It’s been a while since we last talked. How have you been? Have you been eating well? Can you still remember the time that we spent that one unforgettable afternoon together in Yokohama where you said nonchalantly and out of the blue that, you were “very happy?”

I don’t know what happened and why you suddenly grew cold and distant. Why? I sometimes ask myself what I did or what I said to make you lose interest in me. I don’t even know why I liked you in the first place. Was it because of how you looked or smelled? How you first came up to me like a dashing prince while I was walking towards you like a dumbstruck commoner? I was simply mesmerized and if only you knew how nervous I was the night before, you surely would have gotten amused.

That walk in the city of my workplace was really memorable. It was solemn and peaceful, and I loved how you tried taking me to my destination despite my constant refusal.

Maybe I am exaggerating and overthinking things, but the truth is, it’s been five years since I last felt this way that I almost thought I never would. You just struck something warm and fuzzy in my heart and I just didn’t know how to handle this overwhelming feeling inside me that kept growing more viciously as the days went by. I loved your smile and your scent and to be honest, I have never felt that way about anybody in my life.

I then realized why almost relationships are the hardest to get over, it’s because I have all these what ifs in my head that have now evaporated into nothing more than mere imaginings.

I keep wondering, was it because of who you are and your status that made me so drawn to you this much? And then I realized that it was more than that. It was your silent demeanour and how you always looked as though you were trying to tell me something but couldn’t bring yourself to. It was how you always looked straight into my eyes almost as if you could see through my soul, opened doors for me and walked with me in my pace. But then that’s just the surface, and the extent that you allowed me to see a part of you, but it was never who you truly were.

Would I be scaring you if I told you that on some instances, I would suddenly have scenes of the future in my head flash before my eyes with you and our children living blissfully together? I’m crazy, aren’t I? But the thing is, you always made me feel like you were just too far off and not there yet, and I was always two steps ahead of you.

I tried to rid you off my life completely to minimize the suffering I would incur if I decided to continue our correspondence and cement the bond we’ve already established, but I undoubtedly failed. I couldn’t give up the thought of having you in my life; I couldn’t give up the idea of us connecting with each other in a much more deeper level; I couldn’t give US up; I couldn’t give YOU up no matter how much I tried. Although I know for a fact that this is in every sense of the word, wrong, in so many levels.

So, I decided to embrace the challenges I may face for the simple reason that I wanted to be with you and risk everything I tried safeguarding for the longest time. But just like that, you vanished entirely, never showing your face to me again but like a phantom that’s always hiding in each corner of my thoughts, and perpetually haunting me in every single waking moment of my existence.

I’ve been told countless times that I am a certified wishy-washy person, and there is no denying it, but I just can’t make up my mind and my heart when it comes to you. My almost lover… who was just supposed to be my language exchange partner (but I fell). I’d like to believe that we are star-crossed lovers who were supposed to only meet in some bizarre parallel universe, but through a cosmic miracle, we miraculously got to meet each other, however that miracle was short lived, and you eventually drifted as far away from me as possible in the end… But at the back of my head, I will always see you as The One That Got Away in this version of my reality as well as all the crazy might-have-beens. I believe that you may have been my soulmate in some aspects but that we are not destined for each other. Our fate is not set in stone because the future is always relative. I know you might have been my perfect other, but our circumstances never fit together perfectly like how jigsaw puzzles are.

You ought to know that I have never wanted anybody as much as I want you, although I am very well aware that you will never like me in the same degree that I do with you. I often wonder how you’ve been doing since we last met or if you’re already with someone else now. I feel ashamed because I’m torn apart and that I have finally fully realized what “sweet persecution” means, the painful way.

I started to think of you constantly, unendingly, obsessively, from that day on to the point that it suddenly left me anxious whilst imagining myself in the future being miserable; forever wondering, regretting, and never forgetting every painful and wonderful moment I shared with you. I am scared that I may never move on and that I couldn’t forget, but I am more afraid of moving on and forgetting about you and losing that one small fraction of hope in my heart that we would still see eye to eye someday.

I did my best to distract myself by going out with someone else and focusing my thoughts on whatever mundane things I could get my mind occupied with, but it was of no use at all. You were just all over my head. I even dreamed of you too. Why do you keep tormenting me in the daytime and gratifying me at night? But then, it isn’t your fault because the universe just has its way of telling us what we need to know and be aware of because in the long run, these circumstances could help us be stronger and more well-rounded people, albeit leaving invisible scars that would forever leave a mark in our treasure box of memories.

What started out as my way to learn Japanese paved the way for our paths to meet and that somehow changed my life equivocally. I never planned to be this obsessed with you and even now, I still don’t know for how long I will be. I thought I could easily get over you. But it turns out, 1 year later and I’m still stuck in the same place with the same stupid feeling of longing to be with you.

This is not a story about perfect lovers meeting one afternoon in a well-known street in Harajuku where amber-coloured leaves flock the sidewalk and the autumn breeze sends over a cool shiver that warm people’s hearts. No, this is the alternative ending; the type that most hopeless romantics would normally shy away from watching except for the alleged masochist viewers who take delight in self-inflicting pain, or the one that self-confessed fanatics scorn at. It’s the alternate version nobody asked for. It should have just ended with “It was an unforgettable afternoon of us together in Yokohama” shouldn’t it? That would have been the perfect ending for a seemingly imperfect bond between two souls who were at the perfect time but who, unfortunately, weren’t perfectly meant for each other. Yes, it should have.

Nobody really talks about the tragic ending that comes after the fairy-tale story much like how films about beautiful love stories almost always end in loving couples’ marriages and not in their divorces. Nobody wants to hear the part of the demise of relationships, couples falling out of love or shattered hearts. But for people like me, who have lived to tell the experience of having strong unrequited feelings for someone, it is the one essential thing that I can do to extinguish the residue of passion left still burning within me.

Writing does replenish the confidence and sense of fulfilment that feelings unreciprocated had drained from my soul terribly. Moments like this reinforce my creative nature to put all these feelings into words, and translate these words jumbled up in my head into written memoirs.