One and Only // lucas wong (#34)

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Have you fallen in love with anyone before?

If you have, it is a wonderful feeling and it is something that changes your entire life and a new perspective of your world changes as well, as you allow the person that you have feelings for entering your life. If I have to describe this wonderful feeling, it isn't a definite answer for this because it depends on each person and how they percept things in their own ways.

For me, it is as if I have entered an imaginary world of rays of sunshine and rainbows the moment I met the special one, the one that I told myself that I would love this person for the rest of my life until the day that I die, it might seem ridiculous and too farfetched but it felt like that to me at that point of time. I was only 17 years old when I first fell in love and that was the first time that my heart starting beating this fast because of a certain someone, I thought that my heart had malfunctioned because I have never felt this way before.

But it was true, I have really fallen for someone and it was my classmate when I met on my first day in a Korean high school. I am not Korean by birth nor I have a Korean citizenship, I am a foreigner from Hong Kong who came into Korea because my parents had wanted me to study overseas and they sent me here under the care of a foster family, I knew nothing about the language and the culture when I first arrived here but thanks to my foster family, they have helped me fit in faster than I have expected.

And it is also because of one person, she was the one who helped me the most during my high school days. I still remembered the first day that we have first met each other and it was the first time that we ever spoke to each other, she was the one who approached me first. I arrived at the administration office and I was waiting for the school clerk to sort out the documents for my enrollment and she came in at the right moment, asking for the same thing as well.

She was an exchange student as well coming all the way from Beijing, China for the same reasons, I remembered her greeting me warmly as soon as she sees me and I was very taken aback by that, I never had someone greeting me like that and it is not like we have known each other for some time, it was literally the first meeting and she is already being this friendly to some Chinese guy that she had met a few minutes ago.

I am an extrovert and I could handle such awkward situations and go up to people and talk to them comfortably, but with this girl, it is like a completely new experience for me and I must say that it had totally changed my life that day, and so was my feelings for this overly-friendly foreigner that I have just met.

And then I was assigned to my class and it turns out that she was also transferred to the same class as me, it was such an amazing coincidence that I couldn't believe myself up to this day but it happened. And we got assigned to sit far apart from each other at opposite ends of the 3rd row in class which pretty much decreased my chances of getting to know her and hoping that we would ever talk to each other again but she kept coming over to my seat after classes and she insisted that we would walk home together since we lived in the same area and I was the only guy that she was close to and she speaks my language as well which makes things easier in terms of communication, we became close friends with each other real quick and before we knew it, we were dating each other.

It turns out that she had liked me for a long time ever since the first time that we have met each other at the administration office, and she was happy that she had met me who speaks the same language and we have similar backgrounds. And so we dated each other for the rest of high school and we helped each other in our studies as well, we were each other's, Korean language teachers and clearly, she is the one who is better at the language than me because she enjoyed studying while I hated studying and refused to read any books.

She was also the one who fixed all of my unhealthy habits and changed my life completely, because of her, I could score so well in my exams because she tutored me so much that I went to bed dreaming about her tutoring me and telling me that I could get As for each subject if I try hard enough. And I did, I graduated high school with honours and I remembered that the two of us giving a speech in both Chinese and Korean to the whole cohort and we were highly praised for it.

But the thing is that we weren't together anymore during the graduation ceremony, we have broken up after having a fight with each other and it was a huge one that caused us to end our relationship. I could barely remember the details of what exactly happened but I just know that she left my house in tears because of something that I have said and we never saw each other until the graduation ceremony and I left the party early because I couldn't stand seeing her again.

And so 7 years have passed and I have never met her even once, I have no idea where she had gone to all these years but the last time that I have heard from her is that she had returned back to her home country to pursue her dreams and it doesn't seem that she is coming back anytime soon. I, on the other hand, decided to stay here in South Korea after high school and I have attended university as well, earning a degree in sports management and I became a fitness trainer at the gym near my apartment.

I have also dated some woman during all these years and all of that didn't end well, and thus I have become single even if I want to date anyone, it doesn't end well and so I have decided that I would only date someone if I really need to. Or let love come to me unexpectedly just like how I first met her but it can't be the same again, I don't see rays of sunshine and rainbows whenever I see a woman that I am attracted to, all I see is just a plain background with a single flower in front of me and that doesn't make it pretty.

I guess that she was the one who made me lose faith in true love and she should've never said hello to me in the administration office in the first place and we wouldn't have met if that didn't happen. I should've just stayed back in Hong Kong to study instead of travelling to another country. Meeting her was my biggest mistake and I wished that didn't happen at all. If I could rewind back time to stop my parents from making the decision of me studying in Korea...