THE ONE | wong yukhei ✔

PAST

↞ t h e    o n e ↠

chapter one
– P A S T –

~*~

in the beginning, it was just them.
two teenagers. a boy and a girl who were connected by just one thing – love.

She loved to write and capture cheesy moments on paper.

He liked playing football and throwing himself in the dirt like a guy.

She thought he was a lazy boy.

He thought she was one of those nerd girls.

She knew she was in love and hated it.

He thought he was in love and did not like that fact.

Both could not be more different, and yet they had a common story. It was a story in which a girl and a boy came together and knew in advance that they were in love with each other. The story was cheesy, dramatic, and a bit clichéd. The story was a simple tragedy. She was Chaelin, and he was Yukhei, and one day they exchanged a kiss, but before that, they collected many arguments as to why he was only the guy best friend and she only the girl best friend.

It started – in her view – with the new seating plan in school. A simple piece of paper in the hands of the class teacher who had the classes new seating plan and her being placed next to a boy named Yukhei. They talked about textbooks and calculators, about good friends and chewing gums that stuck under the chairs.

It began – in his view – on the day after Hong Kong's Establishment Day when the girl named Chaelin kissed his best friend's lips, and he felt that unpleasant sensation in the stomach. The day said girl leaned against him and cried, saying she regretted that kiss.

Whatever their views, on one point they fully agreed: It all began on the 2nd of July, the hottest day of the year so far. It was a grass-green Thursday.

⋰⋱⋰⋱⋰⋱⋰⋱⋰⋱

At school, they had been sitting side by side for two years. She was always sitting on the left side of the classroom; he was sitting on the right side next to the wall. She helped him with English; he helped her with Maths. And in between, when the time was left, they became best friends. He told her a lot about his life, his parents. She did not talk much, listened closely, and laughed now and then.

Their mutual friends have known for ages that Yukhei belonged to Chaelin and Chaelin to Yukhei. They made childish plans in the hope that they would be the famous ones who would bring the couple together. But the two teenagers always foiled their plans. Be it Yukhei's silliness and Chaelin's shyness or just the stupid coincidence that destroyed everything, if it could have ever worked.

Both just lived side by side. He was like a brother to her; she was a sister to him. And yet, Chaelin had noticed something that did not fit into this picture. Something that was too abstract for the term siblings.

It developed quietly. Chaelin noticed it when she met another boy she thought could become more to her. She noticed it when she suddenly called Yukhei every day for hours. She noticed it when she kissed his best friend the day after Establishment Day, and Yukhei's eyes were on her. She noticed it on the slide on her birthday when he gave her his shirt, and she loved his scent, which would later stick on her skin.

And she noticed it on July 2nd, a grass green Thursday when her Math teacher announced that the class would end sooner than usual because of the unbearable heat. Chaelin was always teased by Yukhei with the fact that he had a pool at home and that he would take a cold bath right after school. Chaelin always sighed when he bragged about it because she could at most treat herself with an ice cream in the afternoon.