two,

It's already August. Hanoi is still emerged in the sweltering summer heat.

It's been so long since the last time I tried to recall all the things that happened back in those days. But trying to place those millions of pieces together somehow felt really good.

Where did I stop last time?
Oh, P.

I hardly talked about him to anyone. It's a strange thing based on the fact that he actually marked a quite memorable chapter of my life.
We started off being brother and sister. Hardly did I know it was the very first move every guy would make to get his way to the girl he liked. (til one day Ngu told me that)
Being away from home was hard. And being able to talk about anything on earth, whatever thing at all, after long days of boring English lessons, is what every girl craved for. We did not have any romantic stories to tell, memorable dates to remember, or dramatic fights to forget. Everything just grew slowly day after day with stories we shared to each other. Families. Crushes. Friends. Whatever thing at all. I could see clearly what he was getting at. But I was not ready for an answer.

I was having a HUGE crush with this boy by that time. It was so huge that I could not even believe I was actually having it. His name is K. Everytime he stepped into the room, every drop of blood in my entire body rushed right up to my face. I acted clumsily and was unable to speak a word. His smiles melted my heart. And just a Hello friendly wave of his could send me to the Moon and kept me awake all night. I walked to the pantry for water 10 times a night, just so I could see him pacing back and forth along the balcony of the Boy's block talking on the phone with another girl.
He was the strangest thing that ever happened to me. Naturally, it went away, just like any other summer crushes, left me waiting for my truly happy ending.

I still remember the day we parted. The day we were sent to different boarding schools and hostels to start our very own journeys. The bus ride was long and the view from our bus' windows were simply painful to watch.
I did not cry when we said good-byes, when we hugged each other, when we parted to different buses.
Only when I started to unpack in that scarily empty room of mine, loneliness hit me hard. I burst into tears. It was too hard facing the fact that the 25 of us would no longer be together. I cried and cried, for 2 whole hours and could not stop. Then the phone rang.
P called.
Just to make sure I was ok.


Not very long after that. At Christmas' Eve, I said yes to being his girlfriend.
I still remember I wore blue that day, and the very first person I told that decision to was sis Rachel. We were on the escalator going down to meet the guys. And the news made her so happy that I stopped wondering whether it was the right thing to do. When someone who's that special to you said yes, it was the right choice, end of discussion.
And that was how I officially became his girlfriend.