31st July; Friday

"I cannot believe I thanked the guy who stole my money."

I let out a long sigh. Everything was going too perfect for it to be normal, so something had to go wrong. My money was definitely stolen by the man who was standing behind me when we were coming out of the train. I later remembered that he was one of the men who had occupied the seats beside ours while July and I went to get coffee. He must have noticed me checking my bag pockets when Mr. Harlold went to the lavatory and figured out the locations of the money. I'm just so glad I divided the money into four parts, and only one part has been stolen.

"Just a tiny example of how ironic the world can be," July says with a small laugh. He is awfully calm about this. Right now he is punching in some numbers on my phone's calculator. He writes the result down on a page of the sketchbook. Then he presses the pen cap to his lips and says, "Unlike the baby thief we saw at the restaurant, I have always found expert thieves like that guy dangerously smart. Like, they know the perfect timing, the perfect tactics. They do their job with patience and smoothness. They pretend to be completely normal—like just another person passing by. And more often than not, the person stolen from doesn't even realize it until much later, just like you."

He is really praising thieves in a way that makes me feel like they're kinda awesome. I sigh again. "If only they used their brains for the development of this country."

At this, July bursts into laughter. "There's nothing we can do about it. Look at the bright side. They are probably having a good dinner right now."

"Or they are buying drugs to sell them at a higher profit."

"As I said, think positively." He gives me back the phone. He studies the calculation. I would have helped him if not for the fact that I have developed a trauma over the word 'Maths'. "Unfortunately for us, the remaining money isn't nearly enough for 19 days."

I don't know when July came to realize that I have figured out how many days are left. We never had that conversation. But I have a hunch that it was when I tore off the August page of my calendar and threw it on the dustbin last week.

"Did you count motel costs as well?" I ask.

"Yep. According to our previous calculation, we could have a roof on our head for 11 nights at best in the cheapest motels. Now, it has dropped down to 6 nights. 8 if you starve."

"I'll sta-"

"No."

"Ugh."

"There's nothing to do. We might need to go back home early."

I immediately say, "I won't."

"Cedar, don't be so stubborn."

"I'm not going home before . . . saying goodbye to you." I look at my lap and fiddle with my fingers.

"It doesn't matter where you say goodbye."

"That's not the point."

He remains silent for a while. Then he says, "You're already gonna miss a lot of days at school, Cedar. You can't make your world revolve around me."

I start tapping my feet. "You think I care about school more than you?" When he doesn't reply, I let out a small laugh and turn my face to him. "I'm pretty sure this will be the first and last time I am doing something reckless. I don't want to have the regret of not giving you enough time. Just . . . please."

I know what he is thinking. The less time I give him, the less memories we will have, and the easier it would be for me to let him go. But I don't want to bring logic into this. I want to treasure every second of his existence beside me.

He turns back to the sketchbook. "We can't compromise when it comes to food. You already eat less so it's a benefit. But are you okay with sleeping wherever?"

I shrug. "As you said, there's nothing we can do about it."

He nods. "Let's forget the bus tomorrow. We will walk. We have to save money in every possible way."

I scratch the back of my neck. "How long do you think it will take?"

"If it takes two hours by bus, it might take about five on foot. If we count breaks and stuff."

"That's okay, I guess." We have all the time in the world. But I really didn't realize how big of a town Greenwoods is. Apparently, it's the fifth biggest town in this country. Only 10% of it is urbanized and 60% of it is covered by the forest. Which is why the population here is very less.

"Yeah. Just pray that we reach there early and get out in time, so we don't have to spend the night at the forest."

A grin spreads on my lips. "Spending a night in the forest sounds amazing."

He lets out a soft laugh. Then he pinches my cheek and says in a British accent, "Won't be so amazing to be a tiger's dinner though, eh?" The way he said toigahs makes me laugh.

"We'll sleep on a tree," I say, almost with a childlike excitement. "Like in Hunger Games."

"Sounds good." He laughs and shakes his head. Of course, sleeping in a tree isn't easy; you need a bunch of equipments to hold you to your place. But it still sounds cool.

"Anyways," July says, "you should go to sleep. Do you realize how many hours it has been since you last slept? Like damn." He places my bag beside him and pats it. I place my head on it and lie on my back, shivering from the cold seeping through my shirt to my skin. Unable to tolerate it, I turn to my side, facing the road. I was terribly sleepy before eating, but now the sleep has vanished into thin air. But I am confident that it's only gone on a short vacation; it will certainly be back.

In the quietness, my mind wanders into different directions. It attempts to drive towards the chaos that must be going on back home right now, but I forcibly pull the break before I can reach there. A part of me fears that no one noticed that I'm gone, yet. And that thought makes me feel quite miserable. So I think about the only thing that is not back home right now, but instead, is with me. I think about July.

The first thing that comes to mind is Jeremiah bridge, and the abrupt statement he made when we were passing it.

Moon jumped from a bridge.

I don't know if it is insensitive of me to think so, but that was the worst possible time he could have chosen to break that information to me. I want to know more about Moon, I want to know more about how July-no, Hale was with Moon, I want to know more about the kind of time they spent together. Of course I do. I do want to know, but not like this. Not in one of the few moments I am feeling genuinely happy, excited, and just having some fun. I don't know if that makes me selfish, but I find no purpose as to why July blurted it out at that moment. Perhaps he didn't even realize he did until he heard it with his own ears. He did look like he was in a daze, in a trance, as if hypnotized by the sight of something remotely resembling to the place where the girl he loved committed suicide.

I decide to ask him something.

"July?"

"Hmm?"

"Question of the day."

He doesn't reply immediately, perhaps having a hunch about what I am about to ask. "Okay, go ahead."

My eyes catch something moving in the forest ahead, somewhere between the branches. A momentary wave of fear passes over me, but I dismiss the movement as a bird. These are the moments I'm even more glad to have July here with me. As much as I am embarrassed to admit it, I would be pretty scared right now if I was alone.

I ask, "Do you . . . still love Moon?"

I have a feeling he is going to dodge the question. He has dodged a bunch of questions before. Most of them were questions about his personal life which I had asked before I learned he was Hale Castleton. But even after that, he has refused to answer some of my questions, like who his first love was, or why he takes a bath everyday. I never asked him anything about his family, as it is obviously his least favorite topic, but I'm sure that if I did, he wouldn't answer them either.

After a moment's silence, he replies, "My guilt overpowered my love long ago."

I feel a sting in my chest, as if I am physically feeling a tiny fraction of his pain. Somewhere far away, I hear thunder beating a drum. Maybe it is going to rain soon. His sentence echoes through the walls of my mind. "Is love that weak of an emotion to be overpowered by guilt?" I ask, genuinely curious about the answer.

"Depends," he replies. Then he goes into a silencel stretching for so long that I start to think he has nothing more to say on the topic. But then he speaks up. "I think any emotion that steadily grows over a long period of time can be very strong. If my love and my guilt increased parallelly in the same rate, maybe the guilt would have lost, and I would still love Moon with the same intensity that I did in the beginning. But the love stopped growing the moment I realized what kind of person she truly was. I was so blinded by her kindness that I failed to see—or rather, forgot to see—what lied beneath the mask. So within the two years after her death, and maybe even now . . . the guilt is unarguably the stronger opponent. Right now, the only thing I feel for Moon is a remorse so strong that I- that I feel I'm going to get crushed-"

He ends the last sentence very abruptly, his voice almost breaking. I realize that he said a lot more than he originally planned to. I reach my hand behind me and place it on his knee. Then I pat it twice as a silent sign of it's okay. 

He places his hand on mine. "I don't know." I feel him shift a little behind me. "Sometimes I don't know whether it was even love. Maybe I mistook it for love, when it was just a strong gratitude. After all, even if it was fake, at least she tried to appreciate me. Maybe all I wanted was to hear more of her kind words."

He squeezes my hand. "Maybe it wasn't love. Maybe it was just an obsession. A way for me to pretend that I am not as pathetic as I thought. A temporary illusion that I designed in order to pass my days with lesser misery. Cedar, the days I spent being hopelessly in love with Moon were the only days in my entire life I felt alive."

I digest his words, or at least I try to. Much of it doesn't make sense to me, because I haven't felt all these myself. In the end I ask, "Depending on how much you let your emotions control you, isn't love itself somewhat of an obsession?"

His hand falls lightly on top of my head. I bring my own hand back to myself. "Maybe. Maybe it is. But if I have to give a clear answer of your question, then no, I don't think I'm in love with her anymore. I tried to, but the more I tried to hold on to it, the more it slipped away."

I wonder if that's correct. He looks at the moon every night. He thought of how much Moon would love being at the top of the citadel. The abrupt statement in the train. Even if he is no longer in love, I suppose his "obsession" is not dead.

He lets out a soft laugh and lightly hits my head."Don't think too much about it. None of it matters anymore." After a short silence, he says, "Now my turn."

"Okay."

His fingers dig into my hair and gently begins to caress. I start to drift away, but keep myself conscious to hear the question. I know it's going to be a serious one.

He asks, "Will you . . . forgive me if I tell you something terrible I have done?"

To Moon, I suppose. Or has he done something else too? I'm too scared to make guesses. Scared of going overboard. Scared of getting it right. I cannot in any way picture July doing bad. The silliness he shows me everyday—how can there lie a hateful past behind it?

"I'm not in a position to forgive you," I carefully reply. "The only one who has the authority to forgive you is the one you did the terrible thing to. All I can do is accept you in spite of your mistakes."

"Will you? Will you accept me?" His voice is almost desperate, pleading, afraid. It's as if everything depends on my answer to his question.

"Yes," I tell him what he wants to hear, needs to hear, though I'm not sure about the answer. Will I be able to? What if I can't? What if my entire image of July shifts based on that one truth? What if I can never love and respect him the same again? I push all these questions away. Just to assume him and make him feel better, I add, "I might not be the best at judging people, but I know you're not a bad person, July."

He continues brushing his fingers through my hair, making a cloud of calmness settle over me. I close my eyes, feeling grateful of his company; feeling safe. If he gives me this much happiness, how could he have given someone else a huge amount of pain? I can't comprehend at all.

"Thank you," he finally says, his voice hinting an attempt to keep it normal.

"Hmm." I smile, savouring the coldness of his delicate fingers on my scalp. Those thoughts can wait. I decide to steer the topic. "I was having a headache, and now I'm feeling so much better."

"Really? Do you still have a headache?"

"A little. At the back of my head."

He moves his hand to the back of my head and begins to rub his fingertips against the scalp. It feels amazing. "Thanks a lot, July. You're like a mother."

"Pfft. I don't want to be your mother."

"What do you want to be, then?"

My head feels a little fuzzy. The empty street sleeps lonely in front of us, occassionally visited by a car or some other vehicle for a mere moment before they swish past, leaving a trail of light floating in the darkness. It dissolvs within a few seconds, like many of the thoughts that are attempting to form in my mind. When I close my eyes, the balls of headlights hover at the back of my vision. Once in a while, ominous sounds reach my ears from deep within the shadows of the forest, as if calling me to the doors of a new mystery to unravel. The night is calm and serene, quiet and cold, dark and intimidating, as though it has a life of it's own. I almost forget about the question I asked, almost forget that I am not the only one taking shelter in this bus stand.

I tilt my head backwards, and feel relief seeing him right where he was.

He glances at me and smiles.

"Good night, Cedar."

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hello lovely readers!!

i love this chapter a lot more than the previous ones. probably because there are some deep conversations and lengthy descriptions. many people don't like reading those, but i do. the previous chapters probably feel bland to me because they are more conversation-driven. i think im gonna edit those again later.

the name of this chapter, "there is guilt in loving" is one of my most favorite quotes from Natsume Soseki's Kokoro. Admittedly the actual meaning of this quote has nothing to do with what i said about july's guilt. i finished reading Kokoro only a few days ago and it invoked so many thoughts in me that i lost focus on studies for a while 💀.

anyways, thanks a lot for reading! let me know your thoughts so far. does it feel boring? does it feel slow? constructive criticisms are always welcome.

— love, Poma