His First Love

Chapter 3: Edited

She turned around, fluttering around her soft and glowing black hair that slightly touched his chest, and spreading forth wildflower scent towards those near her.

Secretly, the boy deeply inhaled her sweet scent without her permission and stared at her faintly reddened cheeks and ears and somewhat messed up hair, which was brought forth from all that running.

Looking at the boy who was just a fist away from her, she looked up, her big bright eyes assessing him.

He had handsome features, such as his 190-centimeter height, crew-cut black hair, upturned black eyes paired with golden-framed glasses, fair and poreless skin, thin and long turned-up nose, and kissable thin lips. He wore a white long-sleeve branded polo shirt that was tucked in a brown leather belt and dark blue skinny jeans, and black leather Oxford wingtip dress shoes.

Adding on to his charming traits was the aura he excluded: a rich intelligent, cold and aloof, gentleman.

She did not mind his impenetrable aura nor his bewitching appearance that many women would utterly die for. Living up to her eccentricity, she thought of how expensive those clothes and shoes might be and how she could barely afford a tenth of its price.

He noticed her adorable and lovely eyes scanning him and hid a smile, with a faint blush that couldn't be seen by the naked eye. Right now, her innocent expression made it hard for him to control his intense desire to lock her up in his mansion, keep her for himself, and kiss and touch her everywhere.

Aside from the fact that they were classmates who sat quite close to one other, she wondered why he started talking to her when they barely even knew each other, more so talk. She did not even know if he recognized her.

But currently, the unreachable and otherworldly top student of the batch, Kyle, was actually talking to her.

Thus, she felt like an ant encountering an elephant. Meanwhile, he felt like a wolf meeting a bunny. Their perspectives were different but similar at the same time.

But what she did not realize was that, for most students, she was also one of the unreachable. As the third smartest student out of all in the batch, with her nonchalant expression, impressive beauty, and lazy habit of sleeping whenever time would allow it, she was placed as a prodigy in many students' and teachers' hearts.

Therefore, many were contented with watching her from afar.

Indeed, a beautiful rose must be shared.

Out of annoyance, she furrowed her perfect brows, bit her lip, glanced at the Nokia cellphone hanging on her bag, and shoved it to his "perfect" face.

The phone clearly indicated "7:30 am," not one second more or less.

"Nope, Kyle." She smugly popped out the 'P' and glared intently into his eyes, clearly annoyed at him and all his smugness for misreading the time.

If he can't read the time, how was he even better than her in academics? The world had so many mysteries she could never comprehend.

From where he stood, the angle only made her more endearing, which made him stiffen as if an invisible cupid arrow struck his heart. Not once, but twice.

He stared at her in appreciation. In his eyes, a rosy atmosphere popped out of nowhere, perfecting her beauty.

All he could see were her slightly reddened cheeks and ears, her large teary eyes, soft pants, her adorable angry expression, and, most of all, her lower red lip that seemed even more delicious than the ripest strawberries after being bitten.

She was simply irresistible and she didn't even realize it.

*Flashback to Three Years Ago*

Ever since he first saw her sitting by the window three years ago, he felt his heart beating faster, making him immediately shift his gaze back to his laptop. He thought this random reaction would stop before the end of the day. But sadly, it never did.

With such an irregular heart rate, he thought he should go to the hospital.

In fact, he arranged for one on the next day, but data showed his heart rate was normal.

"That's odd," he thought, with his index and thumb touching his chin. He pushed his glasses upwards, displaying how grave he thought of the situation. He decided to observe his abnormal reaction with her some more next time he had a chance to do so.

The next day, he exchanged seats with a student and sat right next to the reason for all his problems.

He was never interested in girls and dating. Yet right now, he was blatantly staring at her without reserve as if she was the only person whom his eyes could ever see.

Badump. Badump.

There. He felt it again. What the hell?

Needless to say, his actions riled up the surrounding students, brimming them with curiosity.

"Psst! Look! Look at that!" Female classmate number 1, who he neither remembered her name nor appearance, whispered to a nearby female classmate number 2.

"Look where?" Female classmate number 2 responded and looked left and right, again and again.

"There, stupid!" Female classmate number 1 forcefully shifted her face to the direction of where he was sitting at. She impatiently waited for her friend's super delayed reaction.

He vaguely remembered the contents of their conversation as there were many other whispers currently circulating in the classroom which he did not care enough about to eavesdrop.

He never realized the fact that his actions were causing many misunderstandings to circulate the classroom at this moment.

Meanwhile, the cause of all the misunderstandings was merely sleeping.

Kyle's stare was so intense that even she, herself, could feel it asleep. However, since she was very tired at the moment, she did not even have an ounce of energy to bother with Kyle and all his comedian antics.

She mentally concluded that he must have been staring at someone else. Or maybe at something outside the window.

That morning, she slept on break time and half-slept and half-listened to the teacher in front during classes.

A male student, who was intently playing games at the back of the classroom, was very annoyed by how noisy and weird his classmates were being at the moment.

For heaven's sake, they were at it for the entire morning, when would they shut up? Sadly, he did not have enough guts to stand up and shut them all up or he would have done it earlier.

So he reluctantly looked up from his beloved games to the cause of the chaos in the classroom and asked his seatmate, "What the heck is Kyle doing?"

His Buddy answered, "Idiot! Isn't it obvious he's gawking at her?"

"Stupid! Even I can tell that much! He's just gawking as if he found his first love. That much is obvious. So why the hell can't they shut up?! Don't they have anything better to do?!" The male student whisper-yelled back at his Buddy.

Realization dawned upon the students.

It was just a whisper but it was the loudest of them all. Hence, it was pretty effective in shutting up the entire classroom.

Right, they had other things better to do. Like their phones.

The surrounding students were like soldiers ready for battle, hoping to catch them in any kind of act through their phones, instead of listening to the teacher.

The teacher was also too preoccupied with her lesson that she did not notice the little fiasco taking place within the classroom.

Kyle neither knew what they were thinking nor even cared about it. What he cared about was getting the answer to this abnormality. He deeply hoped he had not developed any kind of incurable diseases like cancer and the like.

But as time passed, he realized that nothing changed. Nothing bad happened to him. His irregular heart rate was the same at school but not at home.

The entire day, he stared and got no answers. Therefore once school was over, he decided to search on the internet.

At home, Kyle speedily typed, "The causes of irregular heartbeats," and scanned the stated sites.

"'Arrhythmia?' No. My health is perfectly normal," he was somewhat angered by those sites. Surely, there must be a logical explanation for this. With a solid determination, he hastily searched the answer given by well-known medical institutes for about one hour.

Then, he accidentally clicked one of the blogging sites and checked it. At the next second, he was immediately dumbfounded, thereby making his eyes literally widen and his lips slightly part.

Unconsciously, Kyle asked himself, "Love?"

That one word was something he never thought he would say or ask one day. Needless to say, it was something, he thought, completely impossible for him.

Being born from parents with an arranged marriage and who, up until now, had never even loved each other, to begin with, made him not think highly of the term, 'Love.'

"Hahahahaha!" He felt like he could not stop laughing. As a matter of fact, he laughed for quite some time.

Love was just an ideal fantasy for him. It was for children clouded with dreams and visions. It was for naive youngsters who kept forcing their feelings onto others by calling it love, never realizing it was just due to hormonal changes.

He ridiculed the entirety of it.

But now, here he was. Not laughing at them, but at himself.

He never thought his heart could beat so fast for one person. It was just a concept of stories and movies. He did not even know the girl or her name, and now he was in love with her at first sight like in movies?

'Are you kidding me?'

A person who hated the whole idea of love was now in love.

"How ironic," he thought with a tone of ridicule.

Despite how illogical it sounded to him and despite how much he wanted to avoid this kind of situation, he had to face reality. He had more than enough IQ to realize that he was bound to experience being in love sooner or later, but it just so happened to occur now. He did not know how or why, because it just happened.

No preparation. No pressure. Just plain eye contact and the drumming of his heart.

As the most intelligent student of all, he, who was a walking vocabulary, was now secretly searching for the meaning and, additionally, the scientific explanation of love at home.

How ridiculous.

If others were to find out, his reputation would absolutely be ruined! He must not let anyone else find out!

Revealing this to the public would undoubtedly embarrass him to the core. But, as a man, he must leave his pride and try to understand this alien term.

After some extensive research, his high IQ was now filled with information about love. How ridiculous.

But before he could conclude he was really in love, he decided to observe again and experiment once more.

Before classes started the next day, Kyle saw her from afar.

Badump. Badump. Badump.

'There it goes again.' Kyle already expected this.

Instead of being perturbed, he treated this as a scientific experiment and intentionally bumped into her only to discover that the consequences of just that one action were extremely unbearable.

It was like he had been electrocuted!

He used his entire effort to not break down in ferocious red embarrassment in front of her and hastily left without apologizing or even listening to her apology.

Once he was sure he was about a hundred meters away from her, his entire cheeks reddened up to his ears, his heart felt like it was about to explode, and his manhood became aroused.

That was yet another additional experience he absolutely did not know how to deal with.

Fortunately, no students were around the hallway at this hour. But you never knew. So Kyle used his bag to cover up his annoying junior, went to the clinic, and feigned sickness.

Kyle did not feel like schooling. So he went home, lay down on his bed, and looked up at the ceiling while questioning the meaning of life, again and again.

For the first time in his life, he was absent from a lecture. All for this reason. How ridiculous.

At least now, he was sure he was in love "physically speaking," but he did not know whether to cry or laugh. To be sad or to be happy, he did not have the answer.

That was another first.

In fact, he had a lot of firsts when it came to her. And that made him experience another first:

He was anticipating the future.

Would she become his wife? Thinking of that made him brim with joy. Or would we end up heartbroken? Thinking of that made him extremely angry. It was no exaggeration to say that he would destroy the whole universe because of it.

Kyle had blushed absolutely redder than before. He had just realized his thoughts and could now reckon he was not 'in love,' but 'madly in love' with her.

"What did she do to me?" he thought. Again, there was no answer.

He felt like he was back to being a child, with a lot of questions in mind.

He couldn't do anything about it. All he could do was research some more on how to deal with his manhood instead of covering it with his bag or case. Regarding how to get the girl, he thought he should take it slow. If he did something now, he might scare her away.

"How troublesome," he unconsciously smiled.

Whether this experience would be good or bad was all up to him. Only he can determine his future. With an unyielding determination, he vowed to possess her.

No matter what.

As days passed by, he was simply contented with staring at the girl beside him. Although she was half asleep, she noticed it every time and was gradually getting used to it.

Mind you, it was really hard NOT to notice. She felt like she was a frog about to be dissected.

"What is this guy looking at?" Hopefully, it wasn't her.

Finally, curiosity got the best out of her. She looked towards the window but saw nothing interesting. Out of boredom, she shifted her gaze and looked at him instead, looking to where his eyes were actually staring.

Badump. Badump.

That first eye-contact suddenly made him nervous and he immediately shifted his gaze. Her, looking at him, was a whole different thing. It made his heart, or we can say, his entire being, erratic. He engraved that memory like a picture onto his mind, mentally writing down the date and, at the back of the picture, a memo about the experience.

"How idiotic. Can't you do anything instead of looking away?" His conscience reprimanded him. He should be the one leading her and using all kinds of methods to flirt with her so that she too would fall in love with him. He was not a girl. Or was he?

"Shut up."

But he could not help it. He can't help but follow his instincts for he wasn't used to it. He lost an opportunity to chat with her and so, he began to hate his shy nature, more and more.

"Huh? When did you become shy?" His conscience asked, baffled by his thoughts. He was absolutely sure he was a man among men. One of the greatest even.

He remembered all those rumors that stated he was an excellent lover, with a lot of experience, the most ideal husband, and the like.

His brows furrowed, "Who exactly said he was experienced in this department?" He angrily thought of committing murder to all those who started these baseless rumors. Even he, himself, was scammed.

They deserved brutal deaths!

While he was angrily thinking about who those culprits were, the girl tilted her head to one side, making it seem like a big question mark had formed just right above her head.

It was like she caught a criminal on the run.

Oh no, was she really a frog about to be dissected?

*Flashback Ends*

Three years later, Kyle had yet to strike a conversation due to his reserved nature. He was contented with staring at her from afar, without her noticing, as to which she actually had a hard time pretending not to.

Realistically speaking, he was also more contented with not making any idiotic actions that would make him regret for a lifetime.

But since some boys, who patiently waited for him to make his move, thought he stared at her for no apparent reason, they all became restless and started dropping by her seat every breaktime, giving her snacks or lunch whenever she forgot to bring one.

Seeing this, he had to take things to the next level or else someone would snatch her away. He glared at them, leaving only the bravest or stupid ones, who could not read the mood, to drop by her seat.

Now, after gathering up the confidence to speak to her, he initiated a conversation with her, which led to the event now and, for him, was like a dream come true! Except that he did not know how to bring up a conversation. Therefore, it seemed like an insult to the other party.

What made it worse was that he never realized it, himself! He thought he just said a fact with no hidden meaning behind it, "You're late." Because stating facts was a trait true to himself, not those useless flirtatious words.

What he did not regard was the fact that his watch was actually 5 minutes advanced.

Apparently, it gave birth to another first. His facts became nonsense in front of the person he loved.

Moving on to the second arrow, the other cupid arrow that struck him was, in fact, several times bigger than the other.

Badump.

She actually knew his name! Nothing could compare to a first love saying your name for the first time!

He immediately pictured this moment and etched it to the deepest parts of his soul, making sure to never forget it. No. In fact, he literally pictured her with his phone by instinct. It was his habit of recording or picturing information that may be of use in the future.

Of course! A picture like this would be of much use in the future. This time, he was extremely grateful to his instincts.

[On to the road of stupidity.] A voice whispered out of nowhere.

Even a man among men would one day be blinded by love to the point of being stupid.

Meanwhile, with her keen sense, the girl immediately noticed the phone and looked towards the camera, tilting her head to one side. Remember, she was in a messed up, breathless, and annoyed state as of the moment.

"Is he taking a picture or just texting?" She can't just accuse someone without reason.

At the same time, he immediately pressed the button, "Click."

Afterward, he stealthily hid his expensive cell phone behind him before she could even retaliate.

"!!!!" Her eyes widened.

Oy! That was clearly a picture!

But before she could even steal back his phone with her killer speed, the bell rang. She slightly jolted. After a second, she looked back at the culprit only to find out he was gone!

"Sigh..." Fine then. Hide all you want.

She hastily opened the door towards the classroom with her thoughts in chaos similar to her visible messed-up state.

Here are her thoughts:

'Someone, please explain why that guy took a picture? Was this vengeance for being right against a topnotcher? Even a child could read time for heaven's sake. Or was he finally about to take measures in dissecting me as a frog? #Need answers online. ASAP.'

Since it was not that much of a big deal, she soon forgot about it, happily planning to half-sleep throughout the entire lecture.

[Only God knew why he fell for this kind of woman.]

Behind her, Kyle got out of his hiding place and followed her into the classroom all the while directly making that photo into his home, but not lock, wallpaper. He wanted to keep it only for himself. He looked at it and carefully touched her face on the picture, displaying a handsome smile on his lips.

Recap: He forgot about annoying her with a, "You're late," statement and took a picture of her.

[If this was not love, then it was plain stupidity.] Was its conclusion.