Midnight Kiss

Chapter 1

"Oh, come one, Tul, please!" Max whined while I tried to organize the books on the shelves. "You can't just spend New Years alone, it's depressing." he added while he kept following me around.

"Well, I would rather spend it alone and depressingly in my room, than spend it in a party full of people I don't know!"

I shot back as I walked around the corner and entered another shelf aisle, trying to find the correct place for the last book I was currently holding in my hands.

It was the 31st of December, the last day of the year. And I was currently trying to find the places of each one of the books that were left on the table of the bookshop I worked in. Since it was New Year's Eve, the shop had opened only during the morning shift today, and now I was trying to get everything back to where it belonged, then lock the doors and go back home, before I had to come back and open the shop again in the morning of January 2nd.

The nuisance annoying me while I tried to finish my work was Max Nattapol, my roommate/best friend, who was desperately trying to get me to go to a New Year's Eve party with him this evening. He and I met in the first year of college, when he came to this very own bookshop looking for a book this girl in his class he had a crush on had told him was her favorite, so he wanted to buy it and read it to impress her. I had just started working there so it was a hassle to find what he was looking for, but in the end we did. He didn't get the girl, though. But at least we started what would be a long lasting friendship.

When we found out we were both Thai, we hit off right away. And even though our majors were completely different from each other's, the fact that we came from the same place and were both alone and without our families in the big and scary New York City, made us become close really really fast. We started living together in our second year of college, when we decided to move out from the dorms and rent an apartment of our own. Which was one of the reasons that I was still working here, so I could get my part of the rent paid every month. He had also had to start working at a flower shop to pay his part.

And that was the reason why we were there, stuck in New York City during the end-of-the-year holidays, without being able to go back to Thailand and spend it with our families. And that was also the reason why he was annoying me to go with him to the damn frat party while all I wanted to do was stay home and use the few hours I had off to rest.

"Ah, you know it's not true!" he continued complaining. "You know most of those people."

"Okay, maybe I do!" I retaliated. "But that doesn't mean I like them enough to go partying with them."

"But you're gonna go with me, you can party only with me, then." he tried to reason with me. "And you love me enough to do so. Please, you can't let me go alone."

"Didn't you just say I probably know most of the people that will be there?" I asked, and he nodded. "Then so should you, you're not gonna be alone."

"But I want to go with my best friend!" he whined even louder, making me let out a big ass sigh.

"Look, Maxi, let's be real honest here." I turned to him as I finished putting the last book into its place. "The only reason you want to go to this party is because your stupid tradition of kissing someone at midnight every year on New Year's Eve, and your stupid belief that the year is gonna be terrible if you don't do so." he started pouting when he hard me calling his habits stupid. "You're gonna leave me behind and as soon as you find a mouth that is willing to kiss you under the fireworks, and I'll just end up spending it alone anyway. So I much rather do it in the comfort of my own home."