To See You Again(Oneshot)
Title: To See You Again(Oneshot)
Autho ace3851
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ohmiya
Length: One-shot
Genre: Romance, Adventure
Disclaimer: Nope.
Summary: When Nino becomes a victim to a kidnapping, Ohno sets out to find him.
The kidnappings started with the dictatorship of the nation, and seem to be at their peak recently. In this nation, anyone who meant any threat to the government was bound to disappear one day.
Ninomiya Kazunari, known commonly as Nino, was a fearless person. He was confident - whatever was on his mind, he would say without any sign of hesitation, no matter what it stood to mean. Therefore, everyone saw it coming - maybe even Nino himself, who never once backed down out of fear.
When Nino is taken away a few weeks after his twentieth birthday, Ohno Satoshi is left hanging loose and lost. Nino leaves his side one day, and a part of Ohno’s soul seems to leave with him, leaving the latter incomplete.
Of course, Ohno can’t simply forget. Ever since the day evil pulled up in a silver van, pulled Nino inside and pulled Ohno’s fighting body into violent unconsciousness, Ohno never once stopped thinking of thin lips, chubby hands and a voice subtly giving hints of great affection that only Ohno was meant to decipher.
Before the grief chews Ohno up and spits him up dead, Ohno’s energy shifts to a long journey. It was a necessity, sort of like the miracle drug to a fatal disease - traveling was something that not only helped free him from the grief of thinking certain things, but also made him feel that he was doing something for Nino.
Nino wasn’t dead. Right? … Right. Ohno was going to find him -he’s out there somewhere, wondering where he was and maybe thinking about home, perhaps a little hungry or something. Somewhere in his heart, Ohno knows that Nino could be dead, that his search could be useless. If so, Ohno would die searching, with hope still alive, before he died from grief with the knowledge that his beloved was kidnapped at such a young age and killed maybe even with suffering.
The first village Ohno comes to is called Fulsby. It’s more urban than Ohno’s hometown, and he finds himself landing extensive, thoughtful glances at the new technologies being displayed in the markets.
Ohno isn’t experienced in looking for people, let alone traveling alone. He came with nothing but a small backpack and the drive that is gifted by the soul out of love. The most he thinks to do is simply walk around every street and corner, looking for Nino’s face.
It’s around the fourth village when Ohno finally learns to ask around. He learns to see into the unseen network of information held by communication. Ohno becomes quite good at it, and furthermore learns to see into different categories like kidnappings, boy with a mole on his chin or prisons; he notes to show off his new skill someday to Nino in exchange for lit up, proud, loving and shining eyes. Maybe with a kiss and an “I love you” thrown in there. Or not.
Having traveled to four villages on foot and with barely any money, Ohno learns some about survival. Sleeping beneath giant trees, making a fire to cook up the rabbit that he miraculously was able to catch when he threw his knife, humming to himself and daydreaming about a certain someone to make himself smile to and from sleep; he learns that, alone, he can technically survive. But it was lonely.
-------
“For your own sake, child, drop your hopes,” the woman says to Ohno, at the church crowded with people who also mourned over lost loved ones. “None has ever come back alive - a lucky one or two got back corpses for proper burial, but that’s about it.”
The church was opening a ceremony to represent farewell to the people who went missing just like Nino. It was full of people who simply gave up.
“Nino’s not dead,” Ohno says plainly to the woman. A few people nearby turn around to look at him, many with disapproval crinkling their faces.
The woman stares at him for a moment, looking about ready to say something a couple of times but then stopping each time to prolong the silence.
“Fine, then,” she finally sighs. “Do as you please. Just know that, if you ever change your mind… you’re always welcome here at the church.”
“Poor kid,” somebody whispers as Ohno walks out.
“God save this nation,” another voice mumbles.
-------
Nino was what Ohno was looking for, but where Ohno would look in hopes of finding the younger, he would find something else. And, usually, that something is rather irrelevant or sometimes even disheartening. And then, in some rare instances, Ohno would run into something that would make him stop and stare, something he would like to show Nino one day.
One in particular was the small cavern on the side of the hill. The lands were windy, but this particular area was within the protection offered by the shielding hill above it.
The cavern is abandoned, but surely someone used to live there - carved-in pictures cover the walls, and Ohno doesn’t feel alone when he steps in to rest.
Ohno opens his sketchbook, and starts to sketch the scenery. He does it loosely; he had realized long ago that details tended to ruin certain memories. He wanted to be accurate - after all, he was going to tell Nino about all of it.
-------
Everything Ohno did was meant to help him find his lost love. Nino was all he had in mind; no amount of good food, entertainment or comfort appealed to him as long as Nino was still somewhere out there.
Some nights, Ohno shivers without stop. He grows to get used to it, knowing deep inside that there are things more important.
Summer is coming to a close.
Ohno keeps traveling, record of how many villages or forests or rivers all lost by now.
-------
It’s winter now. Snow’s amounted to meters high, and surviving isn’t as simple as finding food and shelter. Ohno has to fight for it, where a lot of his morals and natures went straight to the trash.
Preferably in barns, sometimes in unused hotel rooms if lucky - being kicked out and beat if not. Finding shelter was not simple because there were so many options while none at all at the same time. Ohno, who was a man of simplicity, took a lot of stress from it, especially when he could find nothing and was left in the below-zero temperature in his beat up slippers that replaced the shoes that were too expensive for him and his worn clothes, no coat.
Today is one of the worst. Ohno tries to slip into the storage of some clock store to rest for the night, but his obviously lost and lacking appearance gave him away - the owner grabs him by the back of his shirt and throws him to the street(which was easy because Ohno had become a lot smaller since the start of his journey, especially since winter came), then kicks him to unconsciousness.
When Ohno wakes, he is lying in some quiet alleyway. He stands, but falls when his feet are too numb. Looking down, the man realizes that the angry owner had taken his slippers. Ohno was never one to hate, and this instance was the first for him to hate somebody so much. The owner didn’t take his shoes because he wanted or needed it; the shoes were worth nothing, especially for the rich owner. He did it out of meanness, and that stirs Ohno up with anger and hate.
But Ohno is Ohno. He soon feels surprised at himself for feeling that way, and then feels bad about it a moment later.
“That’s not me,” Ohno whispers to himself. He crawls to leave the cold alleyway.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Ohno repeats to himself, suddenly ashamed. Especially when he remembers Nino praising him for his “warmth”(or being too lazy to be mean, Ohno’s sister had said during a brother-sister fight once).
Once in a main street, he huddles next to a wall to a Chinese restaurant. Curling up into a tight ball, silently recalling the memory in which Nino did the same…
“Are you sick..? Or something?” Ohno asks, resting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Ohno, nine years old then, has never been much of the leader in his friendship with his two-years-younger friend Nino, but surely had some big-brotherly material in him: he always tended to worry about Nino’s health. This was probably because Nino’s mom one day remarked: “Kazu gets sick easily,” and young Ohno took it more heavily than the woman had meant.
“I’m just cold,” Nino responds flatly, maintaining the tight ball that he was curled up into. They’re on top of a giant hill of snow, where their snowman fell and broke from when Ohno tripped and accidentally knocked it down.
“Then we should go inside… You look like an armagiyo,” Ohno giggles, sitting down next to Nino.
“Armadillo,” Nino corrects. “Sitting like this keeps me warm.”
All alone and some years older, Ohno imitates the small Nino from his memories. Ohno feels a bit warmer, and he crosses out the chances of it only being in his head so that he can confirm that, since the age of seven, Nino had been teaching Ohno things.
What Ohno wakes to is a tall, lean man shaking him back to reality from his dream about fishing up a giant squid.
“Are you okay? Are you okay? You’re okay? Are you? Are you okay?”
Ohno blinks. The frozen numbness throughout his body and also frozen-to-sleep mind can only do as much as mumble, “Am I okay…?”
“You’re freezing,” the guy calls, much too loud for the dark, cold night. “Come on, come inside… Oh god, are you okay?”
Like a corpse, Ohno is dragged into the Chinese restaurant that he had rested in front of.
“Why were you barefoot? It’s freezing out!” A foggy voice shouts.
Ohno’s mind spins.
‘But I’m not drunk. Oh, that bar, Tanaka’s, was it? It closed down… How sad. I wish it was still there. Why did it close, again?’
A prickling sensation is what snaps Ohno a considerable amount back to reality, out of the weird void of the completely irrelevant, senseless train of thoughts. He looks around - he’s in a dimly lit, vacant restaurant, where all chairs are put up onto the tables except for the one he was in. His feet, as Ohno sees it through the warm water, are paler than what he thought was human. They feel weird, an uncomfortable combination of tickling and hurting like he was standing up after folding his legs for a long time.
A man who looks to be about his age stands over him, looking like his dog just died.
“Where… am I?” Ohno asks, finding his body to be heavy like it sometimes would be in a really bad dream.
“You’re in my restaurant,” the man says quickly, as if to fear any delay. “I found you sitting outside, and, well… it’s December.”
“Oh…” Ohno mumbles, and it’s all he can think say. He looks down and thinks hard, in the back of his mind being jealous of how Nino would thoughtlessly just know the right thing to say. What should I say next? My name? Age? A thanks, maybe? For saving me from possibly freezing to death or some other misfortune, like say amputation of feet from frostbite? Yeah, a thanks sounds good-
“Are you a homeless person?” The stranger asks. Ohno decides to hold the thanks for a bit, while regretting not being quick, and then feeling some more jealousy for Nino’s quickness during conversations-
“I’m a traveler,” Ohno answers. He then pauses, thinking: couldn’t I pass for a homeless person? Ah, but I have a home - I’m just out on a search… Should I have said that I was someone looking for someone else-
“That sounds so fun!” The guy exclaims, blasting away what used to be an unsure, worried look. It baffles Ohno to some extent.
“It’s not for fun,” Ohno responds. He shivers a bit at the uncomfortable mix of the following: the guy’s words and Ohno’s understandings of the hardships of traveling. “I’m out here looking for someone. He was kidnapped.”
“Oh,” The guy says, tone stepping down a notch. “But my family would always say that true joy is found working for the goal, more so than completing it. We used to have a calendar with that on it, actually.”
Ohno frowns, for he, too, has thought about this quote and agreed to it somewhere in the past. ‘True happiness is found on the road, not at the end’. But this was different! He missed Nino - looking at stars, eating ramen, making silly sketches; it’s not the same without the younger. It didn’t make sense, to say that the time spent alone searching for his beloved is supposed to be more joyful than the time spent holding their hands and sharing gentle smiles, loving gestures…
“Well anyway,” the guy says; he has a tendency to shift conversations as soon as it even dared to lose energy, Ohno would find out later on during his stay-
The guy’s name is Aiba Masaki, and ends up giving Ohno more kindness than he’s gotten for a long time. He was able to convince Ohno to stay for a few days, and within it was Christmas Eve - Aiba’s birthday. As a birthday present, Ohno draws the guy a painting of the dog that he so badly wanted but couldn’t get because of the responsibility that came with the restaurant. Aiba’s family is kind the entire time, providing plenty of food and shelter and more, all in exchange for Ohno’s stories of his travels and Nino. But only to Aiba Masaki does Ohno tell about his romantic side with Nino. It’s a secret, they agree, which excites Aiba like a kid going out late at night without their parents’ permission.
When Ohno leaves, he swears to come back one day. With Nino - Aiba makes him pinky-swear four or five times.
-------
Ohno had re-gained his health a tiny bit during his days at the Aibas’ place, but it all came crashing back down again when he was back out in the new year.
His fingers are freezing cold, and it they’ve reached their peak of missing the fingers that used to tangle with them affectionately. Furthermore, he hasn’t been taking in much food because of the scarcity of it that came along with the winter cold.
For a few weeks, Ohno starves. Once he realizes how close death stood from him, he finally realizes the importance of simply surviving, how it stood weighing possibly even more than the search itself. Because, he comes to realize, if he died here, he would never find Nino. Nino would live alone(or maybe find new love, an idea that came from Ohno’s insecurities and was always avoided for the sake of his own heart[which believed that Nino was his, he was Nino’s and it was supposed to be that way forever and beyond]), and the two would never open their promised bakery, the one with Ohno’s paintings arranged on the walls by Nino’s fine taste.
Recently, Ohno has been thinking more and more about things, bringing complexity into simple things with the help of his mind, opinions, thoughts. It’s something Nino often did - recently, Ohno catches himself thinking things that Nino has said something about in the past. For example, the astonishment of the fact that he and Ohno are two out of billions: two people meet, and that’s often taken for granted.
‘I’m so glad I met you,’ Nino had said in Ohno’s arms one night, and now that all those times have gone by never to turn back again, Ohno wonders why he couldn’t be more aware of the weight of the statement back then. Out of so many people out there, the two were able to meet, and furthermore bathe in the warmth of love. Why did Ohno let it by like it was nothing? He feels nothing but regret now that the two had been ripped apart, both becoming just ones in the billions once again.
The day Ohno truly scrambles to survive is the day a bear lunges at him. That day is also the day he truly is able to think about the weight of life, for not only was his in serious danger, but the bear laid dead before him, bleeding where the couple of knives thrown by Ohno had cut through its middle.
For a while, Ohno sits in front of the dead animal - it’s a young bear, still not fully grown yet. Ohno feels bad, and he wonders why - he had killed small animals before for food, from rabbits, rats to toads(hunger was the motivation, and further motivation emerges from how it tasted surprisingly good), so why was he suddenly guilty for killing this bear? A life is a life, he thinks to himself. That’s something Nino would say, he thinks again with a bittersweet emotion.
Bear tastes something like roast beef. He sketches a bear or two in his sketch books, making it alive and standing in the sketches just because - he’ll maybe tell Nino about the killing of the creature in defense and the guilt that overcame him because of it, or maybe come up with a lighter but more dishonest story about how it was alive and never attacked, but instead made friends with Ohno, just because Nino might smile then.
Soon after his run-in with the bear, Ohno comes to a village that is pretty advanced in its anti-dictatorship movements. This is likely because of the combination of both the rebelliousness and courage of the villagers(which lightly reminds Ohno of Nino) and the strength of the dictatorship in that village.
A mob of protesters holding up pictures of their lost loved ones attracts Ohno. The traveler slips into the group, and stands observing the people, feeling a strange yet eerie connection.
“You’re not from here, are you?” A voice asks.
Ohno looks around - there’s a lot of people, and so he has to focus and try hard to find the right owner of the voice.
“Over here.”
Ohno’s eyes land on a guy, taller than he is with a distinct, well-structured face.
“Don’t get the wrong idea - I saw you coming into the village this morning, only because you stood out, barefoot and all.”
“Oh,” Ohno mumbles, shuffling awkwardly as he is slightly intimidated.
“Are you a traveler?” the stranger asks.
Ohno nods. He almost starts to explain that he’s traveling in search for someone, but then stops when he convinces himself that it’s not necessary(which, he knew in the back of his mind, was an excuse for not having enough courage to openly talk to the man).
“Then… can I ask of a favor?” the stranger presses on.
Fearful but curious, Ohno nods once carefully.
“Thank you - follow me.”
With a short introduction, Ohno finds out the following: the stranger’s name is Jun Matsumoto, he is a few years younger than Ohno, and is a strong anti-dictatorship activist because of the damage his family members had gone through because of the dictatorship.
Jun wants Ohno to see a certain place, to know of a certain thing, so that the traveler could then spread this knowledge to others around the nation. Hopefully, the knowledge would then bring people together from all over the nation, so that they can all work together strongly to bring along change.
It’s a quiet place in the woods. Before Jun and Ohno stands a giant fence - it stretches far and wide, and Ohno can’t see too far in as trees and bushes block his view. Big signs of ‘Government Property - DO NOT ENTER’ are plastered across every few meters of the fence.
“See the smoke?” Jun says, pointing up. Ohno looks up, and, sure enough, he sees smoke rising from a place inside the area surrounded by the fence.
“What is it?” Ohno asks.
“It’s where the government takes the people it murdered,” Jun explains, brows furrowing in something like disgust, disappointment and disapproval. “The proof of the injustice and crime - it’s all burned there, into nothing.”
Ohno stares at the smoke, feeling his stomach turn a bit. The meaning is so unbelievable, so disgusting, so ugly that he can only let a small portion of it register. And that small amount is enough to make his heart sink so much, make him feel so sick.
“Spread word of this. Let people know, and tell them to then let others know. We have to bring people together, Ohno san, in order to bring change. We need change; this can’t go on.”
Leaving the village, Ohno feels heaviness in his steps.
“Nino’s doing fine,” he mumbles to himself.
Over and over again, until he memorizes the lines by heart: “Nino’s doing fine, Nino’s alive, Nino’s out there, waiting for me…”
-------
Sho Sakurai is a journalist. It’s the most dangerous job out there - in this nation which forbids so many ideas and opinions, journalists, with their jobs being expressing just that, are constantly targets of being victims to random killings or disappearances that the people see to be strangely tied to the government but have no courage to speak out about.
Ohno meets Sho when the journalist takes interest in his appearance. Ohno is wrapped by clothes that look overly beat, wearing no shoes and looking like he hasn’t had food or a warm place to sleep in a long, long time(which was pretty much the truth). Sho sees a story in these details, and so he approaches Ohno and asks for his time in exchange for a bowl of ramen. Ramen sounds nice to Ohno, along with someone to listen to him -he had missed people in general, people to look at him, hear him and acknowledge that he is there, surely existing as much as anyone else- so he agrees to Sho’s offer without any hesitation.
“How should I start…?” Ohno asks Sho awkwardly, playing with his fingers unconsciously. They’re sitting and waiting for the ramen, and Sho has a notebook and pen handy, looking ready to take any notes.
“You can introduce yourself a bit… anything, just tell me who you are,” Sho responds with some sort of passion - he’s serious about his job, Ohno thinks.
What am I? It’s the most simple and at the same time most complicated question in the world. Ohno furrows his brows, and then tries: “I’m Ohno Satoshi, from a village to the south…”
“Okay,” Sho says, tone nudging Ohno on.
“I’m traveling in search for someone,” he continues slowly.
“Okay,” Sho repeats.
Ohno frowns. “And… I don’t know. This makes me nervous.”
“I can order a couple of beers,” Sho offers flatly.
“Okay,” Ohno says this time.
Alcohol helps Ohno gain a little more courage, and Sho lose some of his seriousness which both contributes to the progression of their conversation.
“It all happened early last summer. They broke into Nino’s house in the middle of the night,” Ohno explains despairingly, to which Sho nods on to with his full attention. “Took him, dragged him away into a van. I was there - I tried to stop them, but there were too many. I was knocked out… nobody’s seen him since.”
“So all the things you’ve been going through was all for him, to just see him again,” Sho confirms with astonishment.
Ohno nods, to which Sho’s expression melts at.
“He’s an important person, then,” Sho suggests softly.
Ohno just smiles then, an expression that came direct from his heart. Nino, an important person - he’s something more than that. It was long ago that he had come to the conclusion that Nino, to him, had long crossed the boundary of what words could ever convey. Words are weak: lover, soul mate, sweetheart - Ohno can’t choose the best since there is no best, so he would just hold Nino close, show him how he feels in the most direct, often very intimate ways. And even that’s not enough to express how much the younger was to him.
“I’ll do anything to see him again.”
Just then, something cracks inside Ohno. The mix of alcohol and speech topic does the trick, and leaves him with the biggest depletion of hope, which seemed to be replaced with fear, in a long, long time. He might never see Nino again - Nino might even be gone from this world already. It was a taboo thought, one Ohno had been avoiding for so long but was definitely there, hiding in the deepest pits of his heart.
Ohno cries a little. At first, he looks away, trying to hide watering eyes until the tears maybe faded away, but he then buries his face in his hands when the tears are beyond noticeable, leaving no sign of subsiding for some time.
“Ohno san,” Sho calls softly and encouragingly, finding a hand behind Ohno’s small back.
One thought leads to another, and Ohno crumbles, something he actually should’ve fallen to a long time ago. And because he had held it off for so long, it hits him strong.
“You’ll find him, I’m sure,” Sho says comfortingly. It’s something like what Ohno’s been saying to himself for a while, and connection makes him strangely smile a bit.
Unlocking strictly locked thoughts, crying where he hadn’t cried for a while - after the meal and bidding his new friend a farewell, Ohno feels strangely light-hearted. He sets back out with a sort of energy in him that he had not felt for a while.
Weeks later, in a distant city, people speak of Ohno Satoshi. Of love that overpowered everything else, love so strong and sweet.
-------
It’s been a couple of years now.
Ohno had grown used to living with nature, off of priceless things. With guilt, he must admit that he has become much better at stealing things, sneaking into places and doing other things that Nino, his family, anyone would not be happy to hear about. It’s what he needed to do to survive, he would think as an excuse, and it’s a sad truth.
Of course, even with the help of many things, good or bad, his time without a certain home or his favorite person(and people) in the world is hard, sad and heartbreakingly lonely. Ohno is sadly starting to realize that he was starting to forget a lot about Nino - the texture of his hands, the shape of his smile, the sound of his laugh. It drives him crazy, and keeps him scared especially when he finds himself losing track of what was real and what he had made up out of loneliness.
He is bony, and his stamina had shrunk considerably. He finds himself sleeping more, and then feeling like he hadn’t slept for weeks when, really, he had been asleep just a few hours ago. Tired becomes a constant feeling, and his legs seem to be giving in after shorter on-foot trips.
The journey is destroying him, draining him into something weak, but he keeps moving forward. When times get hard, he thinks of his dream future with Nino, and the things the two could do together - their love gets Ohno through a lot of things, things Ohno would long have given up at if it wasn’t for the chance of getting to be with Nino just once more.
The day the western prison of the northern village is overtaken by protesters and inmates determined and sure about their innocence, a huge mark is made in the road to revolution.
The people of the nation work together, to help hide the escapees and involved protestors from the troops that are on a tight search - many are caught, while many managed to escape, hiding away possibly into different villages where there’s less troops watching.
Ohno steps into a quiet, rural village, one where there’s barely any government attention.
One of the western-prison escapees is in hiding there, in a bedroom of a small house next to a farm.
Ohno finds him working in the small market owned by the family that agreed to let him stay at their place, hidden under their roof from the troops that searched with the intent to kill. The former prisoner works in the market as a means to repay the family for treating him like one of the family, keeping him safe in an environment that is like heaven to him compared to the prison in which he was kept for two years.
He is arranging apples, from big to small. A slight frown is on his face, out of concentration.
For Ohno, the world stops moving, and time stands still.
The former prisoner looks up, a small smile forming on his face as a part of a routine of greeting a customer. His smile fades, though, and his expression becomes something just like Ohno’s as soon as the two’s eyes meet.
For a few moments, they forget the world.
Between Ohno and Nino, Nino had always been the quicker one - he is the one who crosses to Ohno first. The two could stand the distance no more, and are wrapped around each other in a strong embrace immediately.
“Where have you been, Kazu,” Ohno murmurs, stroking the other’s hair gently, lovingly.
Nino only responds by nuzzling his nose into the space between Ohno’s neck and shoulder.
“I’ve been looking everywhere,” Ohno says, his voice marked by the gifts of his long journey.
And Nino seems to get it, bunching up a part of Ohno’s shirt at the back in his small fist, wetting the soft, warm skin of Ohno’s neck with tears.
It’s Nino’s first year of high school when the bullying starts. And although he pretends like he doesn’t want to be friends with Ohno anymore, it’s actually what comes of his affection for the older - he didn’t ever want to see Ohno being pulled into his situation, being so isolated, hated and avoided…
But Ohno loved Nino back just as much.
The clock ticks hours past the end of school, pointing to hours and minutes that represent just when the last clubs and practices are to end.
Ohno opens the locked door to the storage room in the gym, the one that’s rumored to be haunted by a long-haired ghost. And there, he finds Nino, who had been locked in there for a while now by the tall, no good basketball team kids.
“Ohno san,” Nino croaks, sounding absolutely helpless and lost - something he would never, ever show in the past. It pains Ohno so much.
By a slender arm, Ohno pulls Nino up from where he had been sitting.
Nino’s about to protest, use up the last bits of fight left in him, but all resistance dies away when Ohno kisses him, a gentle touch of two lips. It’s awkward, as it was the first time for the both of them, but at the same time it’s breathtakingly warm, sweet, strong.
“Found you,” Ohno says, looking a bit ridiculous with his red cheeks, but same went for Nino. For moment, Nino has to think to understand the statement - he smiles when it all registers.
“So the hero saves the day,” Nino jokes, settling in to press his forehead shyly onto Ohno’s shoulder. “Thanks so much, Satoshi…”
“You found me again,” Nino says softly.
Ohno smiles, a warm memory from the past playing in his head. He then pauses in thought, before asking, “Does that mean I should kiss you now?”
The younger laughs then. Ohno pulls away a bit so that he can see Nino’s face, a goofy grin on his face.
And then they kiss. Gently, lovingly. To greet a new future together.
~~~~
I walked ten thousand miles, ten thousand miles to reach you
And every gasp of breath, I grabbed it just to find you
I climbed up every hill to get to you
I wandered ancient lands to hold just you
And every single step of the way, I paid
Every single night and day
I searched for you
Through sandstorms and hazy dawns I reached for you
I stole ten thousand pounds
Ten thousand pounds to see you
I robbed convenience stores cause I thought they’d make it easier
I lived off rats and toads and I starved for you
I fought off giant bears and I killed them too
And every single step of the way, I paid
Every single night and day
I searched for you
Through sandstorms and hazy dawns
I reached for you
I’m tired and I’m weak
But I’m strong, for you
I want to go home
But my love gets me through
-“The Sore Feet Song” by Ally Kerr