Tristan
3 YEARS AGO
What is an anxiety attack? People call it a disease and Asians call it delusions. Asians call it kinda of a shared delusion, such as our mind replicates which it gets intimidated with and shares with our closest ones. Asian brown humanity considers this as a result of overthinking and fear of certain things, or incidents. Which is partly true. But anxiety refers to extreme tension, stress, or pressure on the thought process of a brain. Such as thinking in a different pattern than our brain is used to. It is also the fear of thinking of the upcoming bad. It is normal. It isn't a disease. Anxiety plays a role when we start to question our abilities in our brains.
Such as now, when I am standing in front of the deck of papers scattered over my studio, my brain is collapsing with thought after thought. There has been a fucking constant ringtone ruining my earbuds and my mind with those lines. Producers are calling from the morning sighing with extreme disappointment that those lines need to be more realistic. I haven't gone outside of fantasy ever, I have written about my depression in a few songs too, and I wrote a few songs about how I want to feel loved. But I have never loved. I haven't experienced it for fuck's sake, I can't describe first love, because my so-called first love hasn't given me any ounce of happiness but just fucking desperation, pain, and destruction. I can't even find the reason if I can call it love or not. That relationship was out of curiosity and extreme physical pleasure. It was a lust-based relationship, and I can't explain what love I felt in that bond. What love is even? I don't fucking know what to write. Frustration is building in my mind. I can feel my nose flaring with the hot breeze, my legs giving up and shaking to the pit. How will I submit lines to my director when I can't even write a single word? What happened to me? The pressure of everyone expecting a great KTH1 album, the stress of not liking any of my songs till now, god it has been stuck for months now. I don't find any of my songs to be that gut-wrenching or that overwhelming. These are all simple platonic love I read in fantasy books and movies. I need to feel some risk, some extreme forbidden or something so much bone cracking. I want a love-heavy and that leaves you wanting for more, which completes you full to the brim. I want love to be not with someone common whom I can just stare at. I want love which isn't the job of my left hand, which isn't common. Which is something so impossible. Yeah, fuck impossible. Right now, what is impossible is my album getting released any day
The ringtone is blaring my ears out
I bashed my hands on the table and my unconditionally trembling hands picked up the phone from the couch.
"WHAT?"
"Woah woah calm down man, why are you yelling?"
It was Jeremy. That little human being, the most considerate and patient best friend of mine, here I am suddenly distancing myself from him so that I don't feel low standing in front of him. It sounds unreal I know, he never makes me feel dreadful about myself, he never brags about his achievements on international levels, he never shatters my heart saying you are not capable of standing near me, exactly what a best friend should do, but what am I doing, distancing myself from him because whenever I hang out with him, my mind reminds of how he achieved so much and I did nothing much, my overthinking mind spreads its claw and I make myself unstable by thinking if I can't ever do it if I can't ever publish, what if I am not even capable on doing it, what if considering my as their main singer, our producers are doing a mistake. My overthinking gets the best of me. His sweet honey voice always makes me calm but today his voice is also making me feel low about myself, his genuine worries are making me want to scatter apart my skin, why can't I possibly write a single song? What is wrong with me?
"Tristan, what happened?"
His concern-laced thoughts make me want to cry but I shiver with the possibility of never getting myself in the position. I am not envious of his success, but I am envious of his talents. His success makes me want to cry for his soul because he deserves everything and I think I never deserved this position, not his friendship. What if he leaves me? What if he gets tired of my unsuccessful position and unrequired thoughts that clog my head? My mind keeps going back and further and it never tends to stop itself from thinking of the worst. A few tear drops fell and I dropped on the floor of my studio
"Tristan, ARE YOU OKAY? TALK TO ME...TALK TO ME PLEASE, FUCKING RESPOND. WHAT HAPPENED, I AM COMING"
I could feel my breaths getting shorter and Jeremy's screams getting higher. I could feel my heart going berserk. I feel like I will be dying any second, it's getting suffocating. I can't lose Jeremy
"I am sorry Jeremy "
Right then I heard someone's laughing sound, those elicited pleasant giggles had a rhythm, it was thick and laced with rawness. The sounds echoed near my eardrums, and I felt Jeremy's voice fading in the background. My eyelashes flattered with the wetness quoting it. I closed my wandering eyes from searching for where the voice was coming from. I started concentrating on the sole voice prickling through my heart. My heart was calming down, I could feel the tremble of my feet getting slower, I tried to memorize the melody it created, I slowly got up going with the string from where the voice was coming. I caged my chest with my arms and started rubbing my arms with the help of my hand to reduce the constant buzz in my brain of overthinking. I could still not breathe properly. I stood up with my shaky feet and extremely fingers. I tried to support my body on the wall which creates a drift from outside. I looked and saw an unknown girl, her hair flapping away as she laughed with another girl who never took my interest. She was a brunette. Her dark brown hair had a golden light creeping out of it, it was beautiful, her hair was wavy, but not silkier, it wasn't the shampoo advertisement type, it was rough, raw full to life, it wasn't decked up, it was messy, as if she purposely let it stay like that, an extreme calmness spread through me. I suddenly felt peace entering through my body, my heart accelerated to just see the face of the brunette. I needed to see it, the rush was so much, that I felt like I could cry. A teardrop felt by the overwhelming feeling I was accepting in my heart. Her voice wasn't honey and it reduced now to a little to no sounds of chortle. Her voice wasn't something a girl with a fragile heart could carry, her laugh carries stories, thousands of them, and I am sure she sounds different in every situation, her laugh sounds different. I swear if any day I could make her laugh, I would want it to sound like a song, my own written song which isn't tuned yet. Her hair gave me mercy and she turned just the way I wanted, or just the way I never knew I wanted. Her cheeks flared higher and it settled on the bones, it looked puffed, she was beautiful, her lips weren't cupid, but it was fuller, they were kissable. I wonder how it will turn out when I will kiss her. For the first time in my entire life, I was not thinking anything, I was just enjoying her precious expressions, the way those golden brown eyes kept looking at the other person, the eyes were hell broken from the inside, I could see the crack of her heart from her eyes, it was wide open and like an open book, she had a long neck with a tiny mole on it, I can kiss that mole, I want to kiss that mole, how would her eyes be when they will look at me, will the venus eyed girl like me or possibly can fall in love with me? Love
How can this word appear out of nowhere? She is just a girl, a venus-eyed girl with a mole on her neck. I felt I had returned to normal within seconds. My breaths are swift now and I have stopped trembling. Did she cure me by doing nothing? She never touched my shadow but I shivered hard. I could feel my erratic heartbeats but for some unknown reason, I can enjoy my heartbeats now. It isn't because of my anxiety or panic, it is because of a particular girl with fuller lips, major flipped-up cheeks, and dark brown hairs that shine brighter than the sun. She was beautiful when she laughed. I want to see her forever. She can't see me from my glass door, But I can see her. I want to see her every day, every moment for me to be normal. I won't die if she laughs like this. I might write her as my first love. Maybe she won't be my first love but I will write to her. Yes, I will write about her smile. My heart was on the verge of drowning in the deep sea but I was overflowing with something I was not in love with or not. I wanted to fall in love with this girl, she was beautiful but shattered like anything I had ever seen except me.
I ran to my desk and got a paper and a pencil. I wrote in a hurry.
"THE DAY I FELL IN LOVE
IT WAS THE SAME DAY A GIRL SMILED WITH HER HEART FULL OF CAGED MISERIES
THE DAY I FELL IN LOVE
IT WAS THE SAME DAY A GIRL SWED A HEART IN ME
THE DAY I FELL IN LOVE
IT WAS THE SAME DAY I STARTED LIVING
THE DAY I FELL IN LOVE
IT WAS THE SAME DAY I MET A VISION OF GIDEONS
The next day
Tristan
This time she was looking at me, but through a glass door which never let her see my reflection, she wasn't able to look at me in real life. She is just looking at the glass door which just lets me see the outside but outsiders can't see the inside. I made it the special way, but am I regretting it? Her eyes looked at the door as if she had just pushed through the glass door and seen me raw, broken, and filled with anxiety. As if she was seeing the bare me, the shattered parts of me, the scars which aren't given by anyone but me, the cut marks, the burnt marks everything.
Her eyes are round, filled with curiosity, her eyes are wandering to get a glimpse of me but I wasn't on the radar of those beautiful Venus eyes. But she was seeing right through me as if undoing every pattern, every layer I covered myself with, she was seeing me in my true self and I looked at her, staying still until she left, she wasn't leaving, she was looking at my eyes through the door, but couldn't match mine. I stood there for hours until she moved, but she moved closer, she came in front of me, and there was utter silence because my door was soundproof, and I couldn't hear the outside noises.
The more she came closer the more my heart went wild, I breathed heavily as if someone was just sucking my soul. I felt if I breathed a little loud, she would feel disgusted with me and leave. There was this intoxicating spark ignited against my vessels of body, I could go limp under her deep gaze, the stares were telling me another story, I hadn't seen this kind of story in any movies, and hadn't read it, It was new for me, this mysterious storytelling through eyes, as if she wanted to see me, a glimpse of me as if she was longing, her desperate heart can't take it anymore, her yearning knew no ends.
She silently placed her hand on the glass door and I think she just touched me. The familiarity I felt yesterday just came back, I felt at peace, I felt at ease, and My hands aren't trembling today either. I took a deep breath and the silence became deafening afterwards. I never uttered a single word, she was silent, but her eyes spoke so much. I was so uncertain about how could someone's eyes feel that dim, where was her light?
Her eyes kept blinking and I as quietly as ever came closer to my entrance glass door and pressed my palm over the reflection of her palm. She was beautiful, her lips weren't quivering, and her face was showing much emotion, but her eyes were curious, wanting, desirable almost. She was beautiful. She wasn't like any goddess but if The Greek god saw her, they would all be worshiping her by kneeling. She felt like a queen searching for her king, but never finding anyone, she looked lost, but she wanted to see me,
The girl with Venus's eyes wanted to see me, I could cry, the girl who saved me from yesterday's anxiety wanted to see me. I could cry, I could cry, I could cry. My heart is drenched in a feeling I am afraid of calling love because it's just 2 days, one can never fall in love just by seeing someone in two days. But she felt as if I had known her for years as if she knew me better than me. a tear trickled down her cheek, and I felt I would give my everything just to wipe those tears,
I can never let someone else have her wipe those tears. I can never see her with someone else. She left after wiping the lonely tears which just made my day a little bit more bitter.
1 week later
I was talking with a girl, my arms snaking on her waist, pulling her closer, her fragrance was making me want to puke, but I wanted to be relieved, and pleasuring myself meant something to me as a time waste of time when we took breaks, I have never seen those girls in the morning from hotel rooms, I never took any girl to my home, neither my studio. That brunet girl's hair came into my vision as soon as I dipped my head in the girl's hair who is on my arm, the girl in my arm is positioning herself against my chest more and more, platonically speaking, I would have liked it, but now my eyes are still on those dark brown hairs, The girl on my arms is a petite one, teal hairs tangling with my finished one, her lips are swollen from a few seconds, This kiss meant nothing to me, just a forceful peck which I never wanted at the first place, I immediately pushed her when she tried to kiss me again, such a slut she was. I have always loved to caress these bodies, soft silky skin excites me, it gives me a rush,
But now My wants are for that particular brunet girl who is speaking through our dance practice room. It is midnight so people aren't here. I couldn't see her eyes, but just a glimpse here and there, she was beautiful. But why is she trying to look at me, is she stalking me?
My consciousness was so pissed off because of the brunette's never showing herself in front of me. Why wouldn't she look at me in real life? Am I bad? Then I remembered I was the worst someone could ever get. The brunette's fingers are on the wooden door of our dance practice room. Those fingers are long, delicate, and soft-looking, how would they feel if they held me? I pleasured myself with so many girls, never once someone held me tight, that I could feel my shoulders wouldn't sink anymore. but, who am I talking to, I am the worst case she can ever experience in her life. the girl's body felt heavy on my arms somehow and I pushed her, she looked at me, gosh I don't even remember her name. I am kinda too drunk to remember anything she was saying near the bar on the ground floor. She was saying she was my fan or something.
"I am sorry, not tonight, I need to go"
The moment I ran outside, the brunette girl was nowhere. I scoffed and scolded myself saying, she is disgusted by you Tristan. Nobody likes a playboy, a playboy, who isn't successful like earlier and hasn't gotten any projects and gets a girl every 2, 3 days a week, no decent girl will like you. You are a bad influence. I hate myself. I am not even kidding. I felt myself trembling, I felt myself getting short of breath, I was overthinking again, the fear of never seeing her again got the best of me, and my feet were shaking so hard that I couldn't stand, I knelt, there was this sudden chest pain which occurred. I am a bad influence to her, I am a bad influence to her, I am a bad influence to her. She will hate me more now, she saw me with a girl, a girl I was about to get pleasured with. a girl who wasn't her. She must have been dissatisfied and lost interest, now she wouldn't come see me every day; she wouldn't speak differently to wherever I was going. I was ashamed of myself. She saw me with every other girl, all of them were different and nobody was her, a few tears trickled down my cheeks, and I palmed my chest as the pain was excruciating. As if ripping through the vessels of my ribcage.
She might have seen me this weak, she might have seen these anxiety attacks out of nowhere. My brain will collapse; my palms are shaking against my chest. I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore.
I heard someone calling
"HIRAETH"
I saw her running back to someone, from the back door of the corridor; she was on the other lane. I watched her, I drank her structure, her eyes, her lips, her everything to calm myself, I felt my heart getting better as much as I kept staring. I felt my chest tightening to ease out. I felt myself breathing just fine within seconds. What is she? A messiah. She knelt in front of a girl with a pigtail. Her slender long fingers caressed the little kid's cheeks, her eyes became gentle. I had never seen these expressions of her, her eyes were going berserk after seeing that kid because of her overflowing emotions, and her arms carried the kid, as if she couldn't resist but carry the little one. Her brunette hair was curled on the edge, she was wearing a yellow sunflower-printed lace dress. She was looking beautiful, her eyes were shining, and her cheeks were glowing. Does she like kids that much or does she remember some kid from her past? I was kneeling and she couldn't see me. She whispered something near the kid's ear and the little bird blushed and buried her face on her neck, the same neck which has a mole, a mole I want to kiss. I saw Hiraeth smiling as a green leaf would shine seeing the sun rays showering it. She was the brightest when she was with the little one. As if a ripe fruit, as if a newly bloomed flower, a sunflower. She was indeed a sunflower. Her cheeks puffed up and I felt my heart would never stop beating this faster. Thump thump thump. She was beautiful. She was a sunflower but I was never her sun.
Hiraeth, the name is so beautiful like her, as if she was something so much homely but people never found themselves having a home named her
She could be my home, not a luxurious suit with weird furniture, my home can be a Venus-eyed girl, my sunflower. I wiped my tears as she kept whispering sweet nothings into the little girl's ears as if she were her own. Her kid, she would be a great mother one day. The little arms collided against her neck and shoulder, the little girl found a home in her I am sure. People like Hiraeth are made homely, but people rarely find a home in her. She was beautiful, but she won't be mine. I got up and stared at her until she dropped the kid into her room, which might be one of the employee's kids from our company. She stays in our company dorm, I know. But I don't know what she does. I want to know. I want to know everything about her. She returned to her dorm room, she stayed on the 15th floor, yeah I was stalking her from afar.
2 weeks later
Tristan
"Hiraeth, a content writer of our advertisement section, doesn't write for our variety shows or promotional events and behind-the-scenes plays, she writes manuscripts for production advertisements. Why?"
I turned and looked at a boy looking at me. He had doe eyes and puffy honey-glazed cheeks and a lip almost fuller and puffed up in nature. His eyes aren't sun-like, but his eyes can cover the vast starlight of the stars. His hands are small compared to mine. His fingers are tiny but his height is also low compared to me. His hair was blond, not like mine's hazel brown. He had short hair and was somewhat jelled, not as disheveled as mine. His hair length doesn't go till his neck, it reaches till his ears tip, talking about ears, his ears have 3 hoops of earrings, and platinum rings are adored. He looks just like the prince described in the Disney movies.
His eyes kept wandering in concern. His eyes are as charming as ever. He shines brighter than the moon but less than the sun. His lights are all dimmed. Maybe because of worrying for me.
"Nothing just like this" I muttered
Jeremy got up from my studio couch and calmingly held my shoulders, tightening his grip as time went on. His eyes were filled with worry, for not getting to reach me in time a few weeks ago and then again distancing myself and saying no to his every invitation to hang out. Even today I said I didn't want him to come but him being him, a loyal best friend. He came to me and to be honest, he did good, I was feeling lonely. Loneliness creeps me out. Loneliness sucks the soul out of me and my thoughts flare in agony inside my mind.
Having a friend like Jeremy is a blessing. He worked so hard after coming from the military. He published his second album and I can't even finish my first one. See this is the reason I don't want him near me, I always compare, I am always this corrupted. I am always this indecent.
Why would anyone want me? There it goes. Overthinking.
"Tristan you don't need to know her like that, She is not that type of girl. If you want, We will go to another bar or club which isn't in this city."
I looked at him in frowning
"What do you mean Jeremy "
These days my anxiety and panic flush through anger, every little thing gets me into the pit
"I meant Tristan because her background is hidden due to her reasons, they won't disclose it to me. And again I have heard from her colleagues that she is very decent, never engages herself with any boy, and boys like...
"Me"
I completed it and I could feel my nose flaring in fumes. I was going berserk feeling this increasing anger building inside me.
Jeremy was so calm when I pushed his firm holding hands from my shoulders
"Tristan I didn't mean that, it's just, that she seems to be reserved with her emotions and all, she isn't into these one-night stands, she isn't the girl to leave things, she brings emotions to the bonds which are supposed to be temporary maybe that's why she doesn't even date. She doesn't trust guys. There was a rumor that she likes someone, like a celebrity or something and she doesn't conclude any conversation whenever it is brought up. So yeah maybe she forgot about him or it was just an infatuation."
My veins popped up and I could feel my breath getting shorter
Jeremy understood and immediately held my arms again and said
"Tristan, forget it. I think you should just check yourself with the psychologist I told you about."
I scoffed
"What? A therapist? Perks of being working in a company that really can't let us go to any of these psychologists or therapists. Are you seriously even considering making me remind you again, that the company rules, the news gets flashed, we become the higher-up pictures of any newspaper, the media starts telling us that we are going crazy, the dark world of entertainment is this, superstar Tristan rumored to be visiting therapist because of his mental health issues, how come this successful celebrity has mental issues? How the company can do this to its artist, is injustice. Kim Tristan is rumored to have broken up with a very famous idol from another group, here is how he is coping up with it. This news isn't a good impression for the company and I can't go. I am tired. Why do you remind me of this huh?"
I smashed my hand on the wall and blood started oozing out of my knuckles.
A few tears fell,
"I know I can't have her, she wouldn't want me, a bad boy. A player, a thug. I know she won't like me ever. But there is a connection I always feel whenever I see her. I want to hold her. Her smile is beautiful, Jeremy. She has these venus eyes, she has a mole on her neck, she has got fuller lips, she has this thickness in her voice, whenever she laughs, she is raw, she is unfiltered. She is aggressively sewing her name on my heart, and I can stand between heaven and the earth for her. She is not okay Jeremy, she is somewhat broken, like crushed, and her heart longs for something that I don't understand. I don't know.."
"Tristan, Tristan, relax. I understand. But as a company employee, the rule books also have these engraved passages of how we can't date one of our employees."
"I know I know, But I want her for me. Not like those girls whose names I don't remember in the morning. I want to remember her every day, every moment, every single second. I want to be with her, I want to make her feel loved. I want to remember how her face bathes with the sunlight, I want to remember her by just her fragrance, I want to remember her mole on her neck, I want to remember Venus's eyes, I want to remember her like how the sun remembers the sunflower. I want to be her sun even though I am the midnight rain."
A tear fell from Jeremy's eye and he hugged me
"Tristan, what happened to you, you never said any of these when you were dating Samara, she was your first love remember"
I could feel my veins overflowing with blood and there was this adrenalin rush. I need to see her and not talk about Samara.
"I do, But she wasn't my first love, she was just like those other girls, who cheat, who need more men than one. How could I have stayed with her if she used to go to nightclubs for one-night stands when I was waiting at the home, which I considered as ours."
Jeremy pulled out from the hug, looking helpless but continued
"Tristan, then how can she stay with you if she knows about your one-night stands, you are the samara in this bond. Let it be. Just distance yourself, this should not get out of control, another girl, who is decent enough doesn't deserve to suffer in this. Who knows she might have a boyfriend, or a husband, or a kid. Just stop getting things messed up with your brain again, this is just your attraction towards her. Let it go before it goes over your head, this is not a time for girls anyway, just focus on yourself, and just take a 2, 3 3-day break. Sleep and eat properly, look how pale you got"
Jeremy's worry bloomed a sense of adoration for him, but it wasn't the whole situation, my heart couldn't agree with Jeremy. He doesn't know, I am starting to feel for her, I am starting to feel something different which is so new to me too. I want her in every possible way, not her body, not only her body, hell I haven't even thought about it that way, there is this craving to see her smile more often because of me, I want to see those brunette hairs shining by the sun rays when I wake up, I want the mole on her neck to be kissed by me, I want her laughing to echo near my ears for forever, I want her eyes to be looking at me as if I was her sun, I want her everything, her giddiness, her glitter in eyes, her glow on the cheeks. I am starting to fall in love with the Venus-eyed girl.
After a moment I nodded and he went after hugging me. He calms my pheromones. But I want to see her now.
It's like I am getting intoxicated by her, it's like I need her like a man needs oxygen. Like a sun needs its sunflower to shower its rays.
But she was sunshine and I was midnight rain.