Staring at the seat near the window, I recall the memories of the two of us. The front seat, not what most students wanted, is enough to trigger the nostalgia.
Usually, students like to sit at the back of the class to mess around behind the teacher's back. It's just easier.
But even so, it has left me a faint, lingering memory of what was I once hoped we'd share for the rest of middle school.
With a glimpse inside her notebook, you'd expect the class materials to be written down. But her pages were covered in flowers.. and scribbled notes.
" Kaoru.. why are you always drawing flowers? " — I propped my head on my hand, tilting it in confusion.
"Flowers.. because I like you, Hana! Your name spelled like that.. means flower, right?" — Giggling playfully, she spun her mechanical pencil before pointing it at me — "I don't know how to draw people.. but I want to draw you."
I scoffed. Why would she want to draw me?
As I got busy asking myself that question, my memory of it ended as if playing back a tape on a screen.
I remember there was more to that conversation, but it's all gone foggy now.
To get myself together, I closed my eyes for a few minutes to steady myself before opening them again.
It was not seating arrangements that parted us from one another. I'm sure that we would have found ways to interact with each other even if we'd been on opposite sides of a room.
After all, nothing could have ever severed our ties.
Well.. until we were placed in different classes. I was put in class 1-C, and she in class 1-A. Our schedules didn't help at all. It felt like the universe was deliberately pulling her away from me and I sank in a quiet despair.
Whenever I did see her though, she seemed to be thriving in her new class. Even becoming close to a guy I've never seen before.
Not that I was jealous that she was fitting in her new class while I wasn't. Of course not.
I was more concerned with the fact that she might forget about me while making new friends. Hopefully not to replace me.
Did she feel the same emptiness as I did when we were ripped apart from one another, as if we were newly unwrapped chopsticks from the same package, now lying in different drawers, never meant to meet again?
Or am I just hungry so I freestyled a cool-sounding metaphor while fantasizing about devouring ramen with chopsticks?
..When will lunchtime come?