Despite my willingness to learn more about the girl, the bus came ahead. I hurriedly took out my Bus Pass to be shown, the card that cost a lot but cheaper than a car’s gas. I watched the girl walk ahead of me in the aisle. She lifted her hands and started to wave. To my surprise, there were more than ten kids who answered her hands back. She was famous! Well not that famous, but I really had thought her serious appearance wouldn’t interest anyone.
She took a seat at the back and offered me to sit beside her. I saw how different she became: how her eyes showed her trust within me by then. I tried hard to analyze her yet again: how she was cautious and sometimes sounded so mature. Her eyes were looking to an old gentleman sitting in the front. It was not a mindless gaze; rather, it was a scrutinizing one. I realized that she was literally watching the person. For what?
Then I reckoned how she laughed at me. She laughed when a drop of water fell on my nose. She was watching me too.
“You’re a watcher.” I whispered. The girl however heard my whisper as clear as I heard mine. “What did you say?”
“You’re a watcher. You like to watch a person do you?”
She smiled at this. “Yes.”
“Because someone told you to?”
“What are you talking about?”
I shifted uneasily in my seat. I’m starting to make a big deal out of it though I shouldn’t. But I couldn’t help myself because of her puzzling personality.
“That friends of yours, do you like them because someone told you to?”
“Like I said, what are you talking about?” the girl frowned again.
“Well, so far you’ve been talking about things you like based on others’ recommendation. I thought it might as well be the case for your other favorite things.”
Then, the girl beside me smiled. She seemed glad to hear my question. “I never said that. That’s just your assumption.”
She thought for a while and said, “Remember the sky? I mentioned it as one of my favorite things besides chocolate, piano, oil paintings, and my English major. I definitely mentioned someone or some conditions that introduce me to them. But are they the ones who determine your feelings, though?”
With her quizzical look, I was forced to respond to her questions. “You could have ocean to like, or strawberry flavor, or something else.”
“Yup,” she said, “but I still like sky-chocolate-piano, all those bunch of things. I was just saying that you might start off with unexpected situations and objects around you. But gradually, you started to appreciate its existence and it’s effect to surroundings. You begin to like it despite all your first impressions.”
“Your feelings are your own. No matter how it started, it’s your own feeling in the end.”
“Exactly.”
I absorbed the insight and added, “What’s important is that you like it and not how you like it.”
I watched her smiling confidently yet again.
“Remember the rain? I hated it as much as I hate the spring, the wind, and my upcoming quiz. You mentioned how easily hatred starts in our heart, right? I agree with that.”
“Well it’s just that… when you talk about the things you hate, you don’t mention others’ opinion. It seemed to be your original feelings about them.”
I stopped to realize a sudden realization. “I see. I got it! You’re a cautious person! You think it’s fine to tell your hatred right away but you cautiously quoted others’ opinion about your favorite things to back up your likings. I think you’re afraid for me to disagree with your opinion so you back it up with others’ agreement about them.”
“I’m not –"
She stopped right there when I smiled triumphantly. “Fine,” she said. “Although you can think of me as an insecure person, all I wanted to say was that we often hate things without logical reason and then make reasons to hate them.”
She seemed to think of something before she continued, “I can say I hate the rain because it makes me wet. I can say the wind ruins my hair and the spring is not as hot as summer. It’s so easy to reason our hatred that people often make them up. The more reasonable our reasons are, the more hatred we can show toward the object.”
“You really are deep in words,” I shook my head slowly in amazement. “What a comment from a cautious girl.”
“I can say that you’re cautious too, you know. You never once tell me your story. Instead, you’re interested in hearing my story only, as if yours is too confidential.”
“It’s just because you’re more of a talker and I’m more of a listener,” I calmly responded.
“What about names? You never introduce yourself or ask my name?”
I smiled again. “That’s because I easily forget a person’s name.”
My ‘little girl’ gave me a big smile. “Same here. I found it easier to know the personality first and then the name.”
By then we finally introduced to each other and by the end of the day I found myself still thinking about her words. Her weird reasoning of her likings and her blunt hatred successfully sent me a message. She said she was just repeating an old common knowledge about feelings, which I’m not even sure if it does exist. She told me how she read it as such:
‘It’s hard to explain how you like someone and easy to reason how you hate someone.’
She told it the other way around.
