COMING OF AGE | Nishimura Riki

025 | love quotes

nishimura riki
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A random fact about me, I like to read quotes because the ones writing them are better at putting my feelings to words than I am. The feeling of understanding is comforting, knowing you are not alone with your feelings and experiences.

I do remember moments when I have encountered love quotes. I have always found them dramatic and exaggerated. There is no way love can be that strong. But I have learned you can gain knowledge from experience. I understand now that love really is a strong feeling.

Love can be beautiful and tragic at the same time. It can help you be a better version of yourself, but it can also break you into a million pieces.

The tragic side of love is unknown and something I'm inexperienced in, and I hope it will stay that way. An experience of getting your heart broken will help you gain knowledge about life and yourself. But that is not something I want or need right now.

All I want and need right now is Mai. She's always been hard to forget, she has always been my never-ending thought. My heart and mind are full of feelings and thoughts that are related to Mai.

Is this how being in love feels like?

With the thoughts of Mai, while memories with her were playing inside my head, I smiled widely. When the memories stopped playing, I noticed the drawing of Mai in my math book. I looked up and realized my classmates were taking notes while my teacher explained a solution. Nicholas noticed my confusion and tried to peek at my math book.

I saw it and quickly tried to hide it, but it resulted in my math book falling on the floor. My teacher reacted to it by giving me a stare. I bowed to apologize before picking up the math book from the floor. Nicholas chuckled. Once the math book was on the desk, Nicholas tried to steal it.

"Crown Prince Riki and Wang, please be quiet and pay attention to the lesson" Hamasaki said.

We bowed to apologize and stopped bothering each other. I tried to listen to Mrs Hamasaki's examples and solutions, but none stayed inside my brain for longer than a few seconds. I peeked at the drawing I made earlier. If Nicholas didn't bother me I would have finished it. Despite the drawing's missing details, you can still see it is Mai and her beautiful features.

The bell rang to signal the lesson was over.

"I didn't know you were into arts" Nicholas commented as we started to collect our things.

"And I didn't know you would be interested in knowing that" I replied with a chuckle.

"Of course am I interested in knowing your interest. Can I see your drawing?" Nicholas asked and I shaked my head.

Nicholas was not satisfied with my answer but decided to let it pass since he didn't feel the need to keep bothering me. I'm not saying he is annoying, if Nicholas was annoying I wouldn't hang out with him. I'm just saying we express ourselves differently.

Nicholas is the type of person who is very straightforward with his emotions and opinions. If he and a girl he fancied, he would not hesitate about walking up to her and ask her out. For me, it would take months or maybe even years to do something like that.

Hopefully, it will not take years of courage until I'm ready to ask Mai out. We shared a kiss yesterday and that means Mai might feel the same way. If you share a kiss with someone, it must mean you feel attracted to that person. I do know there are people out there who kiss people left and right without having feelings involved. But I don't Mai is one of those.

While walking to the next classroom, I spotted a window with a slight view of Jishin. It's not a lot to see, the view itself is very boring, to be honest. But it's not the view itself that caught my eye, it's the road my mind started to walk on. The desire to see Mai is always there inside of me and it's growing after every thought of her.

"What are you doing?" Kenji suddenly asked as he approached me.

"Nothing" I quickly replied and started to walk away.

"Not that fast, Crown Prince" Kenji replied and stopped.

"I understand why you have been sneaking away during lunch" He added with a smirk as he threw his arm around my shoulder.

I stared at Kenji out of confusion. Does he know about me and Mai?

"She's pretty" Kenji said as he patted my shoulder.

I looked out the window and spotted a girl outside. She was looking at me with a wide smile on her face. I bowed to her out of respect and then walked away. For how long has she been standing there? What if I accidentally stared at her and she mistook it for something else?

In the best-case scenario, she doesn't have as much of a thought process as I do right now. I am always scared of causing misunderstandings, especially because I don't people to misunderstand me.

I wish I were as straightforward as Nicholas. I wish there wasn't a thought process going on inside my head after every little action. Maybe life would be easier if I didn't think as much as I do. But at the same time, I know I wouldn't think about Mai as much as I do right now if I was thinking less.

Maybe that's why my brain is not so good at storing and collecting memories, because I am constantly thinking thousands of thoughts at once. That's also why I have to make sure I dont forget Mai. I never want to forget her.