The Goddess who Defied Fate

Chapter 8

Hue’s hand gently touched Shiro’s hair. “Nice hair accessory. It looks good on you.”

She paused. “There’s a petal in my hair, isn’t there?” He didn’t have to answer as a petal fell from her hair.

“About what you said before… Do you really believe there can be love without loss?”

“I do.”

“Before, when we saw that bride and groom, you said… ‘Even if their time is short, this is the future they chose. I want to believe they’re happy.’”

“Yes.”

“That’s probably true for them. But not for me.” Hue looked away from me. “I can’t smile about the short but happy days we shared. And… I’ve even found myself thinking, if only I had never…” he fell silent. If only he had never met her, he never would have had to experience this pain. “I know you’d hate for me to refer to what you did as ‘sacrificing yourself’. That’s the kind of woman you’ve always been. But I still can’t bring myself to see it as anything but a loss… It’s hard.” Shiro was frustrated. She knew it wouldn’t do her any good to start thinking about ‘what ifs’ now. To get one thing, she had to sacrifice another. She had to abandon someone important to her, and live with it. Every time she thought about how deep Hue’s pain was, she felt something break inside of her. But even so…

“I see. Then… why don’t you just forget?” she asked, her voice cold.

“What?” Hue asked, eyes wide.

“You’re a god. You could easily erase your own memories of me if you wanted to. So why don’t you?”

Hue looked away. “That’s a cruel question.” He squeezed his eyes shut. She knew her words were hurting him. It wasn’t on purpose, but these were things that needed to be said. He needed to hear this from her.

“Cruel? I’ll tell you what’s cruel, Hue. Expecting me to choose myself and my desires above humanity. Expecting me to abandon the one thing that we, as gods, made an oath to protect.” She took a step closer to him, her eyes alive with an angry fire. “Do you think it was an easy decision to make? You don’t think I wanted to live? To spend the rest of my life with you?” She put a hand on her chest as she continued to get riled up. “You don’t think I would give anything, anything, to have been able to spend even another minute with you? I was a goddess, Hue! I did my duty as one.” She let her arms fall to my sides. “I can’t tell you what to do. If you regret meeting me, there’s not much I can do about it. But at least let me say this. It was painful for me, too. Living without you. I was lonely. But even so, I never regretted a single second of the time I spent with you. I’ll take the pain, the heartache, the loneliness. I’ll take all of it, because love without loss doesn’t mean there isn’t suffering. Suffering exists because of love. They’re both parts of living. I… can’t stop you from throwing away the love you had for me if that is what you really want, but I…” Shiro squeezed her eyes shut as tears started to streak her cheeks. Before she could stop herself, she threw herself at Hue, wrapping her arms tightly around his back. “I… I never wanted to hurt you. I just… I wanted to share the love you gave me with this world. You don’t know how grateful I am to you. For loving me and… for giving me this life. You’re not alone anymore. I’m by your side again.” She knew it was pretentious of her to say that all things considered, but if there was ever a time to be truthful to herself, this was it.

“And I know I can count on you.” Shiro could hear the smirk in his voice above her head. She smiled.

“You’re always sarcastic.” Shiro stepped away and smiled through her tears. “You’re sounding like yourself again.”