Fire's Corner

I can still remember how we first met in an empty lot near our school. I thought that I'll die that day from the hand of Richard who wanted to take my two daffodil teeth. Yet, suddenly a dashing five-year-old girl came in and and punch him in his face.

I can still remember her sweet gentle voice when she asked me if I was alright. Yet at that time, the six-year-old me was overcome with embarrassment at having a younger person to protect my scrawny neck that I accidentally yell at her that it shouldn't be her protecting me but the opposite. I thought that she will leave me for being mean but she didn't. She continued to give me her angel smile that I didn't deserve. That day, in a low whisper, I promised that I would protect that smile plastered in the lips of the young beautiful maiden.

The next day, as I promised, I started working out and fixing myself. Beside her  I am the gentleman she needed but behind her back I'm the demon that would sent everyone who dares to disrespect her back to their grave.

This relationship I had with her, I had never thought deeply about it. We had never defined or talk about our relationship but I did know that it was definitely more than friends, better even than best friends. It was like we were a couple but formally not one.

Then finally one day I got the answer. In our high school’s retreat, the facilitator told us to closed our eyes and think about our future. When I closed my eyes, what I saw wasn't the deep void of darkness -it was on the contrary the opposite. It was quite bright yet I could still make out that it was in a church and before the priest is a guy in a tuxedo and a woman in a lavish white gown. When I saw the woman's face, I was surprised to see that it was Mikasa! Could it be in the future the two of us…

I know that we did all the things that couple did like hang out and be intimate but that was just that. We never said, “I love you” or whatever serious couple told each other. Then could this be the reason why I’m jealous of Eren, her childhood friend? I realized I loved Mikasa then.

The following days of my high school, I became her shoulder she could cry on. When I succeeded in putting Eren out of sight, the sight of Mikasa crying pained my heart too much that it overshadowed my sense of accomplishment and regretted it deeply. When she didn't graduate as a valedictorian, I let her get drunk and even let her barfed at my dad's car which I took without permission yet it was alright as long as she's in her normal condition.

Then college came. Even though it's hard but for our future, I decided not to follow her to Public College and go to Private College. When I thought that she'll get mad at me, she was instead happy and declared that we should go out and celebrate it -which we did. Even when I was in a different college, I still made sure to check all the people she's getting along with and be her crying shoulder she could lean on -especially on her troubled days like when her mother died in an accident and how her father followed her mom a year later after a heart attack.

My plan was that I would propose to her to be my girlfriend a month after I graduate college, as by that time I would not only have a lot of time to pay attention to her but I can also start working and start preparing for our family. I didn’t mind how long it is. After all, I was certain we’d end up together. I always thought that in the end, it would be us. I loved her. And if she doesn't love me then I can just find ways to get her heart. Little did I know that love doesn’t conquer all.

In this perfect plan I had made, I had never thought that I'll be so stupid enough to get a girl pregnant on the same night that I had met her. I had never thought that the congratulation party that was in honour of finishing up our course instead became a congratulation for becoming a father! And it was just less than one month before I would have proposed. Ironic how I keep on lecturing Mikasa about safe sex when in the end I was supposed to be the one who should be lectured on. And now the future that I had planned of has disappeared. What could I do? I let her kick me in the groin and punch me in the eye. And it was only in that time could I told her that I had loved her since the beginning and I'm not going to marry her, I would have shown her the ring that I created for her when she told me something that I could never forget.

“Levi, I…  I love you too. But it's already too late, you already made my sister pregnant. If you can't marry her because you don't love her then please do it for the sake of the child…  And for me.”

I wanted nothing more than to run to her and beg her to wake me up from the bad dream. But this wasn't a dream.

We didn’t talk for a month. The last thing I heard from her is that she went to a city for a vacation. I tried to contact her but she won't answer. When she finally came back, she would always ducked into a corner when she'll see me. And I didn’t realized that the regret became  my reason for getting up in the morning, for breathing, for living. Regret and I became good friends. “God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them but to cleanse them.” This was what Mikasa would always say when there's trouble. If it means not having Mikasa in my arms then I didn’t want to be cleansed. I just want to drown in this deep pool of regret, misery and despair. I wanted to wallow in a dark and deep void. I want to end this burden in my shoulder. I just want to go back in the old days where Mikasa would smile at me and laugh at my stupidity.

Yet, unfortunately there wasn’t any medicine for regret. I can’t turn back time -I can only go on and walk this dark path in front of me even if I don’t like it.