I awake to an odd feeling. The feeling of being watched. I turn with an intention to catch the pair of eyes which had been watching… and watching… and, yet watching endlessly, but they never seem to appear in a shape. I don't understand why. Such a feeling makes me want to tear my hair and scream in frustration, and this burns in a hellish flame, to torment me again and again.

I don't want to understand why. All I know is that I just want to get the hell out of this place, yet I am sure no matter where I go this pair of eyes will be watching me, and watching and watching endlessly…

I feel like I am going to burst anytime soon. A feeling of suppression overwhelms me, and I feel it simply by breathing. I stop breathing, to feel it haunt me further. When will it ever stop?! I don't know, I don't understand, I don't know. I don't… God, this feels sick. I feel like some corpse waiting to rot. I want to break free of this existence, yet I can't seem to find a way out of myself.

I have an appointment with some relative later anyway. Those eyes follow me down the street. I can feel it. Large, watchful eyes, they want to catch me at a vulnerable moment when I am no longer awake, or alive. Then maybe it will strike.

It still doesn't diminish the fact that my relative will wring my neck if I don't arrive in time. I try to hasten my steps. The watchful gaze follows me around the corner, faster and faster, in harmonizing with my steps. I feel like screaming, yet no sound will ever come out. My eyes glance about, as if the whole world might be looking at me, but the only reason people on the streets look at me is that they find me a strange idiot who wears black shawls in summer. To fuck with these people.

Those eyes… They watch me. I imagine them in the shape of elves, in evil shapes, evil yet beautiful.

One of them will have beautiful long red hair, he will appear as tiny as a bird, as beautiful and graceful as a dove. Yet evil. His gaze is sad, because he doesn't want to be evil.

And another. A little raven-hair guy with pale skin, so pale that even snow cannot compare. He will be a being of stark contrast, of human nature. Of mistakes, of right and wrong, of guilt.

And yet another. This one, with brown hair, dressed vivaciously, with a mask like that of an android. He will represent lust.

The other, another sad little one, who seems gentle enough. Yet he represents loneliness, for he is rejected by the world, and thereby only finds his home among these evil elves.

These elves climb all over me. I want to pull them off, yet my arms refuse to move. I continue walking along my way, in my brisk steps, like a pre-programmed robot.

"My name is Tetsu." A soft, sad voice which pierces through my heart.

"Sakura," It suits him, for his skin is so pale, as pale as the cherry blossoms in the moonlight.

"Ken," This speaks as if he might enjoy the world. He laughs slightly at my nervousness.

"…Yukihiro," The last announces hesitantly.

"We are your friends, Hyde. We have been watching after you all along. You belong to us, to our group." I glance at them unsteadily.   "Why, yes. Your heart is as black as charcoal. You make another thorn among the roses. Time has washed your heart out. Join us…" Sakura said, his tiny hands on my shoulder.

In a brief moment, memories appear. How I beat up a kid in eight grade because he called my mother a bitch. How I ran away from home to be found by my crying parents later and got beaten up. How I ran over a snail with my bike when I was a kid, even it which had no meaning towards me at that time. All these bring such an impact right now.

My breaths quicken, as I try to bury my sins in the sands of the past.

"You make mistakes. You've hurt." Sakura's voice was so grave, it would have sounded as if he had condemned me if not for a relativity in his voice. He had hurt before, too.

I turn towards the other, for they are in all directions. My eyes see Ken. He tugs at my hair, and gives me a smile which makes me forget all and just want to touch that smile, that face, in a passionate kiss… . He pulls my face down by my long hair. "Your heart burns with a basic fire. The fire of your body, a basic need. Your mentality feeds on it as your body experiences. It's your true self, to act according to your body. You don't need a set of values, you act on primal instinct. Instinct gets you everywhere, doesn't it?"

…Yes, I suppose. The times I made love with someone whom I never knew rang in my head. Only the moment mattered, their touches and gasps seemed so surreal to me, yet it was almost I was growing with every second which passed. Feeding, like a demon on carcass.

He laughs again, his voice so alluringly beautiful. He pulls my face into the direction of the last one.

Tetsu, I think. His eyes stab me ferociously like some cold dagger he is. He doesn't need a word to express his deeply engraved agony; I can almost feel him as a part of me deep inside, even deeper than the rest. "You have chosen this path which you live by. I can feel that you are sad to be a human, another of these pathetic beings who cannot see beyond oneself. I know the pain you feel, the anguish that you want to break through this shell, yet can't. I know, because I am."

I don't need remembrances. I just need the feeling I've always felt to flood back towards me, the feeling of a bird with a severed wing watching the sky, the feeling as if a cat had fallen in love with a bird yet must kill it in the end.

The feeling that leads to a question "why?" knowing that there will never be an answer satisfactory enough.

"You want to return to the dream, yet you can't. You don't want to live in reality, Hyde. It's empty as hell. Your heart belongs… here." Tetsu's hand touches my chest, and for a moment it felt as if something is taken out of me painfully, freely… I feel like a butterfly, wings painfully corroded into yet flying for the last time.

What are these beings? I don't care…

"You will follow us. You belong." Yukihiro stated, his hand holding mine. It's so small, yet so strong, so magnetic.

"…Where will I go?"

"Dream," He smiles. "Dream? How do I go there?"

"You don't go. You return……" Yukihiro kisses my lips gently, and shuts me up.

The little elves hover around me, to send me floating… floating… The butterflies escort me, and I fly. I fly with them, amongst them. It is indeed a dream, a dream which was not real yet left me satisfied. Yet as I fly, I feel…

This life is -the- dream. Yes, maybe I belonged to them… I have never felt such a love before, a love for someone whom I knew I never met. Everyone of them. They live… Inside my dream, inside my heart.

I continue walking down the pavement. My relative hasn't arrived, and I'm not going to wait for her. Leave it to me to think up some excuse later… Sakura appears in my mind's eye, embracing yet another of the mistakes I choose to make, another of the frozen moments when I hurt another.

These elves… I don't look at them, yet they appear in my mind's eye, torturing me with their eternal gaze, with my love for them.
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12:52:00 AM Monday, June 05, 2000 comments please?

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