2024: Morgana

The first time I understood that I fell for him was not the time when he bared his true soul for me––that time I barely understood my own self, let alone others. Nor was our first date. Nor our fifth. Nor the time we decided to move in to a bigger loft––that intricate space that we had sparsely decorated with furnitures but were covered with our extended collections of books, knick knacks, tea, polaroid pictures, and our own private stuff. Nor the time when we found out that our interests aligned perfectly with each other––be it our favourite fandoms (seriously, have you heard of A Song of Fire and Ice, Doctor Who, and Marvel? Don't they worth going gaga over?), be it our favourite food to hate (anything spicy), be it our favourite poison when we occasionally hit the bar to meet our friends, or other small unmentionable things like our favourite type of cheese. No, none of the said things made me realise how deep my love had gone for him.

The time that I was aware of my heart belonging to him was when his father died.

It was the second time that I've found myself in a circumstance where fate put us together in a morgue. The first time we were in a morgue was years ago, when he was doing his internship after med school and I was just an errand girl for my country's embassy in his hometown. I was supposed to get the medical history of my supervisor, but I got lost to the morgue instead. If you have ever been in the morgue, you would have probably known that the sight of it was not the worst thing, but it was the scent wafting in the air, making you believe that there was no clean air supply in the world anymore. As a sane person, I closed the door immediately and let out a string of creative puny curses that my friends had taught me the night before. But, as a result, the door to the morgue was opened with a bang and he launched himself to yell at me. In which I yelled back. Of course, you know what happened after.

Anyway, the second time we were in a morgue, it was a Rumi's poetry situation. Meaning, the entangled unriddled feelings of ours that could not unravel itself reflected similarly to our favourite poetry. We couldn't fathom the ridiculous irony that life had brought us to. We embraced his father’s death with each foot on two sides of opposing feelings, hopeful and remorseful. A sense of relief was notably the second to our sense of grief. Our mournings made me realise how easy death could touch us

I used to embrace death since I felt like I had nothing that I could call my own––those lonely days when you were in your mid-twenty could destroy you. However, after that bulb of realisation got turned on in the back of my head, I could not embrace death; neither mine, nor his. Especially his.

I agree more than most to the fact that he was an aloof guy who would seemingly show indifference towards every single important moment. But that day, he broke down in front of me. True, we were close back then––the bases and phases were no longer a concern for us, since we have been and done it all. But, I had never felt that gratifying sense of grateful to God for making me existed right there for him to console him, and to be his anchor. The only trusted person in this world that could access his deep inner thoughts. And how beautifully sad they were.

It was funny how fate turned out for me and a handful of my friends. I was close with these two people who adored the idea of being with men that had cold façade, and we actually had them. I ended up with him, Raphael. The true embodiment of a an enigmatic mysterious healer. My enigmatic mysterious healer.

My home––years of travelling back and forth due to my job at the embassy (and years of figuring out which one of the two fields, defence or culture, was best for me) taught me that home was the place where you made it so. Years of smouldering in the background dissolved quickly when I learned that he was truly mine as unequivocally as I was his. And I could tell, he felt the same. He was not a verbal person, but we shared looks. We could tell each other's feelings just by glancing at one another. This union of ours humbled me to no end. I would never had thought that I could feel this complete.

I would not sugarcoat our relationship by saying that since the beginning it was a walk in the park. Or that we got more positive each day. Or we improved ourselves better for each other. No, Rafael and I was not like that. We did not improve ourselves better for each other, but for ourselves because we knew that one another would appreciate it. We changed bits by bits everyday, but still one another would love each other for it. Especially Raphael. He showed me his true nature, his own comfortable zone that he had left awhile ago because he had to toughen up. By normal standard, he was still not quite bright and cheery, but he was more fun to be with and his eyes would light up every time he mentioned to me about something he loved.

Now, five years later, we have grown into a small family consisted of us and two beautiful puppies, Arya and Aegon––a matching name with my friends' OTP-named pets. The topic of kids, as common as it was between two person in a consenting relationship, did not come to us as quick as it was with our other friends. We have decided, from early on before we decided to settle down with each other, that kids would come later on when we have agreed that the world was a better place or when we have decided the place we live in would be the perfect place to nurture our children––one of my friends retorted something about living in a countryside England, which was fine by our standard. But we would consider moving to countryside places years from now, when we have grown weary of travelling and enjoying life. When we have decided that we had enough love to give to such precious innocent beings.