Chapter two: When we relapse, what happens after?
The last chapter to the essay, 'the erotica of kissing'. *Relapsing is used here as a metaphor, not actually relapsing from something clinical. But maybe emotional relapse could be clinical as well.
I will need to explain why it’s always a game with X and our flirtation needed to be a secret. Why I mentioned we were holding hands and expressing our feelings when we shouldn’t. He was in a relationship with someone else.
I acknowledge fully that this is in fact an anti-feminist thing to admit, but aside from my political beliefs, I also stopped blaming myself for this. You can’t change the way you feel, but you can change the way you think. This is how I coped with the relationship I had with him. I wasn’t denying that I had feelings for him but I managed the expectations I had because of his unavailable energy.
August 2021, The girlfriend
I heard that he was newly seeing someone in the summer of 2021 from another person at a place I go for drinks often. After that, in August of 2021, I had dinner with my friend and we went to his restaurant for a second round of drinks. I was hoping to see him but he was surprisingly not there. I never knew there was a day he doesn’t show up to the restaurant. I actually texted him prior going to the restaurant saying ‘we are heading to your place for drinks. Is your place open for 2?’ He didn’t respond for a while but short after I arrived to the restaurant he came in with a group of people with one girl who was overly touchy with him, intimately. I knew that touch. I immediately knew that I was in the same room with his new girlfriend. I looked at my phone and he seemed to have texted me back, and it said ‘Sorry! I’m not in today, but I’m coming over now to say hi because I’m around.’ This is the type of guy I was falling for. A dangerous one. One that doesn’t know what hurts people, just like T. They do it because they actually think they are doing something nice for them. They do it because they think not seeing them is worse than seeing them with their new girlfriend. This is how the game was dangerously starting to play out and at some point, someone needed to draw the line but if not us doing so, who will? No one knows this secret we have besides us.
After my friend zone text, I did end up keep going to his restaurant. It was surprisingly…platonic and healthy. The reason why I kept going to his restaurant was, well, it was for the attention he kept giving. I wanted to keep the flirtation going. This is where I wish I knew my diagnosis earlier I spoke about in Chapter1… I wish I knew all that I was scared of was the ending of things that hasn’t even started. My only way to cope with that was to keep the flirting going so we can keep standing on the starting line and not move from there. I took friends there, and we exchange pleasantries as if nothing romantic has happened between us, ever. We both acted platonic as ever. No one but us knew that we kissed. We both knew that I reluctantly put myself into the cab with my Zara heels after our little secret that night. Our secret became erotic as time passed.
January 2022 The shit question
I went to his restaurant to go get some drinks with a friend. It was just right after new years. It was around 2am, and I had a cigarette with him outside. Maybe it was the new years new me vibe, maybe it was because I was just one too many wine bottles deep. I had no intentions of trying to be an asshole but I was playing the game for too long and it was getting tiring for me so I made a small move. I asked him, ‘so you still with your girlfriend ?’ and he smirks and looks at me like how does she know, and he said ‘yeah I am but it’s not going well to be honest. I think we might break up.’ He knew what to exactly say, and I got the answer I exactly wanted. I don’t remember what I said in response, but I know that I let him knew that I was available. I do regret putting someone in that situation. To ask someone if they are still together and getting an answer that will benefit me. It wasn’t my brightest moments.
October 2021 Industry friends
I mentioned in chapter one that I started working in the restaurant industry. I started working at this French restaurant because my life was dull. I had no purpose with my real job and I needed something that will spark joy in my life. I always had an envy of some sort to people who work in the industry. It’s similar maybe with the film industry, being curious of what actually happens behind the curtains. I was curious about what happens behind the kitchen. I was also overly romanticizing the restaurant culture because the people who work in it seemed like they had a sense of community. People creating a space that brings strangers together. A shared space that is cozy enough you keep coming back every week. I wanted to be apart of that and I asked if the restaurant I was a regular customer at needed some help. I started as a server and people loved me. I made tons of new connections and friends. That also drove me more to the industry. The restaurant people will come over to our restaurant and we will go over to theirs. I go to someone’s restaurant with a friend, and I am now not just ‘Megumi who’s a regular’ but ‘Megumi from ——’ I immediately felt like I was apart of a community I never thought I will be apart of and it became my passion project. Then the proximity I developed with X became instantly closer ever than before.
November 2021 The first relapse
I remember the exact moment, the first time I met him after I started working at the restaurant, it not only made me feel closer to him but I felt like I am now apart of his community too. Without any intentions of getting myself closer to him, I manifested a bond with him in the language he understands the most, wine and people. Both X’s restaurant and my restaurant are friends. (location wise, we are 30 seconds away with each other as well) Our restaurant was going to do an event in November of 2021, so I helped out. He came by with his staff to say hi to everyone. X is well known amongst the industry and by the time he came over, the restaurant was already filled with food industry people. He greeted everyone, and since I was occupied in the kitchen, he came over to the kitchen and said, ‘Megumi! Why haven’t you told me you were working here!’ and then hugged me to say hi in front of everyone. I liked that he treated me differently, that he hugged me but not the other people. He did that because we are still playing the game, the game no one is suppose to know. The owner of my restaurant didn’t know that me and X were close. He didn’t know we were friends and he said ‘you guys know each other?’ and he responded first, ‘me and her go way back. I’m close to her’ No one else will know what that means, but I knew exactly what it meant, because we still have our secret no one knows in this big crowd of people. From that night, I relapsed. I fell for him all over again like that moment we had that kiss. He makes me think that I am the only girl in the room. He only pays attention to me when I am there. I forgot how I can fall for someone easily if they just look at me and mean it. I tell myself, don’t go falling for someone again because it’s going to be hard to pick myself up from the ground, but we all forget. We will always recognize what pain is but we go through it again because I think deep down we know it’s possible to come out of the pain alive.
March 2022 Flirting with wine glasses
We had another event and he came again with his staff. This time I already asked him to come over for a drink. He said, ‘I was already going to go’ We got drunk again that night, and he came into the kitchen to help clean the wine glasses with me. He was drunk, (I was drunk too but not as much as he was) and then he hugged me from behind when everyone is still there. The restaurant owner said ‘why are you touching her like that!’ in a jokingly way, but I was ok with it, because I missed it. I missed his hugs and how he smells. All of this flirting, and he still…was with his girlfriend.
April 2022 Holding hands in front of people
Not only we started to rekindle our relationship but we also saw each other a lot. After almost every shift, me and my colleague at the restaurant went to his place to say hi and had a drink. One glass becomes a bottle, and one bottle becomes a 4 am karaoke session. One night, some of us gathered to go to karaoke and this was the first night I went out with him with other people. That morning, drunkly gathered all outside, and deciding who’s going to take the cab together, we hold hands in front of everyone. We secretly hold hands so no one will see us. As much as I enjoyed the game and the flirting, I think I was getting tired of his aloof attitude of going with the flow. I was and am a person who goes with the flow a lot, but with him, I expected more. I expect a lot of emotional compassion and intelligence from people. I drew the line, because I didn’t want to be intimate with someone who I was falling for that still had a girlfriend. I let go of his hand.
June 2022 The second relapse
Things were getting out of control. Our flirting was so apparent but still kept a secret. I was wondering, why aren’t people noticing this bold move he makes on me? Can people not see that he likes me? Can people not hear the words he says to me? But then my conscious hits me again. He is safe because everyone knows he is dating this girl. His relationship is official and I’m not. I’m his secret and he has a relationship with someone else. The emotional imbalance we have was apparent and unfair. Even with T, it was always unfair. I liked him more, he was going somewhere else to live another life, and he ended up finding love without me. He came by to the restaurant on a weekday after he closed early, and we were surprised because usually he does’t come unannounced. But he knew I’ll be there so he came by to have a drink. We became hungry but the restaurant had nothing that we could give them, and we all said let’s make yakisoba. He said I’ll make it for all of you. Then he said, ‘we need to go get the ingredients at the convenient store. Megumi, let’s go together.’ I said ‘yea ok we can go together.’ and then in front of everyone he shouted, ‘Got a date with Megumi’ and we left the restaurant to have a 5 minute date, just the two of us. We talked about life and catching up, and I just asked him randomly, what’s your favorite kind of pasta if you have to pick, and he laughed so much saying, that’s like what a teenager will ask on a date! What kind of question is that. I said, well if you don’t answer I’ll go first, mine is Amatriciana, and then he said, ‘ugh, yeah me too’ like 2 teenagers bonding over nothing.
We completely relapsed from that moment. I had feelings for him always but it became something real, a real feeling that I wanted to actually see if I can pursue. He also for the first time expressed how he feels about me to another person for the first time and from that moment… even though our secret was still ours, the two of us having feelings for one another was also another person’s knowledge as well.
June 2022 A reckoning at a gay bar 4am karaoke night
Another summer, another 4am Karaoke night. This night, something different happened. X went to go have a smoke with my colleague and they were gone for a while. When they came back, my colleague was excited to tell me something and he said ‘Megumi, I have some exciting news to share to you. I’ll tell you later.’ That night, we all went home by cab but my colleague got out first. It was just me and X. We looked at each other as if he had something to tell me, and he said ‘I really like you and I want to make things right with us but not right now because I’m not available for you’ Then I said ‘I like you too, but as much as you are aware of it I won’t repeat it but you need to sort things out on your end if you really want to pursue this.’ Then it was my turn to get off of the cab and I said bye. My colleague called me that morning and he said ‘Megumi, I think something is going to happen between you guys’ I asked ‘oh yeah? Why do you think so?’ ‘Well at the bar today, he told me that he has feelings for you and wants to pursue after he figures out things with his girlfriend.’ We hung up the phone and that night, I didn’t know what to feel because I was happy but also his words felt like empty words that won’t be kept again. I was this little girl waiting forever with his empty promises that I didn’t know if believing him again was right.
August 2022 The Thing
Just weeks before I was heading to Europe, something happened. A thing that I imagined will happen after a date or being together finally. I went back to his house. We slept in the same bed and we kissed again after 2 years of not being physical with each other. I’m going to spare some details here (surprising), not because I’m embarrassed of what happened but what happened in August with him, being physical with each other wasn’t even slightly the most important part. I’ll leave it up to your imagination whether we had sex or not that night, but it was a much anticipated night due to the last year or so but it was also in an unexpected way of rekindling our vague relationship and where we left it at 2020. That day, I remember everything intensely. How he invited me to come back to his and how I said ok, and wore his Tshirt back home with me like some kind of token of promise that this will happen again. For the first time, I wasn’t excited because I slept in a bed with a man I like but I was blushing with what the future could hold and what that day represented for me after waiting for so long.
Current 2022 I actually still don’t have faith in him but I think I still like him
Being in Europe for a month right after was a good escape because I didn’t have to focus on what that day meant or fixate on the idea of ‘what are we now?’ We are now completely open with each other and we know that both of us are into each other, but I think there is still an imbalance between us where he holds more power than me. We aren’t playing the game anymore because there is no point, but it seems like he’s still the one turning the pages to this story on his pace and not mine. Oh and yeah, he broke up with his girlfriend while I was in Europe.
Flirting, feeling liked, expressing your feelings in a cab while sort of touching each other, getting attention from the man you like, playing the dangerous game that is called love is all exciting and makes you wonder, what is after that? What can happen after all this stuff? It makes one wanting to know more of the future of how two people fit in this story? I was obsessing over the story of us. The unknown, unofficial, secretive us. I have to admit, I think the reason why the first kiss in 2020 was so hot, tender and sensual is because it ended there. We both didn’t know what our after kiss could have done. After kisses can open so many doors. We could have seen each other naked, touched each other in an intense intimate way, look into each other’s eyes without looking away embarrassingly, and of course we could have had sex but all this was unrevealed. All this was unavailable to us and this is why I think curiosity took over me too. I like him of course, but I was also curious to know more. Like someone who discovered french fries for the first time and just couldn’t help but want to eat more of it and wanting to know what other great french fries out there. (Can you imagine discovering french fries for the first time now? God.)
Yeeeee I’m back from Europe! Please please stay tuned for all the European content in the future, I’m trying to think how I want to curate it but it’s taking a bit time. I would also possibly change the name of my newsletter to something that relates more to this newsletter.
Thank you for reading this piece and since it was a bit long, I won’t bother you with cultural recommendations this week. I’m going to be consistent and try to release once every week again, so next week should be filled with recs!
Bisou Megumi x