“Okay, so the femur is the longest bone in our body” Ali repeated to her friend in class as they face each other with cue cards in their hands. In a couple of minutes, she will take one of the many quizzes her medical class has.

Today is just like any other day, except today, Ali gets to see her crush for a whole hour and a half. Yes, her crush barely comes to class, but who cares… well she does, she’d like to see him often, but they weren’t close enough to share casual talks, they aren't even close enough to even call each other friends, despite the fact that she had been sitting just right in front of the guy for a whole year now, or despite the fact that both of them had also went to the same middle school, and now even in high school.

This was her third year in high school, she really should have moved on from Carcel since he was known as your typical “Casanova”. But who could blame her, the guy’s gorgeous. With his dashing hazel eyes, his tall bod, and especially his naturally curly hair and pretty smile.

She may not know a lot about him (Ali isn’t a stalker, but she does stalk his social media… admit it, you do that too) but she does know one thing, and that is the fact that he was kind, nice, and caring. Sometimes- Most of the time an asshole, but nice, nonetheless.

If you asked Ali why she likes Carcel, well… she doesn’t really have an answer for that. She had not thought that through.

In all honesty, Ali hasn’t told a single soul that she had liked Carcel for the past 2 years, not even her closest friends. This is because she thinks that he is way out of her league. I mean, he’s after all the popular guy that “every girl” swoons over.

You could argue that Ali was well connected amongst her peers, even she is friends with some popular people at school (and when I say popular, I don’t mean celebrity popular because that’s ridiculous, even for a fictional story, but well-known). She doesn’t know why or how, but she makes friends easily, but as easy as her making friends, it’s quite the opposite when it comes to her love life.

Ali briefly took a glance at her right as Carcel sat quietly in his seat waiting for the teacher to announce the starting of the quiz. Her heartbeat quickened and so she looked away and faced the front of the class to calm herself down.

A lot of things are running through her mind at the moment, all of her “what-if” questions and whether or not she’ll get an A+ on this quiz.

•

OMG! That’s the end of chapter one ^^, hopefully you liked it, I had a difficult time writing this as it is the first episode, but I hope that it gets easier as I write along. Anyway, I won’t bore you any longer, please be patient for the next chapter :)

Ali had done many things to get Carcel’s attention, many of which are lowkey embarrassing. For example, as Carcel sits behind Ali in one of her classes, she would often stretch her arms or her head just to get his attention. Ali thought that this was a way to seduce (?) the man.

Another example is when she passes by him in the hallways of the school. How Ali would purposely make her voice come out louder, or how she will intentionally say (un)funny things and laugh out loud.

She admits, she’s a bit obnoxious at times, but she honestly just thought that what she was doing is something that a lot of guys will find cute. But alas, her singleness has proven her otherwise.

…

As Ali sits in the cafeteria chatting with her friends and eating her lunch, she couldn’t help but notice Carcel and his group of friends looking over her table, and as she glances from Carcel’s friend and to another, they all start laughing. Not in a bullying way kind of laughing, but in a teasing way kind of laughing, and what’s even more odd is the fact that Carcel was blushing.

‘BLUSHING?! Who am I kidding? I’m being delusional again’ Ali’s mind started running wild. If her hunch is correct, then maybe… maybe she might just have chance?

I mean, a girl can dream.

Unbeknownst to all her friends, Ali started turning a pinkish tint, she really couldn’t afford to be found out now. It’s not like she doesn’t want people to know that she had deep feelings for Carcel, she’s just afraid of people judging her, and maybe him or them if they actually end up dating each other.

Growing up, Ali had always been compared to her cousins. She was never criticized for her academic performances (her brain is all that she has), but rather, she was degraded for her physical appearance. Growing up, she would constantly hear the words “You’re too fat, you should stop eating” but it will then be followed up with the question of “Why aren’t you eating?”. She spends so many nights crying herself to sleep, she would always question how or why she wasn't enough. Growing up in an Asian household is hard and painful, but constantly being belittled in front of your face is a whole different layer of insecurities added on top of the already overflowing cup of insecurities she had. You could imagine just how much she downplays herself.

Ali chose to keep silent and just observed Carcel and his friends while listening to the conversations happening in her table. A couple of minutes pass by and Carcel and his group of friends had finally left the cafeteria. She breathes a sigh of relief. She hadn’t noticed that she had been trying to hold in her breath all this time, fearing that if she breathed too loudly then someone might point out that she had a silly little(massive) crush on Carcel.

Noticing her quietness, her friend Xana asked if she was alright, which Ali replied with “I’m okay”. But in truth, she’s been overthinking these past few days. She had heard from one of her other friends that Carcel had admitted to liking a girl, she didn’t know who the girl is, but she’s just hoping that it’s her.

Ali walks inside her school gladly taking in the warmth, her cold body slowly adjusted to the sudden temperature change. She hated the winter times, and she especially hated when the winter season is about to come to an end. The snow on the ground is melting, which means that its extra slippery, and that means that she must be extra careful not to slip… which she had failed to do.

As soon as her body adjusted to the warmth, she headed straight to the infirmary to hopefully snag some bandages and patch up the bloody scratch on the palm of her hands. She had her headphones on her head playing some tunes, she walked in trance until she accidentally bumped into someone.

“Oh, I’m sorry” she quickly apologized, and continued walking not bothering to look at the person she just bumped into.

“Wait!” she halted and looked back at the person.

“Do you need some bandages?”

“I do, I’m heading to the infirmary to get some, do… you need something?”

He chuckles, “No, I was just at the infirmary, and they happen to not have a single bandage, but I got some from my friends. Do you want some?” he asked again.

“Yes please” she replied, almost messing up her two-word response.

Carcel handed Ali a couple of bandages, his hand brushing against hers in the process. Her heart quickened, but before she could react, Carcel walked away with a smile on his face.

‘How strange’ she thought.

Ali may just be reading too much into this, but if she were going to be delusional about Carcel anyway, she’d rather believe that he approached her because of concern.

…

Lunch time came quickly, and as she was walking down the hallway to meet with her friends, a friend of Carcel suddenly approached her.

“Hey Ali!” she jumped, startled by the sudden greeting.

“Hi?” she said confused.

“Where are you eating lunch today?”

“Uhm… at the cafeteria, my friends and I always eat there. Anyway, why did you ask?”

“It’s nothing. I just had to get some information” Zion said and ran off.

Ali looked left and right, confused about the situation she was just in. If she were in a cartoon right now, there will surely be a bunch of question marks popping up, adorning her head like a crown.

As Ali ingest her lunch, she couldn’t help but wonder about the strange situations that has been occurring the past few days. Two days ago, another friend of Carcel had approach her, asking whether she and her group of friends prefer sweet or sour food more, she couldn’t answer at first, thinking about every preference and similarity her and her friends had in terms of food. In the end, she decided to go with sour food, even though she wasn’t that big of a fan of anything sour, a handful of her friends were. Now, if Ali thought that that situation was weird, what happened today had made her even more confused. First of all, why had Carcel suddenly approached her, or why are his friends so interested in her group of friends. Second of all, why are they all approaching her?

…

Ali went home confused, and strangely excited by all the events that has been taking place. If this is where she thinks it’s going, then she had all the right to feel thrilled.

•

Announcement: I will try and regularly post on Wednesday’s and Saturday’s, and if I have more free time, then maybe I’ll post more chapters in a week, but that seems impossible at the moment.

Anyway, the song recommendation for today’s episode is betelegeuse by yuuri.

 べテルギウス - 優里