It was hard to hear the words that came from his lips. Kitanai, who's tears had left, and was left sitting with paitence like a monument, and a face hard as a stature, stared forward. Her hands gripping her thighs a bit too violently, and her eyes hard on the wall in front of her. Saemon sat beside her on the floor. He was a broken man now, she had come to realize. Or perhaps, this was who he really was, and she had just begun to see who that really was. He was sensitive, easily hurt, and the world was turned against him due to some horrific bad luck he had. Some of the worse luck he could have ever recieved, of course, was taking a chance on her. She was his downfall. She was the death of him. She destroyed him. She broke him. Koho, a vile and wretched witch, was an angel in comparison.
And, as usual, the first things that came out of his mouth was how much better one of his other bitches were. How much she ruined his life. How much one of those other women loved him more, or treated him better, or something else like that. As though he knew, deep down, she loathed them both. As though he knew that with each comparison she made the more furious she got. Though, at the same time, she felt a bitter taste in her mouth from the way he spoke to her. The more fights they had, the more certain she was that the romanticized feeling of love was fading.
In honesty, her father would have told her this was love. And yet, the doe eyed and cloud-dancing mistresses on the street would say otherwise. Was this how she wanted to live her life? In constant fear that her honesty would piss him off? In a consestant need to hide who she was because she was afraid of how he would take it? Or was this just a step she needed to vault over? That once this was over, and perhaps, it ended better than she was seeing it going, that they could be the Cloud9 couple she had always dreamed of being.
Saemon had stood briefly, and her eyes did not follow. No, in fact, she hadn't looked at him once through his bitter soliloquy. Rather, staring forward as his vomit emptied into the sink. Her tears ducts were empty, and her soul felt dark and hollow. Her heart shrivled and chunks missing from each lash of word he gave to her. As though everytime she hurt him, he had to reciprocate, and make sure she felt the same pain and anguish that he did... so human, was Saemon.
When he was finished, he insisted she got out, but rather, the woman stood, pushing her chair back. She considered leaving. She considered flipping her middle finger to the world, and giving up completely on the idea. Her brain insisted she escaped any more pain and anguish and just left for good. But she stood, paused, in front of her chair, slowly her hands placing palm down firmly on the table, "It bothers me that the only thing you could think of in this situation was how much you hurt Koho for me." Her voice was hurt, but showed more monotone than that, "It bothers me that you brought up how much you loved her...how....irrelevant a statement that was." She was staying seemingly calm, but such calmness was the dynamite of her anger. To lash out and scream was so much more reassuring that this point blank mumble of words, "And yet... how totally relevant it was to see into your mind, I think." She stepped away from the chair, and pushed it in slowly. The sound of the legs making a horrible hiss against the floor, "You hurt yourself and her just to flock to my side, in which I responded by ripping your heart out and beating it into the cement... so why are you still here? Are you trying to prove something by staying with me?" She slowly moved across the kitchen, to the living room where she grabbed her bag, her body never turning to look at him, "Leaving does not make you worthless Saemon." The woman finally said, "Leaving means that you have had enough of my shit. I've done you wrong. I've told you I've done you wrong. Though, I must say, you do not know how lucky you are that you found a woman that would even bother to admit her wrongs to you." Her hand gripped the bag in her hand as she slowly closed her eyes.
"If I have ruined you so much, Saemon, then you might as well just refuse my presence any longer. I have unclapsed to you the book of my secret soul, and all it has done is hurt you. So may it be, Saemon, go back to your engagment with Koho. Repair that relationship. I do not want to hurt you anymore."
No, she didn't mean that. In fact, the pigheaded woman was certain she was a much better choice. She was sure that no matter how much she hurt him, by no means would she ever steep to the level of injury that Koho had done to him. But she couldn't say that to him. You see, dear reader, the funny part about love is, when you love someone so much, you convince yourself that you are the problem, no matter what it really is. Love makes you think strange things. It makes you do stupid things, like insist that the one you love leaves you, for you are so devestated by the hurt you do them and the wrong you do them, that you want them to leave you so you cannot hurt them anymore. You want them to leave you in the dust to wallow in your own hate, because you could not bear to hurt them anymore.
And Kitanai, dear reader, never admitted to being the problem....to anyone.
