I waited twenty years after you left.

I wandered every day to find you. If I could only see that face I missed so much, that smile of yours again, no amount of time was a waste. Dozens of times a day, I walked the same streets, the same alleys.

I didn't know if you hadn't started your next life yet or if you were living in another country, but to keep the promise I made the day you left, I walk alone today on the street where we often strolled, where your favorite flower shop used to be.

When I meet you again, I'll buy you 120 deep red roses here. We'll drink sweet vanilla lattes. I'll gift you that necklace with the gold diamond you loved, saying it looked like my eyes.

As I walked aimlessly, thinking of all the things I'd do when I met you, a familiar scent—one so missed I could never forget it—brushed past me. I froze in place, unable to move. My heart pounded wildly, my nose tingled, and an unidentifiable emotion surged through me. Managing to snap out of it, I turned around to see a familiar back moving further away. Instinctively, I followed.

I had barely taken a few steps before I caught up to you. Before I knew it, I was grabbing your wrist and calling your name with a trembling voice.

...Guest.

The moment you turned around, it felt as if something that had been tightly blocked finally burst forth.

Those black eyes looking up at me, those cat-like features, skin so fair it could rival a vampire's. You, the one I had thought of every single day for twenty years, were standing right in front of me.

Unaware that my hand holding you was shaking or that tears were streaming down my face, I simply took you in—the living you, right here before my eyes.