"Look! How beautifully the moon is shining today." Emma exclaimed joyfully.
I smiled softly while asking, "You really like the moon, don't you?"
"Of course. How can one not like the marvelous beauty that nature has bestowed upon us?"
... I fell silent at her words.
She, noticing my silence, asked me—"Don't you like the moon, Eve?"
"It's not that I dislike it. It's just that I don't know why, but looking at the moon makes my heart ache." I, in fact, do not—as a suffocating feeling of longing fills me at its sight.
"Makes your heart ache?" She clasped my shoulders tightly suddenly. "Are you sick, Eve? Should I fetch you a physician? Why—yes, I should."
I stopped her in her hasty tracks to find me a physician at this late hour, explaining that it is not a rare occurrence. My heart always ached at a single glance of the moon. She pulled me inside hurriedly after hearing my explanation. "Why didn't you say so earlier, Eve? You shouldn't be out here with your condition."
"It's okay, Emma. It's not an illness," I said, so as to reassure her. "Though I would like to know the reason for this pain that no one has found, even all those physicians—the reason for this ache and also the subject of this painful longing."
"Maybe the books in the library will prove to be useful if no physicians proved to be useful. Maybe the pain and the ache aren't an issue of the body but something else. We should head to the library someday if you wish to seek answers."
Yes. Why hasn't this come to my mind? "Yes, it's a plausible idea. Then I will have to trouble you to come with me someday, Emma."
"No trouble, dear friend. Then let us head to bed now. It has gotten quite late."
"Yes."
We both went to bed shortly after, yet only one person slept. I lay there wide awake, unable to shake away the silhouette of the moon. As I was not able to sleep, tossing and turning relentlessly, I decided to go outside to get some fresh air. I slipped away silently so as not to wake Emma from her peaceful sleep and went to the garden.
By then, the moon had already come up to the middle of the sky, directly above my head. My heart ached more than ever before at its sight. I clasped my chest in pain, unable to breathe. That's when I saw a man standing not so far away in the garden of the villa next door, also looking at the moon.
Tears flowed down my cheeks silently, uncontrollably, unbeknownst to me as to why—and the pain in my heart gradually calmed down when he turned to look at me all of a sudden.
The world stopped when his ebony dark eyes met mine. Memories I had long since forgotten, memories I wasn't supposed to ever remember, memories from long, long before flooded my mind and drowned my soul with mixed, unexplainable emotions—joy, sorrow, nostalgia, and more.
"You found me yet again." I said, smiling through the tears falling down my eyes.
"I promised, love." he replied as a tear fell down his cheek.
As far as the distance between us was, we still heard and understood each other all so clearly. It's as if our souls have long since merged and become inseparable. Time and distance have become nothing, as he found me time and time again in every lifetime, in every era, with a single promise of eternity.