My Life WAS a Shoujo Manga

i really got to write this before i forget it after i wake up. time check: an hour after midnight.
i think the thought formed because i was listening to music from "the phantom of the opera" or that i just remembered that "the incident" will be turning two on the 13th.

my life was a shoujo manga. the readers (my friends) probably thought that i'd end up with chocobo (as we fondly call him). the thing is, it's a biased story. they're only hearing my side so they can hypothesize what the other side may be thinking.

i googled "how to know if your life is a shoujo manga", in hopes that i can find a checklist, but nothing. i've read a lot of them to conclude mine as one.

first, i fell for a guy who's very popular with girls and i happened to be his friend. we became close (assumption) after two or three years in the friendship. he even gave me a pet-name. i even experienced that scene wherein an unknown classmate(not in the same year level and course) asked me if the guy and i were friends because we seemed close. unlike her, i don't try and hit on every cute guy the minute i'm "friends" with them. unbeknown to her, my guy friend commented on their mutual friends that SHE's the one feeling very close.

second, the guy kept diverting my attention to him. he once followed me to a sink in our physics laboratory(there was a vacant  one on the other side of the room)just because "i was there". he used the same line again when we were still talking in the lobby even though we both know that he was already fifteen minutes late, at the least.

third, i went to his graduation because some of my friends were also graduating. upon seeing me during a break in the ceremony, he commented that he was happily surprised that i was there. it's his graduation. why is he "surprised" to see people greet him congratulations? some of his fan girls were even there.

i vaguely remember him asking me if i was related to his cousin that has the same last name and incidentally went to the same high school as i did. turned out, they're not really cousins; they have a set of cousins in common. he wasn't the one who told me that, it was his "cousin" who suspiciously knew what i was talking about. even more suspicious, the cousin greeted me with HIS name when we once saw each other somewhere. most suspicious? she(the cousin) commented on one of his graduation picture, which happened to have a glimpse of me in the background, with "isn't that ?"

back to the graduation scene. i never, even remotely, expected to see him again when the ceremony ended. there was a huge crowd going out of the building. it was a sea of black togas. what happens usually in a shoujo manga in this kind of situation? the heroine finds the guy and bids a tearful farewell? that's what happened. minus the tearful farewell part.

i saw him directly in my line of sight, a dozen feet away. by then, i was already expecting not to see him so i was really confused when i did. that's why there was no farewell. it's because i was too scared to meet his gaze(according to my "readers", he was staring at me the entire time. can't argue with them). i never said goodbye.

fourth and last: the unexpected visit. he graduated, i'm finishing my last year. this is "the incident" . i was running late for class. my friend told me that she thought she saw him in the classroom just beside ours. i shrugged it off. she has poor eyesight. when class finished, i went outside and who do i see? you guessed right.

he was supposed to be on another island, on another part of the country! why was he there? airplane tickets are expensive! why was he there! this is what went on inside my head as i approached him on that bench near the stairs. now, it was my time to be pleasantly surprised. i asked why he was there. he never gave a straight answer. i should mention that he had a box of cake beside him and was holding balloons. it struck me, i saw that same set of balloons earlier.

to this day, i'm still doubtful if it really happened.

he asked me to sit beside him and we talked. briefly. he asked me if i was going to the hospital(someone we knew got admitted) and i said no. i really thought that something good might happen then. i was wrong. he started talking to the girls that was with him and totally ignored me. i felt so left out so i stood to go. he hesitated then we said goodbye.

that was the last time we saw each other. this is the end of my story. at least, i was able to give him my long-overdue farewell.