IF: Life and Death

Chapter 13: His Final Task

His Final TaskLeo leaves early that morning. The usual shift for soul collecting happens every afternoon when Eyrin's class ends and he says he will be there by then.

Eyrin cannot actually make out what he's saying. It's freaking 5am when he wakes up to leave and her morning routine does not start until 6am. She will never bother waking up before alarms goes off for anything.

"I'll be back, okay?" Leo says in a whisper, refusing to make any loud noises. Eyrin just nods her head and goes back to sleep but her subconscious, she believes, is the reason why she has to squint her eyes open, face hiding underneath the cover.

"Hey," she calls as he's stepping out of the window. "Use the damn door." Leo chuckles and just continue to make his way out. As he closes the window down he notices she's still looking at him. He does not say a word and just waits for her to say what she wants to.

"Don't get caught by Rippers." Those are her last words before she goes back to sleep, burying herself underneath the covers. Before jumping off the ledge he smiles and replies, "I'll take care."

That's the first time Eyrin cared for a guy. That's also the first time she woke up at 5am and never got the chance to sleep again. That day will not turn up good.

Eyrin's just staring at her cup of coffee, feeling the warmth of its essence touch her face. She's slouching on the kitchen table, a hand under her chin, frowning because her eyes feel heavy, as she regrets waking up to hear him say goodbye. "Very smart." She mentally groans.

She hears footsteps from upstairs down and she knows who it might be. "Good morning, mom," she greets the moment the figure reveals from behind the wall. Amanda smiles back while drying her hair with a pink towel. "Good morning, honey."

"You want coffee?"

"Yeah but I'll do it thank you. Hotdogs?" The sound of a busy kitchen commences as Amanda moves around opening cabinets and the fridge and doing something in the sink.

"Okay," Eyrin responds and goes back to slouching.

"Are you doing alright?" Amanda asks as she catches her heaving a deep sigh.

Eyrin looks her way. "Yes, mom. This is just a morning mood. I woke up before alarm so."

Amanda smiles. "I can hear movements inside your room late at night. What's keeping you up in the past two weeks?"

"Homework," Eyrin replies casually but her mom just stares at her, smiling, waiting for something. "What?"

"Homework?" She goes back to heating the pan. "Okay."

Eyrin's face starts to heat up as she realizes what her mom is implying. "Oh my god, mom, you did not just want me to talk about guys."

Her mom laughs, amused. "So who is it?"

"Mom!" Eyrin throws the towel at her. "It's no one, I'm telling you."

"Really?" She's very persistent in uncovering the truth.

Eyrin sighs. "Didn't I tell you I would tell when I finally liked someone?" she says and that's what shuts her mother up. Finally.

"So is there someone you like?"

"Mom!"

- - -

"Checkmate."

Leo's catching his breath when he caught up with the soul collector of a German Shepherd they're trying to send over to the other side of the other side. He's still clueless about his situation and everything about it is still vague he can hardly fathom.

He pets the dog with his marked hand and as the loyal friend wags its tail and before the light encloses its body and takes it away, the dog let out one last cry that sounded more like a grateful goodbye.

"It was a stray. I wonder when was the last time he got to play fetch. It was tiring but at least Houndor looked pleased," Leo opens up as they walk their way through the concretes of Manila Bay and back home.

"Houndour?" Eyrin is obviously not prepared for that. "You named it?"

Leo rolls his eyes and snorts. "Him. And yes I named him Hondour."

Eyrin chuckles, a little bit too evident that people nearby started giving her weird looks. "We've been doing this for almost two weeks  and I still haven't gotten used to you naming things and animals."

"Said someone who remembers smell," Leo retorts. "How are you gonna remember us being here? Does it smell oil? Or do you smell jerbaks this time?" Eyrin just gives him a disgusted look before she gets ahead of him.

"Does that mean she knows that jerbaks means poop?" he thinks but eventually decides to shrug it away.

Leo watches as Eyrin walks away, her black hair cascades perfectly pass her shoulder. With a light blowing of the wind, her strands dance with as peaceful as the leaves of the trees in the solstice. The sun starts to sink down the horizon and the sky is painted with variants of hue, the radiance touches her skin and reveals even just a little bit of her features. Eyrin stops on her tracks and looks back to see Leo still standing unmoved and from a blank face, as the light reaches her face, she smiles.

In that moment, Leo feels his heart skipped a beat.

It's just beautiful how we can admire someone even from afar. There's no fear of rejection, no doubts, and no false hopes. Silence conceals what we feel and because of that, somehow, we feel content.

He clutches his chest, trying to think how it's still possible. He can't take his eyes off the smiling figure five meters away from him.

They say the naked eye can see even just a glimpse of unnatural things during the wee hours of dusk and the scene is picturesque. From the other side of the road they are two shadows standing inches away from one another with only the setting sun in between.

He can't brush the thought of easily but tried his hardest to compose himself. "What are you smiling for?" Leo walks closer to her and as he approaches that's when she continued walking.

"It smells like sunset," she says but only receive a very confused "huh?" from Leo as a response.

She rolls her eyes. "I'm never gonna remember this day with the smell of oil and poop," she quotes what he said earlier. "But I'll remember it whenever I smell sunset."

Leo then lets out his infamous chuckle, mocking her. "Here we go again. How does sunset even smell like?"

Eyrin looks at his eyes again and he fights the urge to stare back. "Coffee? Shampoo? Aftershave? Whatever makes you heave a sigh of relief when you smell it after a tiring day. I will remember this when I smell content; when I smell sunset."

That time, Leo knew she's made up of figures. She's a metaphor**** ways, her words, her entirety. If he could make out what's happening and give it a metaphor, he'd say he's free falling. The distance is relatively high off the ground and he's not sure if he'll be caught by a warm embrace or another death when he hits the ground.

Whatever it is he's thinking, he decides to shrug it off. "Let's go home?" he suggests, waiting for her to turn her back towards him. Eyrin nods but before she can walk away, she sees black ribbons strip their way out of thin air and wrap around Leo.

As an immediate response, she extends her hand and closes the distance between them. No sound came out of her mouth. Leo is mouthing something in protest, but his voice is muffled by the ribbon lacing around his face. He reaches for her hand but by the time she feels his fingertips, he disappears.

Eyrin was left standing, fazed, her hand grasping nothing but air, but she knows that's where his hand would be.

He was there.

The next morning becomes an unusual one for Eyrin. She had not received any good morning greetings from the usually boisterous roommate she instantly had. At the corner of her bed, smothered she sits, sleep deprived as the picture of Leo disappearing before her eyes haunted her dreams.

She looks around the room, hoping he'll be there, but he's not. He didn't leave anything as he's never had something to leave anyway. What he had was himself and he couldn't leave that behind.

"Is he really gone?" she asks herself. She thinks of what happened yesterday when she had to wake up to hear him say he'd be back. She was reassured but before he disappeared in front of her eyes, he wasn't able to say anything.

He came back as he promised. They met after lunch at the usual cafeteria and collected souls the way they do.

But this time it's different.

Should she have prepared for that moment? She already knows what will happen after 40 days but she's never actually realized it until he's gone.

She looks at her hand and the scene plays inside her head again. For the first time she felt the anguish through his eyes. She felt the fear. She felt the longing to be saved. She felt he wasn't ready.

"I'm supposed to save him." Her open palm turns into a fist. She remembers how she almost grabbed his hand and how she couldn't.  She remembers how empty she instantly felt when all the thoughts of him being gone and the thoughts of never seeing him again came to her all at once.

Then she is reminded of what his family went through after they realized it first.

Leo lived a life. Leo was a someone for everyone. Leo died and left everything behind.

Eyrin averts her gaze to window. As the night crawls in, she secretly hopes to see him making his way in but midnight came and he never did.

Maybe it's time to go back to reality. Maybe that time he's gone for real.

Maybe he's not coming back.