u/SereneSidequest

I say it to the mirror before I say it to anyone else. Practice, maybe. Or mercy. better my own voice than someone else's, better to get there first, claim the wound before it's handed to me.

I used to be soft in ways people noticed. Now I flinch before a hand even moves toward me. I count exits in every room, including the ones built out of people. I have gotten so good at leaving before I'm left that I don't know anymore if I'm protecting myself or just rehearsing the ending, over and over, so it stops surprising me.

Somewhere along the way I started keeping score against myself. Every apology I didn't get, I decided I must have deserved. Every silence, I filled in with my own name. It's easier that way if it's my fault, at least it makes sense. At least there's a reason. The alternative is that people just leave sometimes, for no good reason at all, and I don't know how to carry that.

So yes. Look at me. Guarded, tired, keeping receipts on my own heart like it might be called as evidence one day. I don't know when tenderness started feeling like a exposed nerve instead of a gift. I don't know when I started apologizing for taking up space in my own life.

Oh, what an unlovable thing you have become and the cruelest part is I said it like I believed it. Like it was a fact and not a fear. Like I hadn't spent years turning myself into someone easy to leave, just so it would hurt less when it happened anyway.

मैं मर जाऊँ, और तुझे मेरा जनाज़ा भी नसीब न हो, तू देर से पहुँचे और मेरे हिस्से की मिट्टी भी तेरे हाथों में न आए शायद तब समझ आए कि किसी को खोना सिर्फ़ उसके चले जाने का नाम नहीं होता।

मैंने तुझे इतना चाहा था कि तेरे बाद खुद को चाहना ही भूल गई। तूने बस मेरा हाथ छोड़ा था, मैंने अपनी पूरी दुनिया खो दी और तुझे शायद ख़बर भी नहीं हुई कि तेरे जाने के बाद मैं कितनी ख़ामोशी से टूटती रही।

अब अगर कभी मेरी याद आए, तो रो लेना मगर मुझे पुकारना मत। क्योंकि जिस लड़की ने ज़िंदगी भर तेरा इंतज़ार किया, वो शायद उस वक़्त तक इतनी दूर जा चुकी होगी कि तेरी आवाज़ भी उस तक नहीं पहुँच पाएगी।

मैं इस क़दर हार जाऊँगी,

कि तुम जीतकर भी पछताओगे।

मैं लड़ना छोड़ दूँगी,

तुम्हें मनाना छोड़ दूँगी,

हर बार की तरह इस बार भी

अपने हिस्से का प्यार

तुम्हारे आगे रखकर नहीं कहूँगी

“रुक जाओ।”

बस एक दिन

मैं चुप हो जाऊँगी।

और मेरी यही चुप्पी

तुम्हें उन सारी रातों की याद दिलाएगी

जिनमें मैं तुम्हें खोने के डर से जागती रही

और तुम बेख़बर सोते रहे।

तुम्हें लगेगा,

मैं हार गई।

हार जाऊँगी मैं

तुमसे नहीं,

तुम्हें पाने की उस आख़िरी उम्मीद से।

और तुम जीत जाओगे।

मगर फिर किसी शाम

जब कोई तुम्हारा नाम

उसी तरह प्यार से लेगा,

जैसे कभी मैं लिया करती थी,

तो तुम पलटकर देखोगे

और वहाँ मैं नहीं होऊँगी।

तब तुम्हें समझ आएगा,

कुछ लोग लौटकर नहीं आते।

कुछ रिश्ते टूटते नहीं,

बस एक दिन

उनमें से एक इंसान

थककर अपना दिल उठा लेता है।

मैं भी उठा लूँगी।

और उस दिन

तुम्हारी सबसे बड़ी जीत

तुम्हारा सबसे गहरा पछतावा होगी।

Because love, sometimes, feels too simple a word for what I mean.It’s not just missing someone or wanting to be around them. It’s thinking about them when you have no reason to. It’s remembering the little things they probably don’t even remember telling you. It’s caring about how their day went, hoping they ate, wondering if they got home safe.

And honestly, sometimes it’s stupid. You give more than you should. You worry more than you need to. You stay soft even when it would be easier not to

That’s why I call it devotion.

Not because it’s perfect. Not because it never hurts. But because somewhere along the way, their happiness starts mattering to you in a way you can’t really explain.

You call it love.

I call it the quiet decision to care, over and over again.

There’s something strangely beautiful about people who speak as if they’ve stopped believing in love, yet their eyes still betray them.

They joke about love. They call everything temporary. They act detached, keep their words sharp, and build walls so carefully that even they begin to believe those walls are permanent. Maybe it’s easier to sound like the villain than admit you’re scared of being hurt.

But then someone walks into their life, and suddenly the silence feels different.

They still pretend not to care. They still act like nothing gets to them. But there are little things they can’t control the way their eyes linger when you’re not looking, the way they remember tiny things you forgot you ever told them, the way their voice changes when they’re genuinely worried about you.

Their words stay guarded, but their eyes soften without permission.

And suddenly, all that indifference feels like a lie.

Maybe they were never heartless. Maybe they just got too good at hiding how deeply they feel. Maybe they don’t know how to say I care about you, so they look at you like you’re the one thing they’re afraid to lose.

Because sometimes, the people who talk the most about not needing anyone are the ones silently hoping someone will stay.

16 August 2025

I've always been the "good kid."

The A-grade student. The one who was supposed to study, get a good rank, get into a good college and make my parents proud.

My parents never let me have Instagram or Snapchat. They were scared I'd get distracted.

And honestly, they were probably right.

After 11th, I moved to another city for NEET coaching and started living in a hostel.

And I was lonely.

Really lonely.

For the first time, I was away from my parents, my home, my friends, everything I knew. Everyone around me had Instagram and Snapchat, and slowly I started feeling like I was missing out on an entire part of life.

So I made an Instagram account.

I had also changed my coaching institute for 12th, so I didn't know anyone there. I followed my coaching's confession page just for fun. I didn't even expect anything from it.

Then one night, some random guy messaged me.

He said one of his friends wanted to talk to me.

I didn't know either of them.

I actually replied pretty rudely and told him no.

A few days later, he messaged again and sent me the other guy's profile.

"Just talk to him once."

So I did.

And I still don't understand how a stranger became such a huge part of my life.

He started talking to me every day.

Then every night.

Sometimes we'd stay on call for almost three hours.

He'd ask me about my day. What I ate. How classes went. What happened with my roommate. Why I sounded upset.

And I would tell him everything.

I'd complain about the smallest things. I'd cry about things I couldn't tell anyone else. He'd listen.

I was homesick and scared and stressed about NEET, and somehow talking to him made the city feel a little less lonely.

He became my comfort person.

And it was the first time I'd ever experienced that kind of connection with a guy.

So yes, I got attached.

I got attached much more than I realised.

He would sometimes tell me that he wasn't feeling well.

At first, I thought it was normal.

Then one day he sent me a picture of his eyes.

They were yellow.

I got scared and asked him if he'd gotten his blood tests done.

He refused.

We fought over it.

The next day, he went for a blood test with his sister.

And while he was in the hospital, he was still on call with me.

So I believed him.

Why wouldn't I?

That night, he became distant.

Dry texts.

Sad stories on Instagram.

Then he told me he couldn't continue talking to me because he was physically unwell and mentally stressed.

I remember completely breaking down.

I know it sounds stupid.

I know some people will read this and think, "You barely knew him."

But I did know him.

Or at least I thought I did.

For months, he had become part of my everyday life.

I genuinely cared about him.

I was crying because I thought I was losing someone I loved.

I told my friend who lived in the room next to mine everything.

She called him.

I still don't know exactly what they talked about.

The next morning, he told me he had cancer.

Cancer.

I can't even explain what I felt when I read that message.

I was shattered.

I cried until I couldn't breathe properly. I begged him not to shut me out. I told him I didn't care if he was sick. I told him I'd stay. I'd support him through treatment, through the bad days, through everything.

I wasn't thinking logically anymore.

I was just terrified of losing him.

He sent me medical reports.

Pictures of vitamins.

Things supposedly prescribed by doctors.

And I believed all of it.

Every single thing.

I was worried about whether HE was going to survive while my own life was slowly falling apart.

Then things started feeling wrong.

Little inconsistencies.

Things weren't adding up.

And eventually I found out the truth.

He had lied about having cancer.

The reports were fake.

The illness was fake.

The entire story was fake.

And while I was sitting there crying over someone I thought was seriously ill, he had already blocked me, changed his status to single and gone back to enjoying his life with his friends.

I don't think I've ever experienced that kind of shock.

I stopped eating properly.

I stopped going to classes.

I stopped talking to people.

I couldn't concentrate on NEET at all.

My parents noticed that something was terribly wrong with me and brought me home.

I left my session in the middle.

They were so worried that they took me to a doctor.

I was struggling so badly mentally that I eventually reached a point where I harmed myself and needed emergency help.

I survived.

But I don't think people understand what it means to realise that you almost lost yourself over a person who had been lying to you from the beginning.

And then, after everything, I thought maybe things could slowly get better.

I reconnected with a friend from class 11.

She knew what had happened.

She knew why I had come home.

She knew how badly I had been affected.

She acted angry at him.

She made me feel like she understood.

Like she was on my side.

Then she started talking to him.

He didn't know she was my friend.

I don't know what they talked about.

I don't know what she told him.

I don't know when their friendship became something else.

But eventually...

They started dating.

And I found out.

The girl who knew I had come home because of what this guy had done to me was now with him.

They're preparing for NEET together.

Taking another drop together.

She meets his friends.

She's part of his life now.

They even have a joint Instagram account where they make reels together.

And I swear, that part hurts in a completely different way.

Because I don't want him back.

I don't think I love him anymore.

But sometimes I still sit there and wonder:

Was I really that easy to fool?

Was I just some stupid girl who believed everything because she'd never experienced this before?

Did he ever care about me at all?

Was every late-night call fake?

Every "how was your day?"

Every time he listened to me cry?

Every time he told me he cared?

Was I the only person who thought any of it meant something?

And then there's my friend.

That's the part I can't understand.

She knew.

She knew exactly what happened.

She knew how badly I broke down.

She knew I had to leave my studies and go home.

She knew my parents were worried about me.

She knew everything.

And yet she's with him now.

Maybe I'm naive.

Maybe I got attached too quickly.

Maybe I should never have been talking to a guy when I was supposed to be studying.

Maybe I ignored obvious red flags.

I can accept all of that.

But I still can't understand how someone can watch another person fall apart because of a lie and then become their partner.

I've lost so much because of this.

My studies got disrupted.

My relationship with myself changed.

I stopped trusting people the way I used to.

And sometimes, even now, I wonder if I'll ever be able to look at this whole thing without feeling embarrassed for the girl I was.

She wasn't stupid.

She was just lonely.

She was away from home for the first time.

She trusted someone who made her feel safe.

She believed someone who told her he was sick.

And when she found out it was all a lie, she didn't know how to put herself back together.

I don't want anyone to tell me that I was "too dumb" or "too desperate" or that I should've known better.

I already tell myself those things every day.

I just want someone to tell me that what happened to me was actually horrible.

That I wasn't crazy for getting attached.

That trusting someone doesn't make me a fool.

And that maybe one day I'll be able to remember all of this without feeling like my entire life fell apart because of two people I trusted.

Because right now, I genuinely don't know what hurts more

the lie, or the fact that the person who knew exactly how badly that lie hurt me chose him anyway.

The cutoff for KRNU is 70.641, while my score is 66.27998854n I’m hoping I might get a seat in the third round, although I’m not sure.

I found the following admission schedule on Reddit. If the schedule says that the admission process continues until 15 September, does that mean classes will start after 15 September? Or will students who get a seat in the last round have to join classes late?

Would appreciate any information from current students or anyone familiar with the admission process. Thanks!

Added potatoes onions sweet corn and peanuts

Admission chances in korean

I hope I recognize you when I meet you.

Not because you'll be perfect or because everything will suddenly feel like some movie.

Just because something about you will feel familiar.

Maybe it'll be the way you listen without constantly checking your phone. Maybe it'll be how silence doesn't feel awkward around you. Maybe it'll be the little things you remember that I probably didn't even expect you to remember.

I don't know where we'll meet or when.

Maybe we'll meet on some completely normal day, when neither of us is looking for anything serious. Maybe you'll just be going about your day, not knowing that you're about to become such an important part of mine.

I just hope that when it happens, I don't confuse peace with boredom. I hope I don't mistake consistency for a lack of excitement.

I hope I'm brave enough to choose something real, even if it doesn't feel like a movie.

And I hope you are too.

Until then, I guess we both have our own lives to live. Things to figure out. Stories to finish.

Maybe someday we'll look back at all those lonely days and realize they weren't really taking us nowhere.

Maybe they were just taking us somewhere.

To each other.

Is there any possibility of getting a seat in round 2 ?

The curse of never being chosen, and never being able to choose.

People often talk about the pain of rejection, but I think there's something equally painful that rarely gets mentioned.

Not being chosen slowly makes you question your worth. You start wondering why you're always the second option, the backup plan, or simply overlooked.

But not being able to choose is a different kind of helplessness. When circumstances, responsibilities, expectations, or timing make every important decision for you, it feels like you're just living a life that happened to you instead of one you chose.

One steals your confidence.

The other steals your freedom.

And if you're unlucky enough to experience both at the same time, you end up carrying a strange kind of loneliness , waiting to be chosen while never truly having the chance to choose for yourself.

Maybe that's the real curse: not rejection, but feeling like your life is always being decided by someone else.

Which do you think is harder to live with , never being chosen, or never getting to choose?

Relationship Patch Notes v1.07

- Fixed nothing.

- Added two new misunderstandings.

- Increased overthinking by 18%.

- "K." now deals critical damage.

Continue the patch notes.