My love, my confession

It was pouring and it was close to midnight. We were taking a bus from school, back home, together. Shoulder to shoulder, I felt the warmth I longed for. I still remembered vividly, the splatters of the rain against the window, the rumbling of the bus engines and the murmurings of the tertiary students.

I was falling asleep, indulging in the warmth from the slight physical contact. Just before I fell into the world of oblivion, I felt him moving closer to my face. His breath hot against my skin in the freezing bus. He whispered, "If you were a girl. I'd definitely fall in love with you, before anyone else."

It started off with us meeting in an all boys school. It wasn't all fairies and butterflies like all the other fall in love stories. In fact, I had a nasty first impression of him. He was rude, crude, disrespectful and on top of all that, arrogant and aloof. To make it worse? He cares naught about his schoolwork and lazes all day.

Being as 'suay' as I always am, I was nominated and became the class's chairperson. Knowing my duties, I started helping my class as a whole and it went fairly well, except for him. Lets just call him something typical, how about A? Well, we didn't get along well for like what? 2 years? I kept my distance from him, he kept his from me. It stayed like that for 2 years. Till one day.

The class started discussing about the game 'Dota', it probably came forward because the school introduced and started their advances in the E-gaming field. I had started playing this game ages back and I was definitely not a bad player. [I had joined tournaments before with my team.] My class knew about about me and someone suggested that we should play. Somehow after a game, A was convinced that I should be his teacher and there, bam, that was where it all started.

Over a span of two years, we got even closer together and he had been improving tremendously, he even created his own team for the upcoming tournament selection. Basically the top two teams would represent the school in the upcoming E-gaming competition. I still remembered how happy and anxious he was when he made it to the semi finals in our school. In the end, my team emerged top, his? Third.

I was the only one that saw him leaving the gaming room after the results were finalized. I was concerned but I did not know which type of response was appropriate, so I just followed. He was biting onto his lower lips, trying hard not to break down. He tried to make me go home, but I insisted in walking him home. Knowing it was futile he stopped. We reached the foyer of his block. Without turning to look at me, he whispered in an almost inaudible tone, "I don't want to go back home, not like that, not in this state."

We settled down on the nearby bench and he hugged himself and curled into a ball. I thought he was going to sleep or something, but I thought wrong. He started sobbing all of the sudden and I ended up tearing. There was this surge of emotions that I suddenly felt. I felt his despair, I felt his disappointment and I was at a loss. I reached out to embrace him and halted. Why? Why did I want to hug him I thought. My mind was in a mess, it didn't help that he was almost brawling and I was feeling helpless. In the next heartbeat, I suddenly had an epiphany. I was in love. With him. A guy.

I experienced a lot. More than which I could handle, in that same year and the year after. I experienced guilt, disappointment, jealousy, anger and sadness. My family was in a mess, my academics were plummeting, I couldn't get rid of the emotion in wanting to monopolize him, I screamed and screamed inside, there was no one I could talk to and it came to a point where I felt myself going insane. Then I snapped. I stopped talking to A, ignored him and treated him invisible. I thought it was my cure, my only cure out of this mess.

I spent my days fighting with myself, almost losing my edge every time I see him. His very voice made my heart pumped hard. If anything was close to hell, that probably stood next to it.

Our schools ended, we've completed our O levels. We never met till our results were announced. I scored a fairly decent grade considering how I almost smashed my prelims with a straight list of E8s' and F9s'. Contrary to my results, he did really badly for his O levels. Considering how he have gotten close to a single digit in his prelims.

From my other friends, I heard that he dumped by his girlfriend and he was badly affected by it. I didn't know what to think. I felt incredibly guilty and upset. I chided myself for not staying close to him to provide support. Yes, I was a fool, I ended up crying, people thought I did so because of my bad results LOL.

Eventually we patched up. My friends scammed me into meeting him. It was so awkward but the ice eventually melted away. We started talking again. Started texting, starting playing games and started hanging out. He spent a year in ITE and retook the following O level test. Scored decent grades, left ITE and went into the same polytechnic as me.

Now we're as close as ever. He tells me about his dreams and ambitions and intimate things like his relationships. Every time he ends up thinking that that was his fated one, things start to get ugly and he eventually gets dumped. And I? Always rushing to his side whenever something happens, even if it means that I have to abandon my classes.

If I could choose again, I would still want to be born as a guy. Why? You may ask. Because it is what allowed me to meet him. In an all boys school. I never regretted loving him.

It has been 6 years since I found out that I was in love with him. I still do. The depth of my love for him will remain as a secret, to him. Forever. I love you and I always will.

-Kage