No story is ever fully self contained, a perfect box, independent of any another. For every moment there are a thousands stories that proceed and succeed its occurance. For every character a thousand more stories that have shaped them. No story is box, but rather a single thread in an intricate tapestry of all that has, can and will ever be written. 

This story is no exception to that rule. 

The order that has Kris take pause, to the untrained eye, is an order that begs little thought or consideration beyond how to fill it. A tall columbian blend with creamer instead of milk, in house. To Kris, however, it speaks to a story years old. A story that began in better times. A story still in progress, though neglected of late, that isn't turning out the way Kris imagined it would. A story that somedays Kris wishes would save his heart and end.

Unlike this story, which began at an arbitrary moment in time, the story of the columbian blend has a very specific beginning. In fact it begins at the beginning.

The beginning of Kris' first year at S.U.

The beginning of his friendship with Huang Zi Tao.

It's first thing Monday morning, just seconds before the 125 is about to close it's door and pull away from the curb when a hand catches the acordian door, holding it open long enough for a breathless young man with a satchel of new textbooks to climb aboard. A second later and he would have missed it. If that had happened this would be a very different story and Kris a very different person. As it so happens by pure luck or design - we will never know - 18  year old Kris doesn't miss the 125 that hecetic Monday morning.

It's rush hour and all but one seat is taken. The free seat, halfway down the bus and on the right, is next to a young high schooler dressed what was obviously a new private school uniform, the school crest singing out from the pocket of his blazer. Kris for the most part goes unnoticed as he takes his seat, the boy too absorbed in the ipod in his hand. Everything about the boy's uniform screams first year, newbie, and the almost obsessive way he's flipping through songs betrays his nerves. Kris can sympathise. It's his first day too. The first day in a new chapter of his life.

And so marks that begining of a backstory that should be the main story. A story that unfurls over countless mornings on the 125, like that first Monday when Kris took the last free seat. Of course he did'n't always sit next to the highschooler. Some days there were no seats left and he had to stand. Others he would take a seat by and elderly woman or a businessman. And sometimes he missed the bus completely.

Things don't always happen in an instant, but come about slowly. Maybe this is why the main story didn't begin at the beginning so that it could gloss over the things that took time, like a high speed camera bringing a flower to bloom in seconds.

It takes close to three months of catching the same bus, and infrenquent instances of sitting together for the stage to be for Kris and the highschooler to exchange their first words. It's nothing more than small talk, a quaint obsevervation of shared interest in hip hop, that dies shortly after it begins. But with this first exchange the seeds of this story are sown and in the months that follow brief moments of small talk become common place as common interests foster a simple sense of familiarity.

Six months after that first Monday and the highschooler, or Zi Tao, as Kris has come to know him, has fallen into the habit of saving a seat for Kris. It isn't much, but the gesture is an acceptance of law school freshman's company for the 30 minutes they spend together every morning. By eight months they arrange to meet up casually, though at whose suggestion, neither of them remember. It is here, a chapter of so into their backstory, that their accquaintace becomes a friendship. A friendship that only grows stronger. 

The reserved, insecure and somewhat introverted Zi Tao is the younger brother the Kris once longed for, while the confident, ambitious, at times hard headed Kris is the rolemodel Zi Tao has always needed to help him break out if his shell. The pass of time sees Kris bring Tao into his circle of close friends, who welcome the younger boy with open arms. It sees Kris help Tao, or Da Xiong Tao as Kris had fondly nicknamed him, study for his final exams and smuggle him out for a little post graduation celebration with the boys and a fake ID.

Soon enough it's Tao who's the college fresh man as Kris heads into his fourth year. The years and Kris have seen Tao grow from the shy, soft spoken boy he once was into the confident and charming young man he is. Thanks largely to the older man's guiding hand and friendship.

On the surface the story seems to have run its course with little drama. A seemingly boring story if truth be told, but if you scratch beneath the surface thre is another story with this backstory. A story Kris holds tight to his chest, one that he has struggled with and fought to keep locked away from prying eyes. A story that has made an antagonist of a once close friend.