Boys to Men - I

the youngest boy i ever fell in love with was 5 years old. don't remember much of him. i was 5 too.

but we acted together in a school play on "Genesis". i was a moon and he was some animal. then we sang "auld lang syne" to mark the last day of kindergarten and i never saw him again. i still remember his full name though. maybe i should hunt him down.

then there was probably, the first boy i seriously fell for. he was my martial arts companion and we used to race with each other each time we met. we chased each other down lanes, round the basketball court, around a community centre building. we fought, we teased each other, we got on each other's nerves constantly and laughed it off together.

i thought he was "THE ONE".

everything surrounding us felt like Destiny arranged it to be so. after spending one year together, i met him at a bus-stop, and it was only then i realised we studied so near each other. his school had just shifted location. so we started taking the same bus home.

of course, silly thoughts would never have entered my mind except that it again seemed like Destiny when i had to move house, felt all sad that i wouldn't see him anymore, only to find out that i was moving into the same estate that he was, and out of 18 or more blocks, ended up moving into the same one as him, one floor above his apartment, with our parking lots allocated side by side!

life's a joke.

so guess what! we went to the same junior college.

but that wasn't Destiny anymore. it was all my handiwork. i did pretty well for my 'O's but i enrolled myself into what was then, a degenerated school because i knew he was there!

so we continued taking the bus home together... those were young, foolish days. he tutored me in math, i watched the soccer games he played in, we celebrated his 18th birthday at a mexican restaurant, went to the beach after, and...

we raced! haha. we had both left the martial arts class for years and yet, it just seemed so natural that we race. again.

but it was all... nothing. i did love him. he was my friend.

the country called for his service then and we practically lost touch. and then he moved from the estate and i was heartbroken.

we never kept in touch but i knew, in my heart, that i will always see him again.

and i did. somehow or other, we always ran into each other.

then one day, Destiny happened again.

i had enrolled myself into some cross-faculty course that i was basically forced to take. the class started at 8am! can you imagine? i lived in the north, university was in the west! so i was late for my first day of class and i asked my classmate to go ahead into the lecture theatre as i would be late. he reserved a seat for me but when i stepped into the hall, it was a 100-plus seater.

no idea where my classmate was. so i just sneaked into an empty seat. started daydreaming. looked at the guy sitting in front of me. he was wearing a faded-brownish hawaiian tee. wondered when the lecture would end. looked at the guy again.

hey...

it's HIM!!! how did that even happen?

so we met once again. and we had breakfast... a few breakfasts...

he is an amazing person. when we were young, he wanted to be a vet. but his school did not offer Biology. so when we went to junior college, he took the subject at 'A' levels, with no prior background. and he moved on with it in university. today, if i am correct, he is part of an animal-rights organisation, right here, in our country although they do travel.

and yes, i ran into him again, just recently.

hats off to you, mister. you the man!