He was leaving. Jaime couldn’t believe that the day had come; she never believed that the boy who she had spent twelve years with would leave her side. To Jaime, he was like an annoying presence, sure they were friends, but he mostly annoyed her. In the eighth grade, he would steal her stuff, but he would always end up giving it back to her. He mostly stole it for the enjoyment that it gave him of her freaking out.

            “Looks like today is the last day you’re going to have to deal with me,” Himchan said looking at Jaime during homeroom. “Tomorrow, this seat will be empty.”

            “Good,” Jaime said looking at him.

            “You aren’t going to miss me?” Himchan pouted at the sound that the girl he had a crush on wasn’t going to miss him. He gave out very obvious hints during their middle school years, but it seemed like Jaime never noticed any of them. He annoyed her because he liked her, but she only thought that he did that for enjoyment. He even made a group in the eighth grade whose purpose was to annoy her. Still, she never noticed.

            “Of course, I’ll miss your annoying presence,” Jaime said patting his arm. She turned around and started talking with one of her other friends in homeroom when she noticed that Himchan stole one of her pens. “What are you doing? That’s my favorite,” she remarked as she attempted to steal it back from him.

            “No, no, no,” he said wagging his finger at her as he put the pen into his pocket. “This pen is now mine.”

            “How can you claim it as yours?” she asked crossing her hands over her chest. It was her favorite color blue, a light and vibrant one. She wondered how Himchan could just steal it from her. Jaime knew that Himchan always used to do this in the middle school days, steal things and hide them, but in the end, he would always give them back. It seemed like this time he wasn’t planning on giving the pen back.

           “It’s pretty,” he said taking it out of his pocket. Immediately, Jaime attempted to grab it from his hands, but being a baseball player and a former football player, he was able to successfully shield it from her. “It can give me something to remember you by. You know how I never wanted to move in the first place.”

            “I know,” Jaime said giving up the effort to get her pen. “You even brought in the brochure or whatever it was and were talking about it incessantly.”

            “So, let me have this, as a last gift, please?” he asked begging with his best pouting face.

            Jaime sighed. She figured that it was the least she could do. She wondered if he had some sort of secret collection of things that he stole from her and never gave back. “Fine,” Jaime huffed. “You can keep it.”

            “Thank you,” Himchan said with a bright smile until someone interrupted the conversation.

            It was another student in the homeroom. Almost everyone knew that today was Himchan’s last day because of his popularity. Jaime wondered how he could have even been that popular, but apparently his looks are no joke when it comes to girls. They just fall head over heels for him immediately. Sometimes girls would even ask Jaime to help get them hooked up with him.

            Sure, like all guy and girl friends, Jaime had her crush on Himchan, except she doesn’t remember when it happened. As far as she’s concerned with, it happened and ended on the same day. She only remembers being friends.

            Himchan, on the other hand, had liked Jaime ever since he could remember. He always found himself intrigued by her, but she never seemed to give off the same feeling back. Being the playboy, Himchan had always had girls by his side, sometimes more than he wished, but it was always Jaime on his mind. Once or twice he even dated girls to get closer to Jaime, but they all ended up in failure.

            As Himchan was saying goodbye to one of his classmates, more came over to say goodbye. He found himself saying goodbye to a bunch of people, but not to the one that mattered the most. Jaime was busy talking with another friend and he was there dealing with the crowd. As if it were his savior, the bell rang signaling for them to go to class. Now the only way he would be able to see Jaime would be at the end of school, when he had to leave. They had no classes together during the day.

            To Jaime, the day seemed like it went by quickly. She didn’t want to say goodbye to Himchan. She didn’t want him to see the vulnerable side of her. In her opinion, they already had previous awkward times and she didn’t want to have anymore. Throughout the whole day, she thought about the instances that they went through of their twelve years of friendship. She remembered how in the seventh grade she was forced to hold Himchan’s hand, more like he offered, while they completed an activity on a field trip and how people always mistook them for dating. As much as she would hate to admit, she would miss those times.

            In Himchan’s mind, the day was going by too quickly, too. He didn’t want to leave the school and friends that he made throughout the past twelve years. He didn’t want to leave Jaime behind. They never hung out outside of school; the only time they ever talked was during school hours. Himchan wished that they hung out more often and even attempted to have Jaime call him during the eighth grade, but she never did. She always claimed that she lost his phone number and he would give her it again, but still, the call never came.

            Too quickly for both of their tastes, the end of school arrived. Jaime was at her locker first and saw Himchan coming. She prepared herself for the goodbye that was going to happen any second, but still, she acted as though she would see him tomorrow.

            “You’re going to leave all of that in your locker?” Jaime asked Himchan as he started placing things in his backpack. Himchan’s locker was always messy, ever since he had gotten one in the sixth grade. It had gotten so bad in seventh grade that he had to use Jaime’s locker to put his baseball bag in. This time, he was going to leave water bottles on the top shelf.

            “Why not?” Himchan asked as he placed the other necessary things, like his numerous jackets and sweatshirts into his backpack. “Whoever has my locker next year can use those as remembrance.”

            “They probably won’t even remember you,” Jaime muttered as she tended to her own locker.

            As people saw that Himchan was packing up his things, more people came over. “I’m going to miss you, Himmy,” one girl said as she hugged him. Her locker was only a couple down from where Jaime and Himchan’s was.

            “Yeah,” Himchan said as he hugged her back.

            Jaime watched on with a heavy heart. She wanted to have the courage to hug him; she wanted to have the courage to tell her what she thought about him those years in the past. She wanted to tell him that maybe he wasn’t that bad of a guy, but she lacked the courage. She couldn’t muster up enough courage to just face him and tell him one last time before he moved on the other side of the city and attended a different school.

            After putting everything in her backpack, Jaime turned and looked at Himchan who was bending over and fixing something in his. Taking a deep breath, she patted him on the back. “It was nice knowing you all of those years,” she said. Jaime turned away quickly before Himchan could look up from his backpack. She couldn’t give him a proper goodbye. She didn’t want him to see her weak and give him the thought that she would miss him. sure she would miss his annoying presence, but she didn’t want him to know that. If only he had said something as she were walking away, she would’ve turned back.

            Himchan looked up before closing his locker to see Jaime turning her back around the corner. He wanted to reach out to her and stop her, he wanted to hug her and let her know that he wanted to keep in touch, but she ran away before he could. Quickly, he packed up his things and was going to go after her, but more people stopped to tell him goodbye and he missed his chance.

            After twelve years of being in school together, their friendship just stopped. Himchan never got to tell Jaime that he had always liked her and Jaime never got to tell Himchan about what she thought of him. They both continued their lives with the small hope that they would see each other once again in the future.

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So, this was my first oneshot. Hope you enjoyed :D

So this is the prequel for my upcoming story entitled 'It's You.' When I post that story, an extra chapter will be added onto the end to give the link.

Look forward to it :)