Gangster Cinderella

Side Story Fourteen: Half to Our Whole

"And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it's to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment."
(Plato, The Symposium)

I stand there in front of Chieko's door for a couple of moments before I knock, "Chi-chan, you done yet?"

"Almost! Just let me pack my book!" She shouts from beyond her bedroom door. I lean my back against the wall near her door as I count down the seconds till I see her. The door opens to reveal my Cinderella with her unruly curly brown hair and her devilish red eyes turning to meet mine. "Mikey, did you bring your assignments?"

"Yeah...why do we have to study during our date? It kind of ruins the date." I pout at my girlfriend.

She gently flicks my forehead, "Because you procrastinated on your homework till the very last second. If you turned stuff in on time I wouldn't have to sit your ass down to do homework." Her fingers lace with my own as she leads the way.

🌻🌻🌻☕️🌻🌻🌻

Chieko parks her motorcycle at the entrance of a park. I arch my brow at the odd location, "We're studying here?"

"It's a nice day, it'd be a waste to be stuck inside." She comments wistfully. 

"Does that mean we don't h-"

"No we're still going to study." She cuts me off.

I huff, "Damn it."

Chieko stretches out her hand towards me, "Well, come on."

I take her warm hand in mine and interlace our fingers together. She leads me down gravel roads to some picnic tables on a grassy hill. We sit down and as I'm pulling out my homework I can't help but watch her. The view of her glancing across the park with the autumn leaves swirling past her and her curly locks dancing with the wind is too perfect.

She notices that I stopped taking my stuff out of my bag and furrows her cute brows at me, "Mikey, you have a lot of homework to do. Get your stuff out already."

Even when she's annoyed with me she's cute; I couldn't help smiling at her scolding. "Sorry I couldn't help but admire the view." I say pointedly at her.

She flushes understanding exactly what I meant by that. "Weirdo..." 

I take out the rest of my papers and books and try to set to work...but I'm still being met with the same problem as yesterday: I don't understand any of this classic literature junk. "Chi-chan...I don't get what this assignment is wanting me to do." 

She takes my assignment from me and reads over it. "Oh it's asking you to write your own symposium."

"My own what?"

"Symposium? Ya know, the thing that Plato wrote? We went over it last week?" She stares at me in exasperation, "Is any of this ringing any bells?" 

"Nope!" I happily exclaim. 

She lets out an annoyed sigh, "Basically a symposium is a gathering of men who drink and discuss a wide range of subjects. For example last week's reading was Plato's Symposium which was about the nature of love and this assignment wants you to write a discussion point in response to what you read." She hands me back the paper before asking, "Dare I ask if you even remember anything from last week?" 

"Nope!"

"Give me the book." She demands.

I hand over my textbook and silently watch as she flips through to the page number. "Ok, to give you an idea of what the teacher is looking for I'll explain and give a few quotes from my favorite passage from the assigned reading."

"You have a favorite passage?" I ask in bewilderment at anyone who could enjoy school.

"Well...yeah I like how it's written and the interpretation on soulmates." She pauses to read before paraphrasing the speech back to me, "According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms and legs and two faces. There were three different types of these humans, one was the females and they were daughters of the moon, the males were sons of the sun and the humans that had both female and male sexes were called androgynous and they were the offspring of the earth. Their power was tremendous and posed a threat to the gods. To stop the humans from ever trying to take over olympus, Zeus splits all of the humans in half with his lighting bolts; turning each human into two separate humans, forever condemned to search for their other half."

"That's really sad..."

She gives a small smile, "A little, but it's said that when a human finds their other half, their true half they are overcome with an inexplicable feeling of belonging and dare I say familiarity. Love is the desire we have to find our other half, so that we can feel whole once again."

And then I find it in her smile, what love is to me. It's her, everything about her from her wild spirit and devil may care attitude to her intellect and romantic beliefs. It's the way she looks at me with the warmth of summer on an autumn day. It's the afterglow when we hold one another and have no want of separating. It's her gentle kisses and undying support. Love is everything she is to me and I would choose her whether she was my soulmate or not. I'd fight her other half or cut her string of fate or even fight the gods themselves if it meant I'd have a chance of her looking my way.

She once again furrows those cute dark brows at me, "Mikey, you alright? You seem kinda spacey."

I snap out of my romantic meanderings and take her hand to my lips and press a kiss to it, "Thanks Chieko, I think I know what to write now."

Her cheeks dusk red and she hides her face behind her own book, "Well good, I'm glad I could help."

I smile to myself thinking that I wouldn't even want a soulmate if it wasn't Chieko.