Closeted freshman student, Aries Buan, falls in love with his senior after getting partnered with him during their freshman orientation. Afraid to admit his feelings, he kept his emotion in check and watched his first love from afar, swearing to him...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I STARE AT THE sticky notes on the notebook with a stupid smile on my face. The way he wrote my name made me feel happy for no apparent reason. They were just short sentences, but I acted as if he had written me a long, sentimental letter.
"Why did he put so much effort? Now I feel guilty for thinking he's a total jerk."
I continued to stare at his notebook, skimming through the pages that were filled with organized notes. While going through the notebook, I stopped when I noticed that there was a section that had different handwriting. It was notes of an entire lesson, and at the end, there was a little message that said, 'get well soon.'
Did someone write all this for him?
"You ready?" Aries suddenly asks, returning to our table, holding three different books. He drops the books in front of me, almost making me stare at them with wide eyes. They were History, Earth Science, and Basic Algebra books, and they were all in great condition.
"I already borrowed them. You can bring these home and return them to me after the exams next week," Aries tells me as he heads back to his seat.
"I can take these home?" I confusingly ask, grabbing one of the books and staring at them.
"Yes, of course. Have you never borrowed books from the library before?" Aries then asks me, making me laugh awkwardly.
"The library we had in school had limited books, and we weren't allowed to burrow them. I never owned a book, either. My mom just burrowed from her co-teachers," I explain, trying to make light out of it, but Aries suddenly looked guilty for asking the question.
I didn't want him to feel bad about it, and I didn't want to sound pathetic either, so I started laughing it off to make him feel better. "Besides, it didn't really matter. I would have just lost it if I had one. I hated studying."
I continued to laugh, and Aries had to clear his throat so I could finally stop.
"Well, you can bring these home," he repeated. "Just don't damage them or write anything on them."
"Got it."
"Anyway, we should start. If you look at the study plan I made, we're going to work on Algebra first," Aries says while reaching for something in his backpack. I thought they were going to be more notes, but to my surprise, they were test sheets.
"This is your diagnostic test. These are items from chapters 1 to 6, chapters that I'm assuming professor Pascual was able to teach. Don't worry. These are mostly refreshers since they were taught in high school. Answer this test first so I'll know where we should focus on," Aries explains, handing me the sheets.
"Did you...make these yourself?" I finally ask, and Aries clears his throat again and decides not to answer my question.
"I'll give you forty minutes to answer everything," he tells me instead while looking at his watch. "You can begin now."
