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T H R E E

During lunch break, I was about to sit down at a table where some of the other girls were sitting. Then, I heard a voice behind me. "Furina?"

I turned around to find Apollo.
"What is it?" I asked.
Apollo pointed to another table. "Can we sit there? It's about the project."
I nodded. "Alright!"

When I sat down at the table and started eating my sandwich, Apollo pulled a book out from his backpack. "You know, the size of the universe is a complex thing and we have to..."

After that, I stopped paying attention to what he said. I was just fascinated by the way he spoke about the project and how he showed me things on a page in his book. When he noticed I was staring at his light blue eyes, he stopped talking.

"Are you even listening?", he asked quietly.
I felt embarrassed. "Sorry. I was thinking about something else."
That wasn't even a lie, I mean, was thinking about him, but not the things he was talking about. But I felt bad for him anyway.
"Can you... repeat it, please?"

And so he did, without even asking what I was thinking about. But I still couldn't forgive myself such a stupid action. I knew him for one day and I already made him hate me.

———

When I arrived at home, I wanted to tell someone about the drama, but the only person who came to my mind was Stellar. And I actually knew she didn't like him.

I fell onto my bad and sighed. Looked like I had to handle it myself.
So I stood up and went to my whiteboard. I made a table, one side for Tanner and one for Apollo. Then I started noting down the positives and negatives about both of them.

I know, you might think I'm crazy, but that's because there's a minor detail about me y'all didn't know.

I actually have two opinions about love:
the first one is that love's cheap shit and you can avoid it because you don't need it. It's a meaningless feeling.
But on the other side, I'd love to find a person who really cares about me like none other. I was jealous of people being able to fall in love with someone.
Yes, I'm serious: I didn't know how to show affection or love. So this whole thing would be a lot more complicated than it actually was.

After thirty minutes, I collected exactly four points on each side, but all of them were negative and had something to do with relationships, not their personalities.
So I put the pencil away and looked at myself in the mirror.

"You're unable to fall in love with anyone, you dumb jerk! Stop making a fool of yourself! That's not necessary!" One brain half shouted. It was the one with my first love opinion.
The other brain half sighed. "You know that if you want to be loved, you have to learn how to love, Furina."

And I actually knew the second half was right. Of course, I didn't know how to love and it was kind of stupid to collect positives and negatives in a table.
The first brain half was right as well: I was making a fool of myself doing that. And I had to find a new way to learn how to love.

My first thought was to watch YouTube tutorials — that's the first thing you think about when hearing the word 'learn'. But I realized I had to face reality and learn how that feeling called 'love' really worked. But I had to learn it myself, without the help of any others.

———

The next day was a Saturday. I wanted to sleep longer, but I woke up at 4 AM because my alarm went on. At least that's what I thought, it actually was Apollo calling me.
What did he want this early in the morning? I knew he had my phone number, so I wasn't worrying about that. I was way too tired to think about anything.