"Love doesn't always arrive like thunder.
Sometimes, it walks you to class,
waits by your locker,
and shares its last piece of gum."
Dear Diary,
He's at my school now.
It felt surreal at first —
seeing him in our yellow-and-brown uniform,
his name on the attendance list,
his face turning slightly red when people stared.
He doesn't love attention.
He told me that.
But he smiled when he saw me in the hallway this morning,
like I was a lighthouse and he was tired of drifting.
People talk.
Of course they do.
"Isn't that the boy who lives next to Wunor?"
"I heard they were holding hands in town!"
"Did you hear he's a poet or something?"
"He's cute though... mysterious."
Jia, being Jia, raised an eyebrow at every comment and said,
"If you're going to gossip, at least be poetic about it."
Bless her.
She kept the worst of it off my back,
like a best friend with an invisible sword.
We ate lunch under the tree near the art block —
me, him, Jia, and sometimes two girls from my class who pretended not to notice our glances.
He didn't say much,
but he laughed at Jia's jokes
and offered her a packet of chin chin.
That's how I know he was trying.
Chin chin is sacred.
During chemistry, he sat in the row behind me.
I could feel his gaze like a second heartbeat.
Our teacher was talking about reactions —
how some elements combust,
while others simply settle into balance.
I thought:
That's what we are.
Not fire.
But something warm.
Constant.
After school, we didn't walk home immediately.
We sat by the back gate,
watching juniors run past, watching the sky shift from gold to cotton-candy pink.
He asked:
"Do you ever think about the future?"
I said:
"Only in stories."
He smiled.
"What does ours look like?"
I turned to him slowly.
"A little messy. A little weird. But soft. And real."
"I'd read that," he whispered.
"We're writing it," I said.
Dear Diary,
Today didn't feel like a beginning or an end.
It felt like chapter three of something beautiful —
the part where things still feel new
but your heart already knows the rhythm.
He's not just the boy next door anymore.
He's here.
In my school.
In my story.
In my ordinary days.
And that?
That feels like magic.
Wunor 🌼📚🫶