before // njr

Chapter 15

"But, i knew i'd curse you for the longest time. I knew i'd wish you could've change your mind. I knew you'd miss me once the moment died. I knew to love would be to lose my mind"

—cardigan, songwriting voice memo

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6 Months Later

"Pele, come here!"

I plays with the feather wands Martin gave me to play with his cats before he passed away six months ago. A short recap for what has happened, Martin suffered a Hypertension since the beginning of the year due to old ages and his daughters and grandchildren finally came back to take care of him. It's really nice to see him reuniting with his family and gets to feel the love from the only family he has before he passed away. After the funeral, his daughter told me that Martin would like to give me the adoption rights of all his cats, for me to take care off. He has done nothing but being the best neighbor i've ever had, so i'm gladly accept that offers.

Having five Persian cats inside of my little not-so-spacious house is enough to give me a company, since it gets very lonely sometimes. Leyna and I, we're still having a good relationship with each other despise everything that happened, but we're not really that close anymore. She's still a good friend of mine and we'll always be there for each other when needed. Ali and I, we catch up a few times when we're not busy. He often came to my house and help me to buy groceries before we experiment some new Pastries in my kitchen. It turns out, after all this times Ali has a hidden talent in Pâtisserie. Kylian and I, we're back to our normal cousins phase where we likes to sleepover at one's house and plays Nintendo Switch until morning. Even, Ethan likes to join us some times. My life has went back to its normal state, except for the part where i'm missing a piece of me six months ago.

"Meow!" Maradona—the cat—jumps into my lap first, before Pele—also, the cat—get his fat body next to me. The moment Pele got his claw on my couch, he accidentally sits on the the remote control and turned on the television with his paw and i saw him.

It was a Paris Saint Germain match against Juventus that i supposed to attend today, but i refused. Kylian has been asking me a thousand times to watch his games for the sake of emotional supports on the field, since his relationship with the other teammates has been on a rocky road lately. There were some club internal problems happening and what happened six months ago also adds an extra layer for it. Things started to get worse when fans and media were making their own assumptions and theories about this whole situations. I was feeling partly guilty about it, but at the same time i'm delighted he's finally able to gain his full recovery and being back at the football field to fulfill his true love. As i would thought, he is so much better without me.

"Goal!" I shrieked when Neymar scores a goal, assisted by Kylian. Maradona and Pele got startled when i shouts all of the sudden, so they shifted their attentions to another interesting thing in my house and left me alone at the living room to join Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and Maldini.

I pull out my cellphone to re-record the goal so i can give Kylian proofs that i supported his game from home. But, i change my mind as soon as i saw someone's face got shot on the screen. I blinked twice to make sure i saw the right sight, therefore the same person still shows up on the screen celebrating Neymar's goal along with Carol, Davi, and Valentin next to her. Then, the weird feelings on my chest has come back again. She is pretty—that kind of pretty that makes you tilt your head twice when you passed by her on the street. Of course, he would come back to her. They're each other's twin flame, after all. Good for him.

Ever since my last traumatic encounter with those Paparazzis, i'm not having any kind of satisfaction again on surfing the internet. I used to keep up with all the popular cultures between every famous people in general, but now i'm kind of have no idea what's going on out there—including the Neymar-getting-back-together-with-his-ex part. After that horrendous event, my Instagram account got leaked by one viral post on TikTok and i decided to deactivate my account due to bunch of hate comments and death threats that was coming to my DMs. They found out about my family connection with Kylian and he also got terrorized by it. I have to pushed all of my morning class schedule to evening so i don't have to deal with a lot of people like Luna and her gang. I've been focusing on college since i quit my last job and it's been going on so well. I already saved up enough money now to chill with my cats and go to college without the needs of working hours to hours.