Aom's P.O.V

The exact reason that I am here is because of Tina. The exact reason of "standing" here is because of Van. I only consider of him as a brother and I never know that he has such a thing like this for me. He's just nice to me every time and I only think of that as what brothers do to sisters; so, I assume that he's just trying to make siblings since he is sometimes lonely. And yet, he just told me about his feelings at the time that Tina appeared from the dark, of course, which I had to rush over to Tina and I just refused him immediately. What was I thinking back then? Why would I hurt him this way?

He's walking slowly from where I'm standing without even bothering to look at me. He's totally in pain that he's just not himself anymore and I wish I knew how to help him. But how can I help when his only medicine is to have my heart when it all belongs to someone else? Well, not fully but partly.

I stand there watch him until he gets into his car and drives away. Until then, I can just breathe eaiser, inhale all the fresh air as much as I could before I can go to Tina.

Before I can actually reach her, I stand by the tree for a while, while she doesn't notice. She's standing by the lake, hands in her pockets, eyes to the sky with all doubts hidden everywhere in them. I wish I knew what she was thinking. She appears to be someone else but this is the closest Tina I can ever get. 

I wonder how long I've been standing there before I actually make some move to her. She's just staring at the sky so that she can avoid any other questions when I reach her. Since she's here, she also can't escape me. I'm not gonna let her go anywhere again.

I make some sound with my feet walking so that she can hear, and to avoid the awkwardness when I suddenly walk in and ask her things, which is again not appropriate to do so. She turns quickly to the sound I make and sees me walking toward her. I try to debate myself whether I should make a huge sigh or just smile to her as I reach her, but then, she just smiles at me. I don't know what to do but to smile back at her. It's the nicest thing, right now, that I can do to her.

"I was wondering about you." I'm surprised that she's the one who started the talk. I was kinda wishing that we could have had a moment in silence. Silence is the most incredible thing to me when I'm with her because I feel absolutely comfortable to be silent when she's around.

"What about?" I ask her as I'm walking closer to stand next to her.

"About how you, about us, abuot how you've been these days." She's staring at the lake now, avoiding my eyes. 

I'm glad today is a little bit cloudy so that we don't have to stand in the middle of the sunshine to talk, or stand under the tree. Trees are aways nice to me but I feel like they're distractions to my thoughts when I stand under them.

"I've been absolutely fine." I try to make it sound like real even though I really haven't been so right.

She exhales loudly so that I can hear her.

"I get the feeling that you're lying." she replies softly.

I don't answer her anything, which absolutely makes her belief turns out to be right.

"I thought you told me how you've been while I was away when we were at the middle of the argument a little bit earlier." She pauses to think then continues. "Which, of course, that wasn't how I plan to start up with you when I thought of myself seeing you again." She sighs.

"What do you mean?" 

She inhales this time and turns to me.

"I imagined myself seeing you with a smile on your face while I was alone. But then" She sights and I am speechless. Even though what I did was soemthing else, wrecking her like this is totally almost unforgivable.

"I have my own reason for the leave, Aom. And I even have more reasons to tell you why I didn't contact anyone while I was away." Her brown eyes are burning into mine, full of worries as she continues.

"Even me? I thought I was special to you." I burst out the last sentence, which I am basically afraid that she would be upset but instead she just smiles.

"You have always been special to me, but things are not always in the same circumstances, Aom. I might be me today but I'm so uncertain of tomorrow." She smiles again then continues. "The only thing that remains is that I love you and that will never change. And how about you?" She asks me back.

"I have never said I love you, haven't I?" I sigh.

"You don't have to as long as you feel it for me. But I will always be happier when you say it. At least once for a lifetime to me." She sounds calm, confident.

"Why are you telling me things like this?" 

She chuckles. "I'm just trying to tell you that we can always change due to our growth. Don't get me wrong."

"You don't sound like it." I sigh.

She just smiles. "I'm just trying to sound like a matured person." 

"You don't sound like one."

"I just did. I'm a daughter of a businessman, which means I have to learn to be matured sometimes. I don't stay with myself every time, you know." then she just smiles.

"I'd rather you to be you." I can't believe I just said it.

"I still am, Aom." She smiles and goes on. "I will always be me when I'm with you. The person you love and likes you, at least, wants you to be you. Why wouldn't you stay you just for her?" She chuckles.

"I need to know something." I sigh and immediately change the subject. She seems to know what I am trying to ask her about.

"About me? About Van or...?" She asks.

I take a deep breath. "About you."

She smiles crookly. "I figured that."

I narrow my eyes into hers as she's staring at the lake. She's trying to calm herself but I'm just trying to make her feel uncomfortable. Well, basically, she deserves it since she gave me all those fears these days. She could have at least left me some clues when she left.

"Where have you been?" I finally break that question off.

"I've been to England." She replies me without any hesitation.

"Why did you go there? And more, without even telling me." I sit down on the grass and she follows me.

Legs folded in her arms, she begins to make me feel like my Tina is back.

"I felt uncomfortable being here. However, I also had my aim to go there, not just for myself. It took me hours to get there, but as soon as I was there, I got that feeling that I litterally missed you badly. Then after I got what I wanted, I hoped to the plane immediately without even spending a night over there." She breathes and I feel like I want to give her my air to slow her breath down.

"What actually made you feel uncomfortable being while I've always been with you all the time?" I look straight into her eyes as she's looking back at me.

"That night when I left your home, I got back to mine and got into a fight with Mean." She pauses and continues. "I didn't even remember the feeling of fighting with Mean, after all. I've always imagined myself living in peace with my family, including her. Why would she make me feel like I just didn't belong there?" She shakes her head and again, she continues. "So, Mean and I talked so much about our future and mine with you. I can't imagine myself being with Mean because I really think that it's wrong. I told her everything about myself, about you and about how I want us to be." She pauses and look at me. "You don't want me to tell you what I want us to be, right?" 

I shake my head as a response. "No, I can figure that myself, of course."

"I can only imagine my future with you. You don't know how much I wish you and I could hold hands as we walk at the beach or just woke up the next morning and saw your face as the first thing in the morning. Back to Mean, I heavily denied her and told her all the impossible things she had to encounter and she was just stubborn and ran away from the room.

"I didn't know what to do. A part of me wanted to run after and hold her back to me since I didn't want her to be hurt and she had gone through enough but then, a part of me just wanted to stay there. If she wasn't in pain, she wouldn't let me go. 

"I still had to run after her since I couldn't do it at all. Bearing to see what people in pain is impossible for me. I found her in front of the gate at our home. She was crying as she was sitting by the wall. All she did was mention everything I and her had in the past when we were kids and then my heart went softer. I comforted her and she agreed to get back into the house. I am sorry, Aom. I'm so sorry. I wish I knew how to tell her but she' just like that. And I'm just like that." She sighs and looks at me.

"It's okay. I understand, Tina. You don't have to rush things just to get us together. We have plenty of time and Mean is an innocent girl. I wouldn't want us to hurt anybody because it doesn't seem to be fair as well as logical. We can't take our own joy and get all the stress to other people." 

"I know. That night, I got that immediate thought that I didn't belong to the family because I was mean to her and my parents would never forgive me if the knew I hurt my own sister that way. Getting her falling in love with me is one thing, but hurting her like that is another major problem. I didn't know what to do so I just packed myself some stuffs and left to the airport immediately. I didn't leave any note to anyone, even P'air and I'm glad they didn't get into trouble because of my absence." She smiles as she continues. "So, I was looking for a plane ticket to London and thank god I have a friend over there who would work this for me even at night. And then, I left Thailand at exactly 4 am in the morning."

Neither of us would talk in this awkward situation. It was and wasn't her fault at all during this leave. She didn't even leave her note to tell her family but she should have at least called when she was there.

"I wonder why you didn't call." I sigh.

"I don't think I had time to call anyone back then because I was so busy missing you that I hardly remembered anything else. Besides, I was in rush. I didn't even have enough time to sleep. By the way, I don't know why but it was pretty cold in London that I had to buy this suit from a store. It kinda changed my style, you know." she chuckles.

I laugh along and as our laughter combines, it's just wonderful.

"It kinda surprises me. I thought you would want to change your style."

"Nope, I don't think i would." 

"Any other reason for your leaving?" I look back to the river.

"You."

i widen my eyes as I turn to look back at her.

"Why me?"

She smiles and takes out a glass bottle out of her jacket's pocket and stares at it for a while.

"You know, the first time I met you, I already liked the way you smelled. I knew the scent and I even knew the brand. That's the halft reason I went there." Then she removes her right hand for the perfume bottle and I can see there's a ring in it! I diamond ring!

"I went to London, just because I wanted to get you the English Scent perfume directly from England. I came up with an idea of this. I'm giving you this perfume, just so you know. You can take as long as you want to consume all of the perfume. I've put the ring in it so that someday, when you come to see me and I see you wearing it, I would immediately jumpt and kiss you again. Because on the day that you can retrieve it, would be the day you accept to be my girlfriend." She stares at the bottle for a while then resumes. "I can wait forever just to be yours." She smiles and hands me in the bottle of the perfume.