Kris was hurting inside. He felt the pain of the loss he was about to feel. He had lost his mind days ago although it felt like ages ago. He was sorry for all the sin he had commited. Above all he was sorry Tao had received a man like him. No wait, Kris thought, I'm not a man. I'm a coward running from his fears. That's all I am. Broken, lost, and wanting to die. 

"Tao, still please be happy."

He turned from the photos and the disgust of remembering the pain he had suffered through to enter their room. He pushed open the white, smooth surfaced doors before having his mind click into place of what he was doing. He wasn't just looking through the house that once WAS theirs, but dying. Kris was dying. He was no longer what he was before. He was no longer human. He had become lifeless. Like a robot, like a machine. He was stoic to emotion now. He was wired to function for someone; that one person would no longer belong to him. He was incredulous to the words "love" or "desire" anymore. He was dead. Dying. Going to die. Whatever tense, he would no longer breathe for the same purpose. 

-Tao on the way back to Kris, in taxi-

"Kris, please wait. I'm coming home. I'm going to finally give me to you in any way, mode or matter. We'll finally be one. I won't push your advances away anymore. Above all I won't have you leaving in the early mornings and coming back late at night from who knows where, with a cashload of money to pay for my Gucci. I'm a better man now, Duizhang. I'm coming...I just hope you've sustained long enough."

"Sir, we might be a little longer than expected" the dirver called out to me from the front seat. "We've got a thuderstorm hitting and the roads won't be safe until it passes. Is three hours good enough?"

I sat there pondering all the possibilities of staying longer than needed...

-END OF TAO'S SIDE-

-Back to Kris-

Kris didn't want to deal with anymore pain of being alone and so he shut the door behind him, not bothering to look at the same bed he and Tao had slept in for the past three years. Not bothirng to make sure that room would be embedded in his memory. In his system for future retrival. No he would not go in the place of the past. He had to leave soon before he really lost his mind...HERE.

He ran out of the hallway and sat crouched in the kitchen corner under the table. He wanted to hide from everything and anything. He couldn't take the pain any longer. It was a mystery how he had survived the crazy house this long. 

He looked outside the dining room's window and saw it was going to pour rain soon. Maybe the Gods knew that Kris was terribly sad and abused, emotionally, and so they wanted to show it with tears of their own...