The first time I met him, I was thirteen.

He had bright golden hair and blue eyes, was dressed in a Westerner's black suit, and silently stood by the deathbed of dear Grandmother. His presence felt so out of place in our home - in this village deep in the countryside, far away from Edo. However, to a young girl who had never seen a foreigner before, his appearance was blindingly bright.

It was love at first sight.

I was too young to understand why he was there with our family during that time, and I did not dare to speak up about it. He kept watch over grandmother, until she passed away early in the morning, a peaceful and content expression on her face. Then, the man in black disappeared without a trace.

When I asked my parents, they both replied that no such person had been present. They just thought I must have been overcome with sadness over the departure of grandmother, and had been seeing things. They did not believe me.

But I had no use for their understanding; I only wanted to see him again.

One year after grandmother's passing, Edo had been renamed into Tokyo.

In that same year, Aunt Ino fell deathly ill. When we visited her, the man in black was there, sitting next to her futon. He looked the same as I remembered him. Not a day had gone by that I had not pictured him before my eyes, and seeing him again filled me with elation. Elation that I should not have felt during this most somber occasion.

We returned in the evening the same day, despite my protests. Mother always had an aversion to Father's sister, and found an excuse for us to leave. She had not married despite her age, and made a living through work at a printing company. For a good housewife like Mother, Aunt Ino disgraced all women who lived to support their husbands. And she represented a bad influence on me, who was soon to follow my mother's example.

Once again, I was separated from my beloved stranger, before I could muster the courage to try and converse with him.

Aunt Ino passed away that night, only hours after we had left.

The third time he appeared before me, I finally learned who he was.

No, to say 'learned' would be wrong. I understood, deep down inside my heart, what kind of existence he was.

It was in winter another two years later. He was walking alongside the men who carried Father home on a stretcher. A drunk vagrant samurai had cut Father down and inflicted a grievous wound across his chest. Having lost the stipends in the wake of the Meiji Restoration, many of them blamed the merchants. Father was a very successful businessman, who employed former samurai and gave them a home.

This injustice was lost on me at the time, since my mind was occupied by the presence of the man in black, my beloved stranger. I finally understood that he was the God of Death. He only appeared when people were about to depart this world, and he would leave together with their souls. Grandmother and Aunt Ino had already been taken away by him. This time, he had come for Father.

Mother screamed and cried. I had never seen her like that before. However, my eyes were fixed only on the beautiful God of Death, who watched over Father until he would breathe his last. So entranced was I by his presence, that I lost sight of everything else around me.

"Don't go!" I found myself shouting. The others in the room thought I was speaking to Father, but I was directing it at the god who had stood up to leave.

Our eyes met.

My heart felt like it would burst out of my chest, but I could not say any more. His icy gaze was affixed on me, a blue like the clear winter sky, burning itself into the depths of my mind. The magic wore off when he turned away and walked out of the room.

He disappeared once more.

Tears formed in my eyes and gave everyone the illusion that I was mourning my father's passing. In truth, my heartbreak stemmed from the fact that I would have to wait for who knew how long, before I could, once again, meet the God of Death.

There was no room for sadness over losing Father.

I was a failure as a daughter.

Having lost Father's income, my family fell into ruin.

My marriage, which had been arranged since I had been only eight years of age, was canceled. The family of the man who would have become my husband considered me worthless, now that Father's business had been taken over by somebody unrelated to our family.

While Mother spiraled into depression and despair, I felt unparalleled freedom and the future open up before me. I did not have to marry a man I did not love and had never even met before. With no fortune to our name, I may never ever have to marry anybody. That way, I could wait for the love of my life to come again and depart this world with him.

I sought apprenticeship with the village physician, Doctor Ishikawa. Women did not have the right to become doctors, but I could work as a nurse. Albeit, my goal was not to save lives, but to witness their ends, so that I could meet the God of Death again.

I understood that I was a wicked person, but my love knew no boundaries.

However, I over my first year at the clinic, I learned that the number of people dying in this village were few. With barely five thousand inhabitants, there were only around fifty deaths since I started working. Most did not teeter on the brink for long, and passed away without even being brought to the clinic. Those who did get admitted often lived to return home. The few who died did not do so while I was present.

I could not meet him again in all that time.

Then, a ray of hope presented itself when I returned home one day and found that Mother had come down with an illness that whittled away at her life. Her mental state had continued to deteriorate over the past year. She had forgotten my name a few months ago, and had ceased to speak altogether at soon after.

She was no longer the mother that had raised me. And she was not going to be of this world for much longer.

"Kiku, where are you?" One night, I heard Mother call for me. She seemed to have regained her senses, but I only felt disappointment. If she recovered and did not die, I could not meet my beloved again.

When I realized the darkness of my thoughts, all I could feel was disgust at myself. How could I have been wishing for the death of my own mother?

"Mother, I am coming!" I rushed out of my room and through the corridor. It was as if a weight had been lifted off my heart, when I finally realized that for the past year, I had been like possessed. I had been in love with death.

But when I entered Mother's room, my mind was wiped blank once more.

The God of Death sat by her bed.

The darkness rushed back inside me and I felt all other emotions drowning under the weight of my love for the person before me.

"Kiku..." Mother's voice was weak - much weaker than it had been moments ago. She was a candle about to be extinguished; thus, she burned brighter for just one last time. "I am sorry, my child..."

I barely heard her apology through my own heartbeat. He was right there, with nobody to witness me speaking to somebody invisible to all but me, other than a dying person.

Could I not take this chance to converse with him now? Would he reply to my words, my emotions?

"Kiku... are you there? I cannot see you..." At these words, my mind snapped back to the reality before me. My mother lay dying.

"Yes, Kiku is here." Taking her withered hand, I knelt by her side and finally broke my gaze from my beloved. Looking down at Mother's face, that seemed to have aged two decades since Father's passing, I could feel the emotions I had buried for so long rise back to the surface.

Tears filled my vision, dripped on the futon below and seeped into its fabric. It felt like the rain gracing the parched earth after a seemingly endless drought.

Grandmother, who had always made me sweets and told me stories of the past. Aunt Ino, who had bought me many beautiful clothes and treated me like the daughter she never had. Father, who had raised me with unparalleled love and care. They had all left this world, and I had not mourned for them.

The feeling of their loss was flooding into me like a river that had been dammed up for too long and now finally broke free.

"Please, Mother!" My voice cracked as I leaned over her.

"Kiku, I know you are a strong child... you can live on your own..." Muttering these words with a faint voice, Mother squeezed my hand weakly. Her frailty was testament to the fact that she was slipping away.

"No! What am I to do without you, Mother?" But my words did not reach her anymore. Her grip loosened and I could feel her life disappear from my grasp.

Raising my blurry gaze, I saw the God of Death stand up. He had achieved what he had come to do, and would now leave with Mother's soul.

"Stop!" Before I knew it, I had jumped up and grabbed onto his arm. An icy sensation shot into my hand; the curse of the dead on the living. But I refused to let go and tightened my grip. I had been waiting to meet him for many years, so this could not be how we parted again. "Take me in her stead!"

Suddenly, he turned around, and his blue gaze bore two holes into my very soul. Under the cold moonlight falling into the room through the windows behind him, and the lantern's warm glow in my back, he looked more beautiful, more human, than he ever had before.

"It is not your time." His voice sent a shock through my whole body and ignited the flame in my heart once more. Yes, that was what I had been wishing for. To hear his voice, to be able to speak to him.

But I let go. Looking down at me, his eyes widened slightly upon seeing my expression. When I did not say any more, he turned around, to depart this world once more and leave me behind.

"I love you..." I whispered, but too quiet to be heard, as if spoken solely to satisfy my own heart.

The man in black took a step.

"I... love you..." Once again, too quiet for him to understand.

My beloved stranger took another step.

"... I love you!" Finally, my voice reached him.

The God of Death stopped.

"Then wait for the day I come to get you." He spoke in a calm and cold tone. But to me, those words could just as well have been the sweet whispers of love I so longed to hear from him. It was a promise that at the end of everything, he would be there for me.

Disappearing like a midsummer night's breeze, I was left alone in the room.

Nothing bound me to this village after my Mother's passing.

I had been earning money through my work and had just barely supported our life after Father's death. Doctor Ishikawa praised my excellence and agreed to write a letter of recommendation. With it, I could apply for a clinic run by his old friend from his student years at the University for Western Medicine. A clinic located in Tokyo.

Since I was a seventeen year old girl from a small village, I had never been to a big city before. It was a daunting idea to go to the capital alone, but at the same time, excitement burned in my chest. According to what I read, the population of Tokyo exceeded half a million. I could feel my heartbeat quicken at the idea that with so many people, my chances to meet Him again were far higher than they had ever been.

With a bundle of my important belongings on my back, a straw hat covering my face from the glaring sun, and a simple walking stick in hand, I departed towards my next fateful meeting with the man in black, my beloved stranger, the God of Death. The promised love of my life.