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I can remember everything as though it were yesterday.

The first day of my life was not one my family celebrated. In fact I believe that is the day they abandoned me.

"Close your eyes."

I did so.

The silence was so heavy in the black cavern behind my lids, until with my acute hearing I picked up the light, excited breathing of the boy before me. My own breath was forced- slow and uneven. Every one of my senses was dead, except for my hearing. He was so close.

"May I touch you?"

I nodded.

With a touch to my wrist, feeling came to life. His heat spread over me like a blanket of tingling warmth, his fingers sent chills through my arm. He let out a small breath by my ear. I both felt and heard it, two senses intertwining with one another.

"May I kiss you?"

I nodded.

And suddenly my virgin lips were opened by another's, by ones just as soft and unused, young and relentless. They moved against mine in a rhythm I could not understand, only obey. He was humming into me, ripples of sound coursing from my lips to the back of my head, mingling with his touch that had travelled up my arm to my neck. My body was on fire. I had always hated warmth. But this was not like the sun, nor like burning flame. It was a passion of heat my body and soul could- wanted to- accept.

"May I love you?"

Those four words I never thought I would hear were uttered from the mouth of the only boy I wanted to hear them from.

I could not by any power of this earth have forced myself to move when I first saw his body.

The battle had been victorious. Our people had won. The main city had been saved, along with the closer surrounding towns. Ours had been hit hard. Even though there were the Samurai to protect us, the men of the village had helped. Being of 15 years, he was summoned to battle. The battle had been two days ago, and yet he had not returned.

The field was a graveyard of decaying flesh.

The smell pierced my nose from a mile away, even through the thick forest. But when I arrived upon the battlefield, the sight of death was even worse. Faces I knew, attached to bodies I passed often in the streets, lay bloody and dirt-covered in the piles of carcasses. My stomach emptied itself many times as I walked through the dead, searching for one body.

And then I found him.

He was still. It looked as though he had tried to crawl deeper into the forest, towards home. To me. His back was to me, but blood surrounded him and left a trail from where he started. I remember the only thing in my head as I stared in disbelief at his broken body was how magnificent he was when he practiced the traditional flute he had taught me to play. How his shaggy hair the colour of night hung about his pale face as he closed his eyes, lifted the wooden instrument to his lips, and played a melody so sweet and so passionate. How he would keep me company in my hovel of a home, and teach me to paint and play when no one else would. How he loved me even though he knew what I was.

He moved.

In a second I was by his side, turning him over to face me, cradling his head in my arms and whispering to him and kissing his forehead and staring into his paling eyes, wiping blood away from his face. He didn't speak for what felt like a long while, only looked at me and breathed long, hard breaths.

"Araiku."

"Yes?" I whispered through the tears working their way from my eyes.

"I was your first love," he forced in a choked voice, blood pooling from his mouth. Just as that day three years ago, when I had been aware of everything, it was so now. But the heat had left his soul. The life had left his voice. Much of his blood had fled his body. My fingers now tingled at the cold of his paling skin, and I inhaled the metallic smell of dried blood. It was an ironic reminder of that night. "You were mine. We will always be connected. No separation of life in death can break our bonds." He reached up a gloved hand to drape weakly about my neck, pulling me closer until my forehead rested on his and my tears fell onto his face. Death hung in his eyes. "It is not safe here-" he coughed up more blood, "-in the village. The Emperor is being challenged by many pagans from the western land. There is a chance our land may fall. They talked of a great village in the west called Camelot-"

And then his eyes widened, whether with pain or surprise I could not tell. But his grip on me tightened, and he seemed as though he were far away, deep in his thoughts.

He looked directly at me. "Araiku."

That was the day I lost him.