A Foolish Half-Man

It was a nice spring breeze with a sweet scent of flowers roaming through the air, the sun shining ever so bright, and a beautiful landscape like those in a dream.A young man was reading a book on ‘The Lands of Charm and Cruelty,’ written by Stan Sesser.While breathing in that peaceful moment he heard footsteps that suddenly stopped beside the benches beside him.There stood a lovely young girl who looked lost but knew exactly who she was looking for.She took a couple of breaths before asking the young gentleman a question.

He closed his book and looked up at her, “Hello Ms. Yuuri.”

She wore a long greyish skirt that reached down to her ankles and her footwear was like those you’d see in a rich private school where black socks or white socks were worn with the shoes.Her black turtle neck sweatshirt was the same color as her mittens and her sable hair brought out the light hazel eyes that shun like glittery ornaments on a tree. She stood still thinking about how to approach Finx and turned to sit down at the edge of the bench next to him and took another breath before speaking again.

Finx sat the book in between them and smiled at the girl, “I see where this is going.”

She looked at him, puzzled that he was actually expecting her to come, “How did you know I was going to come?”

“I don’t know.I just had a feeling I guess,” he said with a stern smile, “I guess it’s that time already.”

She looked at him with confusion while he kept firm of his smile, “You came here to talk about me didn’t you?”

“How did you know?”She turned her gaze away from him in embarrassment, “I just wanted to….get to know you, since we are going to get married.”

“It’s just an arranged marriage,” Finx said loudly as if to not make her nervous, “Well, I’m not surprised.But since you’re here, I guess it’s about time I told you everything.”

As they sat down quietly, Finx began his story, and Ms. Yuuri patiently sat next to him to listen about her future husband.As the wind once again took flight, so did the story that began it all.

His name was Haru Schlecht.He was my best friend and first lover when we were in high school.At least, in my eyes he was.But that was more than eight years ago and all my feelings then meant nothing to me now.That’s what I believed anyway.One early afternoon, I bumped into him on my way to the bus stop. At first, we didn’t recognize each other, but right as we stared into each other’s eyes we immediately took notice of one another.It was a short talk, but I invited him over for coffee at one of the best coffee shops in town, Starbucks.I felt that we still had a little bit of setback to take care of from the past.So, the day after we met at the Transit Center I walked into Starbucks and sat in a table next to the windows.As always, I came a little early.By the time he appeared through the door, he seemed like a lost tourist who needed help with directions.By the time he spotted me, he walked over with a smile and brought with him a grocery bag.I didn’t want to ask what it was that he was doing earlier, so I continued our conversation from before.

After sitting down at the table for a while, I watched him as he held his head down, facing his reflection on the table.Of course, my expression from back when we were young never changed from a solid cold glare, as if I didn’t know how to feel at that moment.He lifted his head up once more to look at me.

“So...are you saying that...you...used me the whole time?” He asked with such a stern face, and yet I kept my image the same.

“Yes,” and with that being said, he faced back down as if he was about to cry.

He suddenly got up and leaned towards me, looked at me with resentment in his crystal blue eyes, and punched me right across the face.It was so loud that everyone heard it and glanced at us before returning to their business.

I looked back up to him without surprise as if his blow didn’t even scratch me and replied once more, “I knew all along how it would end and I thought to myself, ‘if I could just find the weakness in you and destroy it, leaving you would make me feel less annoyed by your feelings.’I don’t know if you could’ve ever called it love, but to me, you were just another precious toy to break. That’s all I wanted to say to you.”Haru looked at me with those hurtful eyes of his that wanted to cry so much that I just couldn’t help myself to continue damaging that heart of his, “What did you expect? We were both foolish men.”

I had thought that he was going to blow another punch, but he ran out before I could see the tears on his face fall.He left behind his grocery bag, and when I looked inside it, they were old artwork from back when we attended high school together.I was amazed that he was going to return them to me when I had completely forgotten about such artwork we had worked on together.Indeed, I knew just how he was feeling because he was the only person that lasted three years with me.What I had thought to be love was not even close to what I really felt and that was hatred.I don’t exactly know how it all started, but ever since I was little, I had never believed in love so much as I do with hate.But to be honest, I admit, being with Haru...I did begin to feel something.I wasn’t sure what it was, but...all I knew was that I was beginning to get scared so I just up and left him.After a while, I walked out of the coffee shop, tossing the grocery bag filled with my old artwork in the trash, and noticed that it was beginning to rain.As I recall, the weather forecast never mentioned anything about rain.As I looked up at the greyish clouds that floated about, I was brought back to the beginning of my painful memories that I believed started it all.