Confusion

I had always despised the genre romance. I believed that it was just plain boring. All the drama and plot line was all mushy and it made me feel awkward. I thought that all romance is just like the innocent version of the story Romeo and Juliet. They meet, they realize their mushy feelings, and they fall in ‘love’, problem arise....

Then there was this ‘Mutual Understanding’....MU as they dub it. I didn’t understand it completely (even though I surfed it in the internet) but I knew that it’s almost the complicated defenition of ′I want you to be my gf/bf while keeping our friendship at the same time′ kind of thing without really confessing too much...

...These things weren’t supposed to affect me. Heck, it wasn’t supposed to sink in my mind.

Yet here I was; reading a fanfiction with my favorite OTPs. And I’m fully aware of my fangirling when it comes to my OTPs.

......I can’t believe I even have a favorite otp in the first place. But I can’t help it.

I’m not even sure how it escalated, but by the time I discovered the unexpected pairings, I realized that I’m also having a real life OTP.

What was worse was that they were my friends, and, dare I say; cousins. I was so glad about their unexpected pairings that I couldn’t help but be overly happy about them. It was like a VIP pass to a movie that’s about to be filmed.

It was cute, seeing it first hand. It was almost perfe- no, an absolutely perfect inspiration for a story that I’m strangely willing to write.

But sometimes I can’t help but ask myself ′what is wrong with me?′

I don’t know if the mind was playing with me, or if the host was ready to go into drama again, or if it was just me pretending not to care; but I knew there was something wrong with me whenever I discover something that was kept from me for a long time.... while I was there by their side.

This. Whole. Time.

They kept me in the dark for a long time now. I only discovered it all in a total of one week. It wasn’t really that obvious at first, but just one time in a very small space, circling up and down to the ground, did I notice just how much of a mutual understanding there is in their own little shared space.

And what made it feel like a VIP pass was because I was the ‘fifth wheel’ in what looked like a ‘double date’. In my point of view, it looked like I was watching a movie in 5D, although my popcorn was missing.

But at the same time, I felt like a transparent ghost.

The next morning, when we were destined to leave the place, was even much more of it. We were getting prizes (rushing to decide, actually, because we were running out of time) for the tickets that we had won as a group, and we first asked for five rings. Of course it had to be two pairs of two different colors, and one with another different color. It basically looked like they were getting engaged in front of me even though they put it on themselves like it was nothing. The only thing missing was the question ‘will you marry me?’ from both men.

As usual, I don’t really care what I would get -I don’t really care if I get one anyways-, but when both women really wanted a teddy bear, they calculated it to see if it was fit for three. For three. I was honestly shocked they calculated it for three people and wondered who the hell was number three.

Then it clicked to me that I was also there with them, that I exist. That I wasn’t in a 5D movie or have a VIP pass... That I was also a girl. And girls basically just has to have the stuffed toys.

They saw how unfair it was when the results practically screamed that we were short of tickets.....

They didn’t asked for the stuffed toys. Instead, they continued to decide what else they want to get so that it would be fair.

While they were doing that, I pretty much got annoyed. ′They didn’t have to do that′ and ′We’re running out of time′ was the thoughts that were running through my head as they were still undecided.

Then I heard the women say that they really wanted the stuffed toys and I said- well, I don’t remember what exactly did I say but I know it was in the lines of ′Go ahead, I don’t really care if I had one or not′.... though not that blunt. But you get my point.

They were hesitant to ask for the stuffed toys at first, but with a few more words of encouragement from me that it was fine, they finally requested for two stuffed toys. The women were so happy. It made my heart go BA-DUMP and I could feel my face flush that I had to turn away from them the moment I felt my tears threatening to come out.

They said ′Thank you′.

It was the cutest, most mushiest moment I have ever had in my entire life. It was a really nice change from all the suicidal thoughts that’s been going on inside my head for weeks... well, months.

At the same time though, I felt bullets passing through my chest from time to time.

I was so confused. These feelings was so foreign to me that I can’t decipher what in the world am I really feeling.

Am I really happy? or am I faking it?

Am I glad? Or I’m just really hiding my pain?

For four days I tried figuring out what do I call that feeling that I was having. For four nights I kept wondering if I really did make them happy. For all those days I kept thinking if all my non-existant efforts was worth it.

When the fifth day came, I finally learned that everything that was happening around me for the past few days already existed months ago. All this time I was with them, I didn’t notice. I was oblivious about it and they tended to keep it that way.

I could still remember it. The day when I found them sitting around a table in their house, casually talking. I was genuinely surprised. I didn’t expect the other two to be there, but I decided to stay with them and chat. When they decided to go to the park before the two go home was when they confessed to each other. Or so that’s what another ‘woman’ from our little group of friends told me.

No, I didn’t know. Even though I was practically there. They actually sent me out to go find more ‘wishing bone sticks’ out on the field once I showed them one that looked like a wishing bone.

I knew from the moment they sent me away was the moment they wanted privacy. And those moments that I spent pretending to look for more wishing sticks was the time I get to think by myself. I could still remember how I felt refreshed about the fact that it was so peaceful in the fields when the sun is almost fully down; that they needed privacy; knew that I was meant to be alone. It was confusing. Though at the end of the day I felt really content, and now I understand why.

They were finally happy. The MU connection was there. Whatever the definition of MU to them that I couldn’t fully understand was there and I could faintly feel it, even though things are still fuzzy for me.

But that’s not the problem. What really hurts the most was that they didn’t tell me sooner. I had to learn it from someone else. It really hurts because I was there, lingering around them, practically am there in their everyday lives; and they didn’t, in any ways, tell me what’s been going on.

‘Couldn’t they just trust me?’ Was all I could think, ‘Trust me about these things. I don’t NEED to have my own MU, I don’t really care. All I need is their trust... that’s all I’m asking for.’

But they didn’t. And it hurts.

When I had a private chat with one of them the same day I learned about the stuff they did to keep me away from things, I couldn’t help but be confused at what I was feeling.

I felt awkward and fakingly cheery that I knew it still hurts. It was great news that the women was happy with the stuffed toys and all (I had to show him my fangirl side of things to tell him it was really okay for me to not have one), but it just wasn’t enough to make me feel well.

.....Oh.....Wait....

I think I found the words now. The words how to describe what I was feeling this whole time. The feeling that all this time, the people that you trusted with all your being just because they stayed with you the longest, kept you from the shadows for as long as they could manage. The friends that I trusted the most because they stayed by my side for the longest time that it broke the records of my yearly friends in this non-stop travelling life of mine, kept me in the dark about this MU stuff between them.

This feeling of bittersweeet Betrayal.

It actually makes me wonder now just how many times I’ve felt this way throughout my life. Well, I’m thinking it’s nearly once or trice a year.

....and I’m tired of it....just so tired of it.

Though it never stopped me from fangirling.