Who knew love would be this painful? Louise certainly didn't expect how hard his heart would be hit. They had broken up four months ago, but the pain he felt now wasn't any weaker than that particular moment.
The rain kept falling, and yet there he was, still walking and walking. There was no place to go, but he continued moving forward. Before he knew it, he had arrived in the park near that café. Taking a deep breath, he looked around before taking a seat on one of the benches. He muttered softly, "I'm such an idiot."
As these words left his mouth, a sigh almost immediately followed. What was he even doing? What was the point of staying here? But he just didn't have the energy to move. He regretted not saying the words inside his heart, but he also knew that it was pointless to do so. He regretted losing what the world meant to him, and he regretted why he couldn't be better.
But all these were, after all, just regrets. They could neither change the past nor make the present better. Perhaps they could help him deal with the future, but what future was there without her?
All of a sudden, his phone vibrated. Only then did he realize that it must have gotten wet after staying in the rain for so long. "Damn it." There was pain in his heart, but that didn't mean he should waste away something that cost a lot of money. This realization woke him up to reality. He face-palmed, stood up, and looked around once more. There was a cab nearby, and so he called it by raising his hand.
The cab went over, and the driver was kind enough to offer him a small towel to wipe himself. The next thing he knew, he was already back home, taking a shower, and hearing the voice of his mom about how he must have brought an umbrella. All the sounds nearby didn't really faze him. The words of his mom just went in and out of his ears, and he really couldn't be bothered to listen to anything else. After getting out of the shower, he simply put on clothes, went to his room, and jumped onto his bed.
The tears were gone, and all that was left was an indescribable emptiness. Life was, as he saw it, already pointless. Soon, he drifted to sleep, and when he came to, a new beginning awaited him.
It was already around two in the afternoon when he was woken up by his little sister, Irish, to get lunch. Although the meal featured one of his favorite dishes—fried chicken—his appetite didn't let him eat a lot. After enjoying a leg part, he simply stood up and returned to his room.
His mind was a mess, but there was always something he had to do before anything else—work. Louise, at the moment, had just eclipsed the age of 22. He was neither young nor old. He was already at an age where he should be striving hard to create a good future for himself.
He was a psychology graduate, but his work didn't really match the course he had graduated in. He was a proofreader for web novels online and could be considered a freelancer. Well, he simply focused on this line of work since he already had a stable foundation with the multiple companies he was working with. And that, of course, helped him save up enough to support his family and slowly save up for the future.
Unfortunately, life changed, and saving up was such a crappy description to use with his current lifestyle. Originally, he had been a stingy person who always avoided spending on unnecessary things. He had always set a limit to how much he would spend on a weekly basis. The only reason he spent more than necessary was when his family needed money for various things like groceries and medicine.
The reason behind this behavior was, of course, because he had been planning a wonderful future with his special someone in the past. And yes, that girl who had just cut all loose ends with him happened to be his special someone.
However, after that break-up, the reason he had been saving up so hard had suddenly vanished. Although he still had the habit of creating a budget for himself, his point of view had changed to buying what might make him happy. And with this, he began spending money on online shopping and online games, which was, to say the least, a massive waste of money.
When he felt like increasing his cooking abilities, he went so far as to buy an oven and a set of kitchen utensils. When he felt like improving his exercise routines, he bought weights and other training equipment. When he saw an advertisement for dinosaur toys, an old hobby of his when he was younger, he immediately spent quite a sum of money to buy a collection.
He was simply unstoppable, and the things he bought were things that had no real purpose since after he lost the motivation or eagerness to use them, he would move on to the next thing. This had to stop, and he knew it. However, he just couldn't help himself. He had become so unrestrained, and the reason behind it? It was, just as he thought, because he had restrained his negative feelings after the breakup.
Well, those things, for him, didn't really matter. For now, he had to put aside his feelings and get to work. He didn't know what the future had in store for him, but he still had to survive. To him, life was a continuous chase for unending goals. Although life had become pointless now, he knew that one of these days, an inspiration might find itself knocking on his doors. That, and he needed money for the new things he wanted to buy. His target, at the moment, was to upgrade his computer.
Casting every other thought aside, he turned on his PC, went over all the work that he had to do, and then set a goal in mind on what should be done and at what time they should be done. He had thus decided that by six in the evening, he should have done enough work for today, and he would be able to do whatever he wanted. And first on that list was, of course, to play the new mobile game he had pre-registered in—Lazuli.
Time went by, and after reading through thousands of words—of novels that had the same clichés repeating over and over again—his mental energy was eventually drained. It was around five in the afternoon. He was still a few chapters away from his goal, but he knew he had already reached his limit. He couldn't understand what he was reading anymore, and it was a sign he had to stop. Otherwise, he would make mistakes that would cause him to be reprimanded.
Usually, he would be able to work on 20 to 30 chapters with around 2,000 words each on a daily basis. However, today was just not his day. He had just finished his 17th chapter, and his motivation to continue was nowhere to be found. He stood up, stretched for a bit, and went to the toilet. After finishing his business, he washed his face and jumped onto his bed.
"Damn, what a time to be alive." As these words left his mouth, he finally had time to organize his thoughts. The very first thought in his head was, of course, what occurred this morning. But thinking back, that was not something he should dwell on for now. He was already weary from work, and thinking about that...
Well, it was his mind's defense mechanism to push those things aside. He had to leave some energy for himself to be able to at least stay alive or be like a normal person. Pretending things were normal was simply impossible, so he just had to suppress all these thoughts and emotions until he had the energy to deal with them.
Naturally, when that time would come, he absolutely had no idea. What came next in line within his mind were things he could enjoy—games, music, and funny video clips. Was he in the mood for games? Anytime is a good time to play games, but sometimes, starting a game is always harder than quitting it. He scratched the thought off.
Did he want to play music? He felt like it, but all the songs in his mind were songs that made his heart ache a little. Scratching that thought off, he went on to the next one. Well, he simply wasn't in the mood to watch anything. And so 30 minutes passed of him doing nothing but staring at the ceiling, thinking about what he should do.
Buzz!
All of a sudden, his thoughts were disrupted by the buzz of his phone. It was an alarm that would continuously ring at this time every single day to remind him about the time. When working, he would usually find himself quite immersed that hours would just pass by, and as such, he had this alarm to pull him out of his concentration. This would remind him to take care of his bodily needs and functions.
He stood up, took the phone from the table, and turned the alarm clock off. Right after that, a notification about whether he wanted to turn his phone on appeared on the screen. Certainly, Louise had a peculiar expression on his face. He had just realized that his phone had been off since morning. And since he was avoiding it, he simply didn't think about why the usually vibrating phone had been silent ever since he got home.
Tapping "yes" on the screen, his phone began the process of turning on. He stared at his phone screen, once again lost in thought. A few moments later, he was startled by the buzz from his phone, which continued for ten seconds before he decided to just put his phone on silent.
There were a few too many notifications, and he was overwhelmed. The first one to appear was, of course, the messages from his social media apps. He scrolled through them one by one, and the only thing notable was a message from a certain someone with the words "thanks." Fair enough, he thought. He didn't want to click on that message, so he simply closed the app.
Next, he opened Discord—obviously, he was looking forward to someone's message. It might be the only positive thing he could relish today. Unfortunately, what appeared before him were messages from work instead. Disappointed, he was about to close the app when a notification rang out.
—Kyporith: Morning... My mom's nagging me to get up even though I don't want to... How are you?
Louise was surprised, and his disappointment vanished. 'So that's why she hasn't messaged me.' He thought for a few moments, wrote a few words, but then deleted them.
—Kyporith: Old man, I know you're there. Just send it already.
Louise simply had to reply to that.
—Moxie: Good morning! Finally awake, huh. Get up and get food!
—Kyporith: Food sounds niceeee, but I'm not really hungry yet. We will get dinner outside in a while. Fishballs!
—Moxie: That sounds yummy. Take a pic for me. I wanna see what it looks like.
—Kyporith: The fishballs?
—Moxie: Well duh! What else?
—Kyporith: Oh! I thought it was one of your sneaky attempts to get a pic of me. Sorry, but you can't see this pretty lady yet. Hehe!
—Moxie: Yet?
—Kyporith: Whoosh! What's up? I keep getting the feeling that something's off with you. Did anything happen?
'Of course, she would change the topic...' Louise had a smirk on his face as he typed a reply. He was a little curious, though, as to why she would think that something had happened to him. He read his chats again, but there was no real determining factor why she would think so.
—Moxie: Why do you say so? That's just... peculiar? What the heck. But yeah, nothing much happened. Just bad memories came back and made me suffer a bit. But they're all gone now.
—Kyporith: It seems like you're not ready to talk about it. You can always tell me when you feel like it. This pretty lady is always ready to listen!
—Moxie: You keep saying pretty lady, but how do I know if you are if I haven't seen you! Tsk. That aside, maybe one of these days. I'm already drained from work, so I'll let myself rest first.
—Kyporith: Alright! I'm always ready to listen, except when I'm sleepin'.
—Moxie: You didn't have to force that rhyme. Lol. Aren't you going out? Get ready and grab lots of food. I'll rest for a bit. Let's talk later.
—Kyporith: Alright! I'll catch you later, Moxie. Rest well.
After that conversation, Louise's spirit was lifted up. And contrary to what he said about resting, he got up and went upstairs. There, the treadmill he bought a few months ago was collecting dust. He put on his shoes, plugged in the treadmill, and started running. He had a sudden urge to do something, and there really was no reason in particular why he chose to run.
But at the end of it all, he had a lot of physical energy to spare even though he was mentally drained. And so he simply ran and ran for a while.