He is my first love.

From the moment our eyes met on that first day, I fell, hard. I wasn't sure if he was 'the one.' You know, the one I would spend the rest of my life with, with children, bills, and of course, love. But I knew that he was always, is always, and would always be someone important to me. As my best friend and first love, he would be an indisposable friend. 

Of course, hiding my feelings from him...is a different matter. I was quite obvious, according to my galfriends and guyfriends. No matter how often I would brush it off, they would always tease me about it so I simply gave up, teasing them in return about their current crush or boyfriend/girlfriend. That easily shut them up.

Whether it was Jokwon to Jooyeon or Jinwoon to Jihyun, he was that to me. He was my love. Unrequited? Perhaps. Forever? Hopefully. Mine? Not quite. Yet.

But he is so childish I feel like a mother.

There are a lot of obstacles between us, however. One being himself. I'll admit to being a mother-like person. I'll admit that I'm not the most girly of girls around, but I am female. No doubt about it. Did he really just see me as one of the guys though? Was I not at all female to him? That was redundant. I was female, but was I within his age group? Did he only see me as another mom?

Easily--too easily I think aloud--he wraps his arm around my shoulders instead of my waist, hugging me like he did his own mom when he was younger. He easily holds my hand, too much like the way he would hold his mom's hand when they would go on walks together while I did with mine. Too easily, he eats food off of my chopsticks when he wants a bite, as if we were only 10, just after the age of cooties, but before the age of dating.

Too quickly, he grew up to be a man while me still a girl. Only later when I became a woman did I finally realize the feelings I had with him were different. Only then did I realize that being a mom, wasn't the same as being a girl. Being a girl meant you were up for grabs, able to come and go as you please and do what you want to. Being a mother meant you would be there unconditionally whether you had his love or not.

But only to me is it fine.

However, I would hate to see him do the things he did to me with another girl. Leaning on my lap when he took a nap during breaks, urging me to climb a tree with him where we would tease our friends all day for not being able to, and coming over whenever he was hungry or stuck on a homework problem...

Even if it was only as a mom, I was selfish enough to hog these things to myself. These little actions that added up, filling my heart and throwing around my emotions as he transitioned me from a mother to a girl with ease, helping me with groceries and punching a few erts. Even though I was a mother to him, he still knew I was--still treated me as--a female, and that was enough.

Because even though I was his mother, or so he treated me as and friends teased me about, with the smallest of gestures he made my heart soar. He made my mouth dry, brain blank, and palms sweaty as my face blushed because he was the one I liked. No doubt about it.

He was my first love.
But he was so childish I felt like a mother.
But only to me was it fine.

...xXx...

She is my first friend.

Moving into the neighborhood, I got to experience many things--climbing trees, breaking a leg, having chicken pox, falling in love, but one of the ones I remember most and will always remember most is making a friend. Before I moved, I was bullied, partly for not being handsome, but also because I wasn't that smart.

The competitive nature of Korea was all the way down to the kids and being young, I didn't understand why my parents urged for my grades to go up, praised good tests, and punished the bad. To me, numbers were just numbers and letters were just letters. That was why I would always be avoided. Because grades were important. I didn't look at a person's outside at all. Boys were boys, girls were girls, people were just people. That was why I was avoided. Because I wasn't handsome.

But she was the first one. The first one to look at me past my grades, past my not-so-good-looks, and past the nervous exterior I had when we moved to see the me underneath. She grinned widely and accepted me so easily, I felt as if the tortured years that had past were worth everything now that I had met her.

But she is so oblivious she doesn't know.

Of course, she didn't know this. When we looked at some of my previous class pictures, I made a few lies, stating I had a few friends because I had been shy during the time. And she bought them. So easily. She believed it even though she knew that I was lying.

She knew because when she had asked questions, about names, ages, birthdays, a few memories, I couldn't answer any of them. When I lied, I could never look her in the eye because I felt like she could see through me with those deep chocolate eyes, see past my lies and see the pathetic person I had hidden within myself. 

So I lied and she chose to believe me. Because she was oblivious and because she understood. It was something I didn't want to bring up.

But only to me is it ok to hide.

But though for others, they would push, shove, and pry the knowledge out of me, intent on helping a friend, the fact that she never did that, that she waited so patiently, meant the world. Because it showed that she trusted me and that she was willing to wait for me. It showed that she believed in my own ability to reveal it and fix it.

She trusted me and that meant the world. Earlier, a few years after I had met her, I had finally come to terms with it, as I had come to terms with my love for her. As I had known she would be my only love and my first friend, I acknowledged my lack of friendship early in my life. That I was a loner--quite simply--and that her presence made my life that much happier. 

Even if I didn't tell her, she trusted me. She believed me and she made me happy. She laughed with me, smiled with me, cried with me, begged with me, joked with me, went along with me, helped me, and just did everything for me. And that meant the world.

She was my first friend.
But she was so oblivious she doesn't know.
But only to me was it ok to hide.