THE ONE | wong yukhei ✔

PRESENT

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chapter two
– P R E S E N T –

~*~

then it became more difficult.
there were the boy and the girl. love. and conflicts.

Sometimes she lay down in a colorful flower meadow to inhale the smell of the most diverse flowers and to watch the bees dancing.

He squatted in front of the nearby small river in fair weather, fishing for fish that were smaller than blades of grass, and writing song lyrics that swirled in his head for so long.

She drank water from the pipe.

He drank milk from the pack.

She was direct.

He was stubborn.

When you saw Yukhei and Chaelin you immediately thought: Oh, they are cute! But they didn't want to look cute, not at all, they rather wanted to be natural. And they succeeded most of the time.

Sometimes they shared the bread chips after making a more liquid rather than creamy dip together and looked out the window to catch the last rays of sunshine of the day. They weren't one of those couples who were constantly in love, cooing like doves, and eating half their faces when their lips touched. The words "I love you" didn't fall for months, and rather seldom so that they didn't lose their meaning.

Over time, the lip kisses subsided - they were only given, if not ten pairs of eyes were on them. Instead, Yukhei pressed his lips to Chaelin's forehead for a brief, intense moment, and the world stood still for a few seconds. Chaelin, on the other hand, loved giving Yukhei a cheek kiss and telling everyone in this manner that he was her boy.

They rarely held hands with each other, only when they had to, and if they did, they wouldn't let go. Most of the time, Chaelin's thin, cool hand clutched Yukhei's warm pinky finger, and it felt like they were dancing as they walked side by side. Their arms didn't swing, and every now and then, the grip was loose, as if they could easily be separated. But you usually only saw that at first glance, if you looked at the two sketchily. Because their friends knew that Yukhei and Chaelin would never let go and never lose sight of each other.

One might think that maybe jealousy or mistrust was a problem between them, but that, too, left them cold. Chaelin's best friend was accepted after a year and a half by Yukhei with a pat on the back and Chaelin looked over it when Yukhei and his friends talked about girls walking around in front of their noses. But even if one or the other boy asked to go out with Chaelin, she answered with an apologetic smile and spoke to Yukhei, who held himself back in such situations. And whenever a girl liked Yukhei a little too much, Chaelin always pressed a sweet kiss on his cheek and put her arm around his shoulders as if to mark him with her scent that said: He is mine.

And when they weren't at a party or with friends, they sat in front of the fireplace in winter, eating fruit salad, and in summer, when it wasn't raining, on the riverbank to catch some fish. In autumn, Chaelin watched Yukhei play with the console, and in spring Chaelin picked a bouquet of daisies, which Yukhei considered as weeds. They enjoyed the peace and togetherness, exchanging words, and slowly began to love each other.

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After three years without quarrel, without cheating, and without loss of interest, Yukhei and Chaelin looked at each other and they knew that they had changed. They were no longer children who could blindly go through life. Because they were finished with their school and were faced with the decision that would change their whole life. A decision, for the future.