As she became costumed of having Ethan around, the passion Vivian once had for him started to diminish. It’s not that she didn’t love him anymore, but it was getting slightly boring, and there was no novel experiences anymore. Looking back to her life before Ethan came about, Vivian could barely imagine the scenes, it was difficult to visualize what she would be like without Ethan around.

There was nothing special when Vivian mentions “my boyfriend” to her friends, not like before, when she used to be proud of it. In a sense, Ethan was somewhat a burden to Vivian, as she had to eat lunch and walk home with him every day.

However, Ethan was someone who Vivian could always depend on, he would always do things for Vivian and care about her. He was different from her normal friends. Knowing that she had someone to lean on, Vivian felt safer and more secure as if nothing could hurt her.

She knew that she meant a lot to Ethan and that he treasured her dearly, and that was something that she cherished. For Vivian, he was one of a kind; and for Ethan, she was the one and only.

Vivian have never taken interest or pondered about friendships, but after being with Ethan, she started to contemplate about her friends. Vivian felt that she was spending less time with Luna, Audrey, Serena, and her other friends. She didn’t want to lose them, but there was simply a lot going on in her life, a bit too much for her to handle and balance.

Vivian wondered if the other girls still loved her as a friend, given that she doesn’t sit with them during lunch or hang out with them like she used to.

With countless ex-boyfriends, Serena seemed to have grasp in her studies and relationships perfectly. She was the top of the class for almost all the subjects and was popular among girls despite devoting herself in boys.

Boys didn’t draw Serena’s mind away from her other businesses, unlike Vivian. Without Ethan beside her, Vivian thinks about him every few minutes, what she would do if he was beside her, what she would say to him, and more. Her grades seemed to have slid from As to Bs, and she was starting to spend way too much time on social media.

If only she could find the right proportion of relationships and work… She simply didn’t know how.

Ethan attracted her towards him, but grades was something that she needed and Vivian knew that she should work harder in schoolwork for her future.

A few weeks ago, when Vivian saw posts of her classmates holding hands and going out and those kinds of things, there was only jealousy. If she had told herself back then that she would have a boyfriend herself, she wouldn’t believed herself. But now, posting selfies of her and Ethan together was like a habit.

Vivian could finally smile while listening to love songs, instead of crying sour tears like she used to. Every love song seemed to be telling the story of Vivian and Ethan, as if the singer knew everything about them.

“Hey, umm, do you want to have dinner with me tomorrow?” Ethan asked during lunch.

“Yes! I’d love to,” Vivian’s heart was smiling more than her face showed it, “I can ask my mom tonight.”

“Sure,” Ethan smiled cutely, his smile was one of the things that attracted Vivian the most. It wasn’t so enchanting, but sweet, as if a proud and gleeful puppy.

Vivian haven’t told her parents anything about Ethan yet, and she pondered over and over how she could ask them for permission to go out with Ethan the next day.

On the car, Vivian wanted to tell her dad about it, but she contemplated about it for a moment and decided to ask them later when not much was happening.

Before and during dinner, Vivian kept telling herself, “Just ask them, or there would be no time anymore.”

Some time later, she went to her mother, who was lying on the couch, “Eh, mom?”

“What is it, Viv?” Vivian’s mother looked up from her phone.”

“Emm, I kinda want to have dinner and hang out with a friend tomorrow.”

“So are you going to walk there right after school or do you want me to drop you off there?”

“I think that I can just walk there after school,” Vivian replied.

“Ok, so when will you be back?”

Vivian did a simple calculation in her mind, “About 7 pm I think, maybe 7:10.”

“Alright then,” Vivian’s mother smiled, “So what’s this friend of you called?”

“Eh…” Vivian blushed slightly and mumbled, “He’s called Ethan.”

“Oh, cool, remember to take some photos or something,” she smiled cheekily.

Vivian made a weird face, trying to hide her smile, and went away into her room.

While reading and doing her homework, Vivian had her headphones on and listened to Taylor Swift’s songs. She could so easily connect with them, and finally understood why she had to write so many songs about lovers.

Taylor knew Vivian as if a close friend, perhaps even closer than her friends. Taylor could express Vivian’s exact thoughts through words, which Vivian could never do. Vivian wondered if everyone else felt the same about it, or was it just her and Taylor, but she can never know.

Even though love was sweet, thinking that they would break up at some time prickled Vivian’s heart, she couldn’t imagine herself not liking Ethan anymore, but as everyone else says, there’s an end to every beginning. She tried not to think about it and enjoy life, Vivian’s life was pleasurable, and she basked in every moment of it.

The next day, Vivian woke up before her mother called her up and prepared for school as quickly as possible. Before school even started, Vivian was feeling butterflies in her stomach. During the morning classes, all Vivian wanted was for the classes to pass away faster.

Lunch was the same as always, but Vivian’s mind was fixed on her imagination of herself and Ethan alone that night.

The afternoon classes were the most intolerable, as she knew there was only hours before her date with Ethan. It was impossible to bear the teachers’ explaining and reasoning, knowing that something way more exciting was waiting for her.

During the last class of the day, time went past so slowly, as if it was reluctant to give in to Vivian. The second hand on the clock at the front of the classroom was moving slower than ever, it took several minutes for it to reach even a quarter of the circle.

Vivian could not wait for the clock, and went on daydreaming, hoping that when she looked back to it, the minute hand would be shifted. Vivian entered a world of her own, in her imagination, she was running on the beach, and then she was in a forest. These fantastical thoughts went on for hours, but when she jerked her head to the clock, hoping that it would show that there was only a couple of minutes before school ends, the minute hand had only shifted three minutes.

“Ugg,” Vivian said to herself.

She opened her notebook and started doodling pictures of owls and puppies and later went on playing with her hands just to kill time. Ultimately, the bell went off. It was the “ring” sound that Vivian had been longing to hear for hours.

Vivian had already zipped up her pencil case and placed the handouts and worksheets in her folder just to get prepared, so she leaped out of her seat at the bell and skipped out of the classroom without waiting for her friends.

At her locker, Vivian checked everything that she had to bring home and stuffed them into her backpack. She swung the backpack onto her shoulders and rushed to the front door of the school.

When she reached the front door, it were crammed with little kids standing in straight lines, with their teachers at the front of the lines.

“All right then, tell me if you see your parents, and I can let you go home,” came the voice of a male teacher.

“Bye, Miss Anya.”

“Bye, Mr Harrison.”

“Bye, Cici.”

The younger kids were getting picked up by their parents as the middle school students haven’t packed their bags yet. Vivian realized that she had came too early, but she didn’t mind. She have already waited for an entire day, what difference would another few minutes make?

Vivian stood beside the herbs at the side of the small lane leading to the front door and hopped a little, waiting for Ethan to arrive. For each person who walked past, Vivian scanned through the crowd to check if Ethan was one of them, but no.

After a couple of minutes have passed, Vivian jumped at a slight pat on her shoulder, she turned around and saw Ethan smiling back at her.

“Oh my god, you really scared me,” Vivian giggled.

Ethan laughed, “You should see the look in your face.”

Vivian frowned and tangled her arm into his, they walked out of the school campus and headed off to The Retail Haven Mall, which was right across the street of Eastwood Middle.

The two didn’t say a word as they waited for the traffic lights and sauntered across the street.

They entered The Retail Haven and looked around a bit. “Let’s go somewhere fun first,” Vivian suggested as he pulled Ethan towards the escalators. Ethan was slightly grudging, but had a blessed smile on his face.

After looking around a bit and found only clothing stores on the second floor, Vivian headed to the third floor and spotted the Diary Queen ice cream store. She pointed at it and bought two ice creams for them.

While eating the ice creams, the two walked much slower as they spent time enjoying the treat.

With only Ethan beside her, Vivian felt like she was in the most merry daydream where she was free to do whatever she wanted.

The two just chatted about their life and other random things. Time passed so quickly, and when Vivian checked her phone, it was already 6 o’clock, so she said, “Hey, I think that’s it’s about time that we have dinner.”

“You’re right, so how about that Japanese restaurant that we came across on the second floor?” Ethan proposed.

“How can you remember every single place that we had came across?” Vivian asked, astounded, “I mean, I don’t really look at what I’m passing by, I mean, I do, but I just don’t remember what I saw.”

“I don’t know, I guess it’s because I wanted to have dinner there when we walked passed.”

“Sure then, let’s go check out the restaurant.”

They traveled down the escalator once more and after rambling across the floor for several minutes, they found the restaurant that they have been looking for.

“There was a menu placed on a stand at the front of the restaurant and a waitress was standing beside it, beaming at everyone who walks past. Ethan made his way to the menu and flipped through it, leafing and skimming through the pages.

“Come on, I think this one’s pretty good,” he turned his head around and Vivian walked towards him.

As they stepped into the restaurant, a waitress slightly bowed her head and said, “Welcome.” A second later, every waiter in the restaurant said a Japanese phrase in unison. Vivian didn’t understand the phrase, but she reckoned that it meant something similar to “welcome.”

“Is it just the two of you?” the waitress asked.

“Yes,” Ethan answered.

The waitress walked towards two empty seats in the middle of the restaurant, “Here, I’ll go grab you some menus.”

Ethan sat on the table that the waitress had assigned them and Vivian took the seat across from him. The plate was set on each side and a fork and a spoon lied beside it. At the side of the table, there was a wooden tube with tissues, a few bottles of a variety of different seasonings and sauces, and another wooden tube with a dozen of chopsticks in it.

Less than a minute later, the waitress brought two menu booklets and placed one on each side of the table, “feel free to call us when you’re ready to order,” she added as she walked away.

Vivian opened the menu and flipped to the first page. There were several different set meals to choose from: There was noodle and fried shrimps, grilled eel over rice, and many more, each was accompanied by a bowl of soup.

A couple of minutes later, Ethan raised his hand to attract the waiters’ attention and a waiter came to him.

“Hello, how may I help you?” the waiter asked.

“Hi, I think that I would like to order,” Ethan said while flipping through the menu, “I would like this udon noodle, with miso soup, thank you.”

“Sure,” the waiter replied while taking notes on his notepad, “And what about you, young lady?” he asked Vivian.

“I think that I would like a bowl of rice, and deep-fried pork I guess, and yeah, that’s it,” she replied.

“All right then, any beverages? We have Coke, Sprite, and all kinds of juice.”

“I would like a bottle of coke please,” Ethan said just as the waiter finished.

Vivian said, “I would like some lemon water thank you.”

“OK, so it’s udon noodle, miso soup, and coke for the gentlemen and rice, pork, and lemon water for the lady, is that correct?” the waiter double-checked his list on his notepad.

“Yep,” Ethan answered and the waiter left.

“Here’s your coke,” the waiter arrived again just as quickly as he left, setting the bottle in front of Ethan, “And here’s your lemon water,” he put a cup of lemon water in front of Vivian.

“Thank you,” they said and Vivian took a sip of the water.