I want to tell you a story. 

 

Wong Yukhei falls in love with Meng Lei on the first day of second grade, amidst the bustle of crying children and parents bidding goodbye. It’s second grade and all of us want to act tough, because we’re seven years old now and seven is bigger than six, which is the age of whiny first graders. Still, a good chunk of kids wear red, runny noses and swollen, teary eyes. We’re second graders now, but it’s still scary going back to school. 

 

Meng Lei isn’t crying, though. She has on a pastel blue dress that flares out at the waist, a dress that she received from her dad on her eighth birthday party two weeks ago. Despite the beautiful silver sequins and poofy skirt, she refused to put on the dress for two weeks, adamant that the first time she wore it be the first day of school. Her mom has put her hair up in two pigtails, and although Meng Lei is much too young to wear makeup, her mom has allowed her to borrow a pinkish lipstick too, just for today. 

 

Meng Lei looks like an angel surrounded by immature second graders with dirty fingernails and scuffed shoes, and it’s no wonder that Yukhei, who’s always dreamt of having a princess to save from a dragon in a faraway land, falls in love. 

 

I watch Yukhei from across the room, and even at seven years old I can tell that there is something different in the way his eyes follow Meng Lei. There’s a difference in the way that Yukhei blushes when Meng Lei looks his way, as opposed to how he treats me. Me, dressed in boy shorts and a bright orange shirt, knee covered in a bandaid from the time when Yukhei accidentally crashed his bike into mine. Some of the other girls in the class have already zeroed in on Meng Lei, dirty glares and pouty lips betraying their envy. But I don't mind her: despite my boyish appearance, I've always liked pretty things. And Meng Lei is probably one of the prettiest things I've ever seen. 

 

Seven years old is much too young to be jealous, and at seven years old I hardly know what it means to love, or to admire, or to envy. But Yukhei has always been more sensitive, and perhaps that was why he knew, from the moment he set eyes on Meng Lei, that he wanted to marry her when he grew up. 

 

Me? I wipe at the snot below my nose, promptly smearing dirt across my face, and Dad, who has work to get to, only has time to quickly swipe a wet wipe below my nose and kiss my forehead goodbye before he runs off to catch the next train. 

 

Once Dad rushes off, I catch Yukhei’s eyes across the room and run to him, where Mrs. Wong pats me on the head and smiles before leaving too. Meng Lei’s parents stay for much longer, fussing with her hair and talking with the teacher until class starts. 

 

Later on, Yukhei invites Meng Lei to play with us during break, and I don’t really mind. I’ve always liked having more friends, plus Meng Lei lets me touch the shiny silver sequins on her dress even though my hands are dirty. When we play pretend as knights, Yukhei insists that Meng Lei replace me as the princess, and I’m designated to be the evil dragon. We spend all of breaktime together, me sparring with Yukhei and Meng Lei watching us, pretending to be a princess in a tower. 

 

It's fun – I’ve never really liked playing princess anyway. 

 

At the end of the day, when Meng Lei’s parents come pick her up, Yukhei and I have agreed to include Meng Lei as a best friend forever, and our small circle of two expands to three. 

---

Although Yukhei’s actions rarely betray it, he’s actually somewhat shy. His ears flare a cherry red whenever girls approach him and he can barely stutter out a greeting before escaping to the safety of the boys' bathroom. He's good at sports, but all the boys hate him for his height and pretty face. Before Meng Lei came, I was his only friend. 

 

We lived two doors down from each other on the fifth floor of the apartment building, and ever since I can remember I’ve been playing together with Yukhei in the grassy common area behind the building. It’s a small space, enough room for one large tree and two benches, but my childhood was spent there, climbing up the tree and playing a two-person game of cops and robbers with Yukhei. 

 

After we met Meng Lei, though, we started to hang out at her house, much larger and filled with much more toys than the dirty lot behind our apartment building. Meng Lei had dozens of stuffed animals, a wide screen TV, and the latest gaming console that Yukhei and I spent hours obsessing over. We only got to play the console when Meng Lei left for her two-hour-long piano lessons, though, because Meng Lei didn’t like video games. When Meng Lei was at home, we’d play knights just as we had the first day of second grade. I sometimes alternated between being a knight and a dragon, but Meng Lei would always be the princess and Yukhei would always be the prince. 

 

I loved Meng Lei. 

 

She was bossy sometimes and got angry at me whenever I wore my mud-stained shoes into her house, but she had beautiful silky hair and a beautiful collection of rainbow colored dresses. Even though my hands were sticky and I only ever wore baggy shorts and t-shirts, Meng Lei would let me run my hands through her hair and wear her pretty dresses. Every single birthday, she’d give me a dress of my own, and although I only ever wore them maybe once a year, I loved them anyways. 

 

I loved the fancy desserts her mom bought us whenever we were over, and I loved the way Meng Lei always told me that I was pretty even when I knew that I was not. Even though Meng Lei always nagged me for my posture, I loved the way that she sat up straight all the time, probably because she took ballet lessons. Meng Lei was confident and nice and generous, and even though I looked short and wide and dirty next to her, I didn’t mind. 

 

I loved Meng Lei, but it was different from the way Yukhei loved her. 

 

Yukhei loved her for her dainty face, the way she had perfect straight teeth and big wide eyes. He loved how she looked like a princess in pink, how she always twirled her hair in her fingers. He loved her the way I saw movie characters love each other on screen, with flushed faces and hesitant words. 

 

As second grade turned to third, elementary school turned to middle school and then to high school, Yukhei never stopped loving Meng Lei. Eventually the love would turn from the love of a seven year old to that of an adult, and one day that love would consume him, burn up his heart and make it hard to breathe. 

 

Eventually that love would make him do stupid things, fist fights at parties and reckless behaviors at night. It would bring him pain, the type that feels like your chest is sinking in on itself, eating up your blood and flesh and swallowing you whole. 

 

Yukhei would love and love and love until he could not love anymore. 

 

I suppose this story is about him, and about Meng Lei, and a little bit about me, too. Because I loved Yukhei, and Yukhei loved Meng Lei, and Meng Lei did not love him back. 

 

This is the story of the three of us, but perhaps even more so, it is a story about love. 

 

I hope you stay and listen.