Pepper

You were nothing but an old acquaintance. We belonged to the same club back in highschool, we often found ourselves grouped together. Your friends called you Pepper, so I did the same.

At times our clubmates teased us, insinuating that you had this crush on me but you were too afraid and shy to get to know me better. You had no intentions to court me, but you wanted to befriend me. I was cool with that, I had this crush on you, too. But all we had throughout the days of being members of the same club were meaningful stares at each other. Nothing more, nothing less. No amount of match-making was able to coax us to do more than occasionally talk.

Today, I saw you. You looked at me, the same way you looked at me before, eyes telling what the heart already knows but the mind doesn't even bother acknowledging. I held your gaze, the way I held them before. And as always, I was the one who broke off first.

But then after pulling away from each other's stare-like the way it's been written all over again, recreated by writers and told again by drama series aired in the television and shown on the big screens-we looked back at each other. Searching, asking, waiting, and anticipating.

If we both were from another place and time, the moment might not have ended the way it always did: I lowered my eyes or turned my head to break off from our locked gaze.

You were nothing but an old acquaintance. I would've loved to say hello and maybe even greet you goodnight, but maybe some things in life are just not meant to be.