Looking Forward
September 26th 2014
Plot by Elise the Writing Desk, Characters by QuinRose

It's finally that time when you step on to the college life. For some reason, society sets 'college' as an unchanged path to the future. Your decisions here will guide you to narrower paths. Less decisions. Do you understand what it means?

You want to be a doctor? But you can only take Law major because that's the only major in which you have enough credits of.

They said you can be anything? They lied.

Your parents lied to you.

Vivaldi's parents lied to her.

"My name is Vivaldi Crims, I'm from Italy," the teen introduced herself in the room.

"Yes...so, Vivaldi, why are you here? What motivated you to learn Law and Society?" the lecturer asked, as it was an ice-breaking session with his class.

So many thoughts ran around in Vivaldi's mind, as that question might sounded really harmless, but it meant everything—everything, to her.

She didn't want to be here.

She had to.

She had no other choice.

If she had other choice, she didn't want to be here.

So Vivaldi decided to be honest and calmly answered the question.

"My parents told me that this major has a great prospect for my future. So here I am,"

Great prospect. Vivaldi understood, what her parents wanted was for her to have a good living in the future. She was to work in a Court like her father did. Yes, it was a good prospect. At the very least in the future, she would be able to pay some of her own bills.

The purplette returned to her dorm, slightly feeling empty after the ice breaking. Someone abruptly walked past her on the staircase. The person stopped and looked down on her apologetically.

"Sorry, excuse me," she said. Vivaldi remembered that girl, their rooms were next to each other.

The curly teen entered her room and sighed, sliding as she leaned her back on the door. Vivaldi looked around in her room.

"My parents paid a lot for this room..." she then narrowed her eyes on the laptop which was set on the table. "...and that laptop," murmured her. She dragged herself to the bed and lied down there.

Look at the bright side, though. She was guaranteed a job. She didn't have to apply for job like others.

"Once I can get my own money," thought Vivaldi, "I can do anything I want, right?"

That petty optimism was supposed to keep her going for several semesters.

~.X.~

Vivaldi was envious.

At some point she regretted her decisions, but it wasn't like she had any other choice. Though she would strongly tried to diminish those thoughts.

"What's done is done...all I can do is do my best to deal with the consequences..." she kept reminding herself.

She's an adult, after all. Despite deep in her heart, she wanted to blame her parents so much.

Why didn't they let her wait for a year to take the Medical Major exam? Because they couldn't bear the shame. At some points she also couldn't bear it if her parents had to pay a lot for her education. But, for God's sake...laws, governments, courts...? The books she read, the things she learned, at the moment, she didn't hate them.

Vivaldi just hated the future she had to look forward to. If possible she wanted to look away from it.

If only she realized what it meant to be herself. To be her own person. She never really thought about it as a child.

It used to be really simple. You could just say you hate something if you didn't like it. If you liked something, then you said so.

That what being yourself used to mean.

Things just went complicated as responsibility and manners were taught as you grow. You can't just be yourself without hurting anyone else. Sometimes you have to do things you don't like to protect their feelings.

And in the future, one that Vivaldi might regret, was the result of the decision she made for others.

Office. Computers. Papers. People talking in a room about laws. Everyone could do that. That's right. She could be easily replaced, because everyone can do that. In the end to defend her place, she had to have some sort of special skills, things that only she could do.

How can anyone look forward to such a dull future?

"Alms to the poor, miss," a little boy begged at the side of the road. Vivaldi was walking to the dorm with Alice.

"Oh, a second," Alice murmured and stopped to hand some pennies to the boy.

Vivaldi then rethink about it again. Wasn't that kind of future she was avoiding? Vivaldi imagined if she had to be homeless because she didn't have a stable job. She had to be grateful that in the future, she's guaranteed a living. She was much more fortunate than that little boy—she didn't have to walk around begging for pennies.

That was quite a point she should remember.

~.X.~

So she continued on, trying not to think much about the future. College was fun for the moments she went through. There was that freedom, and the feel of maturity where you're old enough and know your ways in the world enough to speak in an equal standing with adults. Well, not so equal, actually. Still, at the very least, you can share the same knowledge as those adults whom you used to think to be such stubborn old bags.

"What are you going to write in the essay about penalties?" a classmate asked during break.

"I think life-time prison scars me enough," Alice commented. "I can't stand being confined...So I'll write about life-time prison and make an approach in a psychological way,"

Vivaldi set down her can of soda. "I'll go with beheading," she said bluntly, and everyone went speechless. "What? Life-time prison, as Alice had said, is much crueler. Beheading is much nicer as the culprit can just die already and the victim's family will be satisfied. Everyone's happy,"

As the others began to make arguments about how social service would've been better, Vivaldi and Alice shared a secret glance. For them to think that certain penalties could be so cruel and kind, they realized that something must be wrong with each other.

Vivaldi didn't have a close friend, neither did Alice. Vivaldi was hard to approach, but everyone respected her, while Alice was easy to approach, but she's very unattached. Both of them often could be find being alone, eating alone, sitting alone...

Vivaldi felt that they were quite similar, but for some reason, they couldn't be close to each other.

An invisible wall.

~.X.~

For the past few weeks, Vivaldi noticed that there was a guy who had been frequenting the dorm. She ignored him, but one day, he came up to talk to her.

"Have you seen Alice?"

Vivaldi raised her eyebrows. "Who are you?"

"I'm...a relative, of some sort," he cleared his throat, "If you see her, please tell her that Julius had been trying to meet her, will you?"

Vivaldi crossed her arms. She didn't care much, but she knew that Alice hadn't been at the dorm for a while, and decided that she should let this guy know. The navy-haired guy frowned, looking really worried.

"I see...so she's back in Oxford...skipping lectures,"

"Yeah, I haven't seen her at all in lectures," Vivaldi added. "Is something wrong with her?"

"I'm worried...She just lost her elder sister last month, and she told me that after asking me to fix her laptop...I need to ask her for a password to access something,"

Vivaldi promised that she would inform Alice about it once they met, and from then on, Julius never came anymore. Alice also didn't came back. Finals were coming next months, and Vivaldi's room neighbor really needed to get some credits to replace her absences.

Though it really wasn't much of her business. For some reason, Vivaldi didn't really want to get close to Alice.

However, others could be so judgmental.

"Can't you contact her, Vivaldi?" the lecturer asked one day, being concerned of his pupil, "You're from the same dorm right? I thought that you'd look after each other,"

Well Vivaldi didn't know that she should. But she then realized; what's she got to lose? Caring a little didn't hurt much. They're classmates, after all. It should be natural. And she didn't want anyone to judge her as ignorant.

So Vivaldi called the girl. It took a while, but the girl picked up. After telling her that she needed to catch up because finals were coming, Alice promised to return the next day in the morning. Vivaldi let her hung up the phone, as she was pondering that something was off.

Alice sounded really...empty.

Vivaldi knew this, because she had been feeling that for the longest of time, no matter how much she tried to ignore that emptiness.

~.X.~

As promised, Alice returned and up for lectures as if nothing happened. She thanked Vivaldi formally and they acted as if nothing had happened. Though, for some reason, there was a growing concern inside Vivaldi whenever she looked at Alice.

It was looking at a worse version of herself.

"Alice, here, copy my notes," Vivaldi said when they walked back to dorm. Alice looked startled. "You need to catch up, right? Don't want to bomb the finals,"

The two laughed and began to joke around about the 'damn finals', complaining about how much of a pain it was. Though their dialogues died down again once they reached the dorm.

It felt really pointless to do things you don't even care. Trying to learn something that didn't interest you. Vivaldi knew her weakness; to diminish things she didn't care, to underestimate things she couldn't relate to. No matter how hard she tried to study, she kept going back to the Internet, like almost anyone else on the planet would.

"I'm going to fail this, aren't I..." Vivaldi bitterly mumbled, dropping her face to her desk. She needed to find a way to concentrate.

She realized that she had a big pride, so she didn't want to show her bad side to anyone during lectures. The purplette then decided that studying with Alice might help her focus, so she took her papers and went to the next room.

Only to have a thick dictionary thrown at her.

"What do you want...? Study with me?" Alice hissed. "I don't want to study—you too, you know you hate this, right? Why do you keep pretending that you can keep on living this way!?"

Vivaldi dropped her book in shock. She wasn't expecting such deep emotional questions thrown the moment she opened the door. Though those questions irritated her so much, because this girl, yelling at her with tears, saying that she just up and give up...?

Sure, Alice could choose to give up. If that's okay with her then go ahead. But was this girl trying to drag Vivaldi in her give up charade? The nerve...

The things she'd done—things she had to do, to go through, she didn't like it, and Alice was telling her to drop it and give up?

"Do you think I have a choice!?" Vivaldi yelled back angrily, to startle the crying girl. Anger made Vivaldi's head heating up, and she started to tear up as well. "My parents paid for this dorm, for this book," she bent down to take the book on the floor and waved it in Alice's face. "...for my laptop, for my meals...you think I have a choice? You think I can just give it up? You think it's so easy to throw everything everyone's done to this point—all for the sake of a future I don't even want!?"

"You think I have a damn choice!?" she shrieked and stomped back to her own room, crying.

Vivaldi curled in her bed, feeling a headache coming. She wasn't mentally prepared for such a brainstorming question, such question that stabbed her heart and pride. If she could do something else, she would've done so. She wished she could tell everything she had endured to come this far—she wanted Alice to know—she wanted someone to know that it wasn't easy to do things she hate.

She didn't care for laws. She didn't care for government. She didn't care for courts—she didn't care for papers, orders, lawyers.

So she couldn't be a doctor.

So she couldn't join the forensics.

Wasn't it already much of a punishment for not being able to do something you actually want?

No, it's not. So she had to do things she didn't care.

Vivaldi knew what she wanted; if she could, she just didn't want to do anything at all.

But she couldn't.

The burden she'd put on her parents. The expectations of her family. Her lecturers. Her high school teachers. All for the sake of prospects for a good living in the future.

So that she wouldn't be such a pain for her parents anymore.

She hated Alice so much for making her realize and faced it.

She had the choice to give up. She just never really wanted to look at it.

Because Vivaldi loved her parents and didn't want to hurt them.

However...at some points they didn't feel worth the effort.

How could it turned this way...? Her parents used to be such treasures.

Now she's doing things for them just to be understood.

"I just want to be free..." she thought, finally admitting her ultimate wish.

Thus that's why Vivaldi understood that life-time prison would be such a torture.

If she's a criminal, she'd take the guillotine anytime. If death would be her only way of freedom, then she'd gladly take it.

How many times had she tried to ignore the urge to hang a noose...the many times she eyed a blade with desire to slit herself. Those horrible suicidal thoughts she had always tried to diminish.

She couldn't even die in peace. No. Not after everything her parents do for her to come this far.

And Alice had the nerve to destroy that emotional walls Vivaldi had built to keep herself from giving up.

It was true, what they said.

The older you get, the more it becomes regretful.

If she hadn't taken this path. If only. If only she didn't. She might have been able to do other things.

This was what it means to regret.

Vivaldi wiped her tears and sat up from her bed, returning to study.

But she'd like to keep one of her child-like attitude; to just carelessly continue instead of dwelling on it.

Moving on is not an attribute of the adult. It's a children's talent.

The harder you move on, then that's when your heart has grown old.

~.X.~

Vivaldi was prideful. She disliked any display of her weakness, and moved on again with her life, pretending as if she'd never yelled to Alice before. So they found themselves walking to the campus together as usual.

"Thanks for your notes," Alice said, taking her notebook, and opened several pages. "Though I just can't read this one...something was spilled on it..."

Vivaldi hummed and tried to read it. "Oh yeah, I drooled on it when I almost fell asleep in class,"

"Eww," Alice shivered. "You drooled when you're still awake? Who does that—oh wait, you," they laughed. Vivaldi then explained the blurry parts to Alice before she kept the book in her bag.

Vivaldi noticed a slight change. They used to joke around, but neither of them ever spoke so frankly and mock as a joke. They used to have such a wall that made them act so polite towards each other—despite how they acted more casual towards other people.

"Do you realize that your face looks horrible from crying...?" Vivaldi mumbled.

Alice scoffed as they walked into the lecture room. "Shut up, look who's talking, panda,"

And that wall was not there anymore. Only that neither of them realized it yet.

~.X.~

The one who started walking past the wall was Alice. One night, she came into Vivaldi's room, saying that she couldn't concentrate if she's alone. Vivaldi let her sit anywhere, and was secretly glad, because she also couldn't stop watching YouTube if Alice didn't come to study. It was mostly quiet until one of them asking some questions related to the books.

Then it was Vivaldi's turn to visit her room. Alice's room was plain, untouched, nothing much changed, as if the only things she'd brought was books and clothes and she just dropped them in her room. No sense of trying to make an impression.

Usually they'd study until it was blind in the morning. They had a way to be awake without sleeping at all. When they couldn't take it they'd go out of the dorm in at the breaking dawn and walk around, trying to keep themselves awake for the finals.

After they're done with it, they returned to the dorm and pay back for the sleep they've lost.

The routine kept going on until the finals were over. None of them were sure about their results, and neither wanted to think about it. After the last exam, they ended up in Alice's room, watching Silent Hill, continued with other horror movies.

"Oh shit, no, Kaylie," Alice groaned when they were watching Oculus. "No, no, don't come to that mirror,"

"No, dude," Vivaldi shook her head. "Don't touch that dial, don't touch that—" a grotesque sound effect from the movie, "Ugh, I knew it. He did it again. He killed his own family,"

They fell silent as the credit rolled. They ran out of snacks to grab and just sat there leaning to the wall, watching the credit. Alice sighed.

"He's stupid...if I did that, I'd probably wouldn't gape around my sister's dead body—I'd find something to kill myself with," she commented.

"Totally," Vivaldi nodded in agreement. "I'd rather die than letting others judge me as a mental murderer...Being judged is like a prison for me,"

It was as if Vivaldi had said something to unlock a door—something clicked in their mind. Vivaldi then remembered something.

"I totally forgot to tell you about Julius..."

"Oh yeah, that's okay. I've talked to him way back after you called,"

"What happened to your sister? I mean...how did she...passed away?"

Alice hesitantly glanced at Vivaldi, and the purplette realized that she was stepping on a thin thread. She shouldn't push, and wouldn't push further. She had to show Alice that it's alright if she didn't tell her, but it was a bit late to say that.

Though Alice let Vivaldi to walk on that thin thread of emotion.

"Well, my mother had also passed away from an illness, and my sister...she inherited the same thing," she said as if it didn't affect her at all. "Though...I wasn't really sad about it...if anything, I hated her for that,"

There was something really cruel in Alice's expression. A deep hatred. Vivaldi didn't really care about her hatred towards her dead sister, though; she wanted to know why—what made Alice to be this way. To lead her to almost giving up on college.

"Can I ask why?"

Alice stared at her for a while and had a bitter smile. "Well...you see, my father didn't take care of us so much after my mother's death. My older sister had to take care of me and Edith—my little sister. I just...I'm..."

She took a deep breath and tried to say it with a smile. "I was being such a brat you know? We wanted my father to care for us...I thought that if I study law and be a prosecutor like him, he would look at us. Though that's not the case at all, but that's okay," her voice was shivering.

"Like, why should I care? I only go through this college for my sister. Because she wanted our father to come back. I didn't care about being a prosecutor. I did this because I love my sister and want to make her happy..."

Vivaldi shivered when she heard such a shrill laugh. Alice hugged her pillow.

"But I guess that didn't matter anymore. Since my sister is dead now. She overworked herself to pay for my tuition, because our father wouldn't provide more than our living. Remember that one month I skipped lectures?"

"My sister was ill, and I told her that I'd stop going to college so she could relax, but no,"

Disappointment.

Betrayal.

Abandoned.

"She said she'd be okay...she'd keep working...she wanted our father to come back..."

Loneliness.

Despair.

"Turns out she didn't love me that much. She used me to get our father back,"

Vivaldi didn't quite understand. "How can you think that?" she didn't want to ask much, because she didn't want to give her a different perspective.

She just wanted to know why. Why'd Alice come to think that her sister didn't love her.

"Because if she loved us, then she'd stop working. She'd understand that I don't like what I'm doing. She'd just live and work properly to get what we want on our own. She wouldn't leave me like this, get it?"

Hatred.

There were so many kinds of emotion in Alice's eyes, even if Vivaldi didn't look straight at them. Her expression explained everything. Betrayal, disappointment, loneliness...all the sad things, anger, hatred...but Vivaldi sighed and put an arm around her and gave a strengthening grip.

"It's not your fault if you're angry to your sister, I think," Vivaldi said gently. "It's just that, we grow, and we change. The things we wanted to protect also changed, and that's when regret enters,"

She changed too. Everyone changed. Everything changed. Feelings changed. Regrets will not stay. Alice smiled gently and nodded.

Yes, the older you get, the more you regrets.

But regrets won't stay. It won't have to stay.

"I tried to drag you to quit with me, remember?"

"Yeah, I hated that so much,"

"I'm glad you said you didn't have a choice," Alice laughed bitterly. "I would've hated myself if I gave up after all my sister's sacrificed. Even if I don't even care for it,"

The two then looked at the dull ceilings. They realized something; they've been wrong all this time. The things they do, the things everyone else had done for them. All this time, they believed that they didn't have a choice.

Though they actually have, but they didn't ever see it, because they could never see it as a decision they would ever take;

To stop caring.

If they honestly didn't care about the Law Major they're taking...they could just be some ass and don't do it. But they never saw it as a choice. At some points they wanted to blame the guilt trip their parents gave, their sister gave, whatever expectations people gave.

But they couldn't stop caring.

And that's why they faced and sucked it up instead.

"It's just that..." suddenly Vivaldi teared up. "I wish my parents realized that I did all of this for them, you know...? They keep thinking that they're doing this for me—no, I'm doing this, these laws, these sociology, these finals, it's all for them,"

"Can't they understand? If I'm doing this for me, I'm not doing this. I'm going to wait for another year to take that Medical Major,"

Alice laughed through her tears. "I know, I totally get it," she dropped her head on Vivaldi's shoulder. "Though we don't have a choice, we have to face it,"

Vivaldi smiled. "You know we have another choice."

"Psh," Alice waved her hands dismissively. "I have too many fucks to give, so I don't see any other choice,"

"Yeah," Vivaldi laughed. "Me too,"

~.X.~

Sometimes you just forgot that you care—it was somehow buried beneath regrets and envy. Though Vivaldi now remembered that she did everything—she worked so hard to get this far, to pass the finals because she cared for her parents. She wanted their sacrifice to be repaid. She did all of these college for them.

Though Vivaldi would know better. If she did as much as saying; "I went to college, wake up on 5 AM, taking freezing cold bath, do my reading and bleeding scripts, to get a law degree, to work at the court, it's all for you, not because I like it."

"Because I know, you want me to do it for you. So there. I did everything for you."

Her parents would be angry. Outright denials. Even parents had pride.

Though it doesn't have to mean that choosing a major in college will forever direct your life. That much, unlike Vivaldi, Alice was more vast-minded for it.

"Getting more degrees on law? Are you joking?" Alice stared at Vivaldi as if she's grown a third head. "I'm not up for that. See this thick scripts of bullshit I whipped up from altering articles in the internet?" she waved her 78 sheets of scripts in front of Vivaldi.

The purplette looked surprised, but then she smiled, feeling envious of Alice. She had no one else to care, so she didn't have to feel the guilt of betraying anyone's expectation.

Alice, who could see herself in Vivaldi, knew it in one look and clicked her tongue.

"It's not about betraying anyone's expectation, Vivaldi," she took a seat on the edge of Vivaldi's bed.

"I don't need my father to look at me."

"I'm a bloody adult."

Alice beamed with optimism.

"When you yelled at me for asking you to give up on college, I realized that I couldn't do that. You're not me, and I'm not you, no matter how similar we are."

Vivaldi looked up at her, and the dark blonde crossed her arms.

"I've decided that I will be me, and Vivaldi, you should be you." She said. "It's not something that we need to find out, it's been there all the time. And here's my plan on being me," she bounced on the bed to take a place beside Vivaldi.

"I'm just here so I can work as a prosecutor, save up money, buy myself some pen tablet, study animating, and I'm going to make myself an anime,"

Alice tossed her scripts to Vivaldi's bed.

"I'm not gonna sit around tapping the table yelling objection. I'm not Miles Edgeworth; I'm going to make a character based on Miles Edgeworth, you catch me?"

Vivaldi raised her eyebrows and fell silent for a while.

"That's right. That's my plan on being me."

She began to laugh.

There was such a heavy burden on her all this time.

To think that living was all about being able to pay bills.

Prospects aren't the same with the capability of paying bills.

Prospects are the chances you might get in the future. It's like an inception of Chances; Chanception.

You, the owner of prospects, had all the rights to take or leave them prospects.

"I'll probably continue my hobby to bake, then," Vivaldi began to dream again. "Now I know how to do business, so I can sell some stuff easy. Maybe a baking class will do,"

"Oh, remember that spa shop we visited the other day?" Alice crawled onto Vivaldi's bed. "They also had a hairdresser and your curls were done so perfectly...The masseuse was amazing...I've always wanted to open my own Beauty Center, though I'm too plain,"

Vivaldi brightened up even more. "No you're not. You're cute. Though if you really are up for that, I'd like to team up with you,"

"That's right! I've been wondering if you have some beauty tricks to be so beautiful," Alice giggled. "So then I'm going to work as a prosecutor and do my hobby with animations,"

"And I'm going to be the Judge and work on my own hobbies...then we retire and open our own Beauty Center,"

Alice hummed and turned to Vivaldi with a worried smile.

"You think we can do it?"

Vivaldi giggled.

"Let's just make our future interesting enough to look forward to, Alice."

Sometimes you'll have to let go of the chances in your hands to be free. Why ponder on things you don't care that binds your from doing what you really want?

Some might think that it's such a waste to let go such chances.

But to be free is to be yourself, so to hell with judgments.

Let go of the things that trap yourself.

Join hands with the people you pass by.

And make your future worth looking forward.

Thank you for reading! I hope this somehow motivates you. Maybe some of you who get to do what you really want won't understand, but if you can relate to this story, just cheer up. You're not stuck. You're not trapped. So don't give up. If you keep on pushing, you'll see a wider path to take.

This fanfic is actually done both by me and my best friend—heh~ this is actually a story based on us. Though instead of sister, my friend lost both her parents from overworking.

Many people think I'm stupid because they think I'm not brave enough to tell my parents that I don't want to take taxation and law majors. I also began to regret and hate myself for it, but I met my friend and saw myself inside her. We fought about it. Those agonizing feelings had been leading us to depression and suicidal feelings—and why does my chips looks like Lisa from Silent Hills? This is ridiculous! (turns my chip bags away)

Though I don't regret it at all, now. We don't regret it at all. Instead of Oculus, we actually cried and told each other everything after listening to Rashisa by SUPER BEAVER, the opening song for Barakamon, which also inspired us to write this.

I think that we're not the only ones who are in the middle of regretting our college decisions. And for you who haven't been on college, do your best so you can do what you really want. Regrets will always haunt you, coming like 'what if I did this instead that time...? I would've been doing better...'. But no. Really, all you have to do is believe that you're not trapped.

I did use this in a darker fanfic, but as Bob Marley's said; None but Ourselves can free our mind.

So don't be narrow-minded. Be optimistic. Absolutely don't give up, and most importantly, don't ever stop giving fucks—CARE, I mean care. Sorry.

Please fave and if you have the time, kindly review. :)