SHINPAKU-SU/HEARTBEAT.

NOROI

Warmth.
I do not think I have felt that in quite sometime where it was not exceedingly hot or cold just pure warmth.

Eyes first sight is the sun slowly rising,a door is open and it feels like heaven opened up for me a little.I turn over to see out that door I also now see Sakura sitting there at the doors edge quietly sipping tea staring out at a small grouping of wild flowers with little birds playing in a puddle beside them from all the heavy rain from yesterday.

I do not really notice those birds though.

I see much longer hair that is being swayed by the morning winds,no longer wearing whatever modern clothing she was wearing yesterday instead wearing a white and pink hakama that is not allowing me to look much elsewhere and I refuse to anyway.

Finally.

"You are awake..i-i am sorry yasashii,I didn't want to wake you."

She is looking at me,not even shying away or trying to rise as she would three years ago and not with reddening eyes like a precursor to leaving as my last sight of her was.

She simply sits there,her eyes only on me until my unapologetic stare becomes enough cause  for a blush and a turn that is not enough to stop me.
Three years....

"Three years Itoshi Hito...."

I let that statement stay in the air as I rise from the makeshift mattress that she made,I remember in one of the only pasts we shared together she would make poor mattresses but I could not sleep anywhere else save the ground.

Before she gets a chance to turn around again I am on my feet,closing the distance reaching around her waist that has also changed.
What has happened to her after these years?Has she been harmed?

Sakura startles at my quick move behind her but settles into my hold,her head is against my heart as I make no move to release her and she does not speak nor does she really even move at all.

Nor do I.

SAKURA

Knowing what I know I should be wise and just let him be at peace,I should love him enough to have not let him see me but I know more than ever if I did that he would have never forgiven me in any life we have had or would have.

I only have to brief a time to enjoy this moment before I have to open up my store of news to him,I want to have us and this moment in a bubble and keep it forever but that is precisely how this evil that consumes all us now was born.

Unwillingness to let go and defiance of the natural way life was to be.

For now I have a lovely dawn to watch.
Birds living in merriment.
Flowers growing.
Noroi behind me with his arms so protectively around me one would think he is trying to hold  me so tightly he would harm me when in fact this is by GOD to help hold me up.I think he and I both want to catch up and stay put while running away all at once.

Now though I listen to a rapid heartbeat that slows to a calm as I do not move away or try to flee,his heart quickens when I adjust my ear closer to that very heart and bring myself even closer into this hold that only tightens and gentles at once.

I have so many memories but not enough of the few times we actually had these moments.

"How long before you tell me how long we have left?"
"Not long enough....never long enough my love."

My only words I say before I snuggle deeper into his arms and take the last few minutes of dawn and being here before that has to become no more.

Time is never enough,hours.
Days.
Weeks,months,years.

Love,moments and intimacy.
Babies,age and real death.

I crave it now,what little I can have I crave so much.