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I have a vague remembrance of wanting a handsome prince to kiss my hand and waltz with me around a glamorous ballroom. This was somewhere during the first half of primary school. Then, in the second half, I discovered High School Musical in the depths of PG Internet and envisioned a future in which my crush and I fought against all odds to be with each other in the melodramatic jungle known as high school. Middle school me waved this away with the introduction of idols, in which there was a whole world of daydreams premade for me in the fanfiction that came along. Best part? They were all complete with a happy ending. Or, at least, I chose the ones I read to be.

Yes, I was always a er for happy endings when I was younger. Fall in love and end up with the same guy was my ideal. Age and experience were quick and efficient to dissolve it.

But even if I became aware of the impermanence of most relationships, I was never prepared for a relationship that is doomed and that I want to be doomed. The stories I’d read in my hormonal pubescence were of no help either, not with their romanticizations that dripped cheese. My fantasies over the concept of meeting the love of my life through a conscripted situation were nothing but.

Three weeks have passed since I was left a cryptic omen by my mother. School restarted after our brief holiday two weeks ago, and while I had stressed over the fact that I would encounter Kim Jongin, less than a glance was thrown when we passed by each other on the first day back. An obvious boundary was placed with this: Neither of us is to interfere with the other’s life. Not while whatever involvement we might have is still an unclear future. And Jongin seems, for better or for worse, confident that that unclear future is null and