It all began here

KEVIN

"Kevin!" Astherielle rolled her eyes, upon hearing Nico's voice. I laughed, seeing my other best friend approaching.

"Eri, you looked so pleased to see me," he said upon settling on the empty space on my other side. Astherielle glared at Nico.

"Eri," she said in between gritted teeth. "Sounded like eerie, what the hell Nico," I can't help but laugh once more.

'There, there, Elle, eerie can also mean scary. Nico is actually scared of Astherielle," I feigned surprise, while Astherielle squeezed me in a tight hug.

"Bruh," Nico shook his head at me.

"You're just envious, Nico, Kev is always on my side,"

"Ha!" Nico exclaimed, pointing a finger on Astherielle. "He only takes your side because you're a girl."

I put a hand up, narrowing my eyes at Nico.

"What the heck Nico. Stop," Nico threw his hands in the air in surrender.

"I was joking," it was my turn to shake my head.

"Joking or not, you know my stand against those kinds of comments," Nico let out a sigh.

Sometimes I keep on forgetting that he was supposed to be the eldest between us three.

Astherielle and Nico are actually cousins. How I met them was quite a roller coaster which changed my life forever.

Nico was a shortcut for Nicolo Santos. He was known in our school as the emoji. He was so good at making and copying several emojis by a facial expression that he got branded for it.

Astherielle on the one hand was a nickname she had chosen for herself when I had created this little crew of mine. Her full name was Irish Belle Santos. She was our school sweetheart.

Both Astherielle and Nico were quite popular. They both came from rich families and of course, their good looks had added in making them stand out.

Me? I was a nobody. I'm a regular college student just trying to pass my subjects and make it out after two more years.

The three of us didn't have the same course either. Nico is taking a business course, not his first choice, and has one more year before graduating. Astherielle wants to tour the world, she said which led her to take tourism. I, on the other hand, had always wanted to follow in my father's footsteps, so I took criminology.

Astherielle and I are in the same year but with our different courses, our paths might not have crossed even by chance while inside the campus.

How did I meet them? It was crazy.

If my memory would be right, it was the night I had tried to end my life.

Losing my mother, my world came crashing down. I was a complete mess for almost two weeks. I missed school.

I didn't know what to do.

That night, I went out having no sense of direction. My father was busy trying to get himself distracted while I, on the other hand, was having suicidal thoughts.

I am not ashamed to admit that I had wanted to kill myself, having no more will power to live.

My mother was my anchor. This may sound cliche, but my mother was the best out of the best mothers I ever knew.

The fact that she was killed by some psycho doubled the pain, making it harder to accept that she was really gone..

I am not saying that if she had died through sickness or by accident that it would have been better. Her being gone forever was enough to break me apart no matter the cause of her sudden demise.

Absent-mindedly walking through the street, I didn't even realize that I was already crossing over a crossroad and a car horn was rigorously beeping for me to move aside or cross faster. Either way, the blasting sound wasn't audible enough in my hearing.

I would have been dead too if not for a sudden hand gripping my arm, pulling me away from getting run over by a speeding car.

Astherielle's face was the first thing I saw upon eventually regaining some part of my consciousness.

In all honesty, I was bracing myself for that book love story where one suddenly meets his or her destiny. For a minute, I thought it was upon recognizing Astherielle. But then, she mouthed run, before dragging me with her, the two of us instantly sprinting, dodging people left and right.

I honestly didn't know what was going on at that time, however, the thrill of feeling the cold night breeze brushing through my skin and the idea that we were running away from someone had given me the adrenaline I needed.

For a minute, I had forgotten all thoughts of dying. I had found a brief escape from the harrowing pain of my mother's untimely death.

I imagined being the main lead in an action movie as I trailed behind Astherielle, her hair was freely dancing as she expertly avoided bumping a person or two.

I was too preoccupied while having those thoughts floating inside my head that it never occurred to me who we were running away from and why. It hardly even registered to me that she might be a thief and the police, or in the worst-case scenario, my father was the one who was chasing after us,

I had no time to ask though I had wanted to. I didn't want to stop in the middle of whatever this chase was, nor did I want to stop the long-haired girl running in front of me.

When we had finally come to a halt, I had to catch my breath, almost wanting to throw up from the sudden sprint.

My body wasn't used to it.

Finally regaining my normal breathing, I looked around, gradually having the need to know part of my brain to function.

I was about to open my mouth, wanting to call out to Astherielle and ask her where we were and why she had dragged me with her. But, at that moment, three other guys had appeared from the shadows.

"Not bad. You broke your record from last time," one of the three men spoke, eyeing Astherielle casually.

"Still not enough,"

I was merely watching the exchange, observing before deciding if I was in some form of danger or not.

Finally noticing my presence, the person who had addressed Astherielle turned his attention towards me, his eyes narrowing.

"Name is Nico," he said. "And you are?"

"Kevin," I managed to say.

"Well, Kevin, it seemed that fate has brought you to us."