"You are Lovemir."
He remembered his mother telling him this when he was seven years old. She ruffled his curly brown hair while his cheeks flushed red like a tomato against his velvety white skin. He pouted his pinkish plum lips and sneered at her.
"But 'ma, you said it is only our surname in reverse." As a child, he would scratch his temple with a pointy finger as if deep in thought. "Ri-me-vol, Lo-ve-mir."
It made him fume at that age. He felt his mother was not creative enough when naming a child like him.
"My lovely child." His mother embraced him. "You are our beloved. No one can replace that feeling."
And Lovemir would smile.
"Then I am your Lovemir."
But how did it go from such a beloved start to—
"THAT BASTARD OF A CHILD!"
It was a curse he remembered from when he was ten. His father uttered the words with such ill will while pointing a finger at him, veins bulging on his forehead and neck as if about to explode. With gritted teeth and a glare that could kill, his drunkard father held his bottle dear and drank.
"BECAUSE OF YOU, MY LIFE IS RUINED!"
His mother rushed to cover his ears.
"BECAUSE OF YOU, I HAD TO MARRY YOUR BASTARD OF A MOTHER!"
"Stop!"
He could recall his mother shouting during that year. It etched itself into him more than anything else. That broken, cracking voice revealed her fragile side. For the first time, Lovemir sensed her cold hands and saw her twitching lips and wobbling knees. Was it born out of fear or misery?
What was he again?
Right, their 'Lovemir.'
Such a good name for a wretched life.
It was a wretched home, even more so. Broken bottles, dusty furniture, and garbage scattered across the floor near rummaged cabinets. A flickering bulb and cobwebs told the story of how their home was no longer beloved, but a place of angst and abandonment. Just like his father leaving when he was eleven.
"Stop, please! Don't leave us, Sullivan!" His mother knelt on a floor filled with shattered glass, blood smeared on her skin. She would not let go of his legs even as he kicked her. He pulled his messy brown hair, and even with her desperate cries, his father only grew colder with his stare and clenched jaw. "Stay, at least for your child!"
He remembered the final kick at that age.
His mother flung toward a broken chair and wailed with a thud as she tried to crawl her way back.
"I don't care about the child, Ophelia." His father shook his head and looked at the eleven-year-old Lovemir staring back at him with the same cold eyes. "I pity and despise this bastard."
Why Lovemir, he asked in his mind.
Again and again.
Why Lovemir?
Beloved.
Adored.
Lovemir?
When his father shut the door, he thought it was for the better. Perhaps his mother would be better now. Perhaps there would be healing.
So when he approached his mother after their father left to save face, he wondered if he could comfort her or say that it was fine. But as he was about to offer an embrace—
"It was your fault!"
Thud!
His mother pushed him, and his eyes widened in horror.
There was a pang in his chest and a bite in his brain.
"Ma?" he asked as his lips quivered with the same weakness his mother showed every day.
But his mother only wailed and wailed.
She wailed even when he was sixteen.
Seventeen.
And when he was nineteen, she finally stopped. Perhaps it was for the better that she rested. She had been in pain all her life.
Looking at her grave, he saw a smiling picture taken from her blissful youth, a smile Lovemir never saw growing up. He offered a flower as the rain poured over him. Without a cry, he kneeled and vowed to never forget that such love existed.
He was not a beloved, adored Lovemir.
He was a bastard of a child incapable of being loved or loving.
Now that a year had passed, he accepted that it was for the better he also suffered. With bruises all over his body, he lay on the cold hard ground amid filth and dirt. He clutched his pained stomach and curled his body to ease the pressure from his wounds. With blurring eyes, he looked up at the silhouettes surrounding him.
Someone spat at him.
"If you don't pay the debts your parents owed us, I will burn you and your house, you got it?"
Someone warned him, but his ears were ringing so loudly he barely heard.
The silhouettes vanished and he was alone in the street. Lovemir tried to get up and walked and walked, for as long as he could, and for as much as he could endure. Eventually, he found himself standing in the middle of a bridge not long after, looking at a beautiful lake on a lovely night.
Two figures stood meters away to his left.
"The Lake of Tears."
He heard one of them say it.
"It is said to be the lake that will lessen your despair, a lake for healing. Only if you cry and let it know your pain."
Lovemir sneered at the concept. How could a mere lake heal a bastard like him? It was utterly ridiculous.
But the night was young and the lake was clear. How he got there and how he happened to meet people who enjoyed such sightseeing felt like a series of petty tricks.
When they disappeared, Lovemir was alone again. It was not as if he had been with anyone for most of his life anyway.
Then it hit him. The night was young and the lake was clear.
The Lake of Tears, was that the name?
He grabbed the railings and smiled bitterly as the air surrounded him with a brumal caress. Lovemir stood on the railings and heaved a heavy sigh. Luckily, no one was around to see him.
He closed his eyes. He wanted to feel the night, hear the sound of the water, and listen to the whisper of the wind. But his mind was just as blank, screaming for him to do something to end the agony.
Why not?
So he jumped.
SPLASH!
The cold water washed over his body. When he opened his eyes, he looked at the moon as he sank farther into the depths. He could not move his body or even twitch his fingers.
Slower and slower, his heart beat.
His eyes blurred.
For that certain moment, Lovemir wanted to move.
He wanted to feel his body for the last time.
To feel.
But it seemed that there was such great peril, that he was not let to feel anything at all. It was terribly late for such a futile feeling to surface within him. Bubbles escaped his mouth as he tried to scream and breathe, but not a sliver of pain had eventually came out. In the end, he remained numb.
But why did he do it in the first place?
Why was he like this?
Then his eyes saw nothing but a faint glimmer.
It was getting darker and darker.
[One who is lonely, one who met a tragic end]
What was that he heard?
A thunderous voice rung in his ears.
It appeared to be merely a dull vibration against his skull, drowned out by his own heartbeat.
[I shall grant you power, not born of hate, but born of love.]
The voice was faint and inaudible, but he could make out some words. Power? Hate? Love?
[You shall love and in loving, be reborn.]
Out of nowhere, a panel appeared floating in the water, the only scenery he could see.
「DING!」
「The God of Love has found a suitable host.」
「System Initialization: 1%...」
Before he knew it, bubbles formed around him and pulled him upward.
「...50%...80%...」
What the hell?
「...95%...」
Suddenly, he was lunged onto the shore just right underneath the bridge.
「...100%!」
Lovemir coughed out water as he knelt and attempted to crawl.
「System Initialization Successful!」
「Matchmaking System Activated!」
He leaned against a wall with shock written on his face, looking at the panel in front of him.
What the actual hell?