She doesn’t understand love, as confusing as it is.
All around her, the world has been about love. Her parents loved one another and loved her, the knights of beauty love the aeon who they look for no matter how many amber eras have passed. On every planet there are tragic tales, happy tales, adventures of love to be found. Countless novels and series, artworks.
She knows of the types of love as ancient civilizations defined them. She heard from the Trailblazer of the siblings who fell from the sky together with a dream destroyed, of the two women from the underworld and the overworld of their frozen planet, finding one another despite all odds. She knows of the love her creations hold for her.
But she does not understand where it ends and where it starts.
When she tried to define it as a child, she categorized it. Different people have different ways of showing their love, so it was easy to categorize it into something she could comprehend. Her aunt's type of love, Ruan Mei’s personal favourite, was rewarding her with sweets. There is love found in words and gifts, acts you do for those who you love. There's eros, agape, philia, storge, ludus, mania, philautia and pragma . Different types of love, all grounded in an affection you have for others.
But even those categories confuse her, between the youthful love of ludus and the enduring one of pragma , where does love start, and where does it end? And who decides when it is and no longer is love?
She likes spending time on her own, but she doesn’t mind spending time with Herta, Screwllum and Stephen either. They aren’t friends or coworkers per se, and she never seeks them out without a reason, but even despite their extreme differences there is a mutual understanding. The company is alright, and the Simulated Universe is a useful project.
She stares at Herta squabbling with Stephen over a piece of cake, as Screwllum watches on. He can’t smile, but she thinks if he could, it’d be the expression he’d make at this moment. Neither have an interest in stopping the two, their liveliness welcome even for a hermit such as herself for now.
She closes her eyes as she drinks more from her hot chocolate, letting the overly sweet taste roll over her. In a bit, she will wipe away a bit of icing from Stephen’s mouth, and Herta will switch the motor oil Screwllum received by her with another hot chocolate
She enjoys the time she spends by herself and sometimes the one she spends with those three, she likes the sweet taste of hot chocolate and the tune of the music playing in the background.
But does that make her love it?
If you were to ask Ruan Mei and if she were to answer honestly, then not understanding love is not a source of pain, it’s not even true annoyance. It’s rather akin to a piece of decoration you have standing in your room, that you usually do not notice and that doesn’t bother you. But when you notice it, you cannot stop thinking about it, the rare annoyance of it still being at that one spot.The reminder that you intended to move it or throw it away, before forgetting about it later on again. It is this small bother, that is at the back of her mind, yet never all consuming or painful.
Ruan Mei hasn’t felt the dire need to fully grasp the concept of love yet before, but it’s in her nature as a genius to feel bothered by the lack of knowledge she has.
“I remember an article on a study I once read. It was a nice and simple work, exploring where the emotion of love may stem from.” Genius Society member #55 Yu Qingtu begins, as she mixes a new drink for Ruan Mei to drink before she departs. Something sweet perhaps, always delicious to the taste - it’s her favourite type of love, and Yu Qingtu must have realised that a long time ago.
Ruan Mei hums in response, sitting on a couch while reading through their most recent results of combining plants from different planets to see how they influence one another’s growth. She didn’t ask her friend about where love may stem from, but Yu Qingtu is a genius in her own right, and aware of some of the questions running through her visitors mind.
“Love stems not from the heart, but rather the brain to put it in the articles words. Countless hormones play a part in making up the formula: Testosterone and estrogen drive lust, serotonin creates attachment, oxytocin and vasopressin mediate attachment. Well, many more hormones play a role too and it’s likely a lot more complicated than what they summarised it as. But it proves that love is a natural process in all of us, be it romantic or platonic.”
She agrees as a new drink is put in front of her. She looks up and meets her friends gaze, and does not find it uncomfortable doing so as she does with many others.
“In my opinion, it’s not so much important to understand it, as it is to feel it. After all, ignoring their admittedly great effects, what use do the formulas I use for the drinks I mix have, if they don’t taste good? What use is the chemistry of love without the feeling behind it?”
Yu Qingtu leans back into her own seat, drinking from her own cup as Ruan Mei finishes the new drink she created. It has a sweet and refreshing taste, new and yet so well known, as all her drinks taste. She will stay for another 30 minutes perhaps, discuss their results and bask in the warmth of the living room and the smell of countless sweet aromas.
Perhaps, if she were to find out the entire chemical formula that love is made up of she can grasp it, perhaps if she were to inject it she could truly understand if she feels it or not. But her thoughts cannot drift that far as her friend smiles at her with a knowing gaze and a raised eyebrow. She smiles back, continues talking, and puts the thought back to the back of her mind, where she may remember it someday deep into the night.
She knows of the stories of lovers betraying one another, the betrayed seeking revenge. She knows the stories of those desperately searching for their loved ones, going through trial after trial to find their way back home. Of the ones burning themselves asunder to avenge those they loved and lost.
Ruan Mei knows that there are unhealthy forms of love. Those where you are too selfish and possessive, so you hurt the one you love. There’s the violent forms of love, the craving to destroy others just to pick up the pieces you left them in. There is the deadly selfless one, where you betray yourself, break yourself into pieces time and time again for those you love.
Yet love according to others demands you to be selfish sometimes, to love yourself is to stand in for yourself selfish it may be. But then to love well is to also put your loved ones first. And some people crave the violence and the hunt of cruel love, need it as much as their lungs need air. Who can say which form of love is correct and which one is not? When is the egoism healthy, when is it unhealthy? When someone gets harmed perhaps. But when do you know that that will happen?
There was a story that she read of about a single reader, who sacrificed himself time and time again for his loved ones. Of the protagonist who sacrificed others and himself time and time again to reach the end, and of an author who sacrificed the entire world for that one reader. It was love in every action they took, every decision and sacrifice they made. It was cruelty and ugliness born from an all-encompassing love. But could you still call that love wrong, or ugly, because of it's aftermath? One where they all sacrificed themselves for one another?
Who can define love, she wonders. Who gets to draw the lines between the bad and the good, the healthy and the unhealthy.
And, if both good and bad things are born from love, then what is love in its purest form on its own?
She talks about it with Screwllum one day, in the Simulated Universe chat. They have very different understandings of life, and even if that makes her avoid him for certain topics, she believes that his understanding may be helpful here. As an inorganic lifeform, he may have a logical insight that she and other organic life do not have.
“Suggestion: Love is a concept that can only be perceived in it’s effects, and not by itself.”, he writes. “We can read stories about love and its effects on people, we can find love in the actions others make because of us, as those are acts born from love. But as love only ever is found in the lifeforms it influences and the origin of the motivations that make up the actions they take, it cannot be observed on it’s own.”
And as sound as that belief may be, it still bothers her, something that cannot be isolated and perceived on its own. All things have an origin and yet she cannot isolate one of the driving factors of so many people.
“You can find love everywhere in all forms, and lifeforms can project it onto anything if possible, be it love for coworkers, friends, lovers, other beings or material possessions. Conclusion: love is a wide concept that cannot be closely defined or perceived in one singular state.”
“I see”, Ruan Mei replies. She hesitates for a second perhaps, before typing into the chat next to her avatar “Then could you describe our relationship as love?”
There are 3 dots for a while, before Screwllum replies.
“Considering: We spend time together working on a project that strives towards one singular goal. We all have interest in the solution, and spend time helping one another reach it. We have spent time arguing and agreeing, and spent our limited free time together. Suggestion: I feel concern for your wellbeings, do not mind the time we spend and wish for all of us to succeed in our collective and individual endeavors.”
“Conclusion: I love you.”
And perhaps, it makes her frown behind the screen, the simpleness of the answer. Not romantic love, not collegial. It’s not one of acts of service, not just one of kind words or an everlasting one, but rather a love that hopes for the success in the others endeavors, for their wellbeing. It’d be one rooted in hope and concern for others, perhaps.
And if that is love to Screwllum, so be it, even if it serves to confuse her more.
She remembers an interpretation of a poem from Jarilo VI that she read once, written by the founder of their hotel.
It’s a short one, one that ends by saying that “only the soul that loves is happy”. It describes high feelings and low ones, “the highs and lows of love”, someone analysing the poem called it. It confused her a little, as a poem describing the highs and lows of love, describing it as immense pain even, still states that you are only happy if you love?
If that is love- if love is pain, then she thinks of the ache in her bones as she desperately worked on reviving her parents, the flowers growing all over her laboratory and around her legs as she tirelessly worked.
If love is anxiety, then she thinks of when she was invited by Herta to the Space Station to talk about adding another Genius Society member to the Simulated Universe. Of the pang of anxiety and worry concern she felt at the idea that Herta wanted to kick Stephen out. The relief at the confirmation that no, he just didn’t want to be part of the decision.
If that was love, then did she love her fellow Genius Society members? Was this proof that she loved her parents, even if she did not cry at their funerals?
Herta’s true form pants beneath her as they lie in bed together. Ruan Mei’s fingers are sticky, she feels sweaty and she knows that Herta does too; they both need a bath. But right now, legs intertwined, she looks at the beauty beside her. Herta’s cheeks are warm and red, her eyes glazed over, as she slowly regains her breath.
“You know, for someone as aloof as you, you really have a lot of energy, Mei”, she mock-complains. She’s not truly mad, that Ruan Mei knows, because if she were she would’ve stormed out already. It makes her smile, the beauty in front of her with her bad temperament. She thinks how others may call what Ruan Mei feels love, of the questtion she has discoussed with friends and colleagues, but never with the one lying beside her.
She licks her lips before she begins: “Say, Herta, could you call this love?”, blue eyes meet purple ones, and Ruan Mei stays quiet as she waits for Herta's response. She finds herself counting the countless eyelashes of Herta’s eyes that have been wettened by tears. It’s as if they were shooting stars in the nightsky, her eyes an entire galaxy in their own right. Herta hums in reply, moving closer to be nearer Ruan Mei’s own body, she’s draping an arm over the other, pulling them as close as possible. Still, those eyes watch her attentively. As tired as Herta may be, she always pays attention to those she cares for.
“Could you call this love?” Herta echoes. Ruan Mei thinks of her conversation with Screwllum, of the time when the four of them spent a winter’s day together. She thinks of Yu Qingtu, of the forms of love, of her favourite type of love. She thinks of the ugly, the beautiful and the endless chase for answers behind it all. She thinks of the woman beside her, whose presence she does not mind.
“I don’t know. I think you can call it whatever you like. After all, who can tell you what is and isn’t love?” And Herta nuzzles closer to her as she continues, “I think it doesn’t matter either, how you would define us and this, as long as I’m the one you think of when someone speaks the words beautiful and genius.”, she speaks those last words with a smug tone in her voice. Her eyes crinkling as she stares at Mei, and all Mei can do in response is huff in quiet, soft laughter.
The woman’s eyes in front of her seem to be sparkling, almost, and they remind Ruan Mei of the many stars she traveled with her family and by herself, the places she called and calls home. The warmth she feels in the presence of those others would call friends or colleagues, the sweet taste rolling over her when eating desserts or drinking her friends newest concoctions.
“Mei, it’s fine if you never understand how love works.”, Herta continues, “I don’t think anyone deep down truly knows, and we can always uncover it’s secrets together. So how about you just let your mindrest and get the bath ready for me- ”, she starts whining. And perhaps Herta and Yu Qingtu are right. Perhaps Screwllum is right in his assessment. Perhaps all those different stories are love in their own right, founded in other’s feelings born out of that strange concept. P erhaps, love is all the thinking that comes with it, or the hatred some feel for those who betrayed them. Perhaps love is the anxiety of the fall, or the worry for those you see crashing onto the ground. Maybe it is just hormones or sadness or happiness. And maybe, just maybe it doesn’t matter as much as she thinks.
So instead she thinks of Herta’s eyelashes reminding her of shooting stars, of those purple eyes being galaxies in their own right, the worlds they all have built and the new things they will keep creating. And she may not call it love, maybe she never will. But Ruan Mei thinks, and she comes to the conclusion that Herta would be a nice galaxy to live in.