Still a Child.

I rule almost everything in life on meticulous calculation, carefully embarking on each step knowing this is the objectively wise choice for my future.

Almost everything...except for love. My heart rules it, and I concede every single time.

This is probably why even after being so bruised and broken two years ago, I still believe.

This is probably why after countless rejections and burnouts since then, I still believe.

It's that belief I hold onto since I was 18, when a young, insecure boy first realised that he too could experience something just as magical. The belief that life could break you and shatter you into broken pieces, yet all it takes is someone fateful to pick you up and assure you, that everything will be fine.

Truthfully, something as vivid as this never really came about since then. Five years, yet it continues to be etched in the core of my heart, upholding an insurmountable bar of what two human beings in love ought to look like and be like.

......

It's been close to five years. Just a few days ago, a chance encounter had me face to face with someone not entirely dissimilar to that fateful someone when I was 17.

Our similarities are uncanny, yet our differences indisputably vast. We're well on our way to a guaranteed stability in life, yet our outlook on love exist on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Two nights of meaningful conversations coupled with warm embraces and hearty laughter. I can't say for sure what those two nights mean to me right now, but it definitely has me intrigued in a way I've yet to be since almost 18.

Night two wasn't even supposed to happen. Yet circumstances dictated otherwise.

Apprehension envelopes us like smog, one filled with toxicities from the fickleness of romance and the cruelties of reality towards atypical love.

And I completely understand that; this isn't my first experience with a soul staunchly keen on control and self-protection.

I could realise the lack of direction and end goal of this situation and back off. But I was never one to do that with people I care for to begin with.

I let my heart rule. I would continue caring for this person within my capacity and his comfort. What happens down the road is an absolute unknown, but I sure as hell won't materialise a negative value through my inaction.

"Have you learned?" I remember him asking.

I say yes. I know how to protect myself better. I know that some fights are meant to be embarked on individually, and your best intentions may not actually help resolve much.

But even if I'm still that blissfully innocent child with a hopelessly optimistic conception of love and its beauty, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with letting my heart rule in the one thing I still hold a definite losing record in.

Because sometimes, risk-benefit analysis simply doesn't apply. Because even if it hurts, humans are beautiful. Love is beautiful.

......

To AAAS. 13/11/19.