"What am I to you?" Red asked, out of blue.
"..." Erich remained silent, not knowing what to say.
"What am I to you, Erich?" She asked again, voice hopeless.
"A need." He barely managed to speak, pulling his hands away from her and looking down in devastation.
"I can see a fierce fire in you." He knows he couldn't shut Red like he did with April who said the exact same words.
"It's my torture."
"Losing even after having me?" She asked.
"You can say." He smiled emptily.
"What do you gain by doing all this?"
The meaning of my life, he replied in his heart, "You." And the word of his lip and heart meant the same.
"For how long have you known me?" She asked seriously.
"It doesn't matter now." He answered,shaking his head.
"No. I want to know a person I know literally nothing about has all my information- imagine my life was never private." She snapped, vexed, infuriated.
"It is not like this Red. I swear." Erich's voice became desperate.
"I am not like those girls who will be swayed by your few words of sweetness." She scorned.
"I am not even trying." He knows her spell was cast on him, he was utterly vulnerable before her.
"Hah, you want nothing but still this happened." She continued to ridicule him.
"I lost myself. Instead of drowning in the ocean, I seeked a shore."
"And what's the point of it? Did you receive it? No. In fact you can never reach it now." She snarled.
"You never gave me a chance." he mumbled.
"And I probably never will... what would you do then?" She asked, piecing his heart with her icy gaze. I will live with this shattered heart. He again replied and passed her a sad smile, not replying.
"What this painful smile could hide?" She asked, posture breaking. "My sorrows."
"A need doesn't hurt much, Erich."
"I am used to it."
"You will turn to dust with this demeanour... You will gain nothing." A tear pricked in Red's eyes as she sniffed to not cry.
"What do I have in the first place, Red?" He asked, aching in agony.
"Then what am I!?"
"A need."
And they were back again to the point where they started...
The wheel stopped and Red furiously stormed out and sat in the corner, wiping the tear which brimmed in her eyes.
"Red. I am sorry. I didn't-"
"It doesn't matter." She said hurriedly. "You don't even know yourself, what will you tell me?" She muttered, scowling.
'You are my everything' He thought.
She forced a smile and continued, "When need becomes addictions, it evokes the desire of possession which you need to gain at all cost."
"Red..." He called her sadly and sat beside her, stealing glances, he intertwined his fingers with hers, "Please give me a chance... I will be yours forever, till my last breath." He promised.
"Aren't you now?" She asked.
You never let me, "Give me the permission to live..." He looked at her captivatingly. "Where?" She asked, staring back. "In your heart." His words made her heart skip a beat as he broke the stare quickly, getting up and tugging hairs behind her ear, not knowing the answer to his earnest words and the initiation of a start she wasn't ready to accept or rather avoiding, "Uh.. Um.. I am hungry. Come let's eat something."
Erich and Red were about to return from their 'exquisite' honeymoon. Erich received a call from his assistant Gracia to be informed about the position he wasn't ready to grasp,
"Hello?" He answered the call, going back to the hotel after getting a rose for Red. "Sir, kindly check your mails." Gracia said.
"Why would I when I am on vacation?"
Gracia sighed, "Mr Grave agreed for partnership." She informed him. "What!?" It took him two seconds to register her words. Why now after all this time? He apprehensively thought.
"Yes, Sir. He wants to fix a meeting with you to discuss further details about confirming a fixed price for trades."
I can't mix my emotions. "I see. Okay then, arrange a meeting with Mr Grave."
"Sir, he would like to come here personally for the meeting." Her words increased his anxiety more. "Okay. Decide the date. We will discuss it when I come back."
"Yes, Sir." With this, she cut the call.
Erich's mind was clouded with unwanted thoughts, giving him eerie coldness and trust issues, not on Red but about the intentions of Lucifer while hoping deeply that they'd be nothing more than business partners working for profit and not for a selfish purpose.
Life pushed me at a point where the dread of crossing the undesirable paths is becoming reality. Why do I feel the hearts which I have never met are going to their destination... whether devastation or redemption. He thought and shook his head. Erich went to a bar to clear his mind.
He was drinking to think straight or get the thoughts stirring his mind out then a girl came, trying to flirt with him but he stopped her, "Stop. I am married."
"Then what caused you to come here in such gloom?" She seductively asked, about to touch him but he pushed her back and left with a sour face.
"My desires perished the day I claimed her. When I have her, I don't need anything." He talked to himself. A smile came to his lips as we went back to their hotel room, slightly drunk and tipsy.
Red glanced at Erich with a frown to see him this late,
"Oh, You're back. I thought I came alone on my honeymoon." She taunted, getting up and scanning his condition. "Sorry." He looked down.
"Where were you?"
"I don't know why... but I went to the bar." He mumbled, sitting on the bed. "Did you have dinner?"
"I am not hungry..."
"I see." She sighed, "You should rest."
"Red..." He called, looking up at her. "Hmm?" She hummed, giving him a glass of water. He drank and asked, "Are you afraid of anything?"
Yes. She thought. "No. Why?"
"But I am..." He trailed off, holding her hands while looking deeply into her eyes with a glint of desperation and sadness, "The thought of losing you frightens me..."
Red bit her bottom lip to hear his words yet replied in the tone which breaks his heart, "What will you gain by imprisoning this body?"
"And soul? Whose name is engraved in it?" He asked, breathlessly, faintly, hopelessly. "It doesn't need a name."
"And heart?" Red grit her teeth to hear the words which never fails to break her tranquil and elicit gloom.Yanking her hand away, Red replied hugging her sides,
"My heart is not weak that it will need someone's name. Which can't be mine, how can I expect it to be someone else's?" Red asked with a shrug.
Erich lowered his head, on the verge of crying but he gulped down his agony and asked in a bare whisper, "Do you hate me?" Voice lingering with the fear of hearing 'yes'.
"I don't know." Red replied truthfully. "What about you...? Do you love me?" She asked in the same tone.
"I... don't know."
With a disappointed look, Red moved back, "It's equal then.... But do you know what? You are only hurting yourself." She said, vexed.
"I know... but I have gotten too far, Red. I can't redeem my mistake now." He whispered.
"You did this. You chose this path. We could have sorted a way out but you didn't let it."
"If you could... Please ever try to forgive me, Red." Erich's voice was barely audible, painful, unable to even lift gaze and meet hers. "I have no other choice." Red reasoned.
"Thank you..." Erich gave her a sad smile. "For what?"
"Nothing."
"Freshen up, We are leaving for home tomorrow." At least you considered that desolate place a home. Erich smiled to himself as they went to sleep.