one day ren was as close as could be, the next he was so distant it was as if he didn’t know you at all. no- not even that. sometimes he was so distant, this is likely what it feels like for him to despise your very existence. maybe it was just bad timing, maybe he had a problem with you. unfortunately and tragically, you loved him. maybe it wouldn’t have been a tragedy if he didn’t give you mixed signals such that feel they only exist to cause intense doubt and anxiety.

one day, ren would be a friend. the next, he’d be flirty. then, he’d be back to just your friend. he would always talk about someone he claimed to be in love with to everyone but you, maybe he didn’t want you to know at all. maybe it was a lie. you had no way of knowing. his touch was like a ghost now, essentially nonexistent. gone were the days of holding hands in public just because you can, even if he never really had much of a commitment to you. why, then, were you still attached to him in such a way when it would clearly take a herculean effort to salvage your romantic relationship with him that barely existed in the first place?

you’d run into him at school functions and he’d be with his friends, you’d lock eyes with him. he made you feel like a complete outsider when he invited you into conversations, barely even acknowledging you at all but still trying to reach for your hand occasionally. it was a maze of mixed signals that would leave you just as confused as when you started, ultimately just leading to confuse and hurt you more than you already were at his hand.

part of you thought that, maybe if you waited long enough and tried your best to stay by him no matter what, he’d choose you one day. maybe, some day in the far off future when rain is pouring from the sky, he’d offer his umbrella and ask you to stay. yet, it rained just like how you imagined today, except this time your knees were scraped and pain shot through your body when they made contact with the water. you kneeled on the wet asphalt, dazed and in too much pain to get up. ren helped you up and bandaged your legs after taking you back to his apartment.

you couldn’t even say a thing in that moment, all words caught in your throat. it was frustrating, really. like a secret you wanted to yell and scream but the world just stifled your voice again in an attempt to keep your words from reaching his ears. if you had thought or tried to express your love now, how differently would he look at you? if he constantly bragged about being head over heels, why would he still reach both physically and metaphorically for you when your feelings were down?

you figured it pointless to express the feelings ren would likely think of as pointless. he was a literal prince, for god’s sake. there’s no way he didn’t already have a marriage lined up for him in the near future whether he liked it or not. ultimately, would it not be a waste to take up what little time you share with him nowadays with a worthless confession? though the time you did share with him, all the seemingly swirled colors around you would fade away in the haze of your mind trying to make even the littlest of sense of his behaviors.

his nearly hollow gaze towards you signified his life just ticking away by the second, yet that’s something everyone seems to do under the pressure of school and, fuck, being hier to a kingdom. he’d close his eyes and lie yet again about the person he supposedly loved while talking to his friends, yet still opening them ever so slightly to glance at you with an inexplicable melancholy in that deep blue of his eyes. sometimes you’d find yourself wondering if he would ever have to defend the choice to cast you off to the sidelines as if you never existed at all, what would be say?

really, did he have any idea how much you loved him? you continued to keep your seemingly worthless feelings a secret until he wanted to hear them voiced, waiting for that moment. moving slightly closer to him as he opened up to you again, you barely managed to salvage your nearly shattered heart through the aches and the endless tears. but once again, you couldn’t say a thing and just swallowed the words down into your stomach to make you sick later. you wanted ever so badly to shout it ever so loud in an attempt to preserve what was left of your heart and emotions that you doubted actually even meant a thing.

if the world itself cast you aside just like he had, could you at least try to sing the song of love to him that was contained- no- detained in your heart for ever so long? just one last time, can you express the pain felt with feeling every single feeling that many people never cared enough to ever even acknowledge? sometimes it feels like ren looks right through you, could he even see you at all?

even so, if he could learn to love his life, if he could grow to want a love of his own, you couldn’t help the feeling that maybe you were the problem. maybe every single day you had spent with him had meant the world and you were none the wiser because he keeps the feelings he harbors towards you caged deep in his heart to prevent himself from getting hurt. the hue of love was yet in his eyes whenever he looked at- or through you at some invisible force you were sure he loved more than you by at least tenfold.

if you could be the person completely ideal to him, what would that look like anyway? what changes would you have to make to yourself? would it be so substantial that “you” as you were now would cease to exist entirely? pain, shame, sorrow, rage, delight, heartache, it was all the same in his eyes anyway when projected onto your nearly broken heart. would you really allow yourself to let him drift away because of some stupid fear? there’s no way you would let that happen, right?