Interlinked

Was it fate? Or
was it coincidence?

Life used to be slow, quiet, and peaceful.
Each day I wake up, glance at the rays of sunlight from my room. Phone unchecked. Nothing in my mind but blankness.

I loved the comfort of it. The peacefulness it gives as it makes me care less about the world. I felt free.

It’s peaceful when you don’t have anything to think about, nothing to take care of. All you have to think about is just yourself.

I had been caring about people too much before I came to a point of not giving a single damn to anyone, to anything. To everything.

Not a day passes when existential questions suddenly come up, making me even more still in mind. Blankly staring at my window, ice-focused on one thing.

“Are you really living your life, or are you just alive?”

I didn’t care to answer. Caring is such a tiring thing. Question ignored. Of course.

I grabbed a cup of tea and played some lyric-less music. A notification popped up.

“DJ sent a sticker.”
“Koi,” the second notification. I stared in question.

Right. The guy from that school trip. Should I call it an awakening trip? Lol.

I didn’t know what was on my mind at the time, to be honest. It’s the gut feeling that’s so hard to understand that kept me interested in something. About him.

I responded to him, “Koi,” and then gave him the requested pictures from that trip. End of conversation.

No, actually it continued. I can’t believe that after a long time of hiding and avoiding every person, situation, feeling, even an interaction— I suddenly felt a spark of giving a damn to someone.

Was it fate trying to play around and push me out of my comfort zone?

I don’t know. But after that, I started feeling careful not to mess around with the universe’s creation. Him.

I wanted to ignore him. But why did he keep showing up at such random times?

When I’m drowning in my own thoughts at 7:09 PM, I’ll be seeing his name on my phone screen by 7:10. When he randomly visits my mind, a new message “just now” would come up. Playing the same song at the same time. Feeling sad for no reason, then I’d know he’s had a bad day, from him. A random classmate chats me, and I look at the delivery time. It’s 9:37. Then I hear him a few days later next to me in class say those three numbers out loud— nine thirty-seven— out of nowhere.

Was it a coincidence? I don’t know.

And I didn’t know we would cross paths and have our lives interlinked.

The life that used to be slow, quiet, and peaceful became cinematically slow, softly quiet, and beautifully peaceful.

Each day I wake up, glance at the rays of sunlight from my room. Phone checked. Immediately. Because you’re the first person to come to mind when I wake up.

I’ve learned to love it. The peacefulness it gives as it makes me feel present in this world. I feel alive. Because you exist in the same lifetime as mine.

I’ve learned it’s peaceful when you have the right thing and person to take care of, to think of. I get to share my love and care with someone worthy of it.

I had been caring about people too much before, to the point of not giving a single damn to anyone, to anything. To everything. To healing from my old situations, to reflecting, and then to giving my single damn to this person in my life.

I also wasn’t thinking nor expecting you to become part of my life. I was completely unaware of the universe’s plan for our meeting, and I guess that is what makes it more special.

Because our paths were meant to cross, not forced.

Ever since I’ve tasted what it’s like to survive life, it makes me only want to keep staying alive in this world. But since you came and gave me puzzles of life to put together, words of reality to define— my soul sparked to purpose, and with that, I feel everything. And now, I’m living.