What Is Love?

Chapter Two

I wake up to a short buzz from my phone. It's not ringing, so it must just be a notification.

I want to go back to sleep. It's still early and I was up late last night.

I'm not one of those college types that goes to bed at three in the morning every night and then wakes up at noon. I'm usually awake and have already gone through an entire class by that time.

Despite my usual behavior, I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep. My brain, however, has other plans. It starts going through scenarios for the manga and I can't fall back to sleep.

This happens to me often, and it's annoying. The same thing will sometimes inhibit me from falling asleep at night. I'll end up getting in bed, thinking of something, and then worrying that I'll forget it, which causes me to keep thinking about it. The only solution is for me to either write it down on my phone or paper. If I don't, I'll end up staying awake all night thinking about it, or if I somehow fall asleep and forget it, I'll wake up in the morning and get angry at myself for forgetting it.

I let out a slightly frustrated growl and turn over onto my side, grabbing my phone off my nightstand. Once I've removed the charging cord and retrieved it, I roll over onto my back and hold it up in the air in front of my face. I hit the power button with my index finger and the screen comes to life. The notification is from Yuugo. I'm not exactly pleased that she woke me up, but after looking at the time I quickly decide that the probability of me being able to fall asleep again at this point is extremely low, causing my displeasure to become greater. I wasn't necessarily displeased with Yuugo; more at myself than anything.

I have a tendency to over-examine my actions and get angrier at myself than I need to be in most cases. I don't know why I'm like that. Perhaps it has something to do with my personality. When I feel like I'm underperforming, I beat myself up about it because most things shouldn't be able to stump me. That's why I bailed on practiced before it ended. I may not have seemed like it at the time, but I was disappointed in myself for not paying attention. That doesn't mean that I was excusing Yuugo's behavior though. She was still as much at fault as I was.

I hit the notification on my phone and look at what Yuugo sent me. It's a photo of her schedule.

Below the photo she typed, "Hey, this is Yuugo Katou! *Smile emoji* this is my class schedule and obviously we have to factor in practice *Soccer ball emoji* what's your schedule like"

I make a note of the fact that she didn't use any punctuation except the first exclamation mark, and there's no capitalization. Also, emojis. Don't get me started on those things. You can laugh at me all you want, but I always use proper grammar and punctuation in all my correspondences. I refuse to give in to the pressure of modern-day society using phones to suck away all your knowledge of how to write correctly.

As for the topic of emojis; Emojis are evil! I hate them! Writing shouldn't consist of those evil little things! Listen, I'm not some seventy-year-old grandma (although apparently some seventy-year-old grandmas use them too, which baffles me), but those things don't belong in writing! It's writing, not drawing!

I can sort of justify using emojis to express emotions because you can't write out emotions without deliberately saying how you feel, but it's still lazy. People could pick up the phone and call someone, then they wouldn't have to convey their emotions through little animated heads. Regardless, I can understand using emojis in that instance. However, the people who literally send you all emojis and think you can understand what they're trying to convey are morons, and a disgrace to the concept of human intelligence! The people who use ten of the same emoji in a row are extremely annoying!