Confronting the past

[3rd POV]

"Did you ever miss me?"

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..

Was that a stupid question? The silence questioned me.

Who am I kidding? It was indeed a stupid question. Why did you ask someone who left you willing if they missed you or not?

A stupid question.

"I-" She opened her mouth but I cut her off.

"Its okay, I don't know why I asked that." I said with awkward chuckles. It felt like when you were sure someone had a crush on you for a long time but when you finally like them back and about to confess, you were not sure anymore.

It'd be insensitive of me to just assume stuff.

"Oh," She mouthed softly as she broke out from her frozen state, "Okay"

Then she continued wrapping my body in silence. I regret asking the question as it made everything awkward. I just ruined the whole vibe.

Have I still not gotten out of my teenage phase when I couldn't differentiate between love and kindness?

God damn, like she said, I have helped her in the past so she was returning the favour.

"By the way, I never really asked this but how has your life been so far?" I said, "I mean the last time we saw each other was two years ago."

The last thing I knew about her was when we had a talk in the hospital after my fight with Gun. It was my first time in Korea and when I was in the MMA tournament.

"I'm doing better." She said and I could feel her smile.

"Only better? It seems to me that you have been climbing the social ladder." I said with a shake of my head. "A billion won just to send Goo away?"

I smiled at the huge sum of money. Not for me of course, but for you.

"You can say that. I have been working a lot and building up some things." She said. Yeah, like building an illegal operation in Korea I assumed.

"But you have been even busier." She nudged at me.

"You watch my fights?"

"I watch more than just your fights." She said and leaned closer to my ear, "I'm a fan."

So she must also watch my YouTube videos and stuff. Well, that is embarrassing.

"I'm happy to see you accomplish everything you said you would when we were kids." She said sincerely.

"Thank you. Sometimes, it feels too good to be true."

"You've worked hard for it, I saw you. You deserve every fortune coming your way." She said.

There was a short period of silence where I had a genuine smile on my face at her words. It felt good to be told such things by someone who had known me since the beginning.

"But what about you?" I asked, "Where are your parents?"

"They died a year ago." She stated.

I was surprised, "I'm so sorry."

She scoffed, "I thought you knew better, don't be."

Yeah, her parents were not the best parents around. On second thought, that was an understatement.

"Okay then." I said, "Congratulations!!"

"Pftt-hahaha." She laughed. It had been quite some time since I heard it, its nice.

"That's not it either! Who congratulates someone on their parent's death." She said in a tone of amusement,

"Sorry, then just imagine I said something perfect," I said with a smile.

A crawling silence came right after and we sat in a comfortable silence in the bed. She shifted a few times and finished her job of wrapping me up.

"It's done."

"Thank you." I said.

"Don't mention it." She replied and put a hand on my shoulder. Maybe it's my imagination but I felt a need in her touch and a longing in her eyes.

She got up from the bed and walked out of the room. We no longer exchanged words as she opened the door and closed it with a lonely thud.

It was not that we had nothing to say to each other, in fact, it was the opposite.

We both wanted to say something important. We both wanted to express ourselves and paint our feelings on the canvas of silence.

Yet we were both uncertain. So we said nothing.

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..

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I fell back on the bed and covered my eyes with my forearm as I remained silent. I did not like being uncertain or leaving things out.

I took a few minutes to wander around in my landscape until suddenly, an idea struck me.

"Wait..." I said and shot up from the bed. I immediately grabbed my suitcase and rummaged through it until I find what I was looking for.

My phone.

A descendant of Nokai which only had cracks even after all the things it had to went through.

I switched on my phone and plugged in with the charger beside the bed, Then I laid down while opening up my phone.

And there it was.

Webnovel.

I went to read my story, 'A life with the Author'

it was then that I confronted the couple of chapters which I had been avoiding ever since I was able to read my own story. Specifically, they were POV chapters of Tsukimi.

I was afraid of reading them, to be honest.

I was afraid it would open up new feelings for me and I did not want to go through the horrible event in the eyes of someone I love.

I thought surely, I would find things that would hurt me. Who can blame me, I was disrespected to such an extent by a stranger and I was betrayed.

I don't want to read about that.

I scrolled through the chapters which were available to me and I found it surprising that the story had progressed far enough until when I made my UFC debut. Which was the latter part of the hundred chapters.

I released a sigh.

"Come on you can do this. You fearlessly faced the strongest fighter in the world, how bad can this be?" I told myself as I opened up the chapter.

We couldn't seem to communicate well, there were too many things stopping us. So I wanted to know exactly how she feels by reading this.

Now I would finally have my answers. How and why did it happen? What was she thinking at that moment?

Tsukimi, why did you ruin everything?

"Author, you have been awfully quiet. Any warnings before I do this?"

{...No. I don't think it is my place to say anything. Read it and let your heart decide.}

And so, I started.

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Author : Double chapter