Often, we would hear the common proverb, “Always put yourself in other’s shoes.”. It is a heartwarming quote that suggests and encourages sympathetic compassion from every individual. As such, it is also commonly believed that by following such a saying, one would be able to become far more understanding towards one another. For it advocates what is widely considered as good; Therefore, this proverb must be true and well. However, to what extent can one understand another? And does wearing another’s shoes will give us clarity of one’s thoughts and soul?

The answer is a blatant no.

Evident, at one point in almost every human's lives, people have tried to analyze and correlate with one another, to no avail. To understand someone, and to be able to fully sympathize with whatever they are thinking, feeling, and doing, is anything but realizable. Because if it is, then whatever was considered synonymous to evil and unempathetic, would never have existed. In the end, what comes to those who try are blunt rejections, silly misunderstandings, and the divorce of a bond. All because they expect to be understood and to understand.

Thus, with the unhealthy expectation, comes the cycle of disappointment.

Many people expect another to behave accordingly to what they deem as true. But more often than not, those beliefs betray their beholder. And confusingly, the ones who expect burdens their blame onto those who have disappointed them, not realizing that perhaps the culprit to what they were feeling was their mistaken expectations.

In truth, when we do the proverb, “Always put yourself in other’s shoes first.”, what we are actually doing is merely picturing of what is true about the “other”. By claiming that we know and understand the person in question, we force our ideals onto them. When we try to wear their shoes, we are merely imagining how they would walk and run in their footwear, not actually becoming who they are. And in conclusion, fully understanding is nothing but that.

Nothing but the imaginary.

…

I found myself waking up from quite the refreshing sleep. As I was trying to open my eyelids, my sights are then slowly blanketed by the sun’s greet…

Wait… why was everything still dark?

Unlike how my mornings are supposed to be, today, the sun did not shine its greetings. And as my consciousness slowly crept, there were only two logical explanations that ran through my head. It was either I woke up too early, or today’s morning weather was just rather unfriendly. However, as my ears did not sense any trickling noise from the window of my room, it turned out to be something else.

Angel, who seemed to be sleeping ever so soundly, was floating right above my bed, parallel to where I was currently facing. His body was curled, coddling a pillow, suggesting that he had a good night’s rest through his facial expression. And following his self-made trend, he was wearing the proper attire to maximize the experience. There was probably no worse way to be woken up other than seeing him in a set of pajamas. In any case, it was an imminent problem that should be immediately addressed.

“Oy, Angel.”

I firstly whispered with minimal volume, mercifully endeavoring to wake him in a polite manner. But it seemed that kindness could not solve my problem as he continued to sleep peacefully.

Naturally, I changed my approach to be more aggressive, opting to shake him out of his dream through the force of direct contact. But as I was just about to lay my hands on his shoulders, I suddenly felt fear due to the fact that there might be a possibility of idiocy being spread through contact. Thus, I took a pillow which I was using to support the back of my head; throwing it directly to his face, equalizing the debt of being awoken through unpleasantry.

Bwagh!

“U-uuuh.”

Due to the impact of the hit, Angel was forced to open his eyes. Still in a drowsy state, he rubbed his eyes and yawned as he stretched his stiff limbs out. With a trail of saliva running down from his lower lip, he sat up, changing his body’s position. After doing so, his half-sleep eyes, which did not look much different from his usual ones, were fixed unto the source of direction of his morning alarm.

“Gwen, what are you doing here?”

As his brain was still inactive, he was not able to reason the complication that we were in, blaming me as the cause without any effort of further inspection. And while I was thinking about how to reply, his head suddenly hovered backward. Similar to how a cannon would be reloaded, Angel took a large gasp, heaping plenty of air. Without much warning, he then fired a sneeze which intensified my fear of his contagion.

“I can’t even.”

I found myself instinctively rubbing my eyes out of frustration, not knowing how to handle the ill-mannered creature. Out of my cupped fingers, I sent my eyes upwards, gazing directly at Angel’s eyes, sighing as I realized that there was not much that I could do.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

With a grunt, I compacted my irritation through my sentence, packaged with frowned eyebrows.

After hearing my question, instead of answering right away, Angel turned his head, staring around my bedroom while looking baffled of his whereabouts. And as he was so, he made precise of his puzzlement through a simple question.

“Uh, where am I?”

Angel sniffed and rubbed his itching nose, trying to clear his respiration to breath the fresh morning air, something that would not have annoyed me if he had done it elsewhere.

“You’re in my room.”

I replied to him shortly, seeking to move the conversation quickly so I could extract the information of his appearance in my room.

After a couple of seconds of observing, Angel finally stopped his eyes, focusing them on me. And even though his eyes have not made any visible physical changes, I somehow felt that they were judging me to an extent.

“Your room’s just like you.”

Angel made a short scoff which defined his intentions of mockery, assessing my lack of femininity through the decorations of my room which was non-existent. I could not find it in me to care for bedroom aesthetics in the least. The only things that decorated the walls were the soft blue paint, and filling its corners were shelves of books, both fictive and not.

And somehow, Angel managed to get me off my rails, distracting me from my purpose.

“What do you expect?”

“I don’t know. Posters of boyband members or something.”

Angel then stretched his arms once more, now massaging his shoulders in the process, completely disregarding any concern for both his statement and my question.

And as it seemed that I was unable to keep up on Angel’s tracks, I decided to pull the conversation back on to its correct lane.

“So, do you want to tell me the reason for this surprise?”

I then sat up, replicating Angel’s current position. Yet unconsciously, I rested my chin on top of my right palm, dictating the course of our talk while implying that this morning was exhausting.

Hearing my question, Angel laughed awkwardly, scratching his head while stroking his messy hairdo.

“Ah, yeah, sorry. I have a case of sleepteleporting.”

What.

“Is that your medical term to describe a case of “idiocy”?”

“Well, it’s like sleepwalking for humans.”

Angel looked upwards to the ceiling of the room, staring right into the unlit lightbulb. Afterward, he continued to explain.

“You know that you can’t really control your body’s movement when you’re asleep, right? That’s why people roll out of their bed and hurt themselves sometimes. I once sleepteleported in front of a wall and banged my head waking up.”

As he finished talking, I still could not quite wrap my head around his condition as I was unable to physically teleport at will. Thus, Angel left me at the same place as I was, now with my fingers placed slightly higher on my face, right on my temple.

Nevertheless, even with the perplexity, he did make one conclusion to be clearer.

“…Exactly, idiocy.”

I sighed and straighten my back as to relief myself from my own stiffness. As I gave up on my plans to get angry at Angel, I joked around instead.

“That sounds quite dangerous. You could kill someone without knowing.”

I gave Angel a chuckle to explicitly told him of my humorous intent.

“Ah, don’t worry. That needs a lot of concentration to do. So, not while unconscious.”

Does that mean he could actually do it?

“Well, whatever. I’ll forgive you.”

Unwilling to search for the exact answer to my question, I straighten my hair absentmindedly, scratching my head as they were starting to get terribly itchy. I then stood up from my bed and walked towards my wardrobe, in search of my high school uniform to ready myself for school.

Angel, who was still hovering in the air, released the tension of his back and laid it down, moving his arms and legs back to their original position. It was as if he was the teenager, screaming “5 more minutes!” while clutching his limbs to sleep for just a little longer.

“Such a generous human.”

After saying his last bits, the only voice that came out from his lungs was loud snoring. It was amazing how he could get back to sleep in such a short period of time. Perhaps angels have different biological capabilities from that of a human.

Wait... that doesn’t mean I’m letting you sleep here.

God of this world is truly unfair.