Prologue
Every Girl Needs a Guy Best Friend
“Can I sit here?”
Hearing those words, the little raven haired boy that sat on the lone swing set looked up and blinked twice. Immediately, his swing stopped creaking from lack of movement as he noticed that a pretty little girl with sky blue eyes was curiously staring at him expectantly while holding the other swing with both her hands.
It was the 20 minute recess for the first graders, and, as usual, all the other children from the class were playing outside, running around and having fun with each other on the perfectly green grass of the school playground; everyone that is, except for the raven haired boy, who was always left alone because of his apparently ‘scary looks’.
So when the girl talked to him like it was something normal, said boy was too shocked to reply and could simply nod a shy ‘yes’ in response.
“Thank you!”
The girl promptly sat herself on the spare swing and started rocking herself forward and back, slowly gaining speed to lift herself off the ground. She giggled as her long hair floated on the wind, and the little boy started at her in owe, thinking how beautiful she looked at that exact moment. It wasn’t long, though, before girl stopped swinging and turned to her side to address the boy once again.
“Hey, why aren’t you swinging?”
“I… I don’t know how,” the little boy shyly confessed, not daring to look into her eyes out of embarrassment. He thought that his classmates would most definitely laugh at him if they knew that a six year old elementary school student didn’t know how to do something so simple.
“Do you want me to teach you then?”
“R-really?”
“Of course! It’s the least I could do after you let me play here,” she replied with a bright smile, and jumped off her swing to walk behind where the little boy was sitting. Then she softly put her hands of the boy’s back.
“Okay, you just have to lift your feet up from the ground when I push you, and try to move your legs back and forth as you move so you can go faster! When I say ‘go’, okay? One… two… three… GO!”
The swing was slowly pushed forward as the little boy lifted his legs as instructed. He was a little scared at first, as he moved forward on his own, but the reassuring hands that waited for him when he swung back gave him the courage to gently rock his body back a little bit and eventually speed up. As the wind started to hit his face when he picked up speed, he felt a rush of excitement and it was the first time he had felt such freedom in his life.
The bell rang not long after the girl had gotten back on her own swing, and the little boy couldn’t help but feel disappointed as he stopped his swing by abruptly putting his feet down on the ground. Once he felt stable enough, he started heading back to his classroom, until he noticed something and looked back to see that the girl was still swinging back and forth with the brightest of smiles. Then, with one strong swing, she lifted herself up higher and just when the swing was about to go down again, the girl jumped off, reaching even higher towards the sky… and crashing right on top of the little boy since she still didn’t know how to land properly.
Her laughter soon filled the air.
“That was so much fun! Let’s do it again sometime,” the little girl exclaimed in between laughs.
“Yeah... T-thank you… for teaching me…”
“No problem. And thank you, too, for playing with me today.”
“But don’t you usually play with the others?” the boy asked, tilting his head to the side and only managing to get more grass intertwined in his black hair.
“Sometimes, but they don’t like me very much.”
“Why?”
“Because they say I’m a ‘hybrid’.”
“What’s a… ‘hybrid’?”
“I don’t really know,” she murmured quietly, her eyes showing both confusion and disappointment. “I only know that it’s the reason why no one wants to be my friend…”
“I’ll be your friend.”
“Really?!”
“Yes.”
“You’re not kidding?!”
“No.”
“Are you 100% sure?!”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Yay~!” the girl cheered as she put her arms in the air and got on her knees, finally getting off the boy she had been using as a cushion. “My name is Tianshi, by the way, Lee Tianshi.”
“I’m Huang Zitao.”
“Nice to meet you, Zizi!”
The boy was about to say that his name was ‘Zitao’, not ‘Zizi’, but the teachers were quicker and before he could even finish processing that thought, they were both dragged into their corresponding classrooms, leaving their conversation unfinished.
For the rest of the school day, all Zitao could think about was Tianshi. Then again, why wouldn’t he? She was his first friend; it was only natural, right? That was how, at the end of the day, he ended up waiting for her in front of the school gate. But when fifteen minutes had already passed and there was still no sign of Tianshi, Zitao started to get worried.
So he sneaked back into the school and started looking around the halls for her, hoping that they wouldn’t miss each other as he did so. His backpack got heavier and heavier by the minute as his search continued, but the lingering feeling that something might be wrong with his first friend overcame all of that, and he continued to aimlessly walk around the school’s grounds until he heard a crash from one of the classrooms and immediately dashed toward it. He hoped it was nothing more than a careless janitor tripping over his own cleaning tools, or some extracurricular activity teacher dropping her materials; but somehow those ideas didn’t fully convince him and his worry only increase with every step.
He loudly stumbled into said room to see three boys cornering Tianshi while said girl was on the ground, obviously pushed down by one of her attackers. The tallest one of the three was holding a pair of scissors a little too close to Tianshi’s hair. Seeing this, Zitao got mad to say the least. He squinted his eyes towards them and sent them a cold glare, enough to kill, as he took a couple of steps forward with his fists clenched tightly. Once the boys noticed him, they quickly disappeared from the classroom without even trying to confront him. (Yes, that’s just how scary six year old Zitao was)
“Zizi…” Tianshi whispered, her voice trembling a little bit. “T-t-thank you.”
Zitao simply nodded as he helped her up on her feet by holding her by her waist and grabbed her backpack with his free hand. “That’s what friends are for.”
The boy had only whispered his reply, but the words went straight to Tianshi’s heart, engraving themselves there forever; and it was that precise moment when she placed all her trust on the little boy, knowing that he was going to be there for her no matter what. Quickly, a smile replaced the frown on her face.
“Still, thank you, Zizi. I have a feeling I’m going to be saying that a lot, so you better get used to it!”
The both of them walked back home together after that with a comfortable aura around them. It turned out that Tianshi’s house wasn’t that far away from Zitao’s, so they decided to repeat this action again in the morning, the reason being that they were ‘friends’. In all reality thought, Tianshi was happy to have a strong protector next to her while Zitao was simply relieved that he finally had someone to talk to who wasn’t afraid of him.
Time passed quickly, and Zitao and Tianshi became closer throughout the years, to the point where they were practically inseparable. So much, actually, that it was almost inevitable for Zitao to eventually fall in love with Tianshi; because, yes, our little Zitao was way beyond head over heels for Tianshi by now. Yet, he never felt the need to confess his feelings to her; he thought it would just make things more awkward to put labels on their relationship. After all, things were good this way, and Zitao was totally fine with it. He really believed with all his heart that nothing could come between them and things will fall in place at the right time; so he waited.
It never occurred to him that things might change right before his very eyes while he did nothing to stop them…
~*~
A/N: Yay~~ I can’t believe that I updated on time!! ^^ I hope this chapter wasn't too boring… I just needed to put how Tianshi and Zitao meet for the first time (it’s important, trust me). I tried to make it cute, but I think I failed epically -.-‘, I don’t know. I’ll try to make next chapter more interesting, promise! Anyways, thanks reading, see you soon~!! :D
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