2024: Eli

"Come back home to me. Stay safe."

"Always."

A tough job like his would require much more than being "safe". But as I sighed, gazing from the balcony at the place where his car was parked, I couldn't help but remember the time we met. It was a "cute meet" as my friend described to me one day, inspired by a movie that was released two decades ago. But unlike the movie, I didn't meet him at some department store looking for pjs, but instead I was at a science function.

Its theme was interesting enough for me to join. I, for one, was not the kind of person who got involved in this type of event, but since it looked different from other kinds of science function, I signed up my name. Little did I know, by signing up my name on that breezy Summer day meant also signing up my fate to be intertwined to his.

The function consisted of a lengthy presentation and then a small gatherings with the presenter afterwards with free-flowing of those fuzzy bubbly stuff and there were bottles of good red wine. The presentation was fun, the presenter (a renown professor from the equally renown university) was friendly. He was the type of guy that could engage with other people easily and without much fuss--to be honest, he reminded me of one of my close friends during college that I heard was expecting her first this Summer.

Anyway, the topic was a bridge between my interest with the scientific world. You see, our brain function had not yet fully developed and we could not yet crack what good the rest of it would do. Some might said that they could make you into superhuman, but the most celebrated theory in that function was that our brain stored many memories of our ancestors, but we just could not decode it yet. Therefore, the professor interjected that our partially developed brain could be the answer to why we had déjà vu all the time and it could also be related to the explanation of our "past lives"--which, according to my tarot readings, explained that I was a travelling gypsy once. These past lives could have been our ancestors', not actually our own and not actually belonged to our soul, but it passed on to us. Perhaps it could also dated back until the year where the first human was born into this world. No one actually knows. Very interesting, don't you think?

Well, anyway, it was the first time I saw him. All brooding in the corner, being what he was and what he represented. Unlike him, his partners were mingling. Those guys were extremely nice even though they were investigating, just like he did. In fact, think I was the only that he didn't interview that day. Unlike, Sherlock, however, he didn't quite need much of deducing and talk nonsense while doing it. He only needed to question some people and then he found out.

Oh, I haven't told you that he was there to investigate one of the prominent attendees? This politician was caught doing something bad--I forgot what it was--and Seth was hired to do some findings on him. But this politician was off before Seth could get there. It was why the other audiences were being questioned.

Our real cute meet didn't happen in the middle of the gathering, it happened in the restroom. I went back to retrieve my hat that fell off earlier when I didn't notice it and he was there holding it. I knew it was cliché, but I felt like he had this aura that drew me in. We actually talked. I didn't know why I had the nerve to struck up a conversation with that kind of guy--all dark and silent, even though, I admit, it was my perfect kryptonite.

And then, onwards. Since we have discovered that we had the same passion (classical music, paintings and tasty desserts) we got along really well. The first few years were tough, though. His barricades were tougher than those needed to contain the most highly corrupted people on Earth. His walls were too thick, not even the assembly of all heroes in the Universes (parallels or not) with all the ancient magic in the world, could smash them all in one punch. It took me years to decode him. Years of unravelling, only to find another giant roll of tangled mess that needed to be unknotted.

He rewarded me with European trips, going in and out of the theatres, listening to Bach in the middle of the night while eating some leftover croissants, stargazing in the middle of Hyde Park, taking long walks in the middle of Vienna, visiting some of my friends (noticeably the aforementioned friend who was at the time still engaged with her beau), reading many classic novels in some cafes in Zurich, and numerous others that made me love him even more.

He was my equal counterpart. I didn't know that I could find such love. I didn't know I could find such happiness. But this was it.

He was it.