Chapter Text
When I first met Hanbon, it was almost as if time slowed down.
It was the Friday before school started. I was going into my freshman year of college. I had settled on a business major after months of back and forth in my brain. At this point, I had been living in my dorm for a day and I liked it moderately. I had two scrawny, loser, nerd, roommates named Will and Coy. Lucky for us, I was also a scrawny, loser nerd so we got along great.
I decided it was time to start decorating so I put up one singular anime poster on my wall. I was checking to make sure it was centered, meanwhile Coy was sitting with his airpods in on his head, when Will barged into the room.
“Bros, we have to go to this party/ mixer thing tonight. It’s a real college party. Do you know what that means?” Will shouted loudly.
At the same time, Will and Coy yelled “BEER!” then slowly turned their heads to me.
My initial thoughts were to pass and stay home playing video games, but something had clearly changed within me because suddenly I heard myself say “I’m down.”
Okay, I guess I’m down then?
At this point we had been at the party for nearly an hour, Will and Coy went M.I.A almost immediately, so I started chatting with a random group of people. There were three guys named Kieran, Henry, and Berto, as well as a girl named Paige. They were friendly and interesting enough, but I wasn’t too engaged until I saw a girl walking around in the main room, over Paige’s shoulder.
Woah.
She was gorgeous. Like when you think of gorgeous, you think like Megan Fox or Margot Robbie or some shit, but this girl provided new meanings to the word. She was brunette with blonde highlights, and wore huge gold hoop earrings, and one of those off the shoulder tops with a long skirt, and then her eyes.
Those eyes…
They were absolutely enthralling. As soon as my eyes met hers, every thought that ever entered my brain disappeared. My legs were wobbly and I was almost nauseous. I wondered if someone spiked my drink because I was suddenly so drunk on the thought of this girl.
I had to meet her immediately.
I told the group that I saw one of my friends and had to go check up on them, then ran off to find this girl.
I walked out of the kitchen, into the crowded party room and instantly spotted her walking out the front door.
I tried to follow her but when I pushed through the crowd and made out the door, she was nowhere to be seen. I groaned and decided to call it a night.
All weekend, I couldn’t seem to think of anything other than this girl, I didn’t talk about it, I wasn’t that kind of guy but I thought about her. 24/7, I thought about her.
Finally Monday hit and I got ready for my first day of classes. My first class was an elective, creative writing. I’d always had a vague interest and I figured, no better time than the present to get into it!
I walked into the classroom, 15 minutes early and sat in the third row, second closest to the wall. I was only the second person there, so I zoned out on my phone and waited for more people to load in.
About 10 minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked over to see who it was and my jaw dropped.
She was here.
The girl from the party.
And she was looking at me.
In. My. Eyes.
“Hi! I’m Hannah, Hanbon for short. Is this seat taken?” She said as she pointed to the seat next to mine.
Wow.
Hannah.
Hanbon.
“Oh, yeah totally. It’s definitely open.” I sat still and gawked for a second as she sat down. “Oh, I’m Anthony by the way.”
“Super to meet you, Anthony!” She said as she put out her hand to shake. I slowly grabbed it and shook her hand. It was relatively small and well moisturized.
“Great to meet you too.” I said, unable to control the smile spreading across my face.”
For the rest of class, we listened to the teacher's syllabus while I snuck looks and Hanbon every so often and we spoke when the professor partnered us up for icebreakers.
I learned that she has two cats named ‘Deku’ and ‘Clementine’, she loves Bruno Mars more than life itself, she likes to dance and play basketball, oh and that she’s the perfect girl for me.
I braced myself. This is it. Hanbon is the one. I won’t ever be single again. This is forever. Goodbye bachelor Anthony.
HAHAHA.
I genuinely believed that too.
I thought we would be friends for a bit but quickly blossom into something more, but here I am, five years later, and a permanent resident in the friend- zone.
Seriously, she has absolutely no idea, that I would sooner cut off my own head than allow someone to look at the gorgeous, kind, bubbly, sweet, intelligent, Hanbon the wrong way.