“Dude?”

He blinked once, and looked at you, getting out of his thoughts. “Yeah?”

“Thanks for the teddy bear, I- I didn’t really, you know… understand, about it… hmm… how do I say this…”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“In French it would’ve been ‘à sa juste valeur’, I’m just not sure how to put that in English.”

“…”

He was staring at you, eyes even sadder than earlier. You frowned.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. Your eyes tell me that you’re sad. Out with it.”

“It’s just that… well, you remember learning French. But you don’t remember me. I’m not sure how to take that…”

“You told me yourself that it’s better for me to forget.”

“I know… and I wish I could feel okay with this. But I can’t. I just can’t. I bought the bear because I know you like these. I visited you because I worried about you. I did my best to be stubborn against your friends because I really wanted to see you. I tried not to cry because I didn’t want to look weak in front of you. I left because I want you to be happy. And I came back because I can’t imagine living without you…”

You kept silent, stunned. He was smiling sadly while speaking, looking at you in the eyes, his soft gaze clearly filled with love. You swallowed with difficulty and drank some of your bubble tea, waiting for your poutine to arrive. You had no real reason to eat poutine in a restaurant in Chinatown, as opposed to eating one in a normal Québecker restaurant, except the fact that you liked bubble tea AND poutine, and this restaurant had both.

“Kevin, right?”

“Yeah?”

You could feel a little sadness in his voice just then, for different reasons than before, but you couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason. Oh well.

“Were you always that sweet?”

“Eh?”

He looked genuinely surprised, and you laughed softly. He looked like a lost puppy, his sadness gone, replaced by surprise. You took another sip of bubble tea and smiled at him.

“I mean, what you said. Were you saying things like that before I lost my memory, too?”

“What, you mean, how I feel about you? Why I can’t be satisfied knowing you forgot?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, yeah… why? Can’t I be honest about my feelings?”

You shook your head, not believing it. This guy, seriously. He was just your ex-boyfriend you couldn’t remember a thing about, and yet he was saying such sweet words. You could feel your heart beating slightly faster. Maybe because he was such a cutie, with such sweet vocab, and, from what you knew of him, a quite good personality. Except the fact that he was stupid enough to break up with you for seemingly no good reason. That, and the fact that he was living on bread and water just to buy a teddy bear.

“Nah, it’s okay. I was just wondering. Since I don’t remember you,” you said, shrugging.

He frowned and pouted a little at the same time, but didn’t insist. He came back on an older subject though.

“So, uh, about the bear, what were you saying? Sorry I interrupted you earlier.”

“Hmm? Oh, I was saying, well… I still don’t know how to express myself properly with that sentence. I probably spent too much time reading French, I’m losing my English…”

“Still, please try?”

So polite. You smiled.

“All right. Well, let’s see… I… I accepted the bear after you left. You hugged it for a while, right? It smelled wonderful,” you couldn’t help but add.

Kevin turned bright red, making you laugh at him a little. He was so shy.

“Anyway. I took it, and it was a good pillow, and now it’s in my room, on my bed, and it keeps me company every night. It helps driving the nightmares away-”

“The nightmares? Nightmares about what?” he interrupted you, frowning.

“I’m not sure. I just wake up being sweaty and scared. I never remember what I dream about. Will you let me finish?”

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, please do…”

“So, it helps. I hug it when go back to sleep. And, well, I guess I didn’t understand that it’s more than just a teddy bear.”

You felt that you had lost him just then; he was looking completely confused, his skin back to a normal color.

“But it is just a teddy bear, isn’t it?” he asked, obviously unable to understand what you meant.

“It’s more than a teddy bear. It forced you to survive on very little for a while. Which means, it’s not the same as if someone, my parents for example, had given it to me. They wouldn’t have needed to survive on bread and water for a week if they had bought it. But you did.”

“It doesn’t mean it’s more than a teddy bear. It’s just a plain ol’ teddy, isn’t it?”

He didn’t seem to understand what you meant at all. You decided to give up. Your friends had told you, a while after the accident, that no sweet guy noticed he was being sweet. So, seeing how Kevin didn’t notice that giving someone a present like this was practically giving you diabetes, well…

“Don’t worry about it,” you ended up chuckling. “I just wanted to thank you properly for the teddy. I guess that, at that time, it just wasn’t a good moment, you know…”

“I do understand that… you were tired, and it was rude of me to just pop in your room randomly like that. Especially since it’s my fault you had this accident…”

“You’re an idiot,” you bluntly said.

“Eh?!”

“Imbécile! Idiot! Baka! Babo! Do I need to tell you in other languages? If I do, well, deal with it, ‘cause I don’t speak other languages.”

“I understood, it’s just that I don’t know why you’re calling me an idiot…”

You rolled your eyes, but smiled and politely thanked the waiter when he brought your poutine. You attacked the French fries full of brown sauce and cheese with enthusiasm, carefully chewing and swallowing before answering.

“I’m calling you an idiot because you keep saying it was your fault, when it was clearly not.”

“It was- I mean, if I hadn’t just said something like-”

“Listen, dude. I don’t remember. I don’t remember what happened, I don’t remember what you said, I don’t even remember anything about you from before the accident. All I know is that your name is Kevin, that your other name or whatever is Sung-something, that you’re about my age and that you’re my ex-boyfriend. Oh, and that you smell like Heaven, but that’s not the point there.”

He turned bright red again, making you chuckle.

“What I’m trying to say is, it happened. It happened, we can’t change it, and if it had happened just a little bit rougher, I would’ve died. So, I’m alive, and I’m just glad I am, you see? I know people who lost their memories usually try getting them back. But I feel like mine won’t come back anytime soon, if they do come back, so I don’t care about the past five years, okay? Especially not a single day in those five years. I have my future to look at, you can understand that, right?”

Kevin nodded, his dark eyes a bit sad, his skin going back to a normal color. You continued.

“So, whatever happened that day, all I know about it comes from other people. Especially my friends. They told me that you broke up with me for seemingly no good reason, and that you’re not worth wasting my time on.”

He nodded. “They’re right, I-”

“Shut up, will you? I’m not done. They said that. But my version of things is different. Do you know what I see in front of me right now?”

He frowned. “A useless guy with dyed hair and no manly characteristic whatsoever?”

You rolled your eyes. “So far that I know you’re supposed to have a , so please don’t make me forced to verify this by myself.”

He blushed hard again and you used that shyness from him to continue.

“I see a sweet guy I do not know, with fluffy honey-colored hair, sad eyes and a cute smile when it appears. It’s like those movies with the girl meeting an adorable stranger and they end up together. The difference here is that you’re my ex I do not remember anything about. So it’s more awkward for you than for me, because you have to deal with memories you have that I do not. But still, it’s far from making me want to stop ‘wasting my time’ on you.”

He seemed thoughtful for a moment, before he smiled softly. He was so cute when he was smiling. He put his elbows on the table and pressed his cheeks into his hands, looking at you with tender eyes.

“Okay. I understand,” he said.

He stayed silent a few minutes before he added something else. “So, that means I can be with you?”

“Basically, yeah. Except for when my friends are there. They might make sure there isn’t anything manly left in you if they see you with me.”

He flinched, but he tried keeping a straight face and a smile.

“Okay. Then it means I can see your beautiful face again and again…”

“Don’t say that, I look like an octopus.”

“Far from it! I think you’re more like a flower.”

“How the heck did you manage to compare my face to a vegetal?”

He laughed. “Well, you’re beautiful like a flower, of course. And you smell sweet and nice. Plus, all girls are flowers. They grow up delicately, and when they live through love, they become like fruits, not only beautiful but also more mature. I guess I could also compare girls to sweets if you’d prefer.”

“Not sure, but you can try.”

“To me, you’d be a finely decorated chocolate cake.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re beautiful, and when we know you better, we can see that you’re more delicate than you seem to be.”

You stayed silent, analyzing his words. Just not believing one could be so sweet and so stupid at the same time.

Why the heck had such a cutie broken up with you? What had you done wrong? You didn’t know. Couldn’t know. Couldn’t remember…

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Sorry for the time, laziness and school attacked again... ._.