Chapter Text
✦ archive entry #001
there exists a theory that memories are not stored chronologically.
instead, they gather around feelings.
this explains why you remember the smell of sunscreen before your own third birthday.
why you remember a dragonfly more vividly than the first time your heart is broken.
why, when people ask where love begins,
you never know which memory to hand them.
MAYBE IT ALL STARTED WITH A NAME.
Or perhaps before that.
Perhaps love begins long before anyone notices it. Perhaps it begins the first time someone says your name without needing anything from you. Perhaps it begins with a hand held on the first day of kindergarten. Perhaps it begins with a promise no one remembers making.
You have always preferred perhaps over certainty.
Certainty feels like closing a book. It feels like endings, like finalities. But perhaps always feels like leaving the window open. It tastes of strawberries on a summer afternoon, of chasing butterflies through festival crowds, of a world still waiting to be discovered. It tastes of possibilities.
Perhaps is generous. It asks nothing of you except that you keep walking. It reminds you that somewhere beyond the next turning is a pair of eyes you have not yet met, a hand you have not yet reached for, a life that has been quietly making its way toward yours all this while.
Certainty promises safety. But perhaps, perhaps promises wonder.
And maybe that’s all living is, really — for you to dream, for you to wonder.
Summer arrives the way it always does — without asking permission.
The neighbourhood festival spills into the streets before the sun has even properly begun to set. String after string of paper lanterns stretch overhead until the whole road glows soft orange, almost as though someone has gathered little pieces of evening and hung them high from wires above.
The air tastes sweet. Burnt sugar. Soy sauce. Grilled corn. Something fried. Something floral. Nearby, someone laughs. Nearby, a child cries because their balloon escapes into the sky.
You watch it rise. Higher, higher, higher. Until it becomes too small to decide whether it’s still a balloon, or simply another colour among the clouds.
Faintly, you wonder—
(do balloons ever know that they’re getting lost?)
Your mother squeezes your small hand.
“Stay close,” she smiles.
“I am,” you reply.
“You wandered off three times at the supermarket yesterday.”
You frown.
“I came back.”
Your father laughs.
“Technically true.”
You beam, because technically true is still true.
Adults are strange. They always seem disappointed when answers are technically correct.
You like festivals. Not because of the games. Or the prizes. Or even the food.
You like watching the people.
Festivals make everyone look different. The old lady from the community flower shop laughs so hard she clutches her stomach. The stern policeman lets a little girl put a flower crown on his hat. Teenagers who usually pretend not to know each other somehow end up sharing cotton candy.
It makes you wonder if happiness changes the shape of people’s faces.
You decide it probably does.
Your parents stop to greet another couple. Adults have an incredible ability to stand perfectly still for very long conversations.
You do not.
Your eyes drift. Past bright goldfish circling inside shallow bowls, past colourful masks hanging from wooden stalls, past older children racing each other with sparklers. Then—
A butterfly.
Its wings are pale blue, almost silver. They shimmer in the lantern light, like a piece of a forgotten dream. The winged creature lands on the sleeve of someone’s yukata, lifts again, before drifting lazily through the crowd.
You tilt your head. Butterflies never seem to be in a hurry. Perhaps they already know where they’re going. Perhaps they don’t need to.
You take one step. Then another. The butterfly floats onward.
You follow.
No one notices. Not immediately. Because festivals are noisy. Because children wander two steps away all the time. Because your parents assume you are still holding one of their hands.
You aren’t.
The butterfly crosses between two food stalls. You squeeze after it, through the crowd. Past the shaved ice vendor. Past the man making caramel apples. Past a woman selling tiny glass wind chimes that sing whenever the breeze remembers them. You think if faeries laughed, they would have sounded like those.
Then, the butterfly disappears. Just like that.
You blink.
“Oh.”
You look around you. The crowd has changed. The lanterns look unfamiliar. Your parents are… gone.
You wait. One second. Two. Three. You know you are supposed to feel frightened. You know this because you’ve seen frightened children before.
But instead, you feel curious. You have never seen this part of the festival before.
There is a little bridge here. A pond. Tiny orange fish opening and closing their mouths beneath lily pads.
You crouch. One fish bumps gently against another.
You wonder if fish apologise to each other.
✦ field observation.
adults always believe children become lost.
perhaps children simply arrive somewhere adults weren’t expecting.
The wooden bridge creaks softly beneath someone’s footsteps.
You glance up.
Another child stands at the opposite end. Curly green hair. Round cheeks. Big emerald eyes, filled with tears.
He looks around once. Twice. His lip trembles. Then, he quietly sits down on the wooden bridge.
It is not dramatic, neither is it loud. It is just… almost as though the boy has become too afraid to keep standing.
You watch him.
He watches the pond.
Neither of you say anything.
After a while, you stand.
Your sandals make little tok, tok, tok sounds against the wood. When you reach the boy, you lower yourself onto the planks beside him. Close enough that your shoulders almost touch. Far enough that they don’t.
He sniffles, looking up at you as if he hadn’t noticed you before.
You look at the pond again.
“The fish are orange,” you say.
He blinks.
“…Yeah.”
“I think they’re happy.”
“How can you tell?”
“They keep following each other.”
The boy looks down, emerald eyes following the creatures in the crystalline water.
“So?”
“So maybe they like being together.”
He considers this with all the seriousness only children can manage.
“…Maybe.”
Another quiet settles between you — the comfortable kind of quiet. You unwrap the butterfly-shaped candy your father had bought you earlier. You had been saving it. For what, you still don’t know.
But now seems as good a reason as any.
Without really looking at him, you hold it out.
The boy stares.
“For me?” he whispers, emerald eyes somehow even bigger than before.
You nod.
“You look like you need it more.”
His hands hesitate before accepting it. They’re very careful hands. The kind of hands that seem afraid of breaking things.
“T-Thank you,” he whispers.
You’re about to ask his name, when a voice behind you speaks.
It isn’t loud. Not really. Just... certain. Like someone who has already decided they are right before the conversation begins.
“Oi.”
You both turn.
Another boy stands at the entrance to the bridge, hands planted on his hips. Ash-blond hair catches the lantern light like little sparks. His yukata is slightly crooked. One of his sandals is untied. But he doesn’t seem to have noticed, or cared.
The boy looks between the two of you with an expression of what seems to be profound disbelief. He has pretty crimson eyes, you observe. Like the rubies on your mother’s favourite necklace.
You wonder if she has realised you are missing.
“What’re you doing?” the new boy demands.
You answer honestly.
“Sitting.”
His mouth turns downwards instantly.
“I can see that.”
He sighs, a dramatic, world-weary sigh no child his age should ever be capable of producing.
“My mom said there were two lost kids over here.”
You blink. He crosses his arms.
“So.” He pauses. “I found you.”
You smile.
“You did.”
He frowns almost immediately.
“I wasn’t looking for you.”
Another pause.
“I was looking… because she told me to.”
You tilt your head.
“I think it still counts.”
His eyebrows pull together. Counts as what? He isn’t entirely sure.
Something about your answer feels annoyingly impossible to argue with.
Beside you, the green-haired boy lets out a tiny laugh through the remnants of his tears.
The blond notices. He looks away immediately.
“…At least you’re not crying anymore,” he mutters.
“I wasn’t crying that much,” the green-haired boy mumbles, so quiet that you barely hear it.
“You were.”
“I wasn’t,” he insists.
“You were,” the blond fires back.
You raise your hand between them, very solemnly.
“I think…” Both boys stop to look at you. “…the fish don’t mind.”
Silence. The blond boy stares at you. The green-haired boy stares at you.
Somewhere behind the three of you, fireworks explode across the night sky in striking showers.
Nobody looks up.
Not yet.
But eventually, you do.
The fireworks bloom like great flowers in the dark velvet night. Gold, then pink, then red, then gold again. The pond catches every shard of colour and breaks it into a million more tiny little pieces.
The fish don’t seem too impressed. You decide they’ve probably seen fireworks before.
“They’re loud,” you say, staring up at the sky.
The green-haired boy nods.
“I don’t like the loud ones.”
You nod too.
“I like the sparkly ones.”
“The gold ones?”
“The ones that stay.”
A frown crosses his small face.
“But they all disappear.”
You think about this, quite seriously.
“Only from the sky,” you decide.
The boy follows your gaze to the pond. Tiny fragments of gold continue trembling across the water.
“Oh,” he murmurs. “They’re still here.”
You nod.
“Maybe.”
The blond boy sighs. You’d almost forgotten he was there.
“You two are weird,” he says.
You look up at him again. “Are you lost too?”
He looks offended by the notion.
“No!” he scowls.
“You came here by yourself?” you question.
“I told you, my mom told me to look for you!”
“So…” You think. “You’re helping.”
“I’m not helping.”
“You are.”
“I’m finding.”
“Finding is helping.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is.”
“It isn’t.”
“It can be.”
The blond opens his mouth. Stops. Narrows his ruby eyes.
“You’re annoying.”
You brighten.
“Thank you.”
His scowl deepens. “That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I know.”
A beat.
“You’re still weird,” he glares.
The green-haired boy laughs again. A little louder this time.
The blond notices. He pretends not to.
“See?” You point at him. “You made him laugh.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“He laughed himself.”
You blink. The green-haired boy blinks. The blond boy blinks.
“…Whatever.”
The blond sits. Not really because he wants to, but because standing suddenly feels silly when the other two are sitting.
The bridge creaks. Three tiny shoulders. Three pairs of dangling legs. Three children watching fireworks reflected in the water instead of the sky, without even knowing each other’s names yet.
None of them notice how close they’re sitting. Adults always notice those kinds of things.
Children don’t.
✦ original entry (age three).
i met two boys today.
i think we’ll all grow up together.
A breeze floats across the pond. Your butterfly candy wrapper slips from your lap, drifting away in the air. You gasp.
Before you can get it, the green-haired boy reaches out. The wrapper floats just beyond his fingertips.
The blond boy lunges. He catches it within his palm, truimphant.
“Got it!”
He stares down at the crumpled wrapper in his hands, then back at you.
“…You wanted this?”
“It was pretty.”
He studies the tiny painted butterfly on the wrinkled paper for a moment. Then, without a word, he smooths it carefully between both hands, before handing it back to you. As if beauty deserved to arrive undamaged.
You smile so brightly he looks almost alarmed.
“What?” he frowns.
“Nothing.”
“What?”
You pause.
“…You’re gentle.”
The blond’s entire face scrunches up.
“I’m not gentle!” he snaps.
“You were.”
“I wasn’t!”
“You fixed its wings.”
“I just—”
He looks down at the wrapper. Stops. Perhaps realises.
He immediately shoves it roughly into your hands, scowling again.
“Shut up!”
You tuck the wrapper safely into your little festival bag.
You don’t know it yet, but later on, long after the candy is gone, long after all your parents find you, long after the festival ends, long after bridges become places people only cross without stopping—
You’ll still find that tiny butterfly wrapper folded between the pages of an old notebook.
And you won’t remember the candy. Or the fireworks. Or even the colour of the kimono you were wearing that evening.
You’ll remember the way a little boy, who would later spend years insisting that strength was only measured by explosions, instinctively stopped to repair your paper wings before handing them back to you.
Perhaps love begins long before anyone notices it.
Or perhaps—
(and this is the version you like best.)
Love begins with the things you forget.
✦ original entry (age three).
i met two boys today.
i think we’ll all grow up together.
✦ entry correction (added years later).
we did.
just not in the way i imagined.
And maybe that’s the trouble with memory.
It is forever collecting evidence against the stories people tell about themselves.
Perhaps.
Perhaps, always.