Actually I would be lying if I told you that that moment had a very profound meaning in my life. That moment did make me unsettled for sometime but I just brushed it off as me getting dazed by beauty and moved on. It was only a month later when I saw him again that that feeling came back.
This time it was afternoon that I saw him. In a short month winter had passed and summer had come and life had slowed down, even in the city. I and my friends had burst into the air conditioned small European style café after finally finishing classes for the day.
I actually have quite a few friends who are pretty close to me. But I have a bad habit of lying. I don't know why I do it, I also don't know when it started but my close friends all know this and have accepted it. On that day they were all laughing at a big proficient story I had told them of me being very cool in school which they thought was a lie. I felt particularly indignant, even though they were right and I did lie, and was ignoring them and walking in front when I saw him sitting alone by the window with a laptop in front of him and big mug of coffee.
I didn't really think a lot at that point of time. I just quickly grabbed the table beside his and sat down diagonally from him.
"What's up, Qiu Yu?" my friend, Hacker asked. "Run out of stories to tell us about your legendary school life?"
As the whole table burst out laughing, I quickly glanced at the other table to check if he noticed and sighed when continued tapping on his laptop without showing any indication of even being aware of our presence.
"Shut up," I muttered to them.
"oh, you want to act like a lady now?" Chief teased. I kept quiet and looked down.
"Alright, that's enough," Hacker said, feeling a bit uneasy due to my sudden silence. "What do you guys want to order?"
Chief and Lanyard started bickering while trying to decide what to eat while Hacker tried his best to rein both the women's voices down. I sat at my chair quietly watching the boy from the corner of my eyes. I had not been able to pay attention to his looks the other night as it was partially dark that day, but today his features were clear under the rays that seeped in from the window. He was handsome in a very clean sense. With features that didn't stick out distinctively but together, they worked harmoniously. His short hair was combed to the side and he had healthy wheat coloured skin.
Suddenly he looked up and his eyes made eye contact with me and I realized how wrong I was when I thought they wasn't anything distinctive about his face. His eyes were two pools of clear black, a kind of clearness that seemed to hint at purity; a very distinctive difference to his otherwise secretive aura. His eyes seemed like an open book but he was so closed off in reality.
I smiled a little and nodded my head in acknowledgment. He just looked at me, just like the other night, with no clue of having seen me as a person, and then he looked down at his table, picked up his coffee and took a sip.
He had long, thin fingers with clean nails. He set the mug down on the table and his index finger turned a full sweep on the rim of the mug and then tapped once on the particular spot that served as the beginning and the end. I blushed and I looked away.
I wonder what he was thinking. I wonder what the hell I was thinking.
All I remember is that I woke up deep into the night, covered in cold sweat. I walked bare feet to my balcony. The air smelled like 3am, dense but calming cool and I drank it in greedily to calm my frazzled nerves. I dreamt of a finger slowly tracing the bow my lips and then slowly moving down, and down and tapping gently on my belly button.