love
/ləv/
noun
1.
an intense feeling of deep affection.
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Love is a feeling. Something that happens miraculously. An odd feeling when it first comes to you, but one you can easily handle.
A feeling that when someone asks you to explain, you usually respond with a simple response like "it happens when you want to be with someone forever. You begin to feel awkward around them, your heart aches, you just want to hug and cuddle them until you die." But that's not truly what it is, is it?
You can feel affection towards others that you don't want to be with forever. When you meet a friend on the playground as a child, you surely don't love them, you just want to hang out with them a lot.
Love is a crushing feeling, one that makes all your breath escape you when a simple card taken out of that castle makes the whole thing fall down. You feel like you're exploding, your heart aches, you cry, and the world keeps going on around you.
When John was a child, he was often told he'd find love, his parents said he was cute. Every Thanksgiving his family would crowd around him to give him hugs and kisses, and he loved them. Little did he know as he grew up those feelings of being cared for by them all would be crushed just like a spider on a wall.
After coming out to his parents in his years of high school, not only as bisexual, but also saying he was dropping out to do YouTube full time, he was told he had an hour to pack and leave.
He did.
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Looking in the mirror years later, he yearned for the kindness his family gave him long ago. The feeling of someone being there for him when he needed to cry, or even just to talk to. Now all he saw was a defect, something that was shattered and could never be fixed, like the plate he broke all so long ago, the one that was handmade from China and was one-of-a-kind.
Looking in the mirror he saw himself, or really just a shell. Someone who has now devoted their life to making others happy when he couldn't even get his own in order. The bags under his eyes were even more prominent then before, his bleached hair was becoming brown again, but he all in all just couldn't bring himself to care.
Sighing, he took a drag from the vape he held in his left hand. The smoke dissipated in front of his eyes into the air around him. The one that felt like it was crushing his lungs instead of helping them. The one he had long since despised but couldn't bring himself to stop intaking out of his one desire.
He had to date at least one person before he was gone.
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Later on that year he met another male named Derek at some quiet bar on the corner of town. He made him happy, feel like he was worthwhile, and mostly, loved in a sense. However, laying on the couch one night, watching a movie while the other was off at a strip club, he realized;
The void of love still wasn't filled.
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They broke it off a week later. Derek said the woman he'd been having sex with was better. He didn't care.
His diet went back to frozen dinners and Redbull the day after. His friends online were worried, he told them it was fine, that he wasn't that bothered. Because he wasn't. For some reason, he racked his whole mind for it, yet he never found a reason why he actually liked the guy in the first place besides his looks.
Life went back into routine after that. Wake up, record with Fitz and the others, eat sometimes, go back to recording, edit until 4 a.m, go to bed. He went to the store today, an empty fridge and freezer called for more meals and unhealthy snacks. He bumped into another boy there, he called himself Lucas, John thought he was cute.
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The blushy feeling returned. He learned over texts that Lucas also had a YouTube channel, and they recorded with the others. Swagger made jokes every once and awhile about them dating, Smitty laughed it off. John didn't.
Unrequited love gathered in his throat as he choked on his breath. Bending over he looked into his hand, he had Hanahaki, of course he did.
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Over the next few weeks the disease got worse, he recorded less, saying it was just some illness that'd pass over. They agreed to let him do his own thing for a bit.
So many flowers. If he was honest he was tired of seeing the colors yellow at this point. Smitty seemed the same, that made him happy at least. Wandering around his place, he walked over to the kitchen counter and thought.
Smitty had no affection for him, he showed it all the time. The gay jokes clearly meant nothing to him. This disease could fuck him. Badly. He could die if this doesn't work out. But it was worth a shot
He had nothing to lose anyways.
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The crushing feeling came back. The helpless one you feel. The one that makes you feel like you're drowning inside a void, waiting for something, but nothing ever happens, does it? The lingering feeling of flowers on his tongue was something he had long forgotten. He cried a lot, wondering what would happen. This is what he deserved for falling in love with his best friend. He was too young to die, but he never really had a life before him to begin with.
Fitz asked him if he wanted to hang out with him and his boyfriend,Toby, on CS that day, John said he wasn't feeling good. The former made it apparent he cared about John, asking him what was wrong.
He was reluctant to answer at first, the truth seemed best, but he didn't want the other to worry. So he said he had a bad illness. Cam didn't believe him.
He told him the truth on a discord call. He cried about how he was going to die soon and it was because of a boy he met at a grocery store.
"Have you tried going to the hospital and getting the surgery for it?"
"Don't want it. I can't lose the one feeling I've hung onto forever."
"Well, I can't really stop you from not doing it, just make sure you ask him before you die."
"I'll try."
"Get well soon John, it'd be devastating to see your life get thrown out the window."
"Thanks Cam."
"No problem bud."
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The last week. He has seven days to tell Smitty he loved him.
His lungs constantly felt like they were going to collapse on him at any second. He hurting in his heart got larger and larger everyday. He bought pills the day before incase the confession didn't work.
Slipping into the bathroom, he sat down on the floor and popped the cap off the bottle. Dumping them out he guessed it'd be enough, but whatever, he didn't really care.
Pulling up his messages with Lucas, his hands shakes as he sent the message.
"Lucas look, I like you. As more than a friend. We haven't talked for that long but I just feel like we have some type of connection. If you don't feel the same though I understand."
"Sorry John, I actually got together with a girl I've been talking to for awhile today. We can still be friends though?"
"Yeah. Friends."
Looking at the pills in his hand, he smiled. Well, at least it'd be easier now.
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un·re·turned
/ˌənrəˈtərnd/
adjective
not reciprocated or responded to.
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Friend I've talked to for two years today told me he thought I was annoying and never liked me behind my back. So that was nice :)
Hope you enjoyed this mess, or not, your choice.
