Time After Time

It was a calm, bleak, grey morning.

Gustav Wood woke up, sat, and yawned. This place didn't smell like home and it had been awhile since he hadn't go home. He thought about his mother and his brother and it made him a bit worried. But they knew him. And he knew their capability to forgive him. He knew that they would understood.

He yawned again.

Progressively, year by year, as Young Guns grew, they started having better place to stay on their tour. Better hotels. Better foods. Better venues. But it still wasn't home. And he missed the ugly, cheap hotel somehow. He liked being famous, he liked that people like whatever he could offer as musician, but there was some degree of loneliness on being famous. The loneliness that people wouldn't understand unless they had become famous themselves. The loneliness of being away from home, away from familiar things.

The loneliness that you couldn't just tell people, because people think your life is awesome and they look so happy as they said that that you don't want to ruin their happiness.

Gustav stood up, putting his feet on the warm wooden bedroom floor. The bedroom was messy. Their bedroom was always messy for a reason or another. John was sleeping on the other bed, at the other side of the bedroom, his stiff face looked softened when he sleeps. He looked around. Sleepiness made it harder for him to find his shirt among the mess, but eventually, he found it. After pushing his shirt down under his neck, Gustav walked to bathroom to wash his face. When he walked out from the bathroom, he saw Ben, Rose, and Lestat. It was obvious that they just went home from the morning walk.

Lestat looked happy that he had release his Samoyed energy. Ben looked like he was in joy—but then again, he always did. Gustav didn't sure he could read Rose properly because she always reminded him of wind, somehow; she could be here in one second, and in the other second, she was in a completely different place, staring at different thing, and he wasn't in her world anymore.

It made him a bit lonely, but then he got the chance to watch her breathe and see the world. And sometimes, it was even better than talking to her or staring at her staring back at him with those stunning, glass-like green eyes.

He felt like he told Rose once that he loved to be among the guys but he still hated that he couldn't be just with her alone, but he couldn't recall whether he actually said that or whether he just felt like he did. Sometimes, Gustav was reminded to that feeling, especially when he saw Rose with one of his best friends. Of course Rose would be with one of the guys. Of course she would like to become everyone's friend. Gustav scoff at the thought of the guys and him fighting over a girl, but then he looked at Ben and Rose and Gustav smiled.

They looked so happy and innocent. They looked more like siblings rather than friends, even though it was more than obvious that they aren't siblings. Rose was always looks striking with her long red hair and big green curious eyes, while Ben was always looked like Ben; dark brown hair; funny, gentle face; unshaved chin...

“Oh! You woke up already. Good morning, Gustav,” she greeted him, smiling. He smiled back (“Good morning, Rose.”).

“'Sup, Gus,” mumbled Ben as he took off his shoes.

Somehow he could imagine them being in a family; Rose would be the little sister and the guys would be the older brothers. They would be overprotective about her and they would scare the shit out of guys who wants to date her. But Gustav disliked that thought immediately, because it would be wrong for an older brother to want to kiss his little sister on the lips because he loves her so much.

After everyone woke up, they took quick showers before they left the house to get breakfast. Today, they would spend the whole day in the Australian War Memorial. Rose had told the guys that there would be so many things to see that maybe even a whole day wouldn't be enough. The guys just nodded and smiled and said that no matter what, things would still be great, because it was basically a day off. Gustav thought that a visit to an extensive national military museum would be brilliant and even though he wasn't sure about how big the museum could be that they would spend the whole day there, he didn't really care, because at least he would spend that day with Rose. They could be just sitting at her house, doing nothing but taxes a whole day, and he would still be happy.

When they finally arrived on the Australian War Memorial, they could see why Rose was right. The place was a real giant. It looked like a big, sad memorial that somehow tried to be calm about its sadness. To Gustav, it was a stoic memorial. They went in to the First World War section and they lost in the past.

As they walked around, he put his right hand outside his jeans pocket and hoping that somehow he would finally had the courage to hold Rose's hand that day. It was pretty difficult to be a man sometimes—you have to be strong and brave, and also confident, even though man are human too; they can be weak and scared as well. After awhile, he gave up. Not because he could no longer want to hold her hand (he was still does, and he believed he will always does), but because her presence was always so much more than enough. There was unexplainable comfort whenever she was around. He was happy just to stand next to her as she read a description about big old rusty machine gun that stood sadly but strong in front of them.

The museum was scary—of course, it's a war memorial—and he wished a little that they didn't go there. Gustav enjoyed the museum so much, but at the same time, he also understood that war is terrible. He kept thinking whether it was okay if she got exposed to all this gore, sad reminder from the past, but he liked to be there with her, as they discover new things together. He liked to think that he, as a man, would protect her with his everything if they met in a time where world was in war. It would be a horrible world and he had to kept her from harm in that kind of wretched world. Maybe that's what people do when they're in love; they think about being with people they love in different time and place, just to hope that somehow everything would still work out and they would still be together.

Maybe that's the perks of being in love.

He silently glanced at her.

Again.

For a millionth time by now.

She was always so adorable, so gentle in her tininess, her pale fingers peeping from the end of her sleeves—the jumper was obviously too big for her.

He wanted to hug her, kiss her—almost all the time it drove him crazy. He could see in her eyes that she wanted him as well. Not as much as he wanted her, of course, he never want another human being like this before and it was impossible to compete, but she wanted him bad enough that she would let him kiss her. But then he remembered that he wasn't a whole man. Not yet. He was still unable to sing. He was still unable to be his true self.

That was why whenever they were so close and Gustav thought that he could just kiss her and they could just let everything else that follows flow, he held himself back. Not yet, he reminded himself. He needed to wait until he was perfect again—until he was a whole man again. Rose Lette deserved the better him, a whole Gustav Wood, not this version of him, who got beat up by terrible reality and in the runaway. He was a man and man have their pride.

He fantasised about the moment where he finally whole again a lot. In that moment, he could finally come to her, and ask her whether she wants to spend the rest her life together with him—if she wants to grow old with him...

“Gustav, look.”

She tugged his shirt because he was obviously not staring on what she was staring—one gets lost easily on beautiful daydream. “Yeah?” he mumbled, trying to bury his daydream for somehow he was afraid that she would know what he was thinking. Her fingers were still on his shirt. Gustav would never thought that someone could tug him in such a cute manner.

There was a display with paper cranes behind the glass. Gustav knew about the story of that girl with paper cranes. He read about it a couple of times. He was shocked to realise that they almost finished the whole Second World War part because the paper crane girl, Sadako Sasaki, was the victim of Hiroshima atomic bomb. She got sick because of “atom bomb disease” and the leukaemia made her dying.

On the beginning of August 1955, Sadako's best friend, Chizuko, came to the hospital where Sadako stayed and fold a piece of paper into crane. There's an ancient Japanese story about how someone who folds a thousand origami cranes will have their one wish granted by gods. Her condition got worse rapidly, despite Chizuko and Sadako's effort to fold as many as origami cranes as possible. She died at the end of October 1955.

She was only 12 years old by the time of her death.

Rose looked so sad. Gustav knew that she was such a gentle person that she could cry by the sight of injured cat. He blinked. She was cried by the sight of him when he was sad. She was so honest about her emotion and her thought it was always made him jealous. But he didn't like to see her sad, so he held her hand and squeeze it softly, silently saying 'I'm here, I feel the pain that you feel too'. She squeezed his hand back.

And that was when he realised that he had been wanted to hold her hand for such a long time. He thanked Sadako Sasaki inaudibly. Rose and Gustav were leaned closer as she rest her head on the side of his arm. Oh, how he enjoyed having her leaning on him, as if she felt safe to be with him...

They just stood there in silence, in memory of Sadako Sasaki. Gustav knew he wouldn't forget that moment for the rest of his life. Somewhere inside his head, he knew he should be asking question like where were the guys, but question like that could wait. He just wanted to stop time at moment like that, where he stood with her, hand by hand, under the dim light of a sad memorial.

The longer they stood there, the more he was afraid of thinking about losing her. People die and people forget about death a lot. Maybe because people are afraid. Maybe because they like to pretend death only exists in the news, like an angel that they always heard people talk about but never witness...

He squeezed her hand again and she pulled back. She took a deep breath and looked at him.

“You know, Gustav, if the story about a thousand origami crane is true, now you'd be singing and writing song agains with the guys, because I had finished folding a thousand origami crane months ago.”

Gustav had live long enough as a human being, but he was still learning in defining things. Today, he learned definition of love. Love is when you care about someone so much you would fold a thousand origami crane in order to make their wish comes true.

There was nothing he wanted more than kiss her on the lips, but it might be inappropriate to do such thing in Australian War Memorial, so he just hugged her. He hugged her so tightly, pulling her with such a great force that Rose chuckled after awhile as she mumbled.

“Gustav... I'm literally floating in the air. Can you put me down now, please?”

He laughed and put her down. Rose was still smiling and her face was blushing. He kissed her on the forehead and then they walked away from the silent casted figure of paper crane, holding each others hands tightly.