Prologue

She sat on the bus seat, feeling a mix of relief and nervousness as the night bus carried her back to where it all started.

[Sigh-]

It had been a long journey, but she had finally graduated from university. She had worked hard to reach this point. Now she can relax and sip a warm cup of coffee.

As she looked out the window at the passing scenery, she couldn’t help but reminisce about the memories she had made during her time sharing that apartment.

[One would have found my time in university a generic romantic drama story. A story about a girl and a boy, both young, living alone together.]

[The envious cries of the boys, the squeals of the girls. It’s easy to understand; The stares I get whenever I tell the story.]

[Although, it didn’t feel that way for me.]

[For one, I had a boyfriend at the time, and he loved me as much as I loved him.]

[But, he, on the other hand.]

[...]

As she thought of him, she gently took a sip of coffee. It’s kind of a small habit for recollecting thoughts and memories.

[He barely talked to me in the beginning, and it almost never got any better as the time was being wasted away.]

[I stayed close to him after that year, yet I still barely know him. I knew that he studied at the same university I enrolled in, which was the reason why I shared that cheap apartment with him. Other than that, there’s really nothing.]

[We respected each other’s space, and took turns doing the chores; the only times when I saw him outside his room.]

[Everything was fine, and I would see him more often as the time went by. We did some things together and we remained friends for the rest of our time as students.]

[Yes. Friends.]

[I could never figure out when, but I began to care for him. It felt like he was crying in agony. He always looked like he was being tortured by something, like he was drowning in the deep abyss that he was thrown into. He looked like he gave up struggling, and just went with the raging flow.]

[I wanted to pull him out of the dark and into the warmth of the light.]

[The more I learned of him, his life and his circumstances, the more I felt the need to get close.]

[He had locked his heart shut, and I felt that great distance between him and I.]

[And at times, I thought that maybe he wanted to stay like that, but a part of me wanted to believe that he wanted someone to reach out.]

[Maybe it could have been my selfish motive that set me off back then, but maybe I did want it to be some romantic drama in the end.]

[I felt no regrets in what my heart told me that day.]

[I wanted to grab his hand. When everything began to crumble, and the way his eyes-]

A single tear emerged from her whilst looking emotionless. The tear, gently moving down, slowly, from her eyes to her cheeks, and eventually falling off from her face. She took another sip of coffee again, and this time, it’s to recollect herself.

[...]

[We lived under the same roof; in that small and cramped apartment, yet it felt empty inside. Separated only by the walls of our own room, living in our own world.]

[It was painful, but looking back…]

And as she thought of those last few words, the look of the cramped apartment emerged in her mind. She explored that little figment of memory, looking at the unfinished dishes, and at the stains on a wall from her failed cooking the night before. For her, these were not merely stains nor dishes to be done. These were symbols of their friendship, and the closeness they had built. And that made her realize. That…

[... Those times weren’t so bad.]