Chapter 24: The Road Less Travelled.

Kai

I rushed to get to the front door, but not before forgetting that my car keys were still in the kitchen. Cursing to myself, I walk back into the kitchen to get the damn keys but still, all I see was Stan standing there trying to think of something that was going around endlessly in his brain.

Even when he froze like that, I can't stay here longer. I needed to find Stan and one place he could be is at his apartment. The one where he first lived alone before moving in to live with me. Turning around, I left the speechless man still standing there but not before he grabs me by my shoulder and turns me around.

"Wait!" He spoke, finally having the power to speak. Both of his hands began to grab my shoulder tightly, and he pulled me close. There was worry on his face. There weren't any disappointment or anger or even hatred that covering his face no more.

"Calm down will you?! I- I'm scared that something might happen to you instead if you go out alone like this," I became surprised that he even still want to care for me after I said to him the truth about us. There were so many reasons he had to have hated me but this man... he's just so peculiar.

I didn't answer him with anything. I didn't have an answer at all. When he said it like that, I tried to think of any bad thing that could happen to me if I go. What was going to wait for me there? What trouble? Even worse... what feeling?

"Explain to me. Did Stan in this timeline go missing? Did he?" His voice was calm. He had successfully cool himself off after that wave of emotions that ran through him. I tried to understand what he was asking and think of the right words that I can say to him.

With this kind of state of panic and rush, there was no way I could say something coherently but that doesn't mean I can't. So with a huge breath, I gather the most understandable way I could describe to him what had happened. "Stan... in this timeline, he hasn't even in contact with anyone else after we broke up... not even me," I started, arms going down lifelessly with the car keys dangling around my fingers. The sound it makes reminds me of a wind chime that would sound so beautifully annoying when hit by the invisible wind.

"Your seventeen self came here only two weeks ago and your twenty self came here a few days before. What if something bad actually happened to him? I can't even try to not think that he's okay when he disappeared just like that,"

He gapes his mouth a little - finally there was some kind of realization dawn upon him when I told him all about it. "Kai...," He let out... his eyes showed nothing that was close to concerned about his future whereabouts.

"I'm sure I will be fine...," said the man with nothing to worry about his future self. About himself for god's sake. Why was he not being to worry about himself? Why was he worried about me?! This isn't about me at all, this is about him!

How can you be so kind and patient even in this situation?

"You shouldn't worry too much...," He added, making me feel squeamish by the kindness he showed. Not because I was annoyed but because he was being too nice towards himself. Like he didn't even pity himself. He didn't even try to even pity or think of the illest of himself.

How can there be someone who can love another like you?

He could feel any other feelings he can. He can get mad at me. He can cry about all of this. He can just let it all out in the worst way possible because of me. But he didn't, and I didn't understand that. It had me thinking all along. It had me to see daylight.

What the hell? Just what the hell...

Did I throw away from my life?

I can't believe myself. I never realized that he was this in love with me. That it was too strong that even if he was mad at me, it didn't even last long enough to even start a civil war. It took me a while to just sat and stare and make it to that finishing line of understanding why is he like this. Why is it must be me? Why do I even deserve... to have someone like this to love me when I didn't have the love to compare to this magnificent human being that was filled with the love of a thousand love letters that makes no sense but has so much sincerity in them...?

Because of that, I can't risk losing him for the second time. Even if we don't get back together like we used to.

"I'm still going... and you can't force me not to," I grip the keys in my hand, then go to walk towards the door.

Stan followed me, and he stops when I was putting on my shoes. "I'll come with you," he insisted. I stop in my tracks and look at him with an absolute 'no'.

"You can't,"

"I can't let you go alone!" He forced.

My body turns towards the door, eyes looking up to pray that would never find something that would make me even sadder than I was now. Whatever it is.

"It's best if you don't come along and stay here instead...," I replied, trailing off to convince him even more on why he should not come with me. "Whatever I find there... whatever that is there. I don't want you to see it even if it just only an empty place. I can't have you - I can't risk you,"

I began opening the door to began my search but was stopped yet again by him grabbing my hand. If it doesn't waste any more time, I would let him hold me much longer, and I would openly hold him back tenderly.

"I have no idea why we broke up... but if it's my fault. I hope. I hope you can still give me another chance," He said, then let my hand go gracefully. The tips of our fingers touching each other delicately.

I nodded at him. "I'll be back...,"

Standing on the other side of the door, I stand there with a thought of what he had just said to me. Give him another chance...? How can I do that to you? It's not you who should ask that...

I jog towards my car. The sky was showing another shade of blue mixed with grey. The clouds were starting to cry droplets of tears that touch my complexion - made me shudder in the coldness of what it felt so long I never felt. Winds were brushing over my clothes, sticking it to my body and engrave the lightest line of abs that I had.

As I entered the car, that droplet starts pouring heavily. From a sigh turns into a groan, I drive the car in the heavy rain - travelling the road less travelled that I had forgotten since the day I move to a place filled with ecstasy and happiness because it was so easy. The road I'm taking now would endure me into the sobriety of hurtful feelings.

He had no fucking idea... no idea of how I was like towards him.

In these past eight years of loving, I didn't love you to the fullest.

I say these 'I love you' because it felt like I thought love would be nothing more than just the colour red. It is nothing more than that burning passion fire in the pit of your stomach or the sparks of lightning that felt like the pokes of butterflies so painless. I thought I was so in love that it felt like real love.

Your 'I love you'... you've told me that so frequently because it meant the whole world to you. I didn't understand that. All I know was you just love me. You love me - that was all I have ever known. Not the entity of love that covers what could be the perfection of romance that stained you in a gold rush.

But what about me?

Shortly after I arrived at the apartment he used to live in. The place looks silent, lonely and very few people were walking around the park nearby it. I had my jacket on to cover myself from the ongoing rain. I went inside and go forward to reach where his home was.

The path leading there was the same. It was how I remember it to be. Nothing's changed, and it all looked the same as it used to be. It was then when I saw the door to his home. It had this aura around it that made me stop in my tracks as I take the time to look at it  - walking slowly towards it with zero figure of speech. Speechless.

The closer I got, the more I remembered the password to the door: The day we met.

13th of January.

1301.

"Lived here ever since fifteen... seems here you're late," The voice of a young sweetheart.

"I'm always late, see you at school man,"

That haunting voice. What is it about you that made me come undone?

Putting the four number, the door unlocked. I push the steel door slowly, the dim light emitting from inside covered me while I tried to look at the place. Everything was dusty as if no one ever lived here. So with a yearning voice to call someone back home, I beckon.

"Stan, are you there?"

- - -

What will he find?