Our story starts where most things start, don't you think so, my dearest and sole reader? The night.
Night, sprinkled with dusted souls, at that.
Panning out to a girl, we see her, as usual, trying to express herself: her admired admirations and her hard-to-achieve dreams that she could never seek.
She wrote in a fragmented, colorful, but quite unique way, something simple:
"My love is gentle and so easy.
Yet you don't want it.
If you don't want love, what could you want?"
She didn't think that anyone would appertain to her and configure a conversation, but a prince decided to speak.
At first, she spoke a bit with the prince, but she did not believe that he would stay around. The girl, for now, we will call her Apa, and the boy, we will call him Shall.
Apa has lived a very peculiar life indeed. It seemed as though her life was created to not live: a life that is not a life, but a life that is a knife? Or perhaps a shadowed existence swallowed and spit. She knew that people around her will leave quick. You see, Apa knew that she was meant to be more from the very moment she could articulate articulation of any kind. She felt something wrong: pillars that balance something, something that doesn't need to be balanced.
Apa has been forsaken quite a lot. She withdrew from society because she felt a sense of individuality and expression so glamorous and bold that the indoctrinated creators have decided, openly to her, both indirectly and directly, that she is not meant to be.
Running and running away, she could only feel the night on her breath, the night... alone without the need for anything but suffering and hoping to atone for her fair tongue that never even once swore.
Enough about her backstory, though. I am sure the dear reader knows more than enough. Let's continue, shall we, Mr. Shall?
As previously stated, she did not believe he will stick around, so Apa left first. Apa left because of insecurity, of feeling like a burden, like a sore, one-off conversation to entertain the need for wasting time. She believed she wouldn't be more, but in the way. So she left.
The prince decided to try his hand at speaking words. So, connected back once more, he asked time and time again:
"What did I do wrong, Apa?"
"Did I hurt you?"
"I thought everything was okay."
Now, I could tell you the tens of ways he asked, but we are here for the forward, not the rewinded.
Apa began to explain to him more and more of who she was, how she lived, how loneliness was festering and fermenting inside her.
He offered a lot: a lot of love, support, and, most unexpected, patience. Even if he didn't understand, he was willing to learn, which proved more proof than any crooked soul she ever encountered.
He understood her and her intentions, but in the same night of reunion, the link of a thread formed.
There were a lot of similarities: neglect, discrimination, loneliness, and pain, to name a few, but they were there. At least, from her lenses, it felt like they were similar.
Her lenses looking back, she saw a lot and a lot of enthusiasm, something that feels pure even in the present as she is writing this twisted and turned-for-the-better story or poem.
"Have you ever considered having a partner?" he asked me after a day or two of reconnection and affectionate platonic love with romantic subtexts he thought I wouldn't see.
I replied, "I don't care about their gender, their looks, or anything most people would. I would care about the love, the loyalty, and perhaps their age so we grow old together."
He then reached a point where he said, "If I ever get someone (which is unlikely), do not worry, though; I'll never stop talking to you."
"You are very bad at hiding it, Mr. Dino, but I guess I will look the other way around," I said, knowing full well he wanted me right there and then. I knew he wanted me, and I may have acted a bit cold, but I surely wanted him.
Truth is, dear reader reading, I was crushing on you in perhaps the first hour of conversing.
"What do you mean by this?"
Perplexed, he wondered a bit and possibly stressed, but it wasn't the neurodivergent pattern recognition that made me know he loves me. I just loved him too; I felt his heart reaching out.
Extract the pearl, discard the shell. It turns into gun powder, and the shell will shock itself. Self Shell Shock: a cryptic message indeed, but all I meant was to say, "I love you. I know you do, too. Please don't leave me. Please don't discard me. Please don't shock me."
"There are many flavors to love," you said. "Mine tastes sweet." I said, "Yours is sweet and sour." You asked, "Why?" I said, "It's simple." It was simple, but it had complexities and long-term aftertaste.
"You want us to be each other's everything, don't you?" I said.
"Perhaps..." said the sweet prince.