I’ve liked him since little. About six. I know that sounds like nonsense.

We met each other in a wedding ceremony of our relative. The truth was I, who realized him first. I asked Mum who was him. She said, he was Kris, one of my uncle’s sons – the youngest actually. I was playing with the other cousins at that time, when a boy greeted us. He started playing with us since then – playing around with me, I meant. We were happy, together. It was my first time befriending a boy, who was no other than my cousin, no other than a cousin to be fallen in love with, later on. 

He was a friendly, a warm boy, long ago.

He hasn’t changed much since the last time I met him about a couple of months ago – a couple months ago after twelve years occasional encounter. Well, he lives far away from here. Very, very far away to the west that brings himself to get the Canada nationality. He only comes back here once in a while. That time is mostly on family occasion, and family occasion doesn’t come often. It’s not like my relatives take turn to get married, and have a New Year celebration for the continuous, following months.

That doesn’t really count.

Yet, he really hasn’t changed much. He is still so dashing-type of handsome like before. His eyebrows always have some course to intimidate people – but not me. His eyes; they are still warm, although they have grown some dark circles down there. He must have study too much. Plus, his hair has gotten shorter now, with dark blonde crisps at the end. Does the sun in Canada bleach his hair into something like that?

And his height, kills me. He is a good five inches towering above me.

However, there is just one fact that bulldozes the entire thoughts about his unchanged feature and the warmth – it is merely the exterior. Since before, I’ve such virtue of comprehending the reason people do this, do that, and the innate personalities of them, truthfully just by looking on how they acts, or solely on their appearance.

When I’m looking at him on this chilly winter break – in the comfort of my house, the dim lit fireplace near the lounge room, and in the haze of smoke surges through the chimney – I see that he has completely changed – utterly different from the kid that I saw at six, who took the sweet attempt to hold my hand and guide me every time I got lost.

The guy in front of me now is a complete stranger, with distant aura, a vacant look and an introvert posture that guarantee that he won’t open his mouth to greet me anytime soon. But, the way he focuses his eyes on the heater is a gentle as he approaches me twelve years ago, surprisingly.

I just recognize that he hasn’t totally lost the warmth that I love to fathom on. It still exists. And I don’t understand a single thing about that – about how he literally loses everything friendly about him and gains such irritable atmosphere when he is around, now.

“Hi, Kris-ge.” I falter with the pronunciation of his nickname.

He is wearing a white sweater inside that black, soft trench coat. His hair is pushed back a little. The bangs fail to stand back, and tumble down, fragile onto his forehead. I guess, he has forgotten to put on some gel. Or he might be purposely doing so, so that the fussy chemical couldn’t mess his headgear.

 “Oh.” He finally averts his eyes to meet mine. His voice finally croaks.

I’ve been obsessed with him since grade 10.

As regard about that, I was missing him so badly that time, because on that year, he had skipped the New Year’s family gathering. The others were asking for him and I was like crouching in the corner, regarding his absence with dread. Since then, I always caught myself dreaming about him, fantasizing and seeing things. I couldn’t get that much proof to prove that I had something with my mentality – whether it was a mental or heart breakdown.

I feel ashamed to admit but I’ve had crying myself to sleep. It is a whole another thing to point.

“How are you…lately?” It has been a year since he lasts visited here.

“Nothing much. The same.” I don’t know since when he has been so tight-lipped.

Kris was not what I seemed to know. It was a good thing to befriend him before, because of his friendliness, but I don’t think it is the same thing now. I didn’t even realize his social status that turned him into a complete player. Was he? Or is he still, now?

I couldn’t believe that.

“So…how are you with Roa?” I dare to venture.

Roa is another cousin of us. She is his age. And she has his number, and she always acts like she knows everything about him. But to hell I swear that she is just pretending. She is just like those girls out there who get chance to get close with Kris. She once said, just because she is his age, she is able to understand him, the way that some kid like me won’t understand even how much I put effort to. That sounds unreasonable.

“Roa?” He looks taken-aback. Maybe he is surprised that I suddenly have the gut to confront him.

“Yes, Roa.” I nod, confident with myself that he is indeed surprised – judged by the speed of his head spins to me.

“Why are you even asking me that?” He scoffs sarcastically, pushing his hands deep down the pocket of his trench.

Two years ago, I couldn’t believe it when my brother kept saying that Kris is a player, the one who changed girls about three times a week, the one who got most photos caught intimate, the one that girls chased and the one that brought different girls home almost every day.

If I have to muse about that again, I’m not so sure if my comprehension about him still could be use or not, now – that Kris was solely lonely to begin with. Again, I couldn’t assure if the preferred word of lonely is even making sense. That could be something to do with his family matter.

In the end of his 10 grade, his family started to face into some affliction. It was something to do with dumping each other, divorce and stuff like that. The main house kept fussing about his family and although I tried so hard to not get into their way, I felt like being summoned up.

In other term of telling this, Kris was stressed out by all the dramas. So, he found his way out by hanging out with false friends, and gotten himself into all of these.

I think, I’ve made him looks like a depressed fellow.

But the reality does – that he was once a player. He was the type of guy that looks so flirtatious in everything he did, as well as how he appeared in front of girls, like he wasn’t intended to impress them or make them spastic about how great he looked like. He was that type of guy – The type of jerk that looked playboy when thick-faced es made their way to his heart and he would play with their heart – merely to the objection of fun.

Because I was so foolish and innocent that time, I’d fallen into his trap – like a fly. Just by a look from him, a glance and simply from a side eyes contact, I would found myself in the verge of passing out. I’d probably die if he smiled at me, two years ago. Even, he kept appearing in my dreams and I felt like hallucinating when I found all of my good looking classmates looked, somehow, like him.

I want to emphasis this – my obsession with him was till that point. It’s even worse when it gets severed by days; those days when I missed him so irritably bad. I missed to see that face to appear in front of me each time I raised and shine.

“I thought both of you are getting…” Hesitation murders me right on spot.

Without any sign, my thing with him worsened, when Roa told me that she was dating him. Kris was dating his own cousin, while my case was falling in love with her own cousin.

Which was even worse? No need to point, the latter is the best although you aren’t even given any option to choose. If I have to repeat this again, I’m sure I’ll be going through mental-collapse all over again.

If I was twice stupid that I already was, I might think like this. ‘Am I not that alluring like Roa that Kris choose her over me to be his girlfriend?’, as if he was the only guy that coexisted in this planet. However that was it. The mental-collapse had brainwashed me that Kris actually was the only guy left on earth – that insisted me not to look at other guys aside from him; that honestly, made me afraid to look at other guys – something regarded as defiant if I did.

He is the cause of my ‘boys-phobia’.

“…engaged.” I’m currently getting killed twice. I feel like my throat is getting sprinkled with coarse sands.

“Engaged?!” For the first time from these eleven years, he practices that kind of reaction to me. His mouth suddenly bursts into cold laughter. “Crap like this spread faster wasn’t it? No wonder Mom left him.” His words are biting, if either the spoke persons hear them.

 “Crap?” I have to contemplate on that.

Since I’m getting way smarter now, I don’t think the ‘player’ status fits back to him, because I have thought the way more suitable title for this bloke; idiot. He is idiot, I’m idiot, Roa is even than any of us and everyone literally is – for thinking such things.

“That’s entirely rubbish.” He doesn’t know that I’m talking to the rubbish now – the one that causes this phobia, this trauma.

“How so?” I bit back that sneer and cross my arms in exchange, treading up with boldness.

“I never agree to that, and if I have to say it right on your face, I’ll say it now. I ain’t in love with Roa, ever. And never.” He snickers, weighing his fists more down the pockets of his coat. I’ve to admit this anytime soon, that he sounds intimidating with that sharp, terse retaliation.

No one knew how I felt like. It was hurt back then. The fact of his relationship with Roa seemed had faltered every step I took out of my bed. If possible, I wanted to lie back on the mattress and relaxed for my entire life, as if I had no motivation to keep this breathe went on.

No one knows that my devotion for him was so strong. It should be ‘is’ because I always feel the same now.

No one even cares to get to know of how much my heart was broken into pieces. The shards kept stabbing on my inner wall, making me crumbled in my own horror of losing the one that I love so much. I could affirm that my feeling wouldn’t be stopped, in any time soon.

It was not until I fed up with everything I’d built since I met him, that I felt like my mental was falling really deep down the hollow of depression hole and breaking down on the endless bottom, and I finally learnt to accepted things.

All I want to see now is his happiness, because I’ll love him more if he is happy. If he.

Please, don’t give me hope (he silently does, though) to love you even more – as something forbidden that is too tantalizing for me. “B-but…Roa said-”

He cuts. “I grew up, Shinha. People say I’ve changed so much. Well, here’s the truth. I grew up. I’ve stopped letting people pushed me around all the time. I learned that I can’t always be happy. I’ve accepted reality.”

He pushes his blonde hair backwards, tugging them into the slits of his fingers. I can’t make sure whether he is sighing or simply exhaling, but then, he his face. I get that.

“Kris-ge…I think, it’s about time for me, to tell you this.” I clear my throat, nervously shifting my stand back and forth. The feeling that I’ve been keeping for twelve years is going to be revealed soon. It gradually burns me, if I’m not saying this now.

We just stand there, facing each other, each with variety expression, responses and the states of beings. The earlier scowling face recedes down his feature the seconds we stare into each other souls. I’m feeling the adrenaline rushes through the veins in my body, unintentionally wrecking my guts.

“I’ll be honest with myself this time. I’ll be honest with you, Kris-ge, with what I’ve been keeping these whole times.” I gulp nervously. “…that, maybe you’ve already known what I mean, but I still want to spill this, in hope that you won’t misunderstand me about this.”

His eyes airily blink, as if he is anticipating. I’m glad that his mouth is still shut and for now, there is no sign of rebuke. Neither rebuts.

“I know, you might have heard the rumour about me…liking you.”

I pluck up the whole courage to scrutinize his eyes. I can see a subtle change on the way he gazes down at me. His eyes shake a little, but I don’t dare to contemplate on that.

I must have disgust him right at this moment.

“Yeah, it’s all true. It has been a long time I’ve liked you.”

Instinctively, my breath hitches on the latter. I think, the lump in my throat has gotten bigger that I fail to breathe properly. I suddenly feel that my face is burning even hotter than usual, minding the uselessness of the heater.

“I’m so sorry…that I’ve keeping something like that for you. I, myself have no idea as to why, how, it exists. It came so suddenly…I didn’t even realize that it had existed inside me.”

I gush on the last sentence and switch my gaze somewhere else. When I glance up on him again, the crease on his brow is obvious now. I can’t help but to quiver my lips in no sense of coldness, making me stammer on the next seconds of bravado.

“I know, you don’t like me. Yeah, no offense for me…and I never hope for you to accept this, cause honestly, I can’t bring myself to do so. You want to know why?”

The steady pace of words that I’ve planned years ago boosts me to utter some inquiry. Kris has already shifting his eyes away from me. He is probably absorbing these hidden truths with all his might without laughing hard on his arse. I know him well enough to predict on that.

Without his further reaction, I continue. “It’s because all of these hurt me. I can’t take these anymore. I want to be free from these pains.” The second hitch in my breath forces my nose to snot. I feel like there are puddles framing my eyes – puddles that are so ominous to splotch on the shore.

The vision of him is blurry now. 

“But I don’t have any might to…These pains keep torturing my heart.” I sniff, hard and quickly wipe the rain that traces down my cheeks. The rain falls without thunder, or it does, but it’s just only me who is oblivious to that. The remaining moments allow me to croak with hiccups echoing behind.

“Maybe, when I reveal these, you’ll feel that you want to laugh on my face so badly…right. You want to laugh, Kris-ge? Go on. I want to hear you laughing on me.” Devastatingly, I test a chuckle – the terrible one that has a high potential to make kids cry in horror.

I feel like a mess; a mess in a bushes of idiots.

It’s alright…as long as I could thrash all of the tortures that have been weighed burden down my shoulders – for years I’ve been stored all these – for years I’ve loved Kris, from I was little till now.

“Kris ge…” I take in a heavy breath. “I’m sorry once again for disturbing your life. It’s enough for me to know that you’re, once, always happy with your life.” Rubbing soft the lids of my eyes, I direct them on him again. He is getting clearer now. It seems like a good sign that he wouldn’t rebut in any moment.

“…I’ll always pray for your happiness. To me, if you’re happy, I’ll always be…although you aren’t happy with me, neither for me. And…it’s enough to let you know, even though you aren’t taking these seriously.” I duck upon the carpeted parquet momentarily, and return my gaze to him again, biting back everything to be bawl on. In contrary, he just keeps his gaze steadily to a specific direction. I’ve realized that since then.

However, I can’t read him this time – as if he has built a wonder wall across his heart. Hence, I’ve no clue to what he is probably thinking.

“But, I just want to let you know, that I’ll always love you…and this heart,” I pause to pat on my chest, “will always be yours. Its love for you will always alive till the day when people mourn upon me.”

My sobs forlornly reverberate through the room. I’ve been keeping my eyes lower to the floor the second it starts.

As long as I’m still breathing, my love for him will always bloom like flowers in spring field, and they divinely vow that there will be no other guy could take his place, replace the love that he has left and most importantly, steal my heart. There would be no one. The love bloom as regards to spring flowers would promise me on that. No one.

No other than Kris whom I’ve stuck my heart on to the half of death, whom I would love till my last breath.

“Kris-ge…before I go out of your life, I only have a request, just one, for you to fulfil for the sake of mine. Would you do this…for me?” That is a rhetorical question. It instructs that I don’t even have to wait for his answer to resume.

“It’s a smile. A blissful one. I hope to see it on your face. I hope, when you’ve found the right one for you…I hope…you’ll be smiling happily with her. And tell me, that you’ll meet your true love one day. Kris-ge will meet her one day.” I hold up my hands. They shiver, and I cup my mouth, retaining to let it muffles on anything equal to any sort of sob. Or cry.

I’m weak, aren’t I...

“Promise me that you’ll always be happy with her.” The hands are now abandoned to float within the air and my face, timidly clenching tight fists as a threat that I can’t let the tears fall in front of him. Again. “And then…I promise that I won’t interfere in your life anymore.”

I’ll go dwindling my way out of his life. For ever. If Kris wishes for me to leave this world, that also counts. I can handle the last. I’ve the will to do so, because I think, I’ve gotten a desire to smile, a reason to stretch my lips wide into a contemporary grin – the satisfied one, seeing him happy with his new blossom of love for someone that is just as sunny as summer shine.

I wish, his day will always be brighter than the sun, calmer than the blue sky and as eventful as clouds. While, his night will always be a whole lot greater that a mere darkness that insipidly lit by the dim moon, sparked by stars and, a word from me; goodbye.

Shoulders shake as the hands that float covers my face. I weep between the hands that have been staying with me through thick and thin – that has been cheeked by jowl most of the time. The incessant hiccups tire me the energy out of me. I sob silently, yet relentlessly. I don’t know when this another torture will stop – another torture of embarrassing myself in front of the one who enchants me the whole time, crying like a kid, fragile as dandelion. 

I’m really a wimp. The foolish one.

Out of sudden, I feel someone wraps arms around me, embracing me tenderly – as if that someone is afraid if I might break terribly. That someone is warm. I love the warmth. I love it so much.

An attentive crane of neck realizes me out of my daze, that someone is no other than my cousin. Gently, Kris pats the back of my head, softly, my hair. His breath is even, unlike mine; a typhoon-like. I should have been so flushed to be in this position, but this time, I shouldn’t and I don’t.

I am more than grateful that I get myself being consoled by the one who is both umbrella and the rain, which falls on me, rather than bothering to get the reds on the cheeks.

“These things, they’re important. They’ll help you learn…how to love, Shinha.” He replies, eventually. My cousin, Kris, is the cause of my boy-phobia, the trauma in sleep, the lesson of loving, and the reason to cry and the ultimate reason of this disease that I’m suffering now.

Kriswuphobia.

As it even exists.

I wonder when it would be cured.

The cure…

 

---