25 Especially Dear

[Music Recommendation: "The Name of Life" by Joe Hisaishi (Spirited Away OST)-available in Youtube or Spotify] ~ Please listen to it in a loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter ~

"If you say so," he replied, still laughing at me.

"What's wrong with wanting my future partner to be taller than me? Hmf!" I pouted.

Truly! I at least didn't want him to be smaller than me. We wouldn't look like a couple but brother and sister if that's the case. Unless there's no choice and I happen to fall in love with someone smaller than me. I wasn't really sure if I had a specific type of guy. I didn't have a love life in my past life so it was hard to tell. But if I'd get to pick, someone taller than me would be really nice.

"Nothing—it's just that most girls hope to be taller and you're telling me you didn't want to grow because of that. Ha-ha-ha! I hope you find a tall partner then. Goodluck!"

"Hmf! I sure will," I replied to him, still pouting. It was upsetting of course. He's only saying that because he's a guy. I bet he wouldn't care if his future partner—wait a minute! He hated touching, right? Nevermind height! How would he find his future partner if he hates touching so much? I'd have better luck finding mine than he would, many times over. Well, sucks to be him. I wanted to come back at him so badly but I didn't have enough courage to ask about that yet.

It took him a few minutes to get over from laughing too hard.

"So? Have you laughed enough at my misery?" I asked him, sounding a bit grumpy. Now, I'm the grumpy one.

"Yes. Thanks for the entertainment."

"Ha-ha," I laughed sarcastically. "Anyway, that's not the reason I called you."

"Finished your fanfic?"

"Woah! Yes! How did you know? Are you a psychic?" I blurted out in my surprise. Seriously, how could he tell? Was I that easy to predict?

"You told me last time that you're almost done with it, and today, you put an all-nighter. It's really easy to guess."

"Oh, okay. That makes sense." Bummer. I was so excited a few moments ago and he had to kill it. Was he annoying me on purpose? "Since you're the one who told me to write it, you have to judge it. Should I send it to you via email?" Great! I casually asked for his email! Why am I getting so nervous all of a sudden? It's not like I asked for his personal phone number.

"Yes, send it to me. Here's my email," he agreed and typed his email over chat. He typed it too fast—barely even a second and I received it already. If he types that fast, I wondered what always took him a few seconds before replying to me? Thinking? Or getting his energy to type? Maybe it's the latter, it made more sense.

"kaidenma@mail.com," I read it outloud. Was that his whole name? How come it sounded familiar? Hmm… I tried to think it over but I couldn't remember it. I'd always been bad with names anyway. Good thing I still remembered Kai since I played with him often. "Nice name," I commented as I wrote it down on my notebook. "I'll send it to you later."

Just in case, I also gave him my email which was "senaralee@mail.com" pretty easy to guess, right? It had my name on it. At this age, making emails had to involve your personal name in it as compared to the future where youngsters would use any word combination as emails.

"Share the file to me as well so I can comment on it," he added. When he spoke like that, he sounded like my superior even if we're almost the same age. "That way, you can look back on your mistakes and learn from it."

"Oh! You're right! I didn't think of that." Honestly, that idea only became popular when I was already working at that BPO company in my past life. And that's 2 or 3 years from now. And I only knew it because I started working. Teenagers nowadays wouldn't think that far unless they're trying to learn the tool or something. Was it common knowledge for them? Sometimes, he could be really smart.

"How many pages?"

"Ahm… about that," I felt so shy, "I may have done a little too much.'

"It's alright. I read fast."

"176 pages, and around 70,000 words. I forgot how much exactly," I said in a single breath due to my nervousness.

"Wow. That can be an entire book already."

"Yeah, I know. Sorry."

"Why are you sorry? You should be proud. That's really hard to do, and it's your first time. Great job in finishing your first story."

Awwww… my heart. That was so nice of him to say that. It was really hard, no joke!

"Thank you," I smiled and thanked him from the bottom of my heart.

"How was it? Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Yes! Yes, I did!" I didn't even have to think twice. I really enjoyed writing. It was extremely difficult, yes, but more than the hardship, it was … not just fun… "especially dear" or something alike would be best to describe it. Before I knew it, I already spouted all my experiences to him.

As I told him my whole writing experience, I reminisced it in my mind like flashes of memories, playing backwards. There was even some point when I got sentimental.

"That part in the story was really sad, you see. So I ended up crying while writing about it, too. I was like a lunatic crying while writing," I told him as tears flowed in my eyes because I remembered the scene.

There were also hilarious times, and I told him all about it while laughing my ass off. There were exciting parts, scary parts, relaxing parts, and many more. It was a whole adventure and an emotional rollercoaster… but all in all, I loved it. I loved writing. And maybe… I wouldn't mind doing this for the rest of my life.