On the Story's Title and the way We call each other

"Exsisto in oculis tuis" - I exist in your gaze.

Not in the light, nor in the dark, but in that instant of looking - when a whole world would vanish if not for the presence of the one being seen.

-

Enjoy - Notes from the final pages of an art diary

Though we are the same age, whenever I look at June, I no longer know since when I began to think of her as the younger one.

And myself, the elder.

There are nights when I paint nothing at all. I just sit before the empty canvas, imagining Junenirin's face, not from memory but from the very sensation of her absence.

That was when I realized: art is not only about creating forms; it is also a way of existing. Just as in existential philosophy, "I am" cannot stand alone. It requires someone else for me to become a being-in-existence.

And you, Junenirin, are the one in whom I see myself reflected.

-

Junenirin - From a letter never sent to Enjoy

I once thought I was stronger, more rational. The one in control of emotions. The "elder" in this love.

But after so many years rereading my essays on Sartre, Fromm, Kierkegaard... I came to realize this: I was only building walls to keep you from seeing through me.

Because I was afraid, afraid that if someone looked at me as into a mirror, I would no longer remain myself.

But you, Enjoy - you were different.

You didn't look at me to judge.

You looked at me so that I might exist.

-

Enjoy - From the final thesis

"In existential philosophy, love is the act of seeing the Other as part of oneself - without dissolving them into oneself. It is to allow the other to exist fully, not to turn them into a framed portrait. It is to let them become the light that leads us back to who we are."

-

Junenirin

"I once thought I loved you because you were gentle.

But no.

I love you because you allowed me to be fragile.

I love you because you never forced me to become the version you wished for. You gave me freedom. And that is what true love is.

I once read in Simone de Beauvoir:

'True love is when neither seeks to devour the other.'

And you were the first to teach me that - through silence, through the gaze that honored distance, through the moments of not touching that left my chest so tight I could barely breathe."

-

Enjoy - Recalling the moment of parting

"The day you said, Junenirin needs to find herself again, I understood.

I just didn't expect that to find yourself, you would have to leave me.

I once stood in the gallery, staring at your portrait - painted with fragments of memory and regret - and I could not add a single stroke. Because the painting was never you.

You are the thing I could never capture.

You are existence."

-

Junenirin - After their reunion

When you took my hand in that European square, saying nothing, just tightening your grip...

I understood.

That in this story, neither of us is "the elder."

We are the same age.

We are equally clumsy.

We are strong only when we are together, and weak whenever deprived of the other's gaze.

You once joked: "Whichever of us has longer hair will be the elder."

But I never thought that in love, there must be such a role.

What we needed was simply someone who would not look away, when the other looked at them with a true gaze.

-

"Exsisto in oculis tuis" - I exist in your gaze is not a romantic phrase alone.

Philosophically, exsisto describes a kind of existence that is evoked, not imposed. Unlike sum (to be, a static existence), exsisto is dynamic - to become, to come into being.

Which means: I cannot exist by myself without the gaze of the other. It is not dependence but activation. For Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, the gaze is not mere sight - it is a bridge between one being and another, a way of breaking free from the solitude of the self.

Junenirin and Enjoy did not love each other only with emotion. They loved with a shared spiritual structure.

They did not dissolve into one another.

They allowed each to retain her own shape.

They existed - within each other's gaze.

-

The Other and Existence

Sartre once said, "Hell is other people." But he did not deny that the Other is necessary for us to know who we are.

The Other is not ourselves, but the one who makes us recognize ourselves. Without the Other, we would never see our own boundaries from outside.

Junenirin once feared the Other. Feared being defined by another's gaze.

But Enjoy, as someone who lived in visual art, understood that looking is not always possession - it can also be dialogue. When you look at a painting, you do not control it - you are being guided by it.

Just as you loved Junenirin.

To love not in order to possess.

But to look, and to be looked at.

-

On the rooftop of their shared home

Junenirin: "If you hadn't come back that day..."

Enjoy: "Then I would have stayed only in your memory. But I don't want to be a memory."

Junenirin: "I don't want to be just someone you once loved."

Enjoy: "I want to be the one you are still looking at - every day."

Junenirin: "And I will always look at you - with the gaze that makes you exist."

-

They no longer called each other "elder-younger."

They began to call each other by special names.

Because those names - spoken by the other - were the sound that told them:

I still exist.

In her gaze.

In this world.

And in a love that asks for nothing in return.

===========

Afterword

This story was written when I was suffering through philosophy readings and happened to fall in love with the couple "EnjoyJune"

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Side Note:

The forms of address may confuse readers. But think of it this way: both June and Enjoy wanted to be the "elder," to shield the one they loved as the younger.