Love is the most twisted curse of all
Nobara Kugisaki from Jujutsu Kaisen describes her life like a room full of chairs that are basically waiting for people to sit down in. Some people drag in their own chairs, and somehow that's okay as well. I always kind of resonated with this, because it felt like my own experience.
There just seems to be two special seats that are as cursed as the second driver's seat at Red Bull: The Best Friend and The Partner. Pedestals with shining lights on them.
The concepts of both seats are beautiful, plush and cosy. Until you blink one too many times against the bright lights illuminating them, and see the flaws in their structure.
How The Partner chair is made of some precious material nobody's allowed to sit down on, in fear that they might not be the perfect person for it, even though nobody can know that for sure without trying.
How The Best Friend chair still has a bloody knife in it from a childhood best friend who stabbed you in the back and cursed your tongue to never speak the words "Best Friend" out loud for a while without tasting like battery acid running down your throat.
But slowly, over time and without making themselves noticed, some of the people who dragged in their own rickety chairs slowly started upgrading their folding chairs to sturdier ones, until they were left sitting on a plush leather couch that is much more inviting than the tainted Best Friend chair.
Somebody sat down on that cursed chair after the knife had been pulled out and the wounds had started healing enough so that the words "Best Friend" could be uttered again without the acid.
But apparently, that spot is not meant to be filled forever. People change and turn into strangers again. Calling them a "Best Friend" feels like a cruel lie, a needle pricking a tiny hole into the plush seat until it feels unsteady despite best efforts to patch it up.
And suddenly, "Best Friend" starts tasting like acid again and every piece of tape you add to the pinholes peels right off after a week.
And suddenly, you think about opening the exit door, even though the person occupying your Best Friend chair has one reserved for you as well, but you haven't sat in it since you started noticing things about it that didn't quite feel right anymore.
And suddenly, you have this sinking feeling that the next encounter will be the last, because the clock on the wall has long stopped ticking while you were busy patching up a broken chair.
