blackbox | kirishima eijirou

03 | van gogh's starry blues

There is nothing prettier than a city at 3AM with its empty streets and the cold wind howling lowly in the dark sky while the shining moon floats in outer space that looked so close yet so far from uniting with the planet of life. The glittering stars that were twinkling faintly in the art similar to Vincent Van Gogh weren't as pleasing as before, just like how many years ago, people had turned a blind eye to the famous artist who lost the battle of light and dark.

Tears batted her eyelashes, the landscape in front of her becoming blobs of paint instead as she stared down at her legs that were swinging back and forth, hanging in the air as she lonely sat on the rooftop that was the only few places that she let it see the side of her she'd been hiding like a true assassin.

The tugs on her heartstrings got harder each time their words kept repeating in her head, piercing every inch of the soul beyond broken like an endless torture. A band-aid wouldn't help to piece every fragment of her back to the way it was, and even if it could, she would still go through the same misfortunes over and over.

The family of three living underneath the rooftop she was sitting on used to be filled with playful banter, radiant smiles, crinkled eyes, comforting hugs, pats on shoulders, dad jokes, movie nights and all of that mysteriously vanished the moment they got busy with work that they don't even look in her way to see that the light was slowly fading out.

Now they left her with the solitude that no one could fill in except for the few people in her life that brings out the real smile on her face, and yet it doesn't feel permanent which she wished it would.

As she looks up to the starry night that Vincent Van Gogh once looked at while feeling the same feeling of her heart drowning in the poison with tears streaking her face, a meaningless wish left her lips as she tried to find the brightest star that shines from millions of miles away, hoping that through all the thorns of roses she would be walking through will all be for something in this melancholic life.

But even so, Sakura ends up wishing for something that'll never happen.

Because like Vincent Van Gogh once said before he lets the darkness welcome him, "The sadness will last forever."

__________

The after-school hour then strolled into the hipster café as schoolers—mainly the high schoolers and college students—huddled in their seats with their preferred drink. Some had warm beverages to soothe their stressful nerves from the long day they had gotten through, rewarding themselves with the presence of their coffee buddy while making long conversations about how they miss their old days being carefree.

"Akari! Take care of the counter while I make the drinks," Sakura quickly called out at her colleague as she frantically tried to balance both duties at once.

"Do you know where's Reo?" Akari asked as she busily served the long queue due to the evening hour.

"I don't know. He said he's coming in late as usual. Bad timing, I would say," she referred to the café that was filling with more students while her hands smoothly took care of multiple drinks at once.

"I'm gonna kill him with a spatula later."

Sakura chuckled. "That's the manager's job, Akari."

She focused back onto grinding the coffee beans, ice cubes, cream, powder flavours along with stirring the different coffees with steamy milk, sugar, condensed milk—all different drinks ready in the span of ten minutes were already on the counter. She called out the names one by one on each receipt, hearing voices of gratitude.