the thing about chekhov's gun is that the gun does not literally "need to go off by the third act." the story works just as well if someone merely grabs the gun and starts threatening people with it, or if the Jewish protagonist recognizes the particular model as a Politically Concerning piece of world war 2 surplus, or if the gun's owner waxes nostalgic about the last time he fired it, etc. etc. etc.
unfortunately I get the impression that a lot of people do not understand that and therefore build theories around the idea that if the gun is not Specifically taken down from the wall and fired, it serves no purpose to the story, so why the hell was it there in the first place
The wikipedia article about Chekhov's gun amuses me. I agree with OP's point wholeheartedly, but I was also going "I think Chekhov did specifically say it should be fired though", so I went looking, and:
he said 3 different times that if you have a gun it has to go off??? Different phrasings but same meaning. he apparently loved the gun metaphor.
he also wrote a play with two guns that DON'T go off, which is significant to the play's theme, so basically yes no matter how many times he said to fire the gun it really is more about making sure it serves the play/story somehow.
If he wrote the gun metaphor multiple times I kind of wonder how often he said it. I wonder if people were sick of the gun metaphor.
and yes of course other writers were like "NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO HAVE A PAYOFF. IF EVERYTHING HAS A PAYOFF THEN THE STORY WILL BE PREDICTABLE. WE WILL HAVE OUR INDULGENT DIVERSIONS." (and they are right)
A ShinRan Week 2026 Entry
Prompt:Â Mutual Pining / Domestic / College Roomates!AU / Birthday
Words:Â ~1.2k
"Where the hell is that Pabron Gold A," Shinichi grumbles for the eighth time, arm extended up to the back of the kitchen cabinet. Today, he is supposed to be basking under the heat of the sun, feet in contact with a soccer ball and surrounded by his team he promised a game with, not trudging the floor of the apartment like a sorry old man attempting to look for a medicine in his sorry bleary state.
"I was gone for a minute and I see you like this." From behind him, Shinichi hears the prick in his best friend's tone. He doesn't mean for her to see him doing this behind her back, but he can't be expected to sit idly either while in a near-death experience. "And you say you'll get better soon? What a child."
Like a child, Shinchi is escorted by Ran back their shared apartment's living room couch. "I told you to stay still, Mr. Birthday Boy. Let me be the one to serve you."
On another day Shinichi would have smirked at the unintentional innuendo, but he is too troubled by an impending sneeze that he replies to Ran with a, well, sneeze.
"Happy Birthday to me, indeed." He slumped back into the couch.
On the other end of the floor, Ran prepares a glass of warm water and sets up a kettle, mind briefly drifting to the birthday cake in the fridge. Seems it will have to sit in there a little longer until she can share it together with her best friend sans the sore throat.
She cannot see Shinichi at the moment, but she can picture the face he's sporting then, what with the petty grumbles of "can't believe I missed soccer, damn" and "what a waste of a fine day" she overhears in between occasional bouts of cough. Ran sighs, addresses Shinichi from the kitchen with a voice that resonates across the unit. "Soccer can wait, Shinichi."
"Says the woman who still attended karate training despite a sprain," Shinichi croaks back.
"To clarify, that was not a sprain. Just a strained muscle."
"Sure." Shinichi coughs again and winces.
"Anyway, as I was saying," Ran cuts him off before he prolongs the banter, stopping in front of the couch to kneel in front of him who has risen begrudgingly to a sitting position. She places the glass of water near his mouth for him to hold and pops a tablet to his palm. "Soccer can wait. Your immune system can't. It will be a shame if you die on your birthday. These meds you're looking for are right beside you by the way."
"Oh. Thanks."
He feels her watch him down the medicine with water, as if Ran doesn't trust him enough to drink his medicine all the way. It isn't supposed to make him feel awkward, she's consistently done the same since the first hour of his fever, and yet the feeling of being monitored down to the very last detail by his childhood friend of almost sixteen years flusters him. Man is he ever going to get used to this.
"I can take care of my self yanno. Iâm twenty," Shinichi states feebly, after he gives her back the empty glass and Ran pulls up a cooling gel sheet from the end table.
âShut up. Iâll take care of you until weâre eighty,â she replies, eyes thin, looming closer to his face.
He sniggers. "That long? You gonna marry me or something?"
It is a remark borne out of confidence that the recipient who has known him for almost his entire life will take it in jest. Even so, in the burning soreness of his throat - not sure if caused by his sickness or the words which left his mouth - Shinichi feels like the fever is being sucked out of himself everytime he sees her responsive smile and hears her little laugh.
"I'll think about it," she says, as she combs his bangs away with her fingers, and places the gel patch over his forehead.
Shinichi knows it's a response borne out of confidence that the recipient will be certain Ran doesn't literally mean it. That she will not step out of sight and lean behind the kitchen wall and ponder about his amateur proposal as if her life depends on it. Which actually, it does. A lifetime with him? Pfft. Too early to imagine. It's better to dwell in the now. With her. Taking care of him. Best friends for almost two decades now, on a milestone day in his life.
Still.
"You don't have to, though," he mumbles, inaudible for Ran to hear.
More inaudible are the thoughts he doesn't convert to speech, looping like a broken record in his brain:
You don't have to- We don't have to think about it that hard.
It's obvious.
We can decide right here, right now.
But if you let me speak first Ran, I think, for the longest time, I have already made my choice-
"You said something, Shinichi?"
"I mean, you don't have to answer that. Haha," is what he says instead. "I was joking, Ran."
Ran is silent for a long time, then smiles.
"I know, idiot Shinichi," she says after a moment, ruffling his bangs. "You would never choose a crybaby caretaker like me, right?"
A certain quiet commonly shared by two childhood best friends lingers in the room, and in the pause he starts to wonder if he has actually been vague with Ran all this time. He doesn't know why there is a pang of disappointment in his chest, but if such does exist, he is certain it is not directed at her response, but rather, at himself. For once, on his birthday, Shinichi actually wishes.
Shinichi wishes for something different. He wishes for a slight bit of reciprocation that is beyond the realm of friendship. He wishes for Ran to take back what she said and have enough faith in him to believe that he actually would.
After all, this certain feeling hasn't left him since he was four, since he saw her in that kindergarten classroom with a mile-wide smile despite tears clouding her eyes, a crumpled sakura paper in hand with his name in hiragana written on it.
Before he can open his mouth, she speaks first.
"Anyway! I give you a pass to tease me because it's your birthday. Get well soon so we can at least go out and have a nice dinner later, okay?" Her smile is natural, as always, along with the ocean blue of her eyes and the apple of her cheeks.
For the longest time he's known: that smile impressed upon him is meant as platonic.
Ran grazes a hand over his forehead one last time before rising to her knees. "I'll prepare tea, Shinichi," she says, solemnly.
In the silence she leaves him as she hums away unto the whistling kettle, in between the soft rhythm of Shinichi's beating heart, there's an endless rippling stream, drip drip dripping throughout himself. In his heart lies an unshakeable, pressing ache. A need devoid of malice. A truth that will take a hundred more birthday wishes and a thousand meteors crashing down earth before he caves into verbal admission -
This is actually part of the shinran college roomates!AU anthology I have stored in my mind palace for 5+ years now lmao, and I used this special week and Shinichi's birthday as an excuse to write and release a chapter out. <3 The anthology is meant to cover various scenarios in the daily life of childhood-friends-turned-best-friends-turned-roommates (turned lovers?) Shinichi and Ran, with many bloopers and comedy and fighting and bonding and yearning in between. This chapter is supposedly chapter ten or smth... but it's ok it can still make sense as a standalone^^
It's always "I love you" and never "Okay, I don't care that we're different. What I care about is you. I care about you. Okay? And I didn't say it. I should've said it. But I didn't. Because... well, 'cause I am an emotionally insecure source of your discomfot who is not good at expressing his feelings. Probably because I've been on my own my whole life. And it's not an excuse, it's just- it's why instead of telling you that you're the best thing that ever happened to me, I make jokes about your ears and I tell you that you try too hard. When, you know, the truth is, I just don't want you to get hurt because... because no one else in the world matters more to me than you do."
People say Chuck and Blair donât belong together. People say they arenât right for each other. Iâve heard theyâre one of the worst couples ever portrayed on television but you know, hereâs what i think
Not that i am any authority on this subject, but i reason that the fundamental question to pose here would be, what  exactly determines whether or not two people belong together? Enlighten me if by happenstance i am wrong but I can safely assume it entails more than the convenience of a relationship, of companionship. companionship is important granted that everybody has attachment needs. Two people can be there for each other but does that justify their belonging together? No, There has to be another impetus to the equation. And, irrefutably, an outstanding part of that remains the furious desire of two people to want to be together. Such desire can be galvanized by a number of motives but none as pure and genuine as true love. The kind of love they will never find with anyone else,  the heart palpitating, mind numbing, full transcendental understanding needless of verbalization kinda love.. i believe, more that warrants them to be together. It gives them reason to belong together. The kind of love Chuck and Blair feel for each other. They are each otherâs true love and i intend to prove that further.. they donât simply want to be together. Part of them fiercely need each otherâŠ.(donât worry however, iâm not going to overlook the fact that theyâve done some horrible things to each other meanwhile)
Contrary to popular belief, True love doesnât mean it has to be perfect. where does perfect love exists outside of an animated film makerâs studio? How is âperfectionâ realistic expectation? hence why i have never claimed that Chuck and Blair are perfect. I havenât either claimed that their relationship has been. I have relentlessly said otherwise. Neither Chuck or Blair have ever identified with the word âperfectionâ which is why it seems absurd  that because their love is considered âepicâ that it must be âperfectâ. It has never been the case. In fact, both Blair and Chuck have struggle with the idea of not being perfect and/or worthy enough in other peopleâs eyes. S1 has been the perfect exposition for that internal conflict they both shared  primarily with the (adults/parents) in their lives and also with (the object of their affections) that theyâve always felt inadequate to (Nate being the object of Blairâs affection and Blair being Chuckâs object of affection). i think this revelation lends some explanation as to why Chuck and Blair have shared this sacred understanding of each other from the very beginning.âYou know me wellâ 1x03. They both yearned to be worthy enough in the eyes of others for exactly who they were which is why 2x21 is critical in my opinion. The meaning is even too deep to fully conceptualize. How can one conceptualize just how much Chuck Bass loves Blair Waldorf? The pure reason that he loves her, the same reason sheâs understood made her inadequate in Nateâs eyes as opposed to Serena. Her sheer plainness and ordinary beauty and charm, Darth Vader next to Sunshine Barbie. But Chuck loves Darth Vader just fine. he didnât want her to change. âwhy would you want her to be anything other than she isâ. 2x21.  How powerful? And people say thatâs not true love. How can loving someone for pure and genuine reasons as such not be true love? Loving someone and knowing it when having never loved anyone before. When she had hit her rock bottom in 2x19 after losing Yale and had thrown herself at him desperately. He refused her impostor âthis isnât you. this isnât the Blair i wantâ. He was sorry for her for not seeing how great she is, despite having experienced a setback in her dream, because what he ever saw in her were all things worth admiring and thatâs why he refused to enable her in rejecting who she really was because who she really was, flawed and all, was everything he loved about her.. He wanted her to understand that. Chuck has always loved Blair so. in 1x08 when he gave her the necklace, i think is particularly important to note because he actually called her âworthyâ. âsomething this beautiful deserves to be seen on someone worthy of its beautyâ. And once they had been intimate in the back of his limo it was coined âsacredâ. To him it was imperative that she understood that. i think despite him not knowing  or understanding the convoluted notion of love, and how to give it, somewhere in him ached for her to be so misunderstood by her own self  and wanted to appease that. it was clear in front of him how worthy and sacred she was, if only she could see it. Giving her the necklace was his demonstration of love, the way he always does it when she had been most in need of it. Â
Blair likewise has loved Chuck for the same pure and genuine reasons that he loves her, for everything that he is, although she always encouraged him to be the best version of himself that he could possibly be as he often chose to be the worst. The beauty of it all is that it was completely unfathomable to Chuck that anyone could ever love him for exactly who he is. he bought quasi-love from prostitutes as padding for the hollow of the loveless life he had known. But the padding is obsolete when it is not genuine and pure, when it is not freely given, when it means nothing. It was sex, the physical illustration of love.  I think i understand why all this time Chuck was afraid of love. He didnât understand it, he had never had a sensory experience with it. Perhaps vicariously through sex but it wasnât a true disclosure. Blair was the first person to show Chuck real love, I will say since 1x07. But it was evidenced most at the time of his fatherâs passing. Both Chuck and Blair have dealt with issues of worthiness and perfection and what is expected of them. Chuck never believed anyone could love him genuinely but Blairâs excrutiating generosity of love towards Chuck during the biggest ordeal of his life is the testament to how genuine her love for him is and has been. She showed him wide open love at the time when she knew he was completely incapable of reciprocating the hapless feeling â At a time when she knew they were in vain to her hopes because he couldnât appreciate these three words that he needed dearly to soothe his soul whether or not he could believe he was worthy of them. his father had just died âyou donât appreciate anything today but i donât careâ 2x13. But it didnât matter, it was love and comfort he was in need of and she would give it to him at the cost of her heart that day, because she loved him. You see, she didnât know what else to do but love him because she knew only love could eventually lead him to appreciate something. It broke her heart that he couldnât love her back. but it gratified her even more that she could be the one there for him. When he showed up to her room broken, despite how broken she was herself, she allowed herself to be broken further so they could be broken together, then he could feel just how much she is in this with him.âweâre Chuck and Blair. Blair and Chuckâ. That has to be true love. How could it not be? So you see why i donât understand when people argue against that. However, 2x14 was the true revelation of the extent of Blairâs love for Chuck. The extend is boundless, of course. As much as he pushed her away, pushed her over the emotional edge, over her breaking point, as he was ready to push himself over a physical edge of a rooftop, over his breaking point. possibly death because nothing else tugged at his heart, nothing else made him feel. It was his misery he was too comfortable in. Misery was his home. He believed his father never loved him. So his self-loathing gratified that. It justified it so he didnât have to feel burdened with stuff that he didnât deserve, such as love, not even from himself. Pushing Blair away was saving her from himself. He was always going to self-destruct and if she got in the way sheâd only become collateral damage. It didnât mean that he didnât  feel the way he felt about her. he wanted her but he didnât think he deserved her. At his fatherâs wedding he was hopeful that one day heâd find someone to forgive him and persevere in the love they would have for each other. in 2x14 Blair proved that. she was persevering. she proved she was going to always show up for him.âdonât you understand. iâll always be hereâ. Even if he wanted to think he was unworthy and swell in his self loathing, she was going to be there for him, at the cost of a social club because she believed he was âworthyâ. âThat piece of work Chuck Bass, needs meâ. He needed her. It was true love. He needed her and only she could meet his desperate need for her.âwhatever you want to do to yourself, please donât do that to meâ. Proof that once again Blair had been able to love Chuck at his worst. She knew it wasnât going to be easy to save him but she wanted to be there, like she told him in 2x15 when they broke up âAll i wanted to do was just be thereâ. However, it would take a lot to drag Chuck Bass out of that place he was in. He had no self-love so all the love that he would need to cure him came from Blair. Eventually he would exhaust her because he needed to love himself and Blair couldnât do that for him.
Blair and Chuckâs relationship took a turn for the worse but it doesnât mean it happened because their love wasnât real. Like it said, no love is perfect. And sometimes i am even understanding of why 3x17 happen. I still however wish the aftermath of it would have been much more consequential. Chuck choosing the hotel over Blair is a double-edged knife. I think itâs hard to fully judge that sl without understanding what both characters were going through at the time. At the beginning of s3 Chuck had been the perfect boyfriend, surprisingly so, but he had been. I figured that he was forcing himself to be that perfect. I believe Blair had managed to give him a confidence in their relationship but i donât think it was ever too solid because i knew that Blair alone couldnât save him, Chuck had daddy issues too that he needed to save himself from. Blair showing Chuck that she believed in him was monumental in how he changed at the end of s2 and early s3.âi was a coward running away again. But everywhere i went. you caught up with me so  i had to come backâ. That i think also goes to show how invaluable Blair is to Chuck and how much he respects her. I think the building blocks to this surge of confidence and self-certainty, almost self-love in Chuck were laid down in 2x15. Blair had told Chuck at the elevator âI believed in you. Your father believed in you. You. are the only one who didnâtâ.  And verily in 2x16 Chuck had taken a major leap of faith in himself and embraced the legacy that his father left him. The fact that he didnât do the same with Blair was because he still believed that he couldnât make her happy. in 2x23 he told Serenaâ I love her but i canât make her happyâ. Blair reassuring Chuck that she believed in him, i affirm, was what made Chuck keep a composure of confidence at the beginning of s3. he even bought a hotel simply based on the promise of her faith in him âHow can you be so sure?â she questioned him âBecause you believe in meâ. wow. he was quite the perfect boyfriend. i do believe that he really did believe in himself then and look how âworthyâ Blairâs belief in him is to him. âIâm not Chuck Bass without youâ he confessed to her. translation: you made me Blair. you made me. She had made him just by showing him that she believed in him. But i always knew that at some point the confident boyfriend facade was going to crack. oh wait! what about my father?  heâd question. what does he really think of me? Chuck has always yearned for his fatherâs love and approval which is the root of his issue with âworthinessâ and âperfectionâ much like Blair had her own dilemma with that and that had been the common grievance they shared. His father had always reprimanded his bad behavior and not often shown how proud he was of the rather good things Chuck did therefore Chuck was always seeking. 3x12 was no exception of that. rather it was the perfect showcase for it. Chuck pushing Blair away because once his fatherâs ghost entered, his fears had overcome him again and his confidence, dissipated. And now it was back to square one. Blair had persisted she must love Chuck for all she was worth and even more so because he was pushing her away. i think when he said â i donât need you to take care of meâ suddenly she became engulfed with desire to take care of him. to nurse him back to emotional well being. I think thatâs when i saw the dysfunction in their relationship with alarm. When she had said in 3x08 â i have you, thatâs all i needâ. it unsettled me. I wanted it to be the most romantic confession but somewhere inside of me i felt the symmetry of co-dependence in their relationship was shifting. And much like he was there for her throughout her first semester at NYU, âyou carry people you carry meâ, now on the anniversary of his fatherâs death, she was going to be there for him. Progressively it became she was going to be be there for him unconditionally, sacrificially even, as was understood by Chuck in3x17. Blair understood it the same. You see, she would have really given herself as a pawn to Jack had Chuck asked her to. It was sick how perverse it all was. How wrong it all was.âi would have done anything to help you. all you had to do was askâ. She would have literally sacrificed her body, her dignity, only had he asked her to. The problem wasnât how reprehensible the act was. It was that they went behind each otherâs backs. It really wasnât a matter of morality.  It was a matter of trustâŠit was honestly, the saddest thing.
âAll i ever did was love youâ. Blairâs fault was mainly how much she loved him. it wasnât fair to herself to love him that much. she was basically trying to save him from himself. she was trying to build him up, breaking herself down in the process. I think, it needed to be made clear to her that she couldnât save Chuck Bass. Chuck Bass is the only person that can allow himself to be saved. I think Blair had truly lost herself in the relationship and was starting to absorb all the things that she was trying to rid him of and in turn ended up not liking herself too much âi donât like who iâve become with youâ. this made me extremely sad seeing as Blair had no direction for herself. the relationship had become the orbit around which she revolved. 3x16 was indication that she had no friends. then again â i have you thatâs all i needâ. Chuck couldnât be all she needs. and i think 3x17 showed her that she needed herself too not just Chuck. she needed to love herself too. If she loved Chuck for all she was worth  in the event that their love failed, what now? what would she be worth? It was the best decision to step away from that relationship to find herself. Chuck had done something terrible to her but she needed something to show her just how much of herself she had given up. âI would do anything for you Chuck, but what if thatâs wrong?â she needed to question to boundaries of this âepicâ love. Stepping away from the relationship had helped her regain a sense of morality she had lost in it just like she had lost herself. When the relationship failed, she lost her entire self worth, relapsed into bulimia and said things like âwho  else could love me after what iâve becomeâ, â At least we wonât be lonely in hellâ. I think an introspective moment between 3x17 and 3x18 made her realize what she had done and the shame was too great to speak of. she was going to bed with another man to save a hotel. when you put things into perspective, it really hurts. But all this was Blairâs fault. It was her own willingness that Chuck had nothing to do with.Â
So both Chuck and Blair had done things to injure their relationship, albeit the bulk of the blame be Chuckâs. I know a lot of people say thatâs why he could never be redeemed. what he did was extremely despicable. But i believe that Chuck can be redeemed, which is where i and a lot of people differ
But why shouldnât he be redeemable? He has shown great remorse and contrition over the things he did to Blair and although that doesnât warrant her forgiveness, she had granted it nonetheless. Even if Blair should never forgive Chuck in her own heart, i believe he should be redeemed. The thing is, sadly enough, Chuck did not understand his action in 3x17. this is not an argument to defend him. it is simply a logical deduction. in fact, i donât even believe Chuck had rationalized his actions at all despite how inaccurately he would have perceived the severity of his actions to be anyways. i donât think he weighted it out at all.  he was so secure in his relationship with Blair. The fact that Chuck didnât think he would lose Blair as a result of his game of chess with Jack is highly indicative of something askew. Actually, i feel sorry for him. He just saw love through the wrong pair of eyes. So, no, the empire was not a deliberate sabotage of his relationship, though it cost him the same. deliberate or not he lost Blair and with good reason, iâd say. and in 3x18 he wantonly asked her to forgive him claiming that their love was magnetic, their pull as undeniable as ever. Itâs very startling his ignorance in matters of love and morality. How much more could he offend her? after trading her for a hotel to offer up such an uncouth apology layered with self-aggrandizing verses. However, This is all further proof of how ignorant Chuck was of the magnitude of what he did to Blair. and although he did say he was âsorryâ, smugly nonetheless, How could he possibly think he deserved her forgiveness? Thatâs when i realized that i couldnât hold Chuck accountable for his offensive apology. he didnât know any better. and the fact that he slept with Jenny because he thought Blair didnât love him anymore because âi didnât care if i lived or diedâ is simply the most tragic thing about him. Blair meant everything to him. he did love Blair. Itâs not like he didnât love her. he was hopeless. he would have died trying to hold on to that ring, to the memory of her and it would have been worth it. she was always âworthâ it.
However 4x02, was what made Chuck redeemable in my eyes. somewhere after he got shot i think, it dawned on him, the atrocity of his soul, what he was capable of. which is why i applaud 4x02 at all stops. what it meant for Chuck and Blair, i think only few understand it as profoundly as i do. I think the fact that he was able to convey how sorry and contrite he was without having to say it speaks volume to that factâŠthe simple  fact that he was ashamed in front of her, unlike the smug apology he gave her before âplease do this for me, please forgive meâ, I mean do you hear how absurd it was, and yet pitiful. who did he think he was? how dare he feel as if he deserves her forgiveness? But then look how oblivious he was, how pitiful he was. However, now he was standing in front of her utterly ashamed and repentant of the man he used to be. of the man who was capable of hurting her this bad. i donât think he needed to express how sorry he was with words. it broke my heart how sorry he was when she gave him the ring box and his face fell. it conveyed sadness and resignation, like it was his 25 years to life sentence and he just accepted it. didnât question it. he knew he deserved it.. he was so ashamed of himself that he thought it was better to be somebody else: Henry Prince. so he settled to be somebody else. â A chance to live simply, earn peopleâs respect. maybe become a person someone could loveâ. because, Chuck Bass, after what he did could never be someone worthy of love. there it goes again, that word âworthyâ. Perhaps, Henry Prince, as sadly twisted as it was, maybe Henry Prince had a shot at love. And this time he didnât ask for forgiveness. He knew he could never deserve it from her. Thatâs the beauty of their love though, she forgave him in spite of it. No he didnât deserve it and no it wasnât easy for her. But it makes their love beautiful that she was able to give him something even tho he didnât deserve it when he thought he was never âworthyâ of anything ungratuitous. But Blairâs forgiveness gave him is âworthinessâ of love back. maybe not from herself but maybe someone could love him. At his fatherâs wedding he had said that one day he hoped heâd be lucky enough to find someone who would be gracious enough to forgive him. And there she was, this girl he spoke of. this girl of his dreams. It was Blair who persevered in love with him and forgave his most unforgivable indiscretions.
Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf have not been perfect, far from it even, but somehow two wrongs make a twisted right. What is for real and for certain is that they love each other. âthe only thing thatâs ever been real is me and youâ despite how much they may hurt to keep the pain between them when it seems like itâs the only thing left between them, they still love each other, very dearly, very fiercely. Theyâve both done things to each other and it was a process to learn their own lesson. Ironically Chuck once said âIn order to be a team we need to focus our duplicity on othersâ..but it turned out to be their tragic flaw. they turned against each other, and the last game their played, they both lost and they both hurt. Despite their undeniable fate, both are individually flawed and needed to be on their own to succeed at being the best version of themselves they could possibly be. I want to see their love continue to grow. i donât believe their dark side will ever completely go away. it is who they are. Itâs the beauty of their dynamic. and we all know Chuck loves Blair for everything that she is and would never want her to be other than. Their dark side is their initial connection âwe bonded over a mutual love scheming and burlesqueâ. and that will always be in their fabric. Theyâre not Chuck and Blair without the scheming and burlesque. But i think they need to stop playing games with each other. I hope that this season, the trust they had in each other from before can be reinstated so that the health of their relationship can be returned to itâs former nature or even better. i see both of them maturing quite a bit however, and iâm very proud with this direction. Last year Chuck had punched a glass window when Blair had told him she was engaged to someone else. This year sheâs âallegedlyâ having another manâs baby but he decided to feel something instead, he took off his emotional wall and let himself feel, whether it be agony and despair, it was the grown up thing to do. i believe that this baby is his but i donât know where this sl is headed. i donât think either of them is ready for a baby. But if in fact this baby comes, it will only be a testament to how much their love has grown. their love has grown to the point that it could create something so tangible between them both that will eternally bond them forever. Their love has always been what gets them through the years and they have promised each to love the other forever. It is not something they could walk away from. It is what they need. They need to be reassured that their love is always there even if they arenât able to be together or feel they arenât right for each other. But i know Chuck will prove to Blair once more that he can be the one for her.  That he belongs with her and her with him. When she felt weakened by his influence over her, he assured her âdonât let anyone tell you youâre not powerful. youâre the most powerful woman i knowâ hence gratifying why she loves him so much. He has always built her up and she has always built him up. And when they burn bridges, they have both learned that it hurt them both and no one wins. They may have loved each other wrong in the past but theyâve always been good intended, pure and genuine. and they have never stopped loving each other even through the darkness. I can only imagine how much more they will love each other when itâs finally lightness..oh and with a beautiful baby in tow.
Chuck and Blair: If two people are meant to be together eventually they'll find their way back.
Overall the episode was poor but the last scene was beautiful. A scene that I liked too was between Blair and Eleanor in front of the mirror. She explains her love for Chuck âIâm vulnerableâ this is not to be seen as a bad aspect. By allowing yourself to be vulnerable, you are the most open to love. If a person closes them self off to such emotions, how would they ever feel the full effect of love? Love is not some walk in the park on a sunny day with the sun shining and smiles all round. To make a relationship work it takes lots of work and isnât easy. What relationship in real life never has any struggles? None, because relationships arenât perfect. Theyâll be mistakes made, and things a person regrets.(This is particularly heightened on the show) However love, at its height makes the person feel most content. She then explains how Chuck has devastated her which leads back to my point before about love never being good all the time, it does bring tears and heartache. Finally âHeâs also made me happier than Iâve ever beenâ and this is what love is all about. Filling the other personâs heart, mind and body with so much love and joy, resulting in happiness for both people.
There have been a lot of differences in opinion over the Chuck and Blair scene on top of the roof top. At first when I watched it I felt indifferent, but now after watching it a couple of times over I donât mind particularly the scene. You could see the scene was consistent with the ideas Sara Goodman had wrote in the 4.09 Goodbye scene. This time however the roles were reversed and it was Chuck that wanted to build his future after everything had just been taken away from him. I feel this scene was much more intense than 4.09 one of the reasons being Chuck had put his faith in his father only to have it destroyed. Heâd just been crushed by his father in the worst ways possible; telling him he doesnât deserve a company, telling him that heâs weak and taking away everything he built.
âThen weâll find another way to show the world youâre a force to be reckoned withâ which contrasts to âIâm taking over my motherâs company and that can be our future.â They both want to help each otherâs futures progress; they want to share their triumphs with the other person. However as Chuck points out âItâs not enough. I need a future.â Individually they seek to achieve their own success. âI donât want to be Mr Blair Waldorf, Iâm Chuck Bass.â âI need to become Blair Waldorf before I can be Chuck Bassâ girlfriend.â Equally they both want to achieve success and shows through the ambitious and goal driven character traits. They go after what they want and they work for it. Chuck and Blair consider that if they donât have any accomplishments then theyâll be in the shadow of the other person. Blair in 4.09 was trying to reason with both Chuck and herself that she needs to be powerful, she wants to be Hilary secretary of state. In a similar way this is what happened with Chuck, he was trying to reason with himself and trying to state that he was nothing comparable to the man Bart had just described him as.
The words from the hospital scene in 3.12 are very evident here. Chuck told Blair that âIâve been pushing myself to prove him wrong, and pushing you away.â This is after yet again Bart tells Chuck he is weak, and that letting Blair in has made him weak. Though this is certainly not the case, if anything her love makes him stronger and ultimately turned him into a better man, one that his father never was.
In addition, the scene paralleled with the 2.25 scene after the GG blasts were released. Firstly there are the parallels of Blair telling Chuck how he feels. âChuck Bass, I love you. I love you so much it consumes me. I love you and I know you love me too. Tell me you love me and everything weâve done, all the gossip and the lies and the hurt will have been for something. Tell me it was for something.â In comparison to Blair in 5.24 âI love you, Iâm in love with you. I have tried to kill it, to run away from it but I canât and donât want to anymore.â In both scenes when Blair tells Chuck she loves him, it brings tears into his eyes, which in my opinion is so powerful. Her love has kept him alive as well as bringing out his feelings. Also, Chuck replies in both âmaybe it wasâ âit wasâ which may be construed as his feelings have changed. Though, that type of love never dies, he has just been hurt in both scenes and needs time to recover.
In addition, the 5.24 scene of Blair saying that she doesnât want to run anymore parallels with the Blair and Serena talks. During the wedding in 5.13 Serena says âI know you think you canât be with Chuck because of the pact you made with God. But maybe the pact is just an excuse youâre using the protect yourself from the messiness and uncertainty of a life with the man you really love.. I know that it scares you and I know that itâs a risk, but donât enter into a false life just because youâre afraid to face your real one.â 5.12 âGod doesnât punish people for being in love; he would want you to marry someone you want to be with.â Serena has repeatedly told Blair this season that she shouldnât turn away from her feelings, pretend they are not there or try and berry them. Â And Blair tells Chuck this in the rooftop scene, she is not running anymore.
Moreover, I hope the writers will build up Blair and Serenaâs friendship again even though itâs been ripped apart and thrown away. I donât know how but I need it. I was so disappointed that this was the first season finale where there was no Blair and Serena hug. It was the first finale where they were fighting rather than supporting each other and being best friends. Once the main focal point of the show has turned into something less than nothing. My Blair and Serena heart needs them to be friends again, and when Chuck and Blair do get married, it would be bizarre for anyone other than Serena to be Blairâs maid of honour. (She is one of the biggest CB shippers on the show) Along with Nate who is just as much of a CB shipper, to be Chuckâs best man. Â
Onto the final scene, well this was the best scene of the episode without a doubt. First the choice of song was nice, so I applaud whoever was in charge on that aspect. Â The song âWe are Youngâ can be interpreted in various ways, however I see it was a song about forgiveness, making up for past mistakes and living life for the moment per se. The song speaks of âscarsâ perhaps scars left by the relationship after it fell apart. It applies to both Chuck and Blair and how mistakes have been made in their relationship. They are both sorry for the pain they have caused, still feel hurt but want to try and repair what they have. âSo if by the time the bar closes and you feel like falling down. Iâll carry you home.â Amongst all the wrong doings that may have occurred, they will still carry on loving the person and make them feel whole again. Â âWe are young, so letâs set the world on fire, we can burn brighter.â This is true; Chuck and Blair are still young and have their whole lives ahead of them. Now they are a team again, a force to be reckoned with in a sense they can âset the world on fire.â
The final scene was beautiful from the moment Blair came and said âIs there a seat availableâ to the ending where they are consumed by each otherâs presence and locked in one otherâs eyes. Chuckâs face is one of shock when he sees Blair. Itâs so beautiful I donât have the words. Chuck is confused about whatâs going on and you can see this through his facial expressions. He probably assumed he wouldnât see Blair after their last conversation. Yet here she was looking as beautiful as ever and sheâs come to see him. However I do have a criticism I am not sure if this did happen in the episode because I only watch scenes on youtube, but I would have liked to be shown what spurred Blairâs decision into action. How she choose between the two men.
âYouâve fought for me all year, now itâs time to fight for you.â AWH. Now Iâve seen people saying that Chuck has not fought for Blair this season though I donât think thatâs the case. Â Heâs fought for her in the literal sense, her happiness and for her to achieve her âfairytaleâ.
In 5.06 was a beautiful yet heartbreaking act of love, sacrifice. He wanted her happiness and thought she would achieve this by letting her go. But never giving up on her. He wanted Blair to be free because when you love something you set it free. He makes her believe in herself âYouâre going to be an amazing mother.â And he apologised for his past mistakes particularly giving up on her, because now he is going to let her be happy.Â
He fought for her happiness in 5.07 by once again trying to set her free. He tells Nate at the end of the episode âI had to kiss her to set her free.â âThat may be the most selfless thing youâve ever done.â Heâs not âhappyâ about letting her go again, but if it achieves her and her dreams it will make him happy eventually.
In 5.09 Chuck fought for her to believe in herself, she lost confidence and he made her believe again. âYou never pulled me to the dark side Blair. You were the lightest thing that ever came into my life.â âI JUST WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY.â Oh Chuck and Blair happiness is such a great ship.
 In 5.10 where he fought for Blair, and didnât care if he raised another manâs baby because he will love Blair and the baby all the same. âJust because Louis is the father of your baby, doesnât mean you should be with him. You should be with me!â âWhy?â âBecause Iâm going to love your baby as much as I love you.â
In 5.11 where he wanted to be with her, and was confused why she has suddenly seemed to give up. âI just wanted to be there for you after the baby.â He fought for Blair wanting her to be with him. âWell donât leave me! You sat in the car and said youâd never go. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together.â
Throughout 5.12 he fought for Blair, âI donât know what you think it is I did tonight, but all I care about is her.â He is not giving up because if there is one thing he learnt from Blair is to never give up on the people you love.
At the wedding in 5.13 was he fought for her. He came to the wedding because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. âThey also want you to be happy but youâre not going to be if you go through with this. Tell me Iâm wrong and Iâll leave. You canât. Because it should be us up there and you know it.â âThen get out of here with me right now. We can go anywhere, just as long as weâre together.â
He fought for her in 5.14 where he and Serena went to find Blair after she ran away. âI canât stand the thought of you with anyone else. I donât care what it costs or where we have to go. I just want to be with you.â âIâll protect you. Iâd do anything for you.â He was willing to pay the dowry if he could achieve her âfreedomâ.
Chuck fought for her in 5.17, when they were at the wake. And tells her âI love youâ however only to be rejected.Â
In 5.19 he paid for the dowry and fought for her freedom and happiness. âI just wanted you to be free. And whom you choose to love with that freedom is up to you.â In the episode it showed how much he cares about her. Chuck wants her to be happy even though she is with someone else. This was repeatedly a trend, with Nate as shown in 2.24 with Prom and then Louis shown 4.22, 5.04 and so on.
And now back to the scene aha, MY HEART âyou said I always bet against you but this time, Iâm all in.â I canât remember which episode it was but there was a sought of foreshadowing for this in the voiceover at the end of one episode. Gossip Girl says âSome people choose to bet on themselves, while others are happy to bet on someone else.â Then Blair puts all her chips in symbolising she wants to go all in with Chuck. This is it; she wants her happiness with Chuck, a future with Chuck and a forever with him. Just as Chuck came to tell Blair he loves her in 2.25, in 5.24 Blair comes to tell Chuck she is sure she wants her future to be with him.
They really are a partnership, a force to be reckoned with, an invincible pairing. My hopes for next season are that
The writers show us a beautiful proposal, perhaps the Harry Winston ring which Bart gave Chuck in this episode will return. And he will propose where he first said I love you to Blair I donât know.
Maybe will get the chance to see some of the roleplays that weâve missed out over the years, only been told about. Â Â
Iâd love to see Blair properly planning the wedding this time, and being able to chose the details and she wants.
I have a feeling that they may have Blair and Chuck run BI together (assuming he getâs it back) Which I wouldnât be completely opposed to because theyâll be building their futures together.Â
I want there to be no exterior influences affecting Chuck and Blairâs relationship. They may have disagreement about the details of the wedding which could be fun to watch if written right.Â
A Chuck and Blair valentineâs day, from Blair and Serenaâs conversation we only got told about it, Iâd love to see it.Â
More coupley/sweet moments just as we saw first half season 3. For example, the massages, the spooning in bed, the talks, going for strolls together hand in hand in parks and so on. Â
Leading up to a beautiful wedding, which has been foreshadowed for so long. I can imagine it now⊠actual tears.  Â
I hope the fall shows better, much much better writing for the characters, the pairings and even as a whole show. IN THE FACE OF TRUE LOVE YOU DONâT JUST GIVE UP, and it seems we were rewarded by getting our OTP in the end. Â
A few weeks ago, I got the chance to read an article about shame-based personalities that immediately made me think about Chuck and I decided to take the time to write an essay about it. Iâll be using lines from the article to write this dissertation, which means itâs only right to credit it. You can find it here. The blog has many fascinating psychology articles; if youâre interested in the subject you should definitely follow it.
As the article Iâm referring to explains, blaming and shaming a person are two different things. While blaming someone implies recognizing a fault in the personâs behavior, shaming someone isnât about guilt or responsibility; it doesnât require the person to do something that the accuser interprets as a mistake. Instead, shaming means affirming thereâs something wrong with the person accused; in other words, the fault doesnât lie in the personâs actions, but rather in their personality.
Before I begin exposing my thoughts regarding how and why Chuckâs personality was built through a dysfunctional shaming process, it must be said that both the aspects Iâve mentioned â blame and shame â played a role in his life.
For most of his life, Chuck has lived with a shattering sense of guilt coming from the conviction he had killed his mother by coming to life. I tend to think Bart has never really put into words this accusation, but it is sure that, as a child and later on as a teenager, Chuck read this through the lines of his fatherâs detachment. Consciously and not, Chuck learnt to consider himself responsible for his motherâs death, because the explanation he gave himself helped him to give a meaning to the emotional and psychological abuse he was subjected to. Â
That being said, the guilt he took is a âblamelessâ one; in fact, it might be more accurately described as an original sin, a visceral, ancestral fault that has nothing to do with responsibility (even if Elisabeth had actually died giving birth, the baby wouldnât have been guilty of her destiny).Â
This irrational, inconsistent and implicit accusation suggests that thereâs something terribly and irremediably flawed in Chuck, it somehow hints to the fact that his role in the world is to destroy â and metaphorically, to kill (âHe hated me. It makes sense if his beloved wife died giving birth to me. Sometimes I swear he thinks I killed herâ Chuck, from 2X05)
It is likely that, in truth, Bart blamed Chuck for the simple fact that he was Elizabethâs son â the woman who had cheated on him and eventually left him to raise a child he probably didnât even want. In Bartâs mind, having her as a mother was enough to make him a worthless and inadequate person â and irreversibly. This âdefinitive verdictâ is indeed expressed through the story he told Chuck: not only Elizabeth âdiedâ, but she was also âkilledâ by her own son. Itâs a vision that allowed Bart to hate them both and set Chuck for being an eternal disappointment to his eyes.
It is definitely a form of shaming. Â The article mentions a few examples of shaming statements, which sound very similar to many things Bart told his son all the way through the series:
âą âYou were a mistake; I wish Iâd never had you.â || âNo matter how Iâve tried to turn you into a man, it still remains the one, big failure of my lifeâ (6X09)
âą âYouâre useless; youâll never amount to anything.â || âNice gesture, but misguided as usualâ (2X10), âI havenât seen anything in the last year that suggests you have what it takes. If anything, youâve been a disappointmentâ (3X12)
âą âYouâve ruined my life; you ruin everything for everyoneâ || âBart thought it would be better if the family bonded without me for a whileâ (1X14), âLetting people down is your forteâ (2X10), âEvery time I think weâre making progress, you show your true colorsâ (2X12).
 According to the article, adults shamed in childhood have some traits that I recognized in Chuck as well. Iâll mention each of them and try to see how they showed in his behavior.Â
1. They are afraid to share their true thoughts and feelings with others.
This first trait is pretty obvious in Chuckâs characterization. However, truth to be told, his difficulty in sharing his thoughts and feelings is only the tip of the iceberg.
Chuck is indeed emotionally crippled. He doesnât simply have issues when it comes to conveying his feelings; his problems start with his inability to recognize them and then accept them. Season 1 is all about it; Chuck canât give a name to what he feels for Blair (âI feel sick, like thereâs something in my stomachâŠflutteringâ) and when she hurts him, he canât metabolize the pain he feels and ends up hurting her as well in a way that is absolutely childish â an act of spite.
This is obviously the outcome of an education intended to make him think of feelings as weaknesses. Chuck grew up with the idea that detachment meant strength, while displaying emotions â or even having emotions â was a synonym of vulnerability. And vulnerability was the ultimate fault, the one thing Bart could have never accepted. Â
Episode 3X12 (but, in general, season 3) is pretty enlightening in this sense, because it gives us an accurate idea of how Chuck has always interpreted his fatherâs behavior and words â and, as weâll find out later on, his view of Bart was sadly truthful.
The Bart Chuck sees condemns his love for Blair (âYou opened your heart to Blair and that made you weakâ), for it makes him immature and unsuitable for being the businessman he is expected to become. The image of Bart tells Chuck he doesnât have âwhat it takesâ. This conviction Chuck canât let go of is so weighty and so deeply rooted that it will be one of the reasons that will lead him to betray Blair in order to save The Empire â âI did what I had to to win. I couldnât let my feelings cost me all that Iâve builtâ (3X17).
As I said, Chuckâs perception of his father was exact. In episode 5X24 it becomes clear that he judges his sonâs love for Blair and in general his feelings as a demonstration of his irresponsibility other than what keeps him from being a âgreat manâ and from âgrowing upâ.
Itâs only logical to assume that Bartâs reiterated insistence to urge Chuck to repress his emotions and, overall, his disdain for the mere existence of those feelings and the consequential shaming, led Chuck to try to suppress them as much as he could.
The constant repression is something Iâll talk about later in the essay while analyzing other traits. Though, it is important to underline the fact that Chuck tends to keep his emotions under control through a rigid process of suppression, until he canât contain them anymore. This implies that when he finds himself unable to shut down his feelings, they tend to blow up in a devastating way â for himself and for those close to him.
Itâs something that, with time, Chuck definitely learnt to handle better. It was indeed one of the crucial points of his growth; he still tends to diminish his feelings, but he manages to cope with them in a healthier way. By the end of the series, for example, he is able to accept Blairâs support and to contain the shame he feels towards his weaknesses; it doesnât happen right away and it takes patience from her and also the special delicacy she reserves him, but eventually he lets her in fully (check this scene from episode 6X08).
However, Blair remains one of his few exceptions. He is only able to show his vulnerability to a very restricted group of people who he is able to trust. Outside his âcircle of trustâ, he is still an especially cold and detached person â and I assume a pretty ruthless business man too.
2. They are terrified of intimacy and put up walls in relationships. They also fear  commitment as they expect to be rejected.
âYou couldnât handle feelings,â Blair tells Chuck in episode 3X12, giving us, as usual, the most precise insight on him and his difficulties dealing with emotions. Nevertheless, she comforts him, reminding him that heâs ânot like that anymoreâ and that heâs âbecoming a man in a way that his father never wasâ.
It is absolutely true. In spite of his fear of weaknesses, Chuck has feelings; he cares, loves and is exposed to deep emotions. He is, though, used to block them, out of shame and fear; fear of vulnerability, but also fear of the feelings themselves, of their meaning and their consequences.
The basic consequence of caring is the construction of a bond with another person, with all the risks that come with it â dependence, pain, abandon. Accepting to have feelings for someone means accepting the possibility of rejection and rejection is, to Chuck, absolutely terrifying. One of the most insightful quotes that explicates it is from episode 2X01. Trying to explain Blair why he didnât spend the summer with her and abandoned her, he says: âI was scared youâd seeâŠme.â
Here lies the core of Chuckâs personality: the conviction that no one could love him for who he is, for he is impossible to love and also impossible to âfixâ. He is irremediably broken, a destined to disappoint.
The article Iâm referring to also mentions that people with shame based personalities struggle with feeling of worthlessness and often feel ugly and flawed. In Chuckâs case, this is the consequence of a growth and an existence that has always been marked by rejection. âUnfortunately, all I know if what he didnât want,â he says, talking about his father, âwhich is meâ.
Chuckâs deep self-esteem issues have their origin in the way heâs been shamed and neglected all the way through his childhood. As a result, he is honestly convinced of his inadequateness and of its invariability. The lack of value he sees in himself is deeply characterizing; it guides, sometimes subtly and sometimes blatantly, most of his actions and decisions. For example, he was incapable of waiting for Blair on the top of the Empire State Building because he expected her not to come, since he didnât think he deserved her arrival. I donât want to discuss whether his thoughts were valid or not; itâs simply not the topic of this essay. What Iâm trying to point at is that it was tragically easy for Chuck to believe that she didnât love him anymore.
Inevitably, starting from these presuppositions, commitment and especially intimacy become incredibly scary to Chuck. Itâs not the dedication and the faithfulness they require that scares him; Chuck is, indeed, a profoundly devoted and loyal person (he values family, he has never cheated, he gives importance to long lasting friendships). Instead, his fright has its origin in the changeable nature of relationships: theyâre hazards, they bring with them the possibility of being abandoned.
Only that, to Chuck, abandon isnât a mere possibility, it is almost a certainness. Trusting that people he loves wonât leave him is incredibly hard to him, since abandon has been a constant in his life. He expects to be abandoned â and, according to him, rightfully so. People who leave him are justified by his worthlessness and their decision to give up on him is only logical.
This partially explains why he is so forgiving; recognizing peopleâs faults and responsibilities is almost superfluous to him, since, in some ways, he fundamentally thinks he deserves to be hurt. In this sense, it is important to mention how Chuck never really stopped justifying Elizabethâs behavior; by the end of season 6, in spite of all the pain she caused him, he still hadnât completely given up on contacting her (5X19), he still had her picture in his room and the combination to his strongbox was still her birthdayâs date.
In some ways, this is also connected to the lack of love and affection that sadly marked his growth; he craves to be loved so much and, at the same time, he expects so little from those who are supposed to love him that heâs willing to take whatever he can get from them and to excuse even the most horrible betrayals (see how he allowed Jack to come back into his life). Every bit of care and respect look almost miraculous to him.
As the article explains, another fundamental trait in shame-based personalities is a debilitating false guilt. As I mentioned at the beginning of the essay, guilt plays a central role in Chuckâs life. Though he isnât shy and definitely doesnât pay attention to peopleâs judgement, he does tend to feel responsible even when heâs not. Similarly to what happens with his tendency to forgive, Chuck also expects to be accused and accepts the way people blame him, even when he has no faults.
This ingrained sense of guilt, which clearly has its roots in the childhood and the teenage years spent living with the thought of having caused his motherâs death, leads to the conviction of being unable to make the woman he loves happy. Each time he lest Blair go, he does it because he is genuinely persuaded that heâll end up ruining their relationship and making her miserable; he keeps giving up on her to give her the chance to be with a better man, a less troubled, lighter person.
3.  They may be narcissistic and act as if they have it all together; alternatively, they may be completely selfless, almost to the point of being a doormat.
Both aspects of this trait show through Chuckâs behavior, since, as it often happens, his actions and his perception of himself tend to be extremely polarized and sometimes even contradictory â he goes to extremes.
He builds and invincible persona, âChuck Bassâ, who is powerful, indifferent, perfectly controlled; Chuck Bass is the façade he presents to the world, itâs his vanity, his mania of grandeur, itâs the self-satisfaction he feels when heâs called infamous, itâs his egocentrism and his arrogance. It shows through his eclectic style, through the self-celebratory way he conducts his business (his hotel is âThe Empireâ and itâs permeated with his notorious reputation), through the way he indulges the sort of legend created around his name. He enjoys his fame, his influence and heâs power hungry. Though somewhat more superficial, none of these aspects are pretended; Chuck can actually be self-centered, self-important, he can be haughty, cold and unscrupulous.
Yet, at the same time, he is incredibly fragile and he is often incapable of recognizing his value. Sometimes, actually, his selflessness is so extreme that he becomes quite literally âself â lessâ, meaning that he reaches such a worrying level of self-loathe that he ends up neglecting himself; his needs, his ambitions, his desires, even his entire personality (the beginning of season four is the most blatant example of this dysfunctionality, but part of this behavior is also recognizable through season five). He is haunted by the thought people would be happier if he was out of their lives.
4. They have a pervasive sense of loneliness and always feel like outsiders (even when others genuinely like and love them).
This trait is noticeable and inevitably linked with the ones previously mentioned. Reluctant to share his feelings and scared of building meaningful bonds with people, Chuck is profoundly reserved. Though he enjoys an active social life (parties, galas, ecc) and he is capable of being sociable (he is, among other things, also a hotel and clubs owner, so it is necessary), he still doesnât let people get too close; he constantly maintains a distance between himself and the world and he often prefers spending time alone.
It must be underlined that Chuck is an especially selective person. Since trusting people comes so difficult to him, he tends to maintain a few but very solid relationships. As Iâve already mentioned, he defines a circle of trust â one that is terribly difficult to enter and, at the same time, almost impossible to exit.
Making a quick analysis of his relationships, itâs clear how discriminating and at the same time how devoted he is: Blair isnât simply the only woman heâs ever loved, sheâs also the only one he considered building a life with; Nate has been his best friend since they were five and Chuck has never showed the need to create the same kind of bond with anyone else; once he let Lily in, he never stepped back and was actively part of her family â heâs never stopped treating Serena and Eric as his siblings.
That being said, even with his most trusted people, Chuck is still hesitant when it comes to letting his guard down and allowing himself to be vulnerable in front of them. Even Blair, who is definitely the person he trusts the most, occasionally canât reach him; she has to find a way to connect with him â sometimes she uses sex to get in touch with his blocked emotions.
As a result, Chuck has an inclination to isolate himself, since he considers his feelings incomprehensible and unacceptable; to his eyes, theyâre too dark and too horrible. This idea leads him to the conviction that he shouldnât share them and that he should deal with them alone. Aware of this belief, both Lily and Blair, actually, felt the need to remind him that they wouldnât have left even in front of his worst moments (âThe worst thing youâve ever done, the darkest thought youâve ever had, I will stand by you through anythingâ â Blair, from 2X13, âNo matter how ugly and dark your feelings may be, you shouldnât have to bear them alone. My love for you is unconditionalâ â Lily, from 5X10).
5. They are often defensive and find it hard to bear the slightest criticism. They feel as if they are being constantly watched and judged.
This trait mainly comes out through Chuckâs attitude towards business and work. He is extremely exigent with himself and incapable of considering failure as a sometimes inevitable part of life. Heâs a perfectionist and has Stakhanovism problem. Being driven by an ambition that isnât completely healthy, Chuck expects the best from himself and has a tendency to push himself too hard to reach his goals. The first few episodes of season 3 are a good example of this behavior. In episode 3X02 Chuck tells Serena: âMy father turned his first profit by the time he was 22. I hope to do it by the time Iâm 21.â
The fact that Bart is Chuckâs basis for comparison is a crucial element to analyze how this personality trait presents itself. His need to thrive and his greed for success partially have their origin in his fear to disappoint his father. Even after Bartâs âdeathâ, Chuck kept trying to please him through his dedication to business; he was constantly trying to live up to the expectations Bart had.
Driven by his tendency to forgive and by his desperate need to justify his fatherâs faults, Chuck built, over the years, some sort of idealized image of Bart: the perfect business man, the person he was supposed to become but couldnât â because of his weakness. And when, by the end of season four, this twisted view of Bart shattered, Chuck found himself having to survive a deep existential crisis. âEverything I believed about my father,â he says in episode 4X20, âeverything I thought I wanted to be, what I needed to be for him, it was all based on lies.â
The article also describes people with a shame based personalities as adults who tend to feel judged and controlled. It is important to say that, being a libertine, Chuck generally ignores peopleâs judgement when it comes to his morality, to his way of living and to his values. This careless attitude, though, has a few essential exceptions.
The first exceptions are Blair and Lily. Chuck truly values their judgements and not only when theyâre positive. Since he respects them and feels supported and understood by them, heâs willing to accept even their criticisms. Their opinions and advice have a positive effect on him and they generally manage to encourage him and make him feel better about himself â or, at least, to question his actions. The key of his trust and respect for them lies in the way he knows that behind their words there are acceptance and care. Their loyalty and their affection isnât necessarily linked with his actions â they would always forgive him and love him for who he is rather than for what he does.
Bart, however, represents a negative exception. His judgement, whether actual or simply imagined by Chuck, influences Chuckâs behavior through fear of rejection
In some ways, for a long time, Chuck lived with the perpetual feeling of being tested by this unreachable man he had to satisfy (âItâs like heâs setting me up to fail from beyond the graveâ Chuck, 2X15). In other words, Chuck turned his successes into a mean to finally conquer his fatherâs love and acceptance and his failures into confirmations that he didnât deserve his fatherâs approval and affection. In both cases, affection â or lack of it â is linked to an action; Chuckâs personality, indeed, remains intolerable for Bart. Â
6.  They tend to block their feeling through compulsive behaviors
I will start by stating, just to be clear, that Chuck isnât an addict. As I said, everything in Chuckâs life is subjected to a rigid repression; and it definitely includes his use of drugs and his drinking. Under normal circumstances, even though he is a drinker and an occasional drug user, Chuck keeps his vices controlled.
That being said, it is true that, during moments of profound crisis, we saw him losing control and showing compulsive behaviors intended to keep him from feeling a pain he couldnât handle. It especially happens when Chuck has to deal with loss â since he canât elaborate it, he suppresses his emotions however he can (abusing alcohol and drugs, meaningless sex, ecc). At the beginning of season five, the repressed pain of losing Blair causes him to detach from his emotions in such a deep way that he becomes unable to feel anything â even physically.Â
It also must be mentioned that, for a long time, Chuck has had almost no respect for his life. Though the only time he was actually suicidal was after Bartâs âdeathâ (2X14), he still showed till season five a dangerous carelessness with his health and with the value of his existence. He was often reckless and irresponsible; to use his own words from 3X22, he âdidnât care if he lived or diedâ.
His attitude towards sex, though, is probably the clearest example of a compulsive behavior implemented to suffocate feelings.
Thereâs no shame in sex and itâs not my intention to judge anyoneâs sex life as right or wrong. Chuck was a precocious boy; he had his first sexual experience at the age of eleven, he is a very sexual, passionate person and eroticism certainly has an important role in his life. He enjoys sex and heâs completely open-minded about any kind of practices in this area.
However, itâs undeniable that he also uses sex to kill the pain. Generally, to Chuck, sex and intimacy donât coincide. He doesnât establish a connection with his sexual partners; he never sees them again after (in 2X21, he mentions he only has sex with people once) and sometimes entertains himself with escorts â the less emotionally demanding way to have sex ends up being paying for it. While sex (even random one) is usually an engaging experience, to Chuck sometimes it is a mere mechanical act that has the only purpose to numb sufferance and anxiety.
Blair, of course, is an exception. She was the first person with whom he managed to build a true connection, to the point that sex became fundamental in their relationship. With her, he reaches a complete emotional involvement; he concedes himself to her fully, heâs generous, trusting and attentive. It is interesting to notice, as Iâve already mentioned, that when Chuck is emotionally blocked, Blair consciously uses sex to reach out to him, for she knows that a physical connection with her will also lead to an emotive one (for example, she seduces him to bring him to say âI love youâ in 2X25 and in 3X14 she has sex with him before he manages to talk to her about his mother).
7. They find it hard to establish and enforce healthy boundaries with others.
Considering everything Iâve explained, it is understandable why building healthy relationships for Chuck is hard â and why he had to work so hard on himself in order to handle them better. I think itâs safe to admit, at least from my point of view, that his relationships will never be completely âhealthyâ (although this is a pretty relative concept), for the simple fact that he is, logically, a profoundly and somewhat irreparably damaged person.
That being said, over time and thanks to a long and hard journey, Chuck learnt to cope with his daemons and to make his relationships work in a less dysfunctional way; he learnt that he doesnât own the ones who he loves, that trust is fundamental for a bond to be unbreakable, that relationships work through compensation and ability to compromise and, eventually, that allowing the people he chose to spend his life with to see his weakest, most vulnerable sides doesnât mean failing; it means accepting their love and their support and allowing them to make him stronger.
Above all, trusting people represented the biggest problem to Chuck and his inability to do so was often the main reason behind the crisis of his relationships.
Having been tested his whole life by his father (it is my opinion, for example that Bart left him the responsibility of Bass Industries when he faked his death with the intention to see if he was capable), Chuck used to assume that testing his loved onesâ loyalty was the only way he had to be sure of their affection. Itâs a behavior that often puts him in a lose/lose situation. What happens in 3X17 is probably the most exhaustive example.
Betrayed by his mother, Chuck tests Blairâs love and devotion in a way that sets him up for losing her: if Blair accepts to have sex with Jack, she gives him a proof of her love, but she betrays his trust; if she doesnât accept, then her love isnât what he expected it to be. Either ways, heâll be destroyed.
His difficulty to trust people is also what brings him to be so jealous and to expect from others the same exclusivity he gives to relationships. In his friendship with Nate, for example, he doesnât tolerate other peopleâs intrusions; Nateâs need to have a wider circle of friendships almost feels like a betrayal to Chuck, since his fear of abandon leads him to think those who love him will find someone better than him and realize heâs worthless.
His insecurity tends to make him suspicious and his inability to communicate his feelings and his needs leads him to manipulate people around him to keep them from leaving him.
In conclusion, I think Chuck shows all the traits of a shame based personality. Personality is, according to my view, an only marginally changeable element; consequentially, it is my opinion that the dysfunctionalities coming from the structure of personality Chuck presents still belong to his life and inevitably play a role in it. However, a journey of growth and evolution taught him to live with it in a healthier way, one that allowed such a damaged and emotionally deficient person to build a happy life for himself and for his family.
And Iâd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, Iâd find you and Iâd choose you. (CoS)
[contains spoilers; tw: blood]
When they ask me about the purest love story out there, I'd show them these two.
It's not the sacrifice per se that makes it great for me, it's the way they feel about each other, about the love they give and receive. Even in their last/worst moments, they somehow find the courage because the other one is safe? Im Sol is scared out of her mind handling this traumatic ordeal on her own so she seeks help from the detectives. Her only peace of mind is that at least Seon Jae is safe. Then she learns about his phone call and doesn't spare a second to run. The same girl who was so scared a while back throws all caution out of the window the moment Seon Jae is in danger, because she'd risk her life than Seon Jae's. Can you imagine the trauma seeing him dying for the third time, and her actually witnessing it this time around? If I were Im Sol, I would do anything to not have to go through that too. Even if it meant losing the person so they were never my person to begin with.
And Seon Jae. Boy is dying. Dying. You can see it in his eyes that he's aware of it too and yet, he is so grateful? So at peace with himself and with life? Like he has no regrets about any unfinished business, unlived years, unattained dreams, unspoken words to his loved ones. He already told Im Sol he loved her, and she reciprocated. That was enough. For him, that was good enough.
I go back to this scene like a masochist because THE DETAILS. By the time Im Sol arrives, you know Seon Jae is beyond saving. He knows it too. He's not even trying to escape or save himself. It looks like he's been holding on on his own for a while. His face has turned ashen, breathing uneven, hands slightly shaking. He's barely holding it together. Barely there.
However, he is not trying to push that guy away or take that knife out.
Instead, he's holding that guy's hand.
Let that sink in for a moment.
He is holding on to that hand. JUST SO HE CAN HOLD ON TO THE GUY.
Since the taxi driver is at an advantage here, and Seon Jae knows he cannot fight back anymore, so he is using whatever he can as a last resort to keep the guy occupied with him, and keep him from going after Im Sol. Seon Jae could perhaps guess Im Sol would arrive any time since the cliff was where he'd found her earlier, sitting in shock. But even if she didn't make it, you can bet he'd have spent his last breaths trying to fall off the cliff taking the guy down with him. THIS SCENE. The resolution is so clearly etched on his face.
And then he sees her. And the detectives. She is safe. She is saved. He did it. He saved her. And it's the Im Sol who knows him, who recognizes him, who loves him. She is safe, and that's all that matters. He saved the person he loves more than his life, literally.
His job is done. The choice he made gave him the outcome he wanted and desperately fought for.
And he is exhausted. All that resolve took a lot out of him. So we see his body finally giving up, him finally letting go. He resigns to his fate, but also not in a resentful way. He knew this was his fate all along (because no matter what choice Im Sol made, he'd choose to run toward her any day), it just happened earlier than expected. But he knew it, and he still made that choice. He doesn't regret it because he'd be making the same choice in every timeline (as he has been). He is able to see his Im Sol for one last time before his eyes close, with memories of their time together and Im Sol's voice echoing in his ears, his soul.
Sometimes you know the consequences, but make the same choice anyway. Because you like it.
The faint smile on his face in his final moments before he falls off the cliff? You'd think the boy won a gold medal for swimming or something. It's like he's achieved the biggest purpose there was in his life besides loving Im Sol. True to his words, he is grateful Im Sol exists in the world. That he got the chance to love her because she exists in this world. And he is thankful he gets to leave the world knowing Im Sol still exists in the world, his gift from the heavens.
One is jumping through space and time, living the same nightmare, constantly, over and over again, and yet going out of her way to save her love. Even if it means carrying the trauma and heartbreak and pain and loneliness and longing of three, four, multiple timelines, for the same guy. The other is making the choice to love her through all the storm, all the warnings, all the odds of time and space and fate stacked against him. How could you be so brave when fate is both so very kind and yet so extremely cruel to you no matter what you do? How do you choose to persevere? How do you get to have a love so pure?
Should I be ready to die if I want to be with you? - Ryu Seon Jae
Itu adalah satu hal yang ia sadari selama empat tahun mengenal gadis itu. Bukan karena Kenzo pernah menghindar atau tidak ingin melihat, Aileen hanya tidak pernah menangis. Setidaknya tidak di hadapannyaâentah kalau di belakang. Tetapi Kenzo yakin Aileen tidak melakukannya untuk menyembunyikan perasaan sebab yang ia pahami, gadis itu memang bukan tipikal yang mudah menangis. Menonton Miracle in Cell No. 7 pun tidak menangisâgadis itu hanya tiba-tiba menjadi pendiam dan tidak nafsu makan selama dua hari. Kalau ada sesuatu yang sampai membuat air matanya meleleh, berarti hal itu memang sangat personal untuknya, misalnya ketika neneknya pergi. Itu pun semata-mata berdasarkan pengakuan AileenâKenzo tidak pernah mendapat bukti konkritnya.
Dan Kenzo pun sesungguhnya memang tidak ingin melihat gadis itu menangis. Apalagi jika sampai menjadi alasan di baliknya. Itu sebabnya tiap kali keduanya menghabiskan waktu bersama, ia akan selalu memastikan bahwa gadis itu tidak sedih. Atau kesal. Atau kecewa. Satu hal yang dulu selalu ia tanyakan pada Aileen tiap mengantar gadis itu pulang adalah are you happy?
Pertanyaan yang kini tiba-tiba menjadi retoris.
Sebab malam ini, genangan air yang tidak pernah Kenzo lihat itu muncul di pelupuk mata Aileenâberkilauan ditempa cahaya lampu lima watt teras laboratorium Teknik Mesin.
Gadis itu sedang berdiri dalam jarak tiga langkah di hadapannya, dalam balutan gaun bunga-bunga biru tua semata kaki dan rambut yang terurai, dilatari kegelapan tempat parkir Fakultas Teknik Mesin. Tangan kanannya memeluk beberapa dokumen berjilidâmungkin laporanâdan di bahu kirinya tersampir tote bag abu-abu yang biasa ia kenakan. Kenzo tidak banyak menatap ke arah gadis itu dan keremangan lampu teras yang berkedip tiap sepuluh detik di atas keduanya juga sesungguhnya tidak memperjelas apa-apa, tetapi rasanya Aileen menguarkan aura yang berbeda.
Meski ada air yang siap terjatuh kapan saja dari sudut matanya, malam ini gadis itu terlihat berkali-kali lipat lebih cantik dari biasanya.
Mungkin ada perubahan pada diri Aileen yang belum ia sadari, mungkin matanya hanya memainkan ilusi sebab sudah cukup lama sejak terakhir kali ia menatap gadis itu dari jarak sedekat iniâKenzo tidak tahu.
Yang ia tahu, jika salah satu di antara keduanya tidak segera menyingkir dari hadapan masing-masing, ia akan dapat melihat air di mata Aileen itu mengukir sungai di pipinya.
Kenzo tidak ingin menyaksikan pemandangan itu. Maka ia tiba-tiba berjongkok dan melepas simpul tali sepatunya, berpura-pura membetulkan ikatan yang sesungguhnya sama sekali tidak mengganggu. Dalam suara yang nyaris tidak terdengar, laki-laki itu bergumam, "Pulang, Leen. Udah malem."
Keheningan menggantung sejenak di sana. Jenis keheningan yang pekat dan untuk Aileen mungkin penuh pertanyaanâatau ketidaksetujuanâyang tak terucap. Kenzo menyadarinya, tetapi ia tidak ingin mengubah apapun. Laki-laki itu merangkai simpul tali sepatunya pelan-pelanâberharap bisa menghindar dengan ini. Dan sebelum Kenzo akhirnya melihat sepasang sepatu kets putih gadis itu berbalik, ia mendengar suara Aileen yang bergetar mengucapkan, "Fine. Take care, Kenzo."
Bahkan di saat-saat seperti ini pun gadis itu masih peduli padanya. Kenzo mengangkat kepala, menatap punggung kecil yang berjalan menjauh itu.
Ia yakin dapat melihat bahu gadis itu bergetar.
Lalu Kenzo teringat kata-katanya pada Aileen di suatu siang tahun laluâketika gadis itu protes merasa diperlakukan seperti anak kecil sebab Kenzo selalu bertanya apakah dirinya senang. Jelasnya kala itu, "Biar aku tau, aku gagal atau enggak.
"Maksudnya?"
"Dari awal, tujuan aku ada di sini buat bikin kamu happy, Leen."
Aileen ber-oh sejenak, lalu dengan senyumannya yang menurut Kenzo layak disanjung dunia itu ia berkata, "There's no need to keep wondering about that, Kenzo. As long as I'm with you, I'm happy."
Angin dingin entah dari mana tiba-tiba menusuk punggungnya.
âwho constantly makes me question whether I really know you or not
---
Dear you,
Do you know how much Iâm glad you insisted we make an extra effort for that one photobox picture?Â
I knew how sleepy you were at that time so I wasnât in any intention to counteract if ever you want to end the night without having itâthe perks of being cashless kids, huh?Â
But insteadâand honestly to my surprise, you said itâd be a loss for that nightâs memories, so we ended up going here and there to find an ATMâwhich of course had to only issue the cash of 100k, then did some impulsive buying so that we could get our hand on the 50k oneâhahaha, what a memory.
Iâm glad because I used to thinkâlots of timesâthat it would be the only picture we took of us two. Together.
Right, it wasnât anything near a walk in a park for us to get to where we are today.Â
You and Iâweâboth know that.
Quite well.
We may still be in the stage of being nobody to each other but in these intertwined circles of our lives, Iâve gotten to know the very taste of walking on the glass shredsâwhich unknowingly, was also the exact reason for the poignant sensation that you used to bear in your silence.
Iâm glad weâve overcome those times.
We learned.
We mended what we could.
And itâs enough.
For now.
And may I wish for our journey to be a long one?
Am I allowed to say that what we went through was only the beginning and we still have a long way to go?
Do we really still have a long way to go?
To be honest, I canât see where this would lead us to.
What exactly would be ours?
Will we end up fermenting these memories until they become bittersweet in the box of 'Itâs been nice to know you, thank you, and goodbye'?
Is it possible for someone to reap every sliver of nostalgia that exudes slowly from a photograph they never even know the essence of?
It is the exact question thatâs been taking the biggest part of the mystery my brain couldnât solve just yet. A question that makes me love going around Switzerland through Google Maps and why it is the one country I desperately want to visit.
Iâve never been there before, obviously, but the calming and gloomy and cloudy atmospheres on some part of the country (as captured on Google Maps) reminds me so much to a certain time in the past.Â
It couldâve been from the vibes of the pictures in a foreign parenting magazine that I found in my house years ago. This is a very vague memory but I remember the pictures in the magazine includes those photoshoots of kids as models for a clothing line ad with cloudy background.
Or maybe it couldâve started from the way I keep feeling nostalgic whenever I see certain big houses. By certain, I mean those big old houses that looks like they never get taken care ofâwith their already peeled-off white paint or their moss covered spots here and there. Everytime I see them, Iâd desperately want to go inside, to know how is it insideâŠ.
It wouldâve made sense if only those houses are part of my childhood, isnât it? If only I lived in a luxury house, or luxury residence, or I ever went inside one. But I didnât live surrounded by big houses, let alone entering one. The only thing I could remember from my childhood, that I was ever exposed with an abundance of big houses was only by seeing it on the road leading to my dadâs office. If this is it, I kind of understand whyâmaybe. Iâm not really sure but this is the closest I could come up with.
Years ago, when I havenât stepped on the double digit age but post kindergarten era, I loved going to my dadâs office. His then office used to possess a big (for my 7-8 year old self, it was big) meadow and a gazebo-like buildingâIâd say it simply as an open hall. So in the hall, there was a bedroom and a kitchen. It was the exact place where the owner of the company lived whenever heâs in town (he was a foreigner so it wasnât an everyday thing that it was occupied).
I remember I loved the meadow.
I loved the open hall.
So on Sundays, I often asked my dad to bring me there. Somehow, in one part of my memories, I know I once opened a fancy overseas chocolate box gifted by the companyâs owner in that exact kitchenâshells shaped chocolate, I remember it clearly. And if I were to trust my memory on this part, the back side of the open hall is a clearing, where the ground was filled with loose stones (like those on the railways). And the wall that separated the office with the building on the other side was overgrown by ficus pumila a.k.a creeping fig.
So the whole thingâthe road leading to, the meadow and the creeping fig in my dadâs officeâif I can say are the things that furnished my core memories.
Happiness in the childhood.
So I love seeing big houses.
I want to know whatâs on the inside, howâs on the inside, but thatâs not what makes me, everytime I stay over in the island, always pull a road trip with my sister to some luxury neighborhoodâespecially those on the road leading to my dadâs past office. Instead itâs the nostalgic feeling I was slammed with everytime I see those that I was looking for. Later in life, I wish I will be able to own a luxury house. For, instead of wanting to live a luxury live, I wish it for me to be able to live in the tone of my childhood. Simply to be able to feel the nostalgia everyday, up close, from the first hand.
Switzerlandâs been my ultimate dream destination since forever for an obvious reason.
P.S. Google Street is such a knight in shining armor.
This was the picture you took of me the day we threw that sudden trip to this lonely field.Â
You said it felt as if looking at a little oasis fairy that you found unexpectedly between the desperate-looking dry reeds.
Such a silly metaphor, I thought at first. I pushed your arm out of embarrassment and laughed. You kept saying that you were being serious, but I kept laughing, so eventually, you laughed along.
If only you know, the ghost of your laugh that afternoon still haunts me even after all these years.
Then I took this picture of you.Â
Do you know the reason I brought this memory up all of a sudden?
Itâs the moment.
You know how much I love taking your candid shots and so was it back then. And upon looking through the lens, I thought that maybe you were right.
That maybe I was indeed a little fairy, living between the grass, who suddenly encountered an unfamiliar creatureâso breathtaking that I had to stare for so long.Â
At that very moment, time felt like it was abruptly forced to stop and everything within my sight was monochrome but you.
The moment I wish I didnât take for granted.
Would you please tell me, where should I go to have it all again? Tell me, what should I do to be able to live in that moment forever?Â
It doesnât matter if Iâd only be able to look at you from afar, but please, let me at least find you.
Because just like how you found an oasis fairy in that drying field of reeds, I too, want to find a you in this drying life of mine.
It was the very first snowfall night of the year, sitting on a somber metal bench of a bus stop, Ran was once again swept away in the pieces of the past she desperately wanted to forget.
And this time, she couldn't run away.
---
In this three hours before midnight, could this day get any worse?
It was the rhetoric that kept echoing in Ranâs head as she half dragged her right foot across the office hallway. An ironic, knowing that she had a thoroughly arranged scenario in her head when she woke up this morningâsheâd finish her morning routine in half an hour, arrive at the office fifteen minutes later, and there would be a good twenty minutes to prepare herself for this morning's agendaâa design concept presentation in front of her clients which if ends up smoothly, the sought-after interior design tender of a five-star hotel in Kusatsu will be hers. A quite promising scenario if only she didn't have to deal with her carâs drama this morning.
Ran was now considering taking off her five-centimeter-heeled boots. Shizuokaâs temperature had fallen to minus four tonight and at this rate, snow might fall any time. Ran seemed to have to overlook that fact now as the pain in her ankle was already unbearable to be ignored. After all, walking barefoot seventy meters to the nearest bus stop shouldnât freeze her feet in an instant.
Ran finally carried her ankle-high black boots before descending the hall steps. As she walked down the paved road to the bus stop in the cold, Sera's comment yesterday about the strange sound of her car engine echoed in her headâRan, I think you need to have a check-up on your car. Ran actually had that intention in her mind for a few days already, but with a pretty hectic schedule latelyâpreparing everything for that consequential presentationâshe never really got around until that white Mazda couldn't start this morning.
That was the beginning.
Everything then started going downhill from there.
She had to run to catch a bus that would leave in two minutes, sprained her ankle for her footwear wasn't made for running, arrived at her office two minutes before the presentation schedule, then hurriedly took the elevator to the nineteenth floor. And the moment Ran displayed the presentation file from her disk before those clients, she knew she had to give up on that tender.
The bus stop beside the deciduous magnolia tree was empty when Ran arrived. The only thing that greeted her was a gray metal bench that looked cold under the dim light of the fluorescent tube lamp. Ran sat on it, looking out at the quiet road. There were only one or two vehicles passed. The clock that was hanging languidly in the left corner of the bus stop displayed 9:14 p.m. There were still around sixteen minutes before the bus arrived.
For the next few minutes, silence frequented the bus stop more than the roar of vehicles. The serenity was actually the only thing Ran wanted now after all the chaos she went through since morning. Unfortunately, it still wasnât enough to put her mind to rest when these thoughts keep piercing herâif only she took her car to the repair shop sooner, if only she woke up earlier this morning, if only she took her flat shoes instead, if only she ran through all her presentation file last night, if only this, if only that.
Coping with the âif onlyâ is always the hardest. Thatâs the one thing Ran knew by heart.
Even after all these years.
Ran felt her phone vibrate. A message from Sonoko came in, reminding Ran of her supposed trip to Tokyo for the Coldplay concert tomorrow eveningâYour train is scheduled to arrive at 2 pm, right? Letâs meet at the parking lot near the south exit tomorrow. Weâll grab some lunch at this one yakisoba restaurant my family frequents around there. See you!
Underneath Sonokoâs, there was another one that had been left unopened since two hours ago. From Kazuha. Ran felt as if she could hear the Osakan woman's enthusiastic voice when she read the messageâRan-chan! Do you fancy a trip to Niseko next weekend? It's been a whole year since the last time I went skiing, I badly want to go... We can book the hotel for like two or three nights. Thereâs also this well-known spa downtown, letâs pamper ourselves before the hectic year-end season, shall we? Guarantee you, itâll be our best trip of the year!
Upon reading those messages, Ran couldn't help but look at the alphabet and numbers displayed on the top left corner of her cell phone screen.
December 21st.
Itâs already that time of the year, huh?
The last weeks of the year. The weeks when the first snow is always expected to start falling. The weeks, which for the past few years, Ran had always spent by keeping herself busy. Taking more projects, overtime, sleepover, vacations, year-end concerts, drinking nights, anything. Ran was even the only one without complaint when her office decided that the year-end holiday would only be on the two days of Christmas and the last day of December. Anything she would do as long as these last weeks could pass faster. Anything, that could make her forget every memory in December all those years ago.
Her friends understood her very well.
Unfortunately, tonight, in the midst of the slowly falling first snow and a throbbing ankle, those memories filled her againâforcibly pulling her to drown in the pieces of the past she never wanted to remember.
And she couldn't run away.
Ran looked over the seemingly drearier road before her. Thinking how much longer she had to be hereâwaiting. It was almost twenty minutes to ten at night.
This will definitely be a long night.
+
The white bus was finally within her sight ten minutes later.
Late, but she was fine with it. At least that bus actually arrived. There was a pile of snow on its roofâmust be from some areas with higher snowfall intensity. The roads mustâve been starting to be closed thus forcing all those vehicles to take another route.
Just like those nights.
The nights that made Ran always imagine if it werenât for the fact that it snowed back then, maybe everything in her life would be different.
Everything.
Including how the call that was finally picked up after dozens of missed calls and a hustled greeting of âRan, can we talk later?â ended that night.
It was still vivid in her mind how that nightâone day in the last two weeks of December five years ago, sitting on the metal bench of the bus stop in front of her former workplace in Beika, she struggled to maintain her intonation as normal as possible when her teeth started to chatter. âNo, Shinichi. I need to talk to you this instant.â
Some commotion was audible from across the call line and Ran could already guess what he would say next, âButââ
âPlease.â
From the other end of the line, Ran could faintly hear him asking for permission from the people around. Sorry and excuse me Iâve got to take this callâthe words Ran suddenly despise so much. It wasn't long before the noise on the other end of the phone faded and Ran could hear his tired voice asking, âWhat is it?â
Ran closed her eyes and took a deep breath at the questionâtrying to suppress the already overwhelming emotions.
âYou really have to do it like this, do you?â
âWhat are you talking about?â
âDo you really have to text me that you just canceled our appointment and ask me to go home alone like that?â
âThis is a critical case, Ran. I still can't come back to Beika tonight. We have to investigate the trail before tomorrow morning to avoid another victim,â Shinichi tried to explain. âYou surely understand that I can't just leave like that, right?â
On other occasions, those sentences would probably sound just like how Shinichi usually tried to give her understanding. But with his tone that night, it was hard not to interpret that he was tired of having to explain the same thing over and over againâwhich lit up her fury.
âShinichi, I don't mind you doing and being responsible for your job, but you shouldâve at least told me in advance that you probably won't be able to comeâŠ.â
âSorry, Ran. I've been so occupied since this morning and everything here suddenly requires extra attention. Let's postpone this dinner, shall we?â
Shinichi didn't get her point, did he?
Really, it wasn't the dinner Ran was furious about. Even though it was the only thing sheâd been looking forward to all week. Even though she knew her meeting with Shinichi that nightâafter being away from each other for more than two weeksâwould be a special one. Even though she knew that the weather forecast showed an eighty percent probability that it would snowâRan had been monitoring the news for the past few days. Anniversary day, anniversary dinner, first meeting after a while, all the while watching the snowflakes falling for the first time in the yearâa scenario that was now just mere wishful thinking.
âI shouldâve just taken the nine p.m. bus when I found out that it was the last one for today. Beika had been on minus five since eight, Shinichi, and I know the main routes are closed now. How stupid I am still waiting in our usual meeting place alone for two hours, dealing with the cold just because I was afraid you were already on your way with no battery, thus you couldn't call me....â Ran saw the white steam of her breath from her blurred vision. âApparently, it was all for nothing.â
At that second, it was clear that there was no point in lingering at the dim bus stop any longer. Her nose and throat hurt more and more and Ran had tightened her woolen scarf many times. No bus had come to stop since an hour ago. At that point, she had to start moving toward the subway unless she wanted to struggle her way through the thick white carpet that covered most of the road and miss the last train that night.
Silence occupied the line between the both of them for a while before Shinichi's faint voice was heard. âRanâŠ, I'm sorryâŠ.â
Months after that call, in a more eased and rational state of mind, Ran realized that maybe the case Shinichi was working on at that time indeed took his whole thoughts and attention. Perhaps that was why Ran didn't get the response or explanation she expected for the issue she brought up.
But that night, Ran didn't think that far.
She couldn't and didn't have the time to think to that extent.
âYou know, Shinichi? All this time, every time our plans were suddenly canceled due to your demanding work, I always try to understand youâthat it's okay we can go out another time, itâs okay if you can only tell me at the last minute. One-two times you forgot to give me a call, didn't pick up the phone or replied to my messages, I tolerated it. But this time, I don't think I can take it anymore.â A gust of wind slipped into the bus stop. Ran shivered for a moment.
âI get it that you mightâve forgotten this appointment. Itâs okay Shinichi, really. But when you remember that, donât you owe me any explanation? Is it that hard for you to spare your time to call and explain? To even acknowledge that someone is waiting for you? Iâd appreciate you a lot more if only you made the effort to call me. And not just merely texted me hours after our appointed time, suddenly saying youâre canceling our plan like this. Iâve been waiting for hours, your phone was off all day that I couldnât reach your call line, and you donât even care to explain to me directly....â Her throat suddenly choked and Ran struggled to finish the next sentence she wanted to convey.
âYou don't even care to ask me how am I doing right now.â
Ran tightened her coat even more and her gloveless right hand that held the cell phone had almost gone numb. Shinichi repeatedly said his sorry, asked her exact whereabouts and offered to ask someoneâs help to pick her up. But at that point, Ran didn't care anymore and she really wanted to end the call.
That night, Ran didnât know whether pouring everything over the phone was the right thing to do. But she needed that. She needed to vent out all her emotionsâall those feelings of being let down, forgotten, unappreciated, and those crushed expectations. She even envied his colleagues for being able to hear his apology and permission to leave directly. Is it that hard for Shinichi to do the same thing to her? Moreover, Ran had never held him back when he canceled their appointmentâShinichi shouldâve already known thatâso what held him not to do so?
And perhaps, Beika's first snow that night also took a part in worsening everything. Perhaps, the cold was another factor holding her back from thinking clearly. The freezing air that night mightâve been some kind of extra fuel to her fury that made everything light up even more in flamesâprompting Ran to hang up one-sidedly with âI don't even know if I want this relationship anymore or not.â
+
Ran wasn't the only passenger on the white bus. The back seats were occupied by several people in unkempt-looking formal attireâpossibly just finished their overtime like herself. Sitting behind the driver were an old woman and a ginger-haired boy. The boy was holding a thin cardboard box. The box colors were something Ran was familiar withâthe colors of sparklers packaging.
Ran averted her gaze.
Outside the window, the town looked just ready to celebrate the approaching New Year. The golden string lights hanging on almost every building looked as if they were running against the white Shizuoka streetsâthe warm sight everyone looks forward to every year.
Everyone but Ran.
She was probably the only one surrounded by cold every time she encountered such a sight.
The bus dropped her at a stop about one hundred meters away from her apartment. The road was now entirely hidden beneath the snow, forcing Ran to put on her black boots backâto which she thought if only the price were a bit more friendly, she might have pulled the torturing heels forcibly off.
Just the same thought as what she had on that one night five years ago.
The night when she had to drag her sprained left leg after her boot got stuck in a pavement crack on her way to the nearest subway station. Her call with Shinichi a few minutes earlier had left her too distracted to pay attention to the road and neither did December wind that night help cool her head down. Throughout the rest of her way back, Ran struggled to regulate her breathing due to her messed emotions that were exacerbated by the torturous boots.
It's funny how everything suddenly seemed to pull herself back to those days.
The next time Ran talked to Shinichi was on the next afternoon when she found a black Pajero Sport parked in front of her office basement parking elevator. She had memorized the licensed plate number by heart, that was how she came to recognize the car. Ran had been trying to avoid all kinds of contact Shinichi had attempted since the night beforeâshe turned her cell phone off right after hanging up on him and ignored his incoming calls and messages ever since activating her cell phone back in the morning. It didn't take long for her to find the owner of the black Pajero with his back to her, leaning against her carâs driver door. Shinichi turned around when he heard the white Mazda lock open.
âWhat are you doing here?â Ran asked, half hissing. She looked around the basement parking lot, hoping no one but the two of them was there.
Shinichi walked to the front of the car hoodâto where she was standing. âRan, I really am sorry for yesterday.â
Ran could hear faint chatter from the direction of the basement elevator. Several employees with briefcases were also started to walk past the two of them. Parking lot and the end-of-work hourâthis place will get even more crowded in a few minutes. Ran said uncomfortably, âJust go, Shinichi.â
âLet me drive you home,â he insisted. âWe've got to talk about this, Ran. Just leave your car here.â
âI don't have anything to talk to you, Shinichi.â Ran struggled to keep her voice low. âPlease give me some time to make up my mind,â she added as she tried to walk toward the driver's door.
The blue-eyed man got in her way.
âThen take this,â he begged her. Shinichi held out a clear plastic bag containing two green-yellow oval wraps. The smell that suddenly wafted from the package brought Ran to the realization that in some aspects, this man truly understood her. âPlease. At least I know you have something to eat.â
That sentence made Ran pay actual attention to the man before her.
Shinichi must have just arrived at Beika. He looked truly disheveled that afternoon. His bangs messed up, his beige cashmere coat and the black shirt he wore underneath were wrinkled here and there as though they had been worn for days, the bags under his eyes were more visible than the last time she had seen him, and that tired expression on his faceâit was like seeing Shinichi in one midnight a few months earlier when he came with the same disheveled appearance to an ER of one hospital in Beikaâs downtown.
Ran also still didnât know how she was able to drive from her office to the nearest hospital when stomach cramps and extreme nausea suddenly stroked her in the middle of her overtime. She couldnât contact anyone that midnightâRan was the only one sticking around at the office to meet a design deadline, her cell phone ran out of battery, and she left her charger at the apartment. Ran eventually had to borrow the nurseâs cell phone and dialed a number she had memorized for years. That was until Shinichi who was also working late that night came and ended up nagging all dayâcursing her habit of forgetting meals every time she had lots going on in her mind.
Ran shifted her gaze back to the package.
That meeting was supposed to be a pleasant one. They hadn't seen each other for over two weeks and there were many things Ran wanted to doâhugging the man in front of her, exchanging stories, eating together, or simply sitting by his side. However, no matter how desperate Ran wanted to let go of her longing, there was one thing she couldn't yet be oblivious toâthe disappointment that was still lingering. And she knew, whatever effort Shinichi attempted would not change anything if she still couldn't come to terms with her feelings.
Ran ignored the offer. She once again tried to walk past the man in front of her and made every effort to walk as normal as possible. However, Ran knew she wasn't shrewd enough to deceive the young detective when Shinichi suddenly grabbed her arm, holding her from going any further. âWhat happened to your leg?â
Ran stomped her hand. âLet go, Shinichi.â
âNo.â Shinichi tightened his grip even more. âHow did you get home yesterday?â
Ran laughed blandly. She turned her head and threw him a look of disbelief. âThat's quite a pointless question, you know?â
Ran felt that she couldn't hold back anymore at that point, so before anyone could notice the tension between the two of them, she stomped her hand harder. âJust leave. I don't want to see you now.â
Shinichi's grip loosened and Ran took the opportunity to quickly get into the car. Her cheeks were wet as soon as she sat behind the steering wheel and her shaking hands made the key she was holding slip from the hole many times. Shinichi kept knocking on her car window, calling out her name and asking her to open the door.
That afternoon, Ran wanted to reach her apartment as fast as she can then cry her heart outâbehind the door, on the couch, under the shower, on top of the pillows, anywhere. All Ran knew was that it was the decision she had to takeâgiving herself some time to cool off and considering how should their relationship go. And perhaps by staying away for a while, she could emphasize to Shinichi that there were limits he really need to take into account in his actions.
What she didnât know was that years later, on every single day, sheâd wonder what if it wasnât the decision she made. What if she eventually got to sit next to him in his black Pajero Sport, reconciled, and maybe enjoyed the Subway sandwich in that clear plastic bag while telling each otherâs storiesâas they always did.
No one had the answer.
+
Ran never arrived at her apartment that afternoon five years ago.
A traffic jam had stretched along Teimuzu avenue and Ran's car had moved no more than a kilometer since she turned the steering wheel toward that road two and a half hours before. The heavy snow that rained over Beika that day had to be the reasonâavalanches, vehicles stuck in the snow, an overly dangerous roadâwhatever was happening up ahead.
Ran turned on the cabin lights and looked at her reflection through the rearview mirror. She was clearly disheveled. Her eyes were visibly swollen, her nose was red, her dried tears had formed rivers on her cheeks, and there was mascara running down the creeks.
She felt her eyes stinging, Ran closed them for a moment.
Then the call came in.
It was already 8:49 p.m. when it caused the voice of Chris Martin whoâd been accompanied her in the long wait replaced by her ringtone. The carâs LCD displayed Heiji Hattori. Ran cleared her throat and made sure her voice didnât sound nasal. She took a deep breath before picking up the phone, wondering why did he call her.
"Hello?"
"Ran, where are you?" Heiji's voice echoed in her car.
"On my way back. What is it, Hattori?â
"Are you driving?"
Although feeling a little confused by the question, Ran affirmed.
"Ran, I need you to pull over."
Ran frowned at the request. She looked at the LCD displaying the minutes of their call and as if Heiji was physically there, she asked, âWhy?â
"I need to talk to you now," he said. âNot over the phone.â
âIs it about Kazuha?â Ran asked curiously. She had known Heiji with the same period length as Shinichi with him and her with Kazuha. But still, Ran and Heiji weren't that close. The factor that connected her and that man was because he was a close friend of Shinichi and Ran was close with Kazuha. Heiji would always be able to contact Shinichi if he needed anything, so the most likely reason for Heiji to contact her that night was his lover.
But Heiji rejected her hypothesis. "It's about something else," he answered quickly. âWhere are you to be exact? I'll pick you up."
âTeimuzu ave, and it's been on a jam since three hours ago. There's no way I can pull over anytime soon."
"Not moving at all?"
Ran looked ahead. There was still no sign of movement after the last time her car movedâtwenty minutes ago. The road across is not much different.
âCan barely move,â she replied.
Heiji was silent on the other side. Whatever he was going to say mustâve been something important and urgent if they had to meet in person, so Ran scrolled the navigation screen of her car and observed the route. There was the Teimuzu overpass to the north just about five hundred meters from her car position. She suggested for them to meet at the end of the overpass and that she would send him the location for their meetingâto which Heiji agreed.
It took Ran about forty minutes to reach their designated meeting point, a clearing under the overpass. A black Land Rover with a snow-covered roof was parked under a streetlight. Ran parked her car on its right. She soaked a tissue with water and cleaned her face, making sure she looked normal before getting out. Ran knocked on the passenger side window of the black car.
For a moment Ran thought she had mistaken the car because there was no answer from inside. The temperature was still quite chilly outside and the road looked wet among the remnants of the snow that was still piling up. Ran tightened the knot of her scarf. Heiji was talking to someone over the phone when he finally opened the door from inside. He immediately ended the call and greeted Ran with âHey, when did you finally get out of there?â
Ran went inside, feeling the immediate warmth from the car heater, and for a moment allowed herself to adjust to the temperature. "About half an hour after your callâwait...." Ran turned to the Osakan man who was reversing the car. "We're leaving?"
"Yes. Just leave your car here first, we'll come back later. Have you locked it?"
Ran nodded. Heiji started to enter the road. It was no longer snowing in that Beika-Haido border region and the road seemed to have been saltedâthat was why everything looked wet. Their visibility back then was no more than thirty meters.
"So, what is it?" Ran asked.
Heiji seemed to be concentrating on the road. âI'll tell you when we're about to arrive.â
âAnd where are we going?â
âBeika Central Library. Can you please turn on the navigator and check if we can avoid the jam, Ran? We don't want to go through the bad traffic again, do we?â
Ran wondered what was with the library, but didnât ask any further. Shinichi also often did the same thingâwonât reveal the purpose behind his actions until he was absolutely sure of the outcome. Ran thought that as a fellow detective, Heiji must have the same way of thinking.
âI think we have to go through Touto highway,â Ran said while scrolling Heiji's car navigation screen.
"The only choice?"
"Yep, itâs the only one in green."
Heiji seemed to ponder for a moment before leaning over to scroll the screen along.
"It was one of the few possible roads this afternoon too," she added.
Heiji nodded finally and asked her to turn the voice navigation on. Touto highway was without any significant congestion that night, except on one certain kilometer which required vehicles to pass alternately. A police line ran from the opposite lane, past the middle barrier to almost half the lane they were now on. The barrier was shattered into pieces and Heiji's fast speed made the two wrecked cars across the lane look even blurry in the darkness of the night and poor visibility.
âThis type of weather is terrifying,â Ran commented. "The reason for the traffic jam on Teimuzu avenue earlier also turned out to be cars stuck in the snow."
Heiji didnât say anything. Ran thought he was concentrating on the road.
The ride was quiet enough that Ran could feel the cold air outside. Even Heiji didn't bother turning on the radio or playing music to liven things up. The only sound that consistently filled up the space was the occasional woman voice from Heijiâs navigator. Ran actually had initiated conversations several times to make the atmosphere less awkward, but Heiji didn't seem interested and only answered plainly. When did you arrive in Beika? This morning. A case? Yeah. With Shinichi? Heiji nodded slightly.
The silence hung for a long time until Heiji finally spoke as the car approached the T-junction at the end of Touto highway, âDid you meet him?â
Ran froze.
She knew Heiji was referring to her boyfriend and the question brought her mind back to their meeting in the parking lot a few hours before. Not wanting to arouse suspicion, Ran immediately replied, âYeah, this afternoon. Why?â
Out of the corner of her eyes, Ran could see Heiji shaking his head slowly. Yet, Ran felt that somehow the question was too out of context to really stop there.
She turned to the man sitting behind the wheel.
Heiji seemed to be fully concentrated. His eyes were fixed on the road and Ran just realized that he didn't seem to have turned to her at all since she sat inside. His appearance was no more unkempt than the Shinichi she had met that afternoon. His hair was tousled, his sleeves were rolled up sloppily, and the hem of his shirt was sticking out. He looked at the road with some expression Ran couldn't read.
That was when she realized something.
Heijiâs breathing was deep and fast. And that body languageâhim gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white and his upright sitting that was barely propped against the back of his seatâgave an impression that he was on alert. That something was haunting him.
Accordingly, Ran couldn't help but ask, "Is something bothering you?"
The question must have been too out of the blue. "Huh?"
âYou look uneasy.â
Heiji didnât answer. Ran would be lying if she didn't sense something was wrong there, thus she asked again, "What is it that you want to talk about, Hattori?"
He kept silent. Ran could see Heiji's face hardened and his jaw strengthened, but before she could say any further, Heiji's ringtone echoed through the cabin speakers.
Heiji glanced briefly at his car's LCD which displayed Inspector Megure's name then ignored the call. The tone that continued to ring and Heiji's silence subconsciously created a strange feeling in her.
"Hattori," she called.
The ringtone ended. Heiji remained silent. The woman from Heijiâs navigator said that their destination was only one hundred meters away on their left. Heiji suddenly turned the device off.
Ran was getting annoyed.
âHattori, answer me!â
Heiji made a quick glance to the right rearview mirror and suddenly pulled the car over. Abrupt and rough.
The first sentence he said after his long silence was, "Ran, I'm sorry."
Thousands of questions filled Ran's head at that moment. What for? She wanted to ask. An apology wasnât what she needed. But before she could open her mouth, Heiji spoke, slowly, but in that situation was difficult for her to digest, "You know very well how dangerous... and terrifying this weather is...."
Ran didn't know where this conversation was going. She also didn't know whether she would like what Heiji was actually trying to say by quoting her comment on Touto highway earlier. But then she rememberedâabout how Heiji had suddenly accelerated the car as it passed that one kilometer on Touto highway and his hesitation when he found out that it was the only route they could take. And Ran then mustered up the courage to speak her mind. As if by voicing it, she could eliminate the worst that might arise.
"You're not saying it was him, are you?"
The sentence sliced ââher throat.
Heiji was still staring at the road. His hands still gripped the steering wheel although they had stopped nowâtoo tight as if his life depended on it.
"That's not the one you're going to tell me, is it?" Ran could hear the trembling of fear in her voice.
Then she saw it.
Through the window on Heiji's left, on the building across the road, the words Beika Central Library gleamed in the darkness. It was the moment Ran realized that the building was not their actual destination.
She turned hesitantly to the window at her right.
A white building was standing tall under the light rain of white flakes. There were kanji lights that made up some words on top of the building. And even though her sight started to become blurry, Ran could still make sense of what was the phraseâTokyo General Hospital.
Heiji was still silent.
There are times when a person's silence has the loudest voice. Heiji's silence that night was an instance. Hence, Ran thought she had already known the answer. Now, all that was left was the question can she still hope?
But she didn't have the courage to say it.
She thought she would not be able to hear the answer.
However, that situation was not the one where she really had a choice. And when there is no place to escape, facing it is the only answer.
Ran took a deep breath. In a quivering and almost whispering voice, she asked, "How is he?"
With a hoarse voice that was getting less and less audible, Heiji repeatedly mumbled I'm sorry.
There was no hope.
Ran stared blankly out the windshield. The string lights that adorned most of the buildings were twinkling, radiating a warm sight, but Ran had completely lost the ability to sense it. Her head slumped weakly against the back of the passenger seat. She was overwhelmed with a bunch of messed feelingsâit was like having a bomb dropped right in front of her eyes.
The last days of December had never been that cold.
+
The only thing Ran wished she had realized that night was that everything was just her imagination. That she was in a deep sleep and her tired mind decided to play that dream in response to the two emotionally draining days she had recently.
She didn't want to scream hysterically or lash out at the doctor.
She just wanted to find a way out of that suffocating nightmare.
In fact, when she saw the situation after Heiji brought her in, she realized that that fear wasnât just an illusion. It was really there. Real and obvious, on the twisted faces of those sitting on that black benchâInspector Megure, Professor Agasa, Ai Haibaraâon the only part of the hospital Ran thought she would never visit. At least not this soon.
Not for Shinichi.
Then she fell to her knees on the cold hospital floor.
Ran felt like there was a hammer hitting her head ceaselessly. She tried to take a deep breath but her chest felt too tight as if all the oxygen had suddenly been snatched from her reach. She gasped for breath as the truth slowly seeped into her consciousnessâthe fact that just a few hours earlier they were still talking to each other and now she would no longer be able to hear his voice.
From that point onwards, everything was a blur.
People started arriving after thatâTokyo police officers, some FBI members, her parents, even journalists. Ran couldn't remember who came after whom and what did they do, but she knew Sonoko and Kazuha were beside her all that night, also during the funeral on the next day. Shinichi's parents arrived almost noon the next day. Yusaku was still quite responsive even though everyone could see that he was the epitome of broken glass, Yukiko looked like she had been shattered into pieces.
Ran didn't want to ask for the details. Her head had been spinning violently enough, not sure whether she would be able to hear anything about the fatal accident. But in a situation that took many by surprise, the talk of what actually happened on the Touto highway that afternoon was unavoidable.
In the end, the chronology reached her ears.
That at around six o'clock in the afternoon, the black Pajero Sport was seen heading north with a speed of more than 70 km/h, on the icy asphalt of kilometer 47. Just a few meters before exiting the kilometer, an SUV in front of it suddenly skidded due to the slippery road and came to a halt in the middle of the road, blocking the Pajero's path. At such a high speed, it was impossible to stop the car all of a sudden, so the Pajero then swerved off the track and crashed into the barrier and a vehicle at the opposite lane.
As her mind slowly digested all the information, Ran began to understand something.
It was one thing that was also questioned while the chronology was passed by word of mouthâwhat was the reason Shinichi was on that road? Touto highway runs west of Beika toward Haido city in the north. Shinichi's house wasn't in that direction, nor was the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department where Shinichi was supposed to be chairing an important meeting at seven that night. He wouldnât reach Tokyo on time from such a far distance. After all, why drive at such high speed in bad weather? Even the incoming road user reports stated that visibility was no more than twenty meters that afternoon.
No one knew.
But Ran had a guess. She wanted to deny it, but the conjecture felt like the missing piece of the puzzle to all the questions that could never be answered.
Because there was a fact Ran just realized.
That the Touto highway was one of the few possible roads to pass that afternoon when it was snowing heavily over Beika. Consequently, the road made up the only route Ran could take to reach her apartment on the Beika-Haido borderâthe route that she actually took around the same time. That afternoon, it was not impossible that Shinichi was chasing Ran's car after their meeting in her office parking lot.
The accident happened when Shinichi was following her.
Ran massaged her temples recalling all those painful memories in her mind.
She had now spent more than thirty minutes sitting in the pantry of her apartment; shaking the wine glass on her hand, gulping down the liquid inside, refilling the empty glassâdoing all those sequences over and over again, hoping all those pieces of the past would be washed away with the crimson liquid every time she swallowed it.
It was still snowing heavily outside.
Ran didn't know if the view from the balcony window affected the atmosphere in her living room, but every piece of furniture in it looked coldâthe beige sofa next to the balcony window, the wooden coffee table, the television on the wall, the white fur rug that covered most of the floor room, also the vase of lilies in the corner. Even with the heating on and some yellow light radiating from behind the ceiling, no warmth was felt from the view of her living room. Everything that occupied the room seemed as if they just stood there and died.
When was the last time her living room felt alive?
Ran didn't remember.
All she remembered was that everything there had once been warmâand pleasant. Those bittersweet memoriesâRan only realized how much she missed that warmth when everything suddenly played out like snippets of a movie in front of her. There, back in the living room of her old apartment in Beika many years ago, Ran saw herself smiling at Shinichi who fell asleep while they were watching The Notebook; she saw the two of them sat cuddled up on the sofa, a cup of hot chocolate in each other's hands, and small talk filled the space between them; she saw the way Shinichi didn't take his eyes off her amethyst irises as he took a bite of the Subway sandwich she offered him to try; she saw how Shinichi kissed her lips in the dim candle lights on her birthday; she saw the two of them lit up some sparklers on the balcony against the colorful Beika New Year's sky; she saw herself ran around in the living room avoiding Shinichi who was trying to poke her cheeks with birthday cake cream, both laughed out loud.
âWe were so happy. Do you see that?â she smiled faintly and asked, either to whom.
Tonight, for the umpteenth time, Ran found herself desperately wishing to be granted the chance to turn back time and change everything.
Because if only that night she didnât wait at the freezing bus stop;
If only she could control her anger;
If only she acted a bit wiser;
Maybe Shinichi didn't have to follow her that afternoon, driving through that road, at that very second.
She felt sorry for his feelings. There were no good talks, no last goodbyes, even the last words she said to him were just leave, I don't want to see you now. She mustâve irked God so much that her words were granted right away.Â
She felt sorry for his effort. His effort to ask her forgiveness, his effort to buy her meals, his effort to follow her while sacrificing his work schedule.
And Ran never got the chance to fix anything.
To say her sorry to him.
To let him know that her love had never faded away.
The rush of regret never went away to the point that she couldnât even bring herself for a visit to him. Not once she ever did.
Ran didn't even know how she got to this day. The few first months were the most poignant. She tried to make sense of it all. Time felt meaningless as she went through her days feeling numb to nearly everything. She struggled to finish her meals, struggled to get back to work, struggled to get through the day without crying, struggled to do the things she used to have no problem with. There were even times when certain corners of Beika had her pulling over her car to calm down her ragged breathing. She eventually left the small town after some time and moved to Shizuoka, hoping to get the fresh start she needed. New environment, new workplace, new people. She even tried to start going out again. Sonoko arranged a few blind dates for her and Kazuha introduced her to some of her guy friends, but nothing really worked. Ran found herself constantly comparing them to the only person in her past.
Amidst everything, December had always slammed back a wave of those memories on her.
Ran didnât know how long sheâd continue living her days like this.
The sound of an incoming message from her cell phone suddenly brought Ran back to the present. A name so familiar yet so distant appeared on her cell phone screen. The name of someone who used to be Ranâs only image of her future mother-in-law.
Yukiko Kudo.
A bit wondering as it was already seven minutes past eleven, Ran felt her stomach turn when she read the message.
Ran-chan, itâs been so long. Howâs life in Shizuoka? I hope youâre having the best day. Have you got the package I sent you this morning? It should've arrived according to the delivery tracking...
Ran looked at the messy pile of packages on the coffee table in her living room. She limped to the sofa in front of the table and looked for the one Yukiko was referring to. A small box wrapped with red decorative paper stood out among the packages from the online store she had not yet opened. Ran picked it up. A familiar address was written on its wrap.
I'm currently back in Beika and was just cleaning and tidying up some of his belongings when I found it inside a pocket of his suitcase.
Ran opened the package to find a blue velvet box that barely fit in her hold. On its lid was engraved a logo that was unfamiliar to her. The name of a shop located in Gunma was written on a cardboard hanging by a string from the box.
Her heart suddenly pounded as Ran guessed the inside.
She lifted the lid with shaking hands.
I never heard anything about you anymore, Ran-chan, whether you are living your life happily or you have already started going out again, so my apologies if sending this turns out to be disrespectful for the relationship you might be in..., but this was intended to be yours from the very beginning, so at any rate, you're still the rightful owner of it.
Anyway, I'll spend new year's eve here, so I wish you'd hit me up when you're free, we should catch up and grab some drinks.
Ran froze at the sight of the object.
A necklace.
The rose gold chain immediately shimmered in her living room light as she picked it up. And the pendantâRan wanted to cryâa miniature cherry blossom tree in a transparent resin dome-shaped no bigger than her thumbnail. Several pink cherry blossom petals were scattered around a small branch that ran across the pendant.
Cherry blossom.
Ran didn't have to ask why. That flower that has March as its starting blooming period held several important memories for both of themâtheir first class, first meeting, first interaction, also the moment Shinichi first realized his feelings for her.
Moreover for Ran now, this flower also held the memory of their last date.
It was an unplanned one, on the last week of November five years agoâjust a few days before Shinichi had to leave to take a lead of a case in Gunma; a few weeks before her life fell apart. His frown and confused voice when he said âFuyuzakura?â was still vivid in her mind. The question to which she answered enthusiastically. She started flooding him with this and that about the winter cherry blossoms and listed all the viewing spots they could visit. She remembered how Shinichi suddenly asked her after, âYou want to go now?â
Thinking he was joking, Ran answered disdainfully, âAs if you can.â
âI can,â Shinichi told her in a serious tone. âAll todayâs meetings were canceled last night, so Iâm free all day.â
That was how they found themselves two hours later, walking under the shade of fuyuzakura trees planted along the riverbank. Ran remembered the warmth of his arm as she hugged it during that pleasant afternoon walking. Ran remembered his cedarwood scent as he stood before her to brush off the petals that kept landing in her hair. Ran remembered his strong grip on her arm when the boat they rented to go down the river shook a little. Ran remembered his smile as he watched her ranting about work while both were snacking on the riverbank. Ran remembered the gentle touch of his hand as he wiped the cheese cream off the edge of her lips. Ran remembered his ethereal silhouette as he stood on the river bridge against the orange sky. Ran remembered his laugh as they ran between the trees, among the flying fuyuzakura petals, filming each other.
Ran rubbed her eyes, not wanting tears to cloud her gaze at the necklace that eternalized their memories.
As soon as her vision cleared, something caught her attention. It was a folded piece of white art paper that was attached under the lid of the box. There was the same unfamiliar logo at the bottom left corner of the paperâa typical complimentary greeting card. Ran took it off.
Ran knew more than anything that Shinichi wasn't the type to voice his thoughts through letters, especially when it comes to romantic purposes, so she didn't expect much. But the handwriting she had longed for had actually been scribbled in wet ink behind the fold. Ran then struggled to make up the meaning of each stroke as she read itânot because it was unreadable, but because of the emotions that suddenly overtook her.
It felt as if Ran could hear Shinichi talking to her again.
Hey,Â
I know you might get upset that I won't be around for your special day, but set all negativity aside Ran, just be happy and enjoy everything to the fullest. I don't want my absence to make you miss the joy of every single moment in your life. Some things just don't come twice.
Wish to see you with this in that white ruffle(?) dress youâd been wanting to wear on your birthday, so send me some pictures later?
Sorry and have the happiest birthday, Ran!
His message was simple.
Ran flipped over the paper, wishing there was more to it, but Shinichiâs handwriting apparently stopped right there. Through clouded eyes, Ran couldnât stop reading the message over and over again, afraid if she had missed a point, a sentence, or a word. The letter mustâve been written just to fill out the complimentary greeting card. It was so straightforward, typical of him. But despite that, Ran liked how he kept the content personal for both of themâabout how he specifically addressed her white ruffle dress. She did tell the story once, around summer five years ago. They were at his library and he was reading some novel. She told him about how she had already bought a dress for an office event, but the event was suddenly canceled. About how that made her want to wear it for her upcoming birthday party instead, which was supposed to be held on the year afterâlittle did Shinichi know that the party was canceled, and never once had she thrown a celebration ever since. Back then, Ran didnât really care whether Shinichi was listening or not as it was just a light babbling.
But he did.
And he remembered.
His message was simple, Ran thought again.
It was obviously written to congratulate her on her past birthday. A wish for her to have the most joyous day. A reminder for her to live in the present moment. But more than addressed toward her past self, she felt that this letter was like a request to her present self. She had been asking herself for years, how long sheâd continue living like thisârunning away every time December comes, regretting every snowfall, and never being able to actually put a genuine smile on her face. She was tiredâthat was obviousâbut at the same time, she never had the strength to get out of the past. The ghost of regret kept following her and that haunting her for years. But Shinichiâs words about how he particularly wanted her to not miss the joy of every single moment made her realize that the life she was living was not what he wished her to haveâespecially with him not being around. Ran couldnât help but feel that the letter was some kind of his way to ask her to stop. To cut the leash that had held her back for years. To stop hating Decemberâs snowy days.
His message was simple, yet at the same time portrayed a considerable amount of his care.
For the first time in years, Ran could feel the warmth she used to get from him. The warmth sheâd been longing for.
His letter felt like the support sheâd needed in years.
And so Ran decided that this time, she had to take the actual first step.
By the time Ran came back to her senses, she found her cell phone dialing Yukiko's number.
She knew more than anything that taking the first step would always be the hardest. It would require her a strong determination and an abundance of courage to break the barrier that kept her stuck in the past. For Ran, that step would be letting go of all the regrets that had been haunting herâto forgive herself, to accept everything as it is, to let herself enjoy every single moment in her life.
And letting go would also mean doing the one thing sheâd been avoiding for the past few yearsâvisiting him.
For that, she would need Yukiko by her side.
It wouldnât be easy, but sheâd strive for it.
Ran looked at the time as she waited for the call to be picked up.
11.54 p.m.
With how things went on the last three hours, Ran could almost easily lament her night today as âyet another snowy night in Decemberâ. Something regretful that she had never cherished in the past few years. But with the most unexpected gift and letter that came to her in the last minutes, it seemed like she had to let it become the first colorful memory of a Decemberâs snowy night after years.
And there should just be happy days from now on.
Because thatâs what he would want her to have.
"I'm sorry, Shinichi. I love you. I always do."
If only those words could actually be conveyed.
But for now, Ran wanted to believe it.
Fin.
A/N
Oh no, Iâm so sorry. What did I write...
Believe me, writing this hurt me too... I just thought that it would be interesting to explore Ranâs emotions in such a situation. Anddddd please know that I do wish Gosho would never write something like this for both of them. Canât imagine if he ever dares...
As a fun fact, this story was intended to be submitted for last yearâs Shinran Week but unfortunately, my working schedule was so tight that I didn't get the chance to finish it on time hahaha :( I legit thought I would be able to finish it in 1-2 months but well, here I am, 7 months later...
Anyway, this is my first time writing a full-length story so any kind of feedback will be very much appreciated!
