Unbeknownst to others, you have the power to put words into other people's mouths—an ability that has served you well over the years. You have used it to get a free meal or multiple free samples at the grocery store, but you have always been afraid to use it for anything more than that. You're certain you could have a multi-million-dollar house and a luxury car within a few days if you wanted, but you would feel guilty afterwards. One day you meet someone else with the same ability and quickly become friends. You just as quickly discover that you have opposing values. He takes more than you would ever dare, and you think it is immoral to manipulate others to such an extent. As neither of you can manipulate the other, you hatch a plot to see that his unconscionable behavior comes to an end. But the easy part is done when you find out that he's actually an incredibly gifted and intelligent being. He's so brilliant, in fact, that it's hard to trick him by giving him mere words to manipulate, as you would give many animals in the wild or children. You also know he's a lovely person, and you can't stop liking him, so you somehow find that you have a new bond with him—one much deeper than mere friendship. He reminds you of someone you have loved in the past, someone you thought you could never feel again, and never expected to feel again. He's hard to pin down though, and often you lose track of him.
You've certainly learned your lesson though, because now your new friend has apparently gotten everything he wanted, so you're experiencing a sense of nostalgia while you wait to see whether or not this new bond will last. You are becoming curious as to why he wants to feel that pain, though, and if you captured the right person all it would take would be one simple word, but the words elude you. You are too caught up in waiting, so you will have to try to remember how to ask him to allow you to make him feel that pain.
As you tap your foot and contemplate your memories, you begin to hear a strange but familiar voice calling out to you from a distance. As the voice gets closer to you, you wonder if it's some kind of prank. He goes by many names as he pushes his limits, but you've called him that since he has taken to wearing sunglasses at night just to be noticed. He warns you to stay away but you keep following him, so he's either mad or still has nefarious plans, though you think it's probably not the latter. You decide to see him after this errand, though you never know what you'll find when you go to meet him.
You catch a glimpse of him in the distance on the opposite side of the street and feel your heartbeat quicken. He's talking to you. You're too caught up to hear more than that though. All you can do is watch from afar—the price of love.
You always felt like you could tell someone what they needed to hear. You had an, “I got your back,” quality to you and you always tried to help others, so it wasn't a surprise when people came to you with their problems. But you always felt a sense of uncertainty when you talked to others. Some people valued your opinion and others didn't. The story of a broken marriage, for instance. No matter how you said it or how you presented it it just never felt truthful. You almost decided to leave it alone when you were introduced to someone who was totally different from everyone you knew. From the very first minute he was in your presence, he was as absolutely honest as a person could be. You realized that the problem with your story didn't lie in your delivery, but in the fact that you hadn't even tried to see things from their perspective.
You wondered later on whether you had made a mistake when you broke up with them. The time apart only made you realize how important the truth was and how much you thought you would miss them. This wasn't the kind of relationship where you were invested in what you got out of it, but where you just enjoyed yourself while it lasted. It was as if they actually cared about your problems. This is the kind of person you wish you could have met twenty years ago.
You've since met someone who was very different from your new friend. That's when you noticed that even the simplest of actions became so complicated. You quickly learned to keep your feelings hidden from him because any small sign of liking him would lead to him threatening you or yelling because of something you had said or done. He didn't respect others' privacy as he had coming cure. He also turned out to be an incredibly intelligent person whose thoughts are an amazing drink of fresh water. Nonetheless, after you finally got used to the way he just regularly made your life hard, you were able to continue enjoying his company.