"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."
"And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."
They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.
As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?
And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"
"Yes," she said, "that is exactly what we should do."
And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.
--Excerpt from Haruki Murakami
***
An April morning changed my life forever as well. A sunny April morning in 2010.
I saw him and I knew that he is going to be special. And he is--a month after that fateful day, I knew he is that boy I have pictured in my dreams. My 100% perfect boy. Every time I play those memories in my head, I am amazed at how they remain crystal clear to me: that salute in lieu of a first hello, that smile and a slight raise of an eyebrow, his scent and the feel of his fingers as he playfully hold my wrist.
I couldn't have been happier. It was all so perfect and too soon. Amidst those perfect moments and every possibility of what could have been, that tiny, tiny sliver of doubt set in: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?
Would it be possible to meet the 100% perfect boy in a span of five weeks?
I let that pinch of doubt take over. Maybe if he really is, he will make a way for us to be together. After all, he is the one I have pictured in my dreams. Soon before I knew it, fate took a power trip on the path that we could have--should have--been walking together. Things became complicated.
All because I--we--became unsure.
Now all I have is the memory of that kiss before we separated from each other.
I wish I could really have done that. I wish I could have told him that I love him even then, and until now. I wish I did not let anyone tear us apart, that made us end up with a random, lifeless goodbye as we pass by each other at a fire exit.
I wish I could put a happy ending to this story now. I wish I could write something more, like, we meet again after a year and are still falling madly in love with each other despite the distance. That after meeting again we never let each other go, that we have now realized that we are the 100% of each other. I wish I could tell you that he is beside me as I write this, gently whispering that he'll never let anything--or anyone--separate us again.
But I can't. Because I let go of my 100% boy just like that.
And until now I don't know if he'd still come back.
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