“The curse of innamorata is that it is both a rose and a thorn.”

It was the year 2012, when I was sitting on the second seat from the right of the third row. It was our English class by then, and we were talking about what love meant. It wasn’t a boring period, but it certainly wasn’t that interesting as well. We were fighting again, the urge to sleep in broad ceiling lights, after having fought with the curse of afternoon naps.

I thought nothing good came out of our class, that nothing would spike my interest than a big freezing cup of soda after school.

I had been an addict of drinking soft drinks since I was in freshman year after all, and I didn’t think I would manage to stop any time soon.

The professor was a rather old lady, who had her wavy hair tied into a low, loose tie every day. Her clothes would always be sagging down to her chest area, and she would always try to bring it up with as much effort as before. She was a nice lady, really nice, and so was her voice. When she spoke, it was like hearing a lullaby, and thus maybe that was why we were always so sleepy during her period.

“I think love is what you make of it” was my answer when she asked me what love for me meant. I wasn’t very thoughtful of this so I said the very first thing that came to mind.

My seatmate, though, was the one who said this.

“The curse of innamorata is that it is both a rose and a thorn.”

I stared at the board, on which his answer was already written. It had a citation mark already, “- Oh, 2012”. I think the professor was impressed with his answer.

Honestly, we all were. At that moment the silence was broken, alongside the curse of afternoon naps. The room filled with “ohs” and “what does that mean?s”. I really didn’t understand what it meant too, and maybe that why I wrote it down on my Little Prince planner and am now reading it again, year 2014.

A lot had happened since -- a lot had not happened as well. We graduated high school that year, and went into college the next. Now I’m a sophomore in college, dealing with a lot of those never-ending immature problems.

Maybe that’s what life meant, right?

That guy, Sehun, was my seatmate for an entire two quarters of my senior year in high school. We didn’t speak much during the early weeks when the year started, but I did have the chance to actually befriend him when we were both qualified to go to competition somewhere far from the city. We grew particularly close to each other during the duration of our stay there, and we came back as best friends. It hadn’t been hard on us to talk to each other about what to eat, what to do, even what the answers of the exercises were.

Until it came to a point when he suddenly confessed that he loved me. For a year.

It had shocked me, yes, especially when the time of being classmates were not more than five months, how could he have loved someone he has barely known? I had asked him how, and he just told me that I had met him through my girl best friend, and since there, something clicked.

I tried with all I could to like him back, I really did. Maybe there came a point when I did like him, but I knew that I would just be lying if I did tell him that I did like him when in reality I wasn’t so sure.

Sehun was a really really nice guy, and I am not exaggerating. He was smart, aced all of his Math tests and even helped me with mine. He was an exceptionally good writer, though he didn’t show, and he was an amazing artist. He loved to draw, I’d tell you about it, and he loved to write.

Maybe that’s why I never did come to harbor feelings for him in a romantic way. I thought that maybe he was just mistaken; that maybe he was just confused.