Dean and I have completely different interests. I like to shop, he likes to play sports. I like Eastern food, he likes Western food. I like mingling, he is private. I like romcoms, he likes action movies. But somehow, through this almost-8 years together, our relationship seems to work well. We compromise to let one another have alternate vetos, and even when we’re not interested, we force ourselves to layan one another. Like I told him about this new headscarf style I discovered and he watched me redo it 3 times even when football was on. And today, I layan-ed his Naruto excitement. We were in the car on the way back to the office.

“The new Naruto is out. I can’t wait to watch it tonight. We have dinner at home k? I downloaded it already.. can’t wait!!”

“Ok sure, baby,” I muttered in between scrolling through Instagram. Ooohh her shoes are gorgeous, oooohh someone tagged me, oooohhh her lunch looks delicious.

“Man… but I can’t believe Neji dies!”

“Oh no…,” I muttered, eyes still fixated on Instagram.

“No no sayang, you don’t understand. Neji is the guy who grew up with Naruto.”

At this point, I realised this was becoming a conversation that I’m expected to be a part of, so I put down my phone to show respect.

“Oh really?” I asked.

“Yeah! He and Naruto were like nemesis and they both grew up to be really strong and then they became buddies bla bla bla. I can’t believe he died. Do you wanna know how he died?”

“Of course. Nothing makes me more curious than how Neji died.”

“Ok so it’s like this. There was this thing coming at Naruto and Neji went for it so that Naruto wouldn’t die! How sweet is that!”

“How predictable. Hero’s best friend dies for hero.”

“Yeeeeshh sayang, it was super awesome ok! Because at first Hirata, this princess from Neji’s clan who likes Naruto put her body there because she would rather die for him, and when Neji saw that, Neji put himself before her! So Naruto and Hirata both didn’t die.”

“Well, maybe Neji secretly likes Pirata. Maybe the only reason he died was for Pirata.”

“Hirata, sayang. Sheesh. What kind of stupid name is Pirata?”

What kind of stupid name is Hirata?

“Anyway, no no. Neji doesn’t like Hirata. There’s no love story between them.”

“How do you know? Maybe he secretly longs for her.”

“No, ok. I know.”

“Yeah but maybe he does.”

“Look sayang, after 400 episodes of Naruto, I know, ok.”

400 episodes. Wow, that’s time well-spent for sure!

But hey, the fact that I remembered this wholeeee story just shows true love, ok.