8:35am (Darren Espanto and Kenneth San Jose)

O N E - The Bus Stop

Koby Yang

At exactly 8:30 in the morning, I stood on the sidewalk, and waited for the bus to come.
I pulled down the sleeves of my hoodie to cover my hands and I tightly crossed my arms. I exhaled and watched as the late autumn air turned my breath into frost. I sighed and looked up and down the street for the bus.
After minutes of standing and waiting, someone else joined me. I turned to look at the brown haired boy. I smiled at him and he returned the favour.
He moved an inch closer to me. He leaned down to my height and he whispered in my ear, "you know you kind of look like Rudolph, right?"
I threw my head back and laughed.
"It's cold out here," I simply responded.
He crossed his arms and nodded.

And that was the last I saw of him, up until the bus ride home.
I hopped onto the first bus that I saw, even though it was full of people. I looked around for a seat, but there was no empty seat. I sighed and held onto one of the bars to keep myself steady.
I put on my headphones and I connected it to my phone. I played some music throughout the bus ride.

Sometime during the bus ride, a bunch of boy from my school hopped onto the bus. I could tell 'cause I recognized some of them. They were pushing each other around and joking when suddenly, one of them gets pushed towards me and he accidentally knocks my headphones off.
"Hey!" I yelled as I bent down to pick up my headphones. At the same time, the boy who bumped into me also went for my headphones. He got to them first. We both stood up and he handed me my headphones, our hands slightly touched in the process.
I looked up at the skinny boy who was slightly taller than me. For the first time, I took in all of his features, from the familiar brown hair to the warm, chocolate brown eyes. When he smiled, dimples appeared on his cheeks. He was cute and handsome in a way.
I warmly smiled at the boy and I uttered the words, "thank you."
"You're welcome," he said as he smiled. The same dimples from before appeared on his face.
I took one good look at him before he turned back to his friends.
For the rest of the bus ride, I couldn't keep my eyes off of him. Whenever someone pushed passed him or whenever someone called him towards the back of the bus, I always managed to end up staring at the back of his head or the side of his face.

After what felt like an eternity, the bus pulled to a stop at my stop. I pushed the doors of the bus opened and I slipped out through the back with the boy from earlier following closely behind. I slow down so he has the chance to catch up with me. Soon, we're walking side by side, our hands swinging centimetres apart from each other. Neither of us spoke a word. There was a kind of comfortable silence between us.
The silence that I broke.
"Hi," I quietly said.
"Hey," he responded after a few seconds.
"I-I'm Koby." I shyly stared at the ground as we continued walking.
"I'm Darren." He smiled, again.
I glanced at him and noticed the cute little dimples on both sides of his face.
I glanced at him, again. I noticed the smirk creeping up on his face.
I smiled. "What are you smirking at?" I asked as nicely as possible
"What are you smiling at?"
"I asked the question first," I said as I put my hands on my hips.
"Tell you tomorrow," he said as he winked at me and turned into another road.
I chuckled and turned the other way, and towards my house.

~~~~~

So I have a really good feeling about this story because I'm taking personal experiences and I'm elaborating on them to create something a little more interesting. And I bet this story might have frequent updates cause my personal life never stops.

-The Anonymous Writer

September 15, 2015 @ 9:53pm

P.S. Happy Birthday Aaliyah Mendes!!