The Classic Tale of You and Me

Chapter XIX: One Summer's Day

The Classic Tale of You and Me:
One Summer's Day

The moment he stepped out of the carriage, it was not Leonard who was standing before the familiar green fields. It was him, the real persona, the coward dreamer named Len Ackerman.

His eyes were fixated on Miku's form running away from him. It would not change the fact that today he would have to give up on everything and trust it to Leonard. After all, Leonard could handle the things he could not. This action included. It was a silent treaty between them, that Leonard would give Len the last time to let him wander in such place where he grew up. All the things dear to him, he could hold them in his memories. As much as he wanted, he could keep them but there would be no trace of Len in the future. Leonard would take it over. All of it.

Len chuckled to himself, marching towards the other side of the field. Miku was clearly looking for their shack, the place where he last saw her nine years ago. His feet paved on the rough track, bringing him to the road only the native farm boys - such as he - knew. He knew it well like the back of his hand, all the atajo that cut long roads short. He would probably go and visit the path between their shack and barn, being the place where Miku asked the wind to take his grievances away. The blond smiled to himself. That was one of his best memories with her.

His leather shoes carelessly stepped on the mud as he crossed the sloping roadside. He could feel the wind caressing his face; its frosty unseen fingers grazed on his cheeks with numbness. Len went forward, moving stealthily out of people's vicinity. He made sure to put on his hat to hide his blond hair, so as to avoid recognition from the few people still working on the fields. The sun was nowhere up for the gray mountains of clouds claimed the sky as theirs.

After several footsteps, he was now standing on the exact place where he and Miku shared a little intimacy, where he and she exchanged promises that kept him, well, himself. The feeling of her hands on his cheeks, the odd shade of blueness in her eyes, the softness of her voice when she told him all those claims -- everything replayed in his mind vividly. Len could feel the pleasant throb his heart was giving. It was his old weary heart warming. If all his frustrations could scar his heart, he should be dead. However, it was Miku who caught him amid his fall, and her words kept him intact.

He knew he could not show up to her again to tell that he had been here all the time. For if she had laid her eyes on him, she may detest him evermore. Come to think of it, what was the reason of his sadness that time? Was it envy? Probably. Rei's fate instantly changed when Len learned the truth about him, but Len kept it all a secret. Len was selfish. He never wanted Rei to live the life of a prince, in fear that he, alone, would go through his tough farm life. He was sure he had slept in the barn that day, and that was the last time Rei spoke to him.

So until today Len is the same. An egoistic scholar who thought of nothing other than his dreams. He is so disagreeable. He is the same with Leonard. After all, he and Leonard are the same.

Blue eyes searched for miles, looking straight ahead of the unchanging fields. Even if a decade had passed, it remained the same. Len wondered if his dreams would be like this fraction of earth. Would it remain a dream like how the fields remained as fields? Amid his blank gazing, he caught a glimpse of tiny people running around the paddock, faint laughter resonated reached his ears. There were few children back in his time, if Len was not mistaken. Other words, the fields changed somehow.

Nostalgia was overwhelming. Len found himself walking away from the hut, then across the fields, to reach the children chasing the little pony within the fences. He could see the wide grins plastered on their faces as they ran, hair disheveled like their shabby clothes. Watching them reminded him of his own childhood with Rei, those days when he was weak and always out of breath.