in his pants pocket, his eyes staring back at Ayumi sharply.

"Do I need to hear how she reveals her love for you? Or hear how he proposed to you?" Asked Erik cynically.

"So what did you do after that? Go back to Korea and accept the engagement?" Tanya Ayumi did not make a mockery of Erik's words.

"Yes, at least Yuri faithfully waited for me even though I had decided after I met you, but she remained faithfully waiting for me, when I lost her memory that was beside me, even when I refused to get engaged to her and went to see you she was still faithful and accepted me with open arms."

Ayumi's heart ached to hear all the praise of the man she loved to other women as if her sacrifice had been meaningless.

"Good, at least he has faith in you, unlike me you don't trust at all" Ayumi said.

"I trust you, I believe you won't betray me but apparently I was wrong, you easily moved out of your heart" Erik said in a growling voice.

"If you believe me why don't you ask me what's really going on!" Ayumi exclaimed, her chest up and down, her breath hunting, she could no longer hold back her emotions, "You left without asking and immediately accepted the engagement with another woman. Did it ever occur to me that day he congratulated me for graduating with the best grade? Or maybe she was comforting me because I was sad and expecting you to be at the graduation party? Or maybe he is, my brother?"

Erik was speechless at Ayumi's impetuous remarks, his little heart cursing itself for leaving without any explanation from the girl, but the ego kept him in a stubbornness.

"And you think I believe that?" Erik asked casually which made Ayumi even more hurt.

"Yes, of course you don't trust me," whispered Ayumi with teary eyes, "I'm foolish to trust you by surrendering my heart to you just to get hurt," ayumi continued with a trembling voice and made Erik's heart feel tight.

"I don't think there's anything else we can talk about, I'm free to explain everything because you're just gonna believe what you believe is true, and you know what? It just makes you a selfish person and hurts others."

Erik gasped at Ayumi's words, saying, her sharp eyes were trying to find the truth inside Ayumi's black eyes but the one that was visible there was only the look of her wounded eyes that made her heart ache because she was the one that caused it all.

Suddenly Ayumi snorted cynically which confused Erik, "Do you know? This is the second time you've judged me without asking me anything."

Erik was speechless, he remembered the incident in the campus garden last fall, "But now it's different, I see it with my own eyes." Erik did not want to lose making Ayumi could only throw a breath, his head looked up at the old orange sky with a bunch of birds flying added to the senses that afternoon.

"Do you see those birds?" Ayumi asked without taking her eyes off the group of birds flying, "What do you think of when you see them flying?"

Erik was silent his eyes were staring at the birds that had started to move away, before looking back at Ayumi who was staring at him.

"Maybe you think the birds are flying enjoying their freedom on a very beautiful afternoon." Ayumi smiled at how lucky the birds were because they did not have to feel the various problems that were squeezing the chest.

"But we don't know, maybe they're confused looking for a nest for the night or they're starving and looking for a place that can prop up their stomachs. We don't know, Erik, what's really going on just by looking." Ayumi took a deep breath, while Erik was still frozen to realize the meaning of Ayumi's words.

"Each eye has its own view depending on which side we see it from. You believe what you want to believe, even if it's not necessarily the truth, and it will eventually make you the most selfish person."

Ayumi looked at Erik for the last time before she finally left the man who was still silent. The shell stopped, the body turned back to the man with the towering height, "Did it ever occur to you that I moved here not only because of my new family, but so that I could more easily find and find you?" Erik was wide-eyed at Ayumi's words, his chest racing back.

"But it's all meaningless" Ayumi gulped her bitter gulp, "Congratulations to your engagement" Ayumi continued before leaving behind Erik who was frozen, doubts began to squeeze her chest, and she continued, what was he thinking wrong all this time? In his heart he cursed himself for his stupidity all along.

***

Ayumi walks down the hallway of the Hospital with mixed feelings, tiredness from work, lack of sleep over the past few months, and also the problems that have just approached her make her emotions raging. He could no longer hold back his tears when he saw the tall man with dimples and brown eyes looking at him gently and Ayumi could see behind the mask that covered part of the handsome face, his lips smiled at him.

With a sob he began to run towards the figure that was always there when he needed a place to lean, the figure that had always protected him for the past few years, and his cry broke out as he dropped his body into Kevin's warm embrace.

Although he looked confused, but he did not ask anything, all he did was hold her tightly trying to hide the frail body of the girl from worldly problems, which he did, and give a place to hide for a while before finally having to go back to face the rigors of life.

****