Folklore | ✔

Loveless, But (Rona)

Jo March once said, women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition, and they've got talent, as well as just beauty. She declared that love isn't all a woman is fit for. And a woman tied to what they clarified as love and bonded to what they called marriage, was, are never, the ideal of freedom that Jo always thought of. If what people had for love was a burning flames of feelings, then she'd rather pour it into her own passions and dreams.

Thus, I believed in that matter. In fact, I was quite the stubborn one in order to achieve my whole new level of wonderland. I was the main character in it. Not because of it's my life, instead, I was the only capable person to pave and create the best quality of my history.

No man, no boy, even a mere long lost father figure in my entire life could destroyed the golden ticket to travel out of this poor-difficult-struggle-much living.

And so, I laid the mind, heart, and soul of mine to singing. I ignored the trivial and such petty thing like love. Including all the butterflies which would swim and warm my dynasty.

Until a certain stern and rigid tall boy showed up to say his pick up lines.

"But still, she's pretty."

"Are you also late?"

In that moment, I was unprepared. The wall I built clearly wasn't waterproof nor bulletproof. It leaked through the gestures and actions that I couldn't possibly imagine would come in the form of attraction. How I admired the he who gave me kindness in the minimalist possible way.

"Step on my back and climb up the wall. You can't be late on your first day."

"Sit here. The seat next to me is empty."

"Clean this up. Before you guys get dumped together."

"The one who put those cigarettes in Rona's bag is me."

The minuscule goodness spoke how uncharacteristically of him to act like that. Somehow, it made me giddy, happy, and all crazy to think that he cared for me. How I could consider my adoration to him as the kind of like you felt towards someone you fond of. Greater than just a person who had the same taste in music, books, or such.

Because in honesty, I liked him enough to know he was actually shy, clumsy, and awkward.

"Good luck."

I liked him enough to know that his facade masked a lonely child at heart.

"Don't go."

I liked him enough to tell through his lie.

"Give me some time. When everything's solved, I will tell you the truth."

Enough to say I already loved him when I spun around my heels to meet his eyes in the spontaneous of moment. Romantically.

And he was the meaning I've been searching for ever since I threw away the idea of being in love; to love and to be loved by someone. I was in too deep for him till I hurt myself more than I could love him.

For that, I pitied us. I pitied me who harbored feelings to the pathetic first love, the same way I pitied him who lost myself for two years in between our young love. I really pitied him who whimpered in my arms as he stroked and took me in fully till all I know was how much we missed each other for the time we skipped.

I cried for the harsh reality we still had to endure in order to know that the feelings we connected to wasn't unreal.

Even after we became more open, sincere, and honest, we still left cold in the heat of madness. Flaring up like there was no paradise tomorrow to pass by but hell of darkness.

And I was everything he needs only for him to let go. Again.

"Let's break up. I can't do this anymore."

He slapped me right when I was on the verge of feeling dead inside. And I was uncontrollably fed up, tired, mostly exhausted, by the time I accepted his ending. I was already out of my insanity to dig in my last emotions of losing.

I was, am, undoubtedly empty.

And so, I was wondering what could happen if meet again by chance. Before I dumped the country and after he broke up to only pick me up again that night. I wondered.

"Rona-ya. I...."

"Seokhoon-ah. I...."

Would we still trap in this hopeless reunion for another worth of love?

I always pondered.