I love/kill you

3

"My name's Phu." He started talking.

"..." Dumbfounded, I was in silence.

"You're Krit. I already know that."

"How come... you know my name?"

"I heard the nurse calling your name in there. Besides, I care about every detail of the object of my interest." He looked down at the floor once he finished speaking. I noticed that his face turned red. What a shy guy. How cute.

"Well..."

Of course, the cat still got my tongue, I didn't know what to say. My silly looking face then revealed the shyness on par with his, and I eventually joined him in looking down. Well, at least I knew what to express in this situation.

Each of us was super shy, hence the silence. I can't recall how long we looked down and reacted shyly towards one another. It might have been seconds, but to me, who was utterly shy, it felt like ages. I tried to gather my courage to come up with something, but the shyness was so immense that it froze my mouth. The same went for him, I guess. But since he already started it, I thought it was my turn to say something of an equivalent exchange.

Crackle. Crackle.

Lucky for me, the thunder roared while both of us were quiet. Otherwise, we would have stood there in the midst of shyness, and the conversation would go nowhere.

"So it's gonna rain."

My nose started getting stuffed. Whenever it's about to rain, I'll snuffle, and my nose will be runny. Putting my sensitivity to the humidity to use, I went on.

"Should we be under a roof before it rains?" All right, it's true that he started the talk, but I was the one who made the next move and asked him out for a date.

"Hmm, how does Starbucks sound?" He suggested, but I shook my head. "I'm kinda hungry. Starbucks won't fill my stomach."

"You pick the place, I can go wherever." He seemed to spoil me. What a nice guy. That just made me fall for him more.

"Better McDonald's, then, for my food and your coffee."

I took a few steps before turning back to him. "The coffee won't be as good as Starbucks. Are you OK with that?"

He nodded. "It's fine for me. I only drink black coffee, anyway. Besides, I can be wherever you want me to."

At first, I suggested a McDonald's nearby, but Phu mentioned going to the other branch was better for him. So we took the sky train to the next few stations. I would have refused if he hadn't stopped me with his reasoning.

"The one near the clinic will be closing at ten, but that one is 24-7. We'd better go there."

He led me to the station and without waiting for my decision, he pulled out his wallet, bought two tickets and handed one to me.

"We can take all the time we need there." He winked while giving me that one-way ticket. He got ten out of ten from me. Phu definitely knew what to do and when to do it. As if he were a skilled scriptwriter, he said the right thing at the right time. He knew exactly which expressions and tones would blow me away. Normally, I'm not a sky train rider, and if I really need to, I have my own pass, however, I like it when a man acts like a gentleman and takes care of everything for me. Anyway, it was his reason to take all the time we needed that captivated me.

All in all, in spite of the disagreement, I couldn't refuse him. Quite the opposite, I was more than happy to oblige.

***

"I started peeking first, Krit."

"No, Phu. I started it."

"Why do you think so?"