NOVEL NEXT Chapter 23 – A Woman Whose Learn Love, Ai First
Ai Perspective
I wonder how this started.
I think it started when I learned about the death of the doctor who had been treating me when I was pregnant.
I don't think I've ever experienced losing someone. I doubt that I was close to the doctor. It's just that, this might be the first time I've really felt the death of someone I know and might care about.
I may forget his name, but I think I remember how much he cares about me and how he promised to make me have a healthy delivery, before vanishing without anyone knowing. At that time, I was a bit angry at him.
But after years, I heard that he vanished without anyone knowing where he went. So I started searching about him, before I knew about his death. I never thought I would feel lost.
I feel lost… me?
I may not cry over him or anything like that, but I never thought it would be hit like this too. But at the same time, it started to make me wonder if this means I’m feeling sad for someone? So I think I can care for someone?
I think I will be sad if Ichigo and Miyako are gone…
What about one of my children? What I would feel is...
Even before I thought of my answer, my chest was hurting, and without saying anything or thinking about anything… my body already hugged the closest twin…
Ah, it’s warm… they’re fine… they’re alive… they’re real… I don’t want something to happen to them…
It was different from anything I’ve ever experienced.
Is this love? I don’t want to lose them… so I love my children, right? Which means I can say that I love them… right?
"Mom…" I heard Aqua voice wondering what happened to me who just suddenly hugged him.
Yeah, I think I can say it right? I’m going to say it… but in the end… I can’t… because I’m afraid that when I say it and realize it’s just a lie… The same word that I threw around to those fans.
At that time, for the first time in my life, I realized that I’m actually a coward.
I am such a coward that runs away from confronting my own emotions.
If I think about it, I have been like this for a long time. This kind thought makes me remember the first time I met Ichigo and became an idol.
At that time, an old man lured me in with a matcha frappuccino at Starbocks Coffee. As someone who is only twelve and lives in an orphanage. Knowing that getting a drink like that had caught her attention. I wonder what he wanted to talk about.
Is this maybe a famous compensated dating?
But to my surprise, he was a scout from an idol company.
"You said you were scouting, so I got curious. But an idol? Me? That’s a funny joke." At that time, I wondered what he saw in me. I mean, I’m only a bumpkin who only wore cheap clothing that didn’t show anything at all.
"We’re forming a unit with middle schoolers at my company. I think you’d be fit for the center role."
It surprised me to hear how confident he was, and if he wanted to con me, there was nothing he could get from me.
"I’m not interested."
"You’re definitely cut out for it. I guarantee it."
"I think it’s best if you give up. I grew up in an orphanage. I only have one parent. When I was young, my mom got arrested for theft, and I stayed at the orphanage for the duration of it. But even after Mom was released. She never came back to get me. Not that, I care though. It’s a whole lot better to be in an orphanage than getting beat up everyday. I have no memory of ever being loved or loving someone. A person like that isn’t befitting to be an idol."
Yeah, me and the image I have of an idol are different.
Idol that is associated with a pure existence who brings joy to others by scattering smiles.
And me, who spits out lies and hates people.
Yeah, I've always been like that—spitting out lies and hating people to protect myself. So I don’t feel the same pain again. The pain was betrayed and abandoned. That’s why I don’t think I will be able to love my fans, so they won’t love me either.
"That’s perfectly fine with me. This job isn’t for normal people anyway, and your past gives you character." Ichigo replied quite simply that I was completely bewildered.
"...But, idols say they love everyone. If I said that, it’d be a lie…"
"It’s fine even if it’s a lie. Or rather, the audience is looking for a pretty lie. Being able to lie well is also a talent. I think that’s more than fine. Come on…" Ichigo once again tried to persuade me.
"Is it okay? Even if it’s a lie. Is it okay for me to say, ‘I love you’?" When I heard that, I felt like my heartbeat grew faster. Is that really fine? For someone like me who has never heard those words from others or just said it to other people? Is that fine? Someone like me said those words?
My mind is racing.
"You say all these things. But in truth, don’t you also want to love someone?" Ichigo asked those questions to me, but I can’t answer his question since it may be really the truth.
"You just don’t know how to? You don’t know what to love?"
Yeah, just like Ichigo said. I don't know what love is. I don't understand what love is, because I never experienced it or understood it. That’s why I want to know what love is. To feel what love is...
"If you just sing and dance cutely, that’s already showing love to your fans. If you become an idol, words like ‘I love you’ will appear in your lyrics countless times. So if you keep saying I love you to everyone, maybe that lie will turn into the truth someday."
When I heard those words from him. I agreed with Ichigo and became an idol at his company, Strawberry Production.
A lie turning into a truth.
I'm someone who has never experienced love, but at the same time, I want to know what love is? So I chose to become an idol with the thought that I’d be able to love my fans if I became an idol. Because I really wanted to say ‘I love you’ from the bottom of my heart.
Yeah, I want to learn, know, and understand what love is… I just wanted it so badly to say those that I kept lying and saying I love you all…
Without knowing that the more I said those words… it feels like those words became more hollow…
I have been dancing and singing since that day until years have gone by…
But I still don't know what love is…
I don’t understand it…
Or even learn something about love…
Love is still something I can’t comprehend. Even so, I still sing and dance for the fans…
I hope that one day I will truly understand those words and be able to say them with meaning behind it.
