Serendipity And All That Shit!

^-^

"What did you buy?"

She got in the car hastily because Bella just picked her up on the curb. They can't park the car in front of the building for a long time.

"Some acrylic paint. I might need it later."

"You can order them on Amazon. Their delivery system here is the best!" she gave her a thumb up.

"Well, I happened to know someone from that store. I want to know if that person was still there."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot you used to live the weeaboo dream of being a high school transfer student."

"Except knowing the friend that helped you get the house you are living in now, nothing much came out from being a high school transfer student here. Oh yeah, there was! Mei Mei's older brother was arranged to marry me when I was nineteen years old."

Bella stared at her with her mouth agape. Her eyes were as wide as a saucer. She just snapped out of her shock when they heard the car behind them honking because the stoplight already changed from red to green but Bella was still gawking at her in shock.

"Eyes on the road, Bella."

"You gotta be kidding me! You were arranged for marriage when you were nineteen? And now you are running from a marriage that's why you are here in Japan. Don't freaking tell me that you ran away from that arranged marriage when you were nineteen?"

"Well, I didn't really run away from it. I declined the wedding...but come to think of it, I kinda ran away too that time." A crease started to form in her forehead when she remembered the bastard she met on the plane.

"Unbelievable! How many weddings have you run away from?"

"It's not like I wanted to run away from getting married! I mean who wants to get married at the age of nineteen? And to someone that's wasn't your boyfriend. I was dating a different guy at that time." She opened the window of the passenger side for she suddenly felt the inside of the car to be suffocating.

"My father and Mei Mei's father became friends because of us - that my father thought marrying me off to his friend's son was a good idea. Probably at that time he thought it was a good idea."

"I need to hear of the story." she grinned, entering the expressway to the prefecture of Saitama.

"There is nothing exciting about that story. Until now, whenever I saw Mei Mei's older brother, after so many years we were so awkward with each other." She propped her elbow on the car window, leaned her head on her palm, and watched Bella drive. "It's the reason why I actively avoided visiting this country for so many years."

"What do you mean?"

"Since that failed arranged marriage, I never set foot in the country." she turned her gaze outside the window. She watched the rows and rows of industrial buildings zapped as they drove by.

She rested her arm on the car window ledge and lay her left cheek at the back of her palm. She inhaled the air deeply. The familiar scent assaulted her senses. It's kinda weird to associate a country with a certain smell.

It's more than a decade but the memory of the months she stayed here as a student was something that gave her some memories that she would always cherish. Let it be that failed marriage arrangement or meeting Mei Mei that became one of her treasured friends.

As her eyes take in all the scenery from the car window, fragments of her memories of this country, and the people she had met in the past flashed before her eyes.

Life has always been a joke, and the universe is the biggest joker!

She wondered how Bella would react if she would tell her the extent of her history with the older brother of her friend that was housing them here in Japan.

She chuckled softly at the coincidences that happened to her today. Like, she also happened to sit next to one of her exes on the plane!

Bella wouldn't believe it! Well, she wouldn't believe it too if someone would tell her the story. She was the one who experienced it but she couldn't believe it herself. Because what were the chances of meeting your ex on a plane when you were running away from home, for you don't want to marry the man your mother has chosen for you.

'Life is a joke. My life is a joke.', she sighed.

"Why after so many years, did you choose to come here?"

"It the last country my mother would consider as somewhere that I would run away to."

The car went quiet and they both enjoyed the silence. The wind was slapping her face, making her hair flew into a mess of black strands that seems to strangle her. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

She had enough of the wind harsh that she decided to just roll up the window but she kept it halfway open. She wanted the breeze inside the car, for she would have a hard time breathing if she would be kept inside a small enclosed space, such as the passenger seat of a mini van. Which was weird since she is okay with the cramped spaces of a racing car or a sports car.

"Today was just so strange." she blurted out all of the sudden.

"Well, it's not every day that you run away from your mother who was hellbent on marrying you off to her chosen man."

"Yeah. But not only that. I truly feel that the effing universe was having a good laugh at what is happening with me right now. I mean, what were the chances of meeting one of my ex on the plane? The bastard was sitting right next to me.

And since it had been a while since we saw each other, I thought we could catch up, however, he only talked about how amazing his wife was. He was already married with two young children who were crazy over some band called BTS."

"Wooh! I'm the writer here. Don't you think that story was straight out of some cheap serendipity story?"

"Huh! Oh, please! I don't even believe in coincidence, what more of serendipity. That was just an old movie!"

"We still have about an hour drive, let me hear the story of this guy." she grinned.

"Where do you want me to begin?"

"Start from the beginning. How did the two of you meet?"