|Weak Hero| One Night [Donald X Kingsley]

Kingsley's Birthday

The rumors didn't die down as fast as Kingsley hoped for. In the middle of November, Donald finally lost his patience with hearing people gossip and insult Kingsley. He snapped and told them to stop. He had intended to ignore the rumors and just let it die down like Kingsley was doing, but he had less patience than Kingsley. 

The same student population who had believed the rumors praised Donald for standing up for a poor victim. At the same time, they also grew angry at how Kingsley Kwan had Donald's attention and how she was being defended by him. They quietly whispered amongst themselves that Kingsley was playing victim to garner sympathy from the school's prince.

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The assignment was to bring in a photo or video of yourself when you were younger in order to compare how much a person can change between childhood and late teenagehood/young adulthood. 

Kingsley had forgotten to bring in a photo. When the teacher questioned why she didn't have one, Donald spoke up before Kingsley could. "Kingsley and I are sharing the same photo since it's a photo of both of us,"

The entire classroom became silent.

'Shit,' Donald realized what he had just said. 'I didn't want Kingsley to get in trouble for not bringing in a photo, but didn't immediately think that people would wonder why Kingsley and I are in the same photo,'

"We went to the same elementary school," Donald explained.

'He does remember me,' Kingsley noted. 'But he said I was his classmate in elementary school. He didn't say that we were friends,'

Fortunately, it was a class photo that Donald had so all of the jealousy wasn't only on Kingsley, but the entire class who had gotten to attend elementary school with Donald. 

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Kingsley was looking over her childhood photo album with many pictures of herself and Donald. 'We aren't friends,' She bitterly thought. 'He didn't acknowledge that we were friends. He only acknowledged that we were just classmates,'

She still felt reminiscent of the happy times together as she flipped the pages. There were photos of her and Donald at the beach, at the park, at each other's birthdays, and just simple memorable moments. 

There was the time when gum got stuck in both of their hairs so they had to cut their hairs short. There was the time when they were playing with toy handcuffs and had lost the toy key so they were stuck together until Kingsley's parents came home and they picked the lock. It was a toy but the kids didn't realize how to unlock it without the key.

There was the time when Donald tagged along on to the family reunion so Kingsley wouldn't be lonely and bored. Kingsley happily chatted with Donald the entire time, though both of them were subjected to the overly affectionate aunts and cousins who showered them with hugs.

'I shouldn't be getting mad,' Kingsley thought. 'It's normal that we'd grow apart. We attended different middle schools and didn't reunite until after three years. In hindsight, we should've exchanged numbers, addresses, or at least emails,'

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December 9, 2019 was Kingsley's eighteenth (Korean Age) birthday. It was a Thursday, so Kingsley had to attend classes. Her morning routine was slightly different since she received various calls and texts from her relatives, wishing her a happy birthday. 

"What do you want to do to celebrate?" Stephen asked.

"Just a cake is fine," Kingsley said. "I don't want anything extravagant. Maybe a small party with everyone,"