another converted story. credits to the original author
*****
No
One of the most powerful words in the world is a two-letter word. No.
Saying it can break hearts, crumble dreams, crush hopes, bring disappointments. If all these don't already, the word no can kill a person too. It is what happens when despots say no, this person cannot live, he is a threat. Extinguish him.
Saying no makes you feel in control, it makes you feel powerful. Instead of saying yes and going with the tide of things, when you say no, you are throwing an anchor into the water, you are denying the forces that is directing you into one particular direction and that is why Ryujin likes the word No.
She has used it liberally since the day she learned how to say the word aloud in response to another person's actions or words. She learned that saying no gives her the power of rejection and she learned this at the young age of 5 when she rejected the Valentine Day's card a boy offered her in an arts and crafts class at the daycare center. The boy burst into tears at his first rejection and Ryujin learned that No was a powerful word.
As time passed she learned how to say no in more sophisticated ways, you don't even need to say the word for other people to understand that you are saying no. Some of these ways include leaving abruptly and suddenly without word or warning. This happened with a fling she had with a very attractive student she met in a summer abroad. She was bored of the relationship and her visa was close to ending, she had to return to Seoul soon, so she just left, no last words, no nothing. That was a No, I don't want to continue this anymore. A perhaps too subtle no but a no nonetheless.
As you can figure, Ryujin left quite a trail of broken hearts and unfinished business as she grew up. She could always sense the end of something and before the end drew near she would get up and she would leave.
Ryujin has always been the first to leave. She has always been the first to say no. Doing these makes her feel like she is in control of her fate. She did it to deny the possibility of a future hurt, but once in a blue moon she wonders if she was doing it all wrong. She was after all, also denying herself the possibility of happiness.
Over the years she left each experience unscathed and unmarked and this carried on for quite a while until for the first time in her life she experienced the excruciating pain of having her heart hammered to bits. It crushed her and it was why she remembers her first heart-break so very clearly. You'll never forget the first time someone leaves you behind never to return. A terrible powerless feeling comes upon on you, it is a horrible, horrible feeling and Ryujin marked it #1.
The first heart-break led to a subsequent many. She was learning very quickly in very little time, crucial life lessons. Once you start investing more of yourself into a relationship, the heart-break ratio tends to shoot up. The logic to this is simple, you give more and in return you get more but once one of the players tires of the game and he or she gets up to leave, that player takes all the winnings off the table.
Ryujin wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing, being serious and wanting serious things like a future with someone. But as the disappointments mount up it came to a point where she thought that she had to stop. Heart-breaks don't kill on a normal basis but strange things have happened before and a news article once mentioned how a man out of extreme disappointment bid his heart to stop, and the heart complied, halting the beats to a cessation and so killed the man. Ryujin thought she couldn't let this continue, disappointments after disappointments, it was killing her.
It wasn't that she had given up. People often say, you haven't tried enough, try harder, look harder, put yourself out there. She knew all that and she did try very hard but the trying was so hard.
