The One That Got Away

“Hey, can we talk?”

I knew that voice, even after nearly 10 years, Shin Ryujin’s voice never seemed to have aged. It had that same sharp, effortless edge that used to make my stomach flip in the hallways of high school.

But I don’t turn. I stayed glued to the mirror, staring at the distorted reflection of my own tired eyes as I peeled off my uniform.

“What is there to talk about?” I simply asked, still not moving an inch to look at the girl who once broke my heart.

“Oh come on, Officer… You know I’m not a stranger to you…” She stepped closer, the smell of expensive funeral lilies and something sharp, like gin, drifting off her black dress.

I could see her in the mirror now, leaning against the doorframe of the cemetery’s male rest room, a place where SHE shouldn’t be.

“Besides, you were there up to the very end. From the first day to joining the firing squad for the gun salute? Am I not allowed to talk to an old friend?”

I paused, the lie from her lips stinging like a bee.

It was obvious she wasn’t going away if I didn’t turn to face her now. With no options left, I’m left without a choice and turn to face the girl around.

I thought, God! Shin Ryujin never aged. While my time in the field has aged me, Shin Ryujin never did. As a matter of fact, why would she?

She never had to eat bullets from a firefight or take some blows from an aggressive fugitive resisting arrest. She was the Chief’s daughter, a pampered jewel kept in a velvet box, while I was the one scrubbing the streets. Her skin was still that flawless, porcelain white, untouched by the harsh sun or the grit of the precinct. She looked like a sketch of a girl that had been carefully colored in by a professional artist, every line of her jaw and every curve of her lip perfectly placed.

Yet even underneath all that glamour, I still saw a sad and broken girl who just lost a father. Gone was that pride she wore like a shield in high school; instead, her eyes looked heavy and glazed, mirroring the hollow void she was clearly feeling inside.

But still, I chose to remain stoic. Her eyes still had her father’s, a competent yet stern man that I once served. I remembered the day she’d laughed in my face after I asked her for the gala, a laugh that had echoed through the gym for what felt like an eternity. I could’ve accepted her simply turning me down, but was accepting another boy’s proposal in front of me afterwards really necessary?

“Why so cold, Officer?” She tilted her head, a stray strand of black hair falling across her forehead.

“Do I look like a criminal to you? I thought policemen were taught to be emphatic to victims?” She added.

“It was a job.” I simply stated.

“I stayed with your dad because High Command said so. Nothing more.” I added a layer of frost to my voice, hoping the distance would protect me from whatever game she was playing. I reached for my belt, the leather creaking as I tightened it.

“Besides, with your old man finally laid to rest, I can get my sleep back.” I reach out for my bag where my equipment lay, avoiding her gaze.

“Really? You’re just gonna leave me hanging like that?” She didn’t move, but her presence seemed to expand, filling the cramped, sterile space of the restroom.

She stepped forward, the click of her heels echoing against the white tile. She stopped just inches away, the scent of those lilies now cloying.

“Yes. And you don’t have to worry about me announcing to everyone how you failed in trying to talk to me…”

“Stop!”

Just as I was about to take my first step and push her aside with my shoulder, she suddenly grabs me by the hand and forces me to look at her.

I looked down to find her holding my wrist, her small hand surprisingly strong for someone her size but not enough for me to remain still. I could’ve chosen to flick it off. But something in the way Shin Ryujin was staring back at me didn’t look threatening or a game. It looked like a desperate attempt to hold onto a single, solid object in a world that had just collapsed around her. She wasn’t the popular kid in school anymore; she was just a girl in a black dress, smelling of gin and grief.

“Please,” she whispered, the word barely a breath.

“Just… Hold me…” she whimpered, her voice cracking like thin glass.

This was supposed to be the moment where I flicked my hand away and simply moved on. Yet I couldn’t get my body to budge. She didn’t even move fast. Ryujin walks toward me in such slow steps even a tortoise could outrun her. She was giving me every opportunity to bolt only for me to throw them away.

And slowly, ever so slowly, her arms wrapped my frame, her small hands filling my back, and her face buried on my chest. And then came the tears, the muffled sobs of a girl who had spent the last few days mourning and pretending to be calm for the crowd. Even a girl like her couldn’t control her emotions by the time her mother took the podium for the farewell speech.

“Please… Hold me…”

I felt her hands nudging my arms and suddenly, I felt them move like they had minds of their own. Slowly, I coiled my arms on her frame, one hand filling the low of her back whilst the other barely held right by the back of her neck.

She was like a cocoon of warmth and grief, trembling against my chest. I could feel the erratic thumping of her heart through my uniform, a frantic rhythm that matched the sudden drumming in my own ears. For a second, the resentment of more than half a decade felt insignificant compared to the weight of her leaning into me, her small frame shivering as if the cemetery breeze had finally pierced through her expensive dress.

But still, how could she suddenly approach me like this?

“Why me, Ryujin?” I inquired.

“Huh?”

“Why cling on to me? Aren’t you supposed to be doing this with David?” I asked, the sheer mention of her husband’s name, the very same boy who she’d chosen over me making my voice rasp.

“I already know what he’s going to say. I’m already familiar with his words. They hardly ever change…” She replied.

“But you… I know you, Officer…” She added when she pulled her head up to look at me.

“You’re not as cold as you think you are… I know deep down you’re still that caring boy I mistook as a weirdo… I never got the chance to tell you that I was sorry… And for thanking you as well for watching over my dad, despite everything…” She continued.

The air in the bathroom grew heavy, the silence only broken by the distant sound of another funeral procession dispersing. I looked at her—really looked at her—and saw the smear of mascara beneath her eyes and the way her lower lip trembled.

This was getting too close. I should have stepped back, given her a comforting pat on the shoulder, and walked back out into the sunlight. Yet I remained stuck, the tension in the room clamping down on me.

“Wh-What do you want?” I asked low, trying to hide the fear in my voice as the last gaps of sunlight leave our frames, our bodies truly enclosed now.

“I just-… It’s just I-… I… Mmmhhh!”

And there it was, the sudden crash of lips nearly sucking my soul.

I’m supposed to push her off, remind her that she was married or that I had a wife and kid waiting back home. Yet the longer her lips stayed, the more my arms pulled her towards me.

This was not a test on whether I should pull away or remain still. My answer was already sealed.

For a time, I imagined what it was like to kiss Shin Ryujin’s lips. My answer came in the form of a rushed and sudden exchange, the kind of kissing that spelt both disaster and desperation. This wasn’t soft; this was a collision, her teeth clinking against mine. My back hit the cold wall of the with a thud, the impact jarring my spine. Yet I didn’t care.

My hands were roaming now, touching, fondling, caressing the girl in ways that shouldn’t have been. This would’ve been a charge for sexual harassment. Yet, Shin Ryujin’s body language was telling me to go further, my moralities crumbling at every passing second that my hands kept exploring her thin frame.

“Ohh!”

I felt her gasp underneath my lips when I grabbed a good hold of her bum, both hands fondling and squeezing the damned flesh underneath her dress’ thin robes.

I thought, God! Forgive me for being such a horndog! If I ever had inappropriate thoughts about Shin Ryujin, it was her ass.