I felt so sure that I would see you. Too sure.

My friends told me that I would see you. My dreams told me that I would see you. Even my horoscopes and tarot cards told me I’d see you. Fate was lined up for the event of us seeing each other, and although a voice of reason whispered in my heart of hearts that it was staggeringly unlikely, I just had a feeling. A feeling that my curious eyes would stumble upon your face, and confirm my wild wishes.

I roamed the busy streets day after day. There were people in unthinkable numbers crowding the pavements, striding past me, murmuring half-formed apologies as they knocked into me. But the strange thing about all of these people?

Their faces were blank.

To me, anyway.

Their features weren’t there. Through my sight, the things that would make their faces unique simply didn’t exist. They were a blank army void of everything and anything, their only purpose to keep me and you apart. And boy, they served their ultimate purpose well.

Every now and then, an entity would walk along whose face was not completely blank. My heart would leap, charged with rapture and a sparking passion at seeing a face that could have been yours. My legs would falter, dizzy with the beautiful recognition of a presence that could have been yours. My mouth would open as if to form your name, the fluent syllables materialising on the tip of my tongue, reacting to the sense of perfection that could have been yours.

"Jun-..."

But it wasn’t you. A second look at the face would reveal that it wasn’t complete. The only thing that matched my mental depiction of you was its nose. The rest of its face was blank, like all the other faces. The face was like yours, but it wasn’t you.

Things would continue in a similar manner. The occasional person would have a blank head with only your soft hair, a blank face with only your brilliant eyes, or a blank body with only your incredible height and posture. They each drove me mad with frustration and longing. It was as if each of these characters was deliberately trying to ruin me, to shatter my impossible hopes, to trick and delude me. How dare they!

One thing that none of them had was your smile. Your wide, joyous, toothy smile. For that, I was strangely glad. For anyone to impersonate a smile like that would be sick and twisted. Yours was a smile that belonged on no face except your own.

As I advanced through the fluid mass of entities, each of them became more convincing, imitating your features to almost believable levels. I tried in vain to see past them, to block them out, to lay eyes on the only face that really mattered.

Yours.

But I couldn’t. The amount of times my fragile emotions were flown higher than the sky, only to be brought back down and smashed on the cold, hard ground was brutal. The effects of the multiple impacts hurt my body. I grew weak and weary. My feet ached from walking. My legs begged me to stop. I was an inch from submitting to fatigue. My heart ached, wanting nothing more than to see you. The real you.

I could hear all of the impersonators talking to me in their sadistic voices, even though they made no sound.

“Go home!”

“Give up!”

“You’ll never find him.”

“You do know how narrow the chances are, don’t you?”

“You must be stupid.”

“Pathetic.”

“Just give up.”

“Give up!”

“GIVE UP!”

Not being able to take the strain anymore, I sat in a heap on some stone steps by a river. Whether the voices I had heard had been from the blank people, or whether they had been my own thoughts, I wasn’t sure. I knew one thing though. They were right. Of course I was never going to find you. It was hopeless even trying.

I rested my head on my weak hands, looking out to a monument across the wide river from me. The rippling water refracted fragments of the sun off of its surface, making it look more appealing than its usual dull-grey tint that I had seen on the television countless times. Yet more people were swarming like ants around the distant attractions. Their faces were still blank.

Desperately trying to distract myself from my overwhelming sense of defeat and hopelessness, I cast my eyes around the side of the river that I was currently on. There were attractions here, too. Somewhere to my left, a blank person strummed a guitar in a beautiful rhythm, each chord painfully mirroring what I was feeling, each word that he sang echoing through my bones. There were tears behind my eyes fiercely trying to escape, but I didn’t let them.

There were happy, blissfully ignorant blank children chasing pigeons, clapping and watching the silly birds fly away in an explosion of grey feathers. Their blank parents chattered in many languages, some familiar, some not so familiar. It didn’t matter anyway, because none of them registered with me.

Queues of blank people crowded around a small, modern hut-like building. Glancing briefly at the sign, I could see that they were offering tour boats on the river, so that people could see the sights. Each person seemed excited, but there was nothing unique about any of them. My eyes started from the back of the queue and worked their way forward, drifting over all of the blank faces, absent-mindedly searching for you. I knew my efforts would be futile, but it was another distraction. I searched for you in each face, and evaluated what I saw. This man was your height. This one dressed a little like you. This person had your lips. This person had your posture, your eyes, your brow, your hair, your clothes, your smile…

I blinked. I blinked again. It was my mind tricking me. It had to be. It just had to be.

My mind wasn’t tricking me.

It was you.

Movement energy spread throughout my nerves. The sun instantly brightened. My cheeks felt red, and I felt the smile that danced on my lips. I ignited with a spark, my heart throbbing with a furious and relentless passion. My mind raced ahead of my body. It had already approached you, it was already wondering if you’d recognised me, if you’d talk to me, if you’d do so much as even acknowledge my existence…

Then, my eyes showed me something I desperately didn’t want to see. I froze, all of my inner light solidifying. The corners of my mouth turned down. I struggled with my mind to accept what I was seeing.

You had your arm around someone. A blank woman. A beautiful blank foreign woman. She was wearing a tight fitting, short sleeved lime green top, with just ordinary jeans. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, and it shone in the sunlight. Her delicate nose was pointed at you, her full lips moving in speech. You spoke back to her, your words lost to me in the senseless gibbering of the crowd.

Your face drew closer to hers. Her face drew closer to yours. You kissed her. I looked away.

And I shattered.

The tears I had tried to hold back came spilling out, hot and shameful on my cheeks. I didn’t care about the blank people looking my way; they didn’t matter. All that mattered was that you weren’t interested in me. Even if I had approached you, after searching for hours and days on end, you would have brushed me away like a raindrop on your shoulder. You were there right in front of me, your beauty mine to observe. But I could never have you.

The blank woman that you were glued to was a crystal, glass case. She allowed me to see you, but prevented me from interacting with you, from speaking to you. I wanted to smash that glass. I wanted to take her away. I wanted there to just be me and you, with no one to interrupt us, with no one to object.

Now, that would never happen.

I wiped away my tears. I stood up, startling the pigeons around me. I turned my back on you and her.

And ran away.

Thanks for reading everyone c:
I hope you enjoyed!