The Onion-Cutting Ninja's Secret Crush

36 Imagine This

[Imagine this

Maybe you'll have to think back a little or maybe you'll have to visualize your future, maybe it'll be enough to take a look around you, but now, you are young, a youth with your whole life ahead of you.

You are passing school with flying colors. Your whole life, you have tried to do well. You have been working hard whether it's on your studies or athletics, you have been trying to make your parents proud, and support the friends at your side. Right now, you are on the cusp of taking off and soaring into the sky, your future is unlimited. You can go to the horizon and even farther if you want to. Everything seems possible.

There is this one dream you have. You have been pursuing it all your life and now, it's almost in reach. You just need to stretch out your hand and you will be able to grasp it. In fact, when you extend your arm, it feels as if your fingertips are already touching it.

But then, your phone rings. The shrill tone sounds discordant as if it is going to shatter your beautiful dreams. You don't know what this call might be about but you are home alone right now so you get up and walk over. After all, it could be important, right? You stretch out your hand and pick up the receiver, the plastic cold to the touch.

'Wei?' you answer the call and an unfamiliar voice answers you.

A few words are spoken and you ask a little bit, unable to believe what you hear. But no matter how much you question, no matter how much you refuse to believe, it will not change what you are being told.

You end the call and stand in front of the phone. Your head is empty, you are unable to form a coherent thought. Your heart is numb and the feelings you should maybe feel won't come.

With that one phone call, your whole world suddenly breaks down.

What do you think could be the worst that happens? Would it be the message that you have not been accepted into the University of your dreams? Is it that your sweetheart wants to break up with you because they have fallen in love with somebody else? Or maybe there is something even worse?

Imagine if you were suddenly without your family. The people who raised you, the ones who taught you everything they know, who accompanied you on the way through your life from your first day to their last — they are gone. Those two people who spent every single day of your life watching over you, making sure you would not fail, would not hurt, would not stray, they are no longer with you.

You suddenly find yourself without their support, without their encouragement, and without their guidance. Who will you lean on now? Who will you go to ask advice from? How will you get through the challenges that life poses for you? What about the plans you had? What about the new troubles that have been heaped upon your shoulders?

Is it still important?

Even if you think it isn't, you will still have to go on. You will have to do something. You can't just lie down and follow them, can you? No, you know you have to live on. It's what they would have wanted for you and now that they are gone, how could you disappoint them? You didn't want to do so when they were alive and you definitely would not want to do so now. Continuing on, building a life they would look fondly upon is also your way of honoring them. So you have to find your path.

But how? How are you supposed to go to school if you need to pay your tuition? How are you going to earn the money for rent if you have to study? How are you going to put food on your table?

Even before that: How are you going to bury your family members? Have you thought about that? But maybe everything is still too fresh to be able to handle that. Maybe you don't even know where to begin. Maybe at your age, you have never thought about that.