EP. 1: what about me?

Ara sat at her desk, not paying any attention to the lecture. Her mind wonders to what Noah will tell her later, as they had both agreed to eat together today. She impatiently waits for the bell to ring as she taps her fingers on the table.

As she hear the bell ring, an indication that the class is over, she hurriedly packed her bag and headed straight to Noah’s’ class, which is conveniently just 5 minutes away from hers. When Ara spotted Noah, she waved at him with a smile- a smile so warm that it can melt even the sun. Anyway, Noah jogged to Ara and hugged his bestfriend (since preschool) for a brief moment, not being aware of the others current feelings.

They shortly arrived at the restaurant they frequented. Noah displayed an excited smile, which Ara never failed to catch. As they placed their order, Noah suddenly took his phone out and tapped something, afterwards, he held it up Ara’s face. Ara then confusingly looked at him for a moment before grabbing the phone. She didn’t understand at first, but as she scans and read the messages, her heart immediately scattered into the tiniest of pieces.

If she were to be honest to herself, she should’ve known that Noah will eventually confess his hidden feelings for her (ex)friend, Jazie. For the longest time, Noah had been dropping subtle hints that he liked someone, and for the longest time, Ara was in delusion that it was her that he liked, but at the end of the day, Noah told her that he liked Jazie. Of course this left a scar on her heart, but nevertheless, she wanted to support Noah in his decisions.

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She suddenly remembered the time when Noah found Jazie kissing a man he didn’t know, and that made him cry for days without end. But guess who was there to comfort him? Ara. She’s been with Noah through all his thick and thins, but Noah on the other hand, hadn’t been there(not even once). Yes, physically he was present, but emotionally, that is another story.

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Now back at the restaurant. Ara stared at Noah who was anticipating to hear her reply. She couldn’t do anything else but smile painfully. “Congratulations… by the way, I thought you were trying to move on from Jazie, but now I see that you- uhh, confessed to her.”

“It’s just that, the other day, Jazie explained that the man she kissed was just some random hookup she had, and she also confessed that she liked me, so I thought that this will be a great opportunity to tell her that I felt the same way.”

‘What about me though?’ she thought, too afraid to voice out her real emotions. “But aren’t you worried?” she looked at him with concerned eyes. “Jazie is known to be one who plays with people’s feelings” she paused to take a sip of her drink and continued “don’t get me wrong, I’m happy- for you, really, but I just don’t want you to be hurt, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean, but you don’t have to worry at all” he assured her, well, more to himself.

Ara just couldn’t help but nod, she chose to stay silent and just ate her food, trying to get rid of all of her negative thoughts. When it was finally time to head back to the campus, they ‘coincidentally’ met Jazie on their way back. She immediately plunged herself onto Noah’s embrace. Again, Ara had a smile plastered on her face, but if you looked closely at/to her eyes, you cannot see any happiness, rather, it is just a body of a woman who seemed like she had lost everything, and it’s all because of love…

Ara let Jazie and Noah walk in front of her, she kept her head down, too afraid to witness the scenes that were unfolding in front of her, but then she feltsomeones gaze on her, so she looks up a bit, only to meet Jazie’s piercing glares, to her surprise, she saw Jazie smirking at her- and that made her confused… and when she was about to ask the latter, she found her now staring lovelily towards her bestfriend.

‘What the f*** was that? Am I just hallucinating?’

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