Chapter 21: "Twenty-Two Stan" (III).

Kai

The heartwarming loving twenty-two-year-old you who had only me... when your parents forced you to not love someone who is as the same gender as you. You go through those five years trying to live up to their wants - to find a girl who you could love the same way as me. There was never enough love for you to give to someone else when all you do here is clinging onto me like the faithful lover you are.

I thought that maybe you got tired of me. Maybe you got exhausted from seeing my face.

But seeing you here having so much enthusiasm when we're together no matter how old you are - you give me a feeling that you were never tired of me. Never did once you were tired of me. Never did you question me what if we broke up because you know all too well that you would forever stay with me.

When staying is not a promise we could keep.

Someday soon when he's gone, I'll be on my own. I'll be going through that cycle again to find another replacement that could mend an irreplaceable lover. It was hard to try to move on. It's difficult to try to forget you. And it would be hellish if I tried to find another.

To love again - would take a thousand times if I exaggerated it.

"This one!" gushed the male in the shopping mall.

Then he turns to look at another snack that was his favourite. "Ooo... how about this one?" I turn to see what he was pointing at, and it was a bag of gummy bears.

"Gummy bears?" I raised my brows, looking at the grown-up man whose eyes were boggling towards the variety of snacks that was in this time. He only grinned at me. His eyes wrinkled to show how genuinely sincere his smiles were. "Yeah? Why not?" He returned, walking ahead of me as I push the shopping cart and follow wherever he goes.

He then stops at an aisle. His eyes look around the shelves - searching for a particular. I arrived beside him and when I turn to see what he was staring at, my eyes smile. It was that one chocolate we fight over back then when love was playing hide-and-seek.

"Can we get that?" He asked again. It seems that he was making sure if the things he wanted was fine by me. But really, I'm fine with all that he wanted. As long as it's not costing me my whole month salary. Because not everyone is as rich as this man here.

Hey... why am I the one buying anyway?

Sighing, I let it go for now. "Whatever you want, Stan," This pops confetti around his figure - like it was the victory that he waited for in his whole life. But as I look down towards the items he picked, I got curious... no, worried.

"But... are you sure you want to just buy snacks? I thought that you were the type to maintain their physique," I questioned, taking one of the snacks by my hand and inspect the ingredients they used to make the diabolical junk food.

The raven-haired just shrugged, then wiggles the chocolate in my face. "What's the matter? You also love these snacks, don't you?"

"Of course I do... but I stop eating them for a while...," I returned. It was then I know that I stopped eating those sweet things very often when we broke up a month ago. I just couldn't face the circling feeling whenever I ate them - they would just remind me of him.

"Damn... you traitor!"

I laughed an embarrassing smile. "I'm not a traitor. I just think that I need to control myself for a while,"

"Plus... people sometimes change," I continued, turning away to hide my sorrow gaze. The slope that I'm in is very much dangerous. If he saw me like this... he would ask me what's wrong, and I would keep saying that I'm okay when I'm not fine at all. He has been asking those repeated question over and over again, and I just knew that it was trouble.

"Pfft. As I would," He scoffed, walking to another aisle as he takes something else.

"Well... that's probably not entirely true. When seeing you like this after all this time,"

The man's stare became serious, looking at the chips he held in his hand thoughtfully. "Yeah... that's just because it is who I am when I'm with you. If I change... wouldn't my love change as well?"

That strike a match inside my heart. Where it threw me at different places of stone-cold. If he did change, he wouldn't love me the same?

"Then don't change... and I won't change either," I replied, putting my hand onto his cheek and touches it softly. Change is a powerful thing - that turns people from either good to bad or the other way around. It may be just the cause of misconception of understanding one another when one changes their minds.

If it makes me not understand him as a lover anymore, then I don't want to change. I want to grow... not change.

"Will do. I never even planned to even change. You're just enough,"

-

We walked around the park where I first take him home. When I was met with a naive seventeen-year-old Stan who couldn't even know what he was trying to do to even fight a war that would be so easy to overcome now. The present Stan would feel the same way as well. That obstacles we were faced before are just something that is obvious to defeat because long ago we were just afraid but here...

Honesty.

But I couldn't even overcome mine when I wasn't being honest towards him. So cruel to hide something that shouldn't be kept longer but was so true.

Autumn leaves coloured in yellow, orange, red, purple, and brown was everywhere beneath our feet. Last time it wasn't this full of them, but it was at the beginning of October now... it seems that it was logical for it to be so. I was enjoying the scenery actually. Although it was a full tsunami of leaves here and there, there's not to brag about it since it felt somewhat cosy and beautiful.

There were kids playing with a pile of leaves they gathered... people walking their dogs and trying not to let them loose and there were people like us, just casually walking and enjoying what is called life.

"You know... autumn for me would be my worst season ever," spoke the twenty-two-year-old. His hands in his pockets as he kicks the leaves across the ground. The colourful leaves flew all around him - some sticking on his trousers.

I raised my brows at his statement. Why? "Why you'd say that?" It was the first time he talked about his preference towards seasons. I never really asked him about all of those because there were so many questions in my head that in the end, I forgot if I had asked them or not or... I had just forgotten about the questions.

"Well... to start... autumn reminds me of feelings of a calamitous love. It's like how you ever wonder... when the leaves started falling - when... trees are not full of those vibrant green leaves anymore. I imagine that if my heart broke... it would be like that. Those feelings that I've felt for someone would fall down like those leaves, and it would just be lifeless. Can you imagine how worse it would feel if it is like those leafless trees... how it would be the same as an empty heart?"

Maybe the way he said it was incredibly meaningful or that it was just my taped heart wasn't sealed too tight anymore. It's not because I felt, and I relate to what he described, but it's more to how... how was he so fragile but sounds so strong?

"You really think of that?" I intrigued, wanting to hear him talk more.

"Yeah... some times I would think of it like that. Some times autumn is just beautiful in its own way that I guess being heartbroken is something worth having for,"

My head went to lean on his shoulder as we walk together around the park. His words sound so right that I believe him. That I believe being heartbroken could mean something that was good and important for me to realize. There aren't many people who would smile after a breakup. Sure, that would make them looked crazy or just... unbothered.

But if that love is so heavenly... it would give you the most painful heartbreaks ever if you ever part ways.

"Who knows you would make me go through that lane that being on the low would be so giving in the end," I chuckled, my eyes fixed onto the autumn leaves falling down bewitchingly. Holding onto him like it was like that final ending of a love story.

His chest vibrates as he laughs as well. It was longingly adapted to my skin - like it was so well-made to be felt. "I'm turning you into everything that I am, of course. You gotta be ready 'cause there's more to come, baby,"

And oh, how it felt like it was a never-ending relationship.

- - -

Okay, the chapter before me was released so suddenly because I... without having anything else to do, click on the publish button.

But anyway, I need to tell you guys something. While I was writing these few chapters, I felt so down honestly. Like not in a bad way, but I had a problem of getting words out of my brain, and it just is like that for two days. It was just really difficult and tiring for me to think of something to write and oh my god... I just couldn't write anything.

It's like every idea is being sucked right out of my system. Hell, I was scared that it would ruin the story somehow, so I kept trying and trying until I had the idea. That was when I just started to go out and see the world inside my car that it helps. Seeing those green trees and blue skies just help a lot.

So, I am sorry if these chapters are shitty. But it is what I can offer for now. I will edit them after I finish the book and edit the other two books as well!

-a-