Across Worlds - A Coyote Starrk Love Story

Chapter 15 - Truth

Starrk pov:

"If only we weren't so different, Starrk...."

I frowned remembering the words Saki had spoken a few days back. That was the first time I had gone to her house on her request and it was the first time I had seen a different side of her.

Until recently, she had been distancing herself. There were many instances where I had noticed that she wanted to avoid me, not meeting my eyes unlike how she always had been doing and keeping a good three feet distance between us. I had assumed that she no longer wanted to be a friend of a hollow so I had decided that the visit to her house would be the last time I would go to the human world to see her. I decided that it was time for me to stop being such a wimp and clinging onto a human for a sense of belonging.

It was almost amusing.....a hollow looking for solace in a fragile human.

I had always known that she was just as delicate as any other human. She was what every hollow would put in the category of food or amusement. But there was a warmth that she had that I hadn't seen in other humans I saw whenever I visited the human world. Saki's aura was bright, untainted and whole hearted. Whatever she did, she did with a smile. Not because she had to but because she wanted to.

After what she did on the day I was about to give up on ever having a place to belong, the desire to keep going to the human world, to keep seeing her had become overwhelming. When she touched my face with her comforting hands, ran her fingers through my hair and eased out the tensions that I always felt squeezing my head, and most of all, when she leaned up and placed her lips against my forehead in a gesture of affection, I felt emotions I had never felt before.

I rubbed my thumb against the small tea cup I held in my hands as I lay on the mattresses piled up in my room. As usual, the weather here in Hueco Mundo was cold and dreary but the cup I held in my hands seemed to give off a gentle warmth that I didn't want to let go of.

I rubbed my thumb over the rim again, trying to remember how happy Saki looked whenever she sat in front of that strange machine of hers and made such things. The way her hands touched the soil, the delicate, tender and adoring way she looked at the soil and shaped it into the variety of articles....I found it fascinating. How could a person have so much to offer to others and to everything around her? And to a hollow, a monster such as myself?

I hadn't really given much thought about it before but I observed that Saki was someone I had begun to feel protective of. She was short....no, I was just tall. She was probably the average height any human girl would be. But she was petite. She looked so defenseless. No, she is defenseless – a weak, defenseless human. She trusted everyone so easily, treated them kindly....she was too carefree for her own good.

I sighed, closing my eyes and touching my forehead with my free hand. I still hadn't understood what she meant by what she said that day. I knew that the kiss she gave on my forehead was out of tenderness towards a close friend. That's all it was, right? But why couldn't I convince myself that there was nothing more?

I wanted more.

I wanted to be given special treatment. I didn't want to be alone anymore. I wanted to be given attention, to be welcomed and shown that my existence too....was important. Just as Saki always showed me, I wanted to be reassured that I really did deserve to live like everyone else.

"OI STARRK!!!"

I snapped my eyes open, feeling a painful kick in my gut from Lilynette. The ceramic cup I was holding flew out of my hand as a reflex to what Lilynette did. I didn't want it to fall to the floor and break so I shoved Lilynette off me and fell onto my front, reaching my arms out and catching the cup just before it met the hard floor. I closed my eyes giving a sigh in relief.