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When you’re not watching it, time can escape you.

At first, Seth was hesitant. Did he want to return to the place where he’d plastered a mask that almost stripped him of his true self?

Until he reminded himself that if it weren’t for high school, he would never have met the love of his life.

Nina.

She was more sentimental. She wanted to see the locker bays that she’d walked with her friends, to see the classrooms where she’d try to sneak glances at him.

High school was where the first chapters of their love story was born.

The two of them arrived right on time, along with Nina’s best friends Veronica and Celine, with their respective partners.

Seth always loved seeing Nina with her girlfriends. Together, they’d somehow bottled this immortal innocence that girlhood brings, where they still spent sleepovers binging on Barbie movies, giggling over regency men and listening to Nina gush about her latest fictional obsession.

Or rather, more lately, they’d begun to gush to Nina about her own original fictional characters.

Nina was a published author now, having secured a three-book deal with a well renowned publishing house. She was also slowly climbing the ladder at a literary agency, representing voices just like hers, as she’s always wanted.

As for Seth, being around Nina just made him a better creative. A better dreamer.

After graduating from UTS, he and Jae got to developing a little game themselves. One that combined their favourite genres: horror, action and a good story.

Soon, interest started to grow once they started posting on social media. They had a dedicated fanbase now, with almost half a million players, after only releasing the game a year ago.

Adulthood really unfolded with surprises that Seth never expected.

The same went for Seth and Nina’s friends.

Veronica and her partner of six years, Mateo, were getting married, with their wedding coming up in a couple of months or so.

Celine’s long-distance doctor boyfriend from Singapore was finally making the trek to Australia, to commit entirely to their relationship.

Jae and Anya were engaged, and planning to tie the knot, at a destination wedding in Korea.

When Nina found that out, she’d already started listing all the places she wanted to eat at, and compiling a wishlist of kpop albums she wanted to purchase.

Happy beginnings were falling into place.

As the reunion night settled into the night, Seth felt himself growing more comfortable. When he and Nina first walked through the doors, hand in hand, he noticed that old classmates of theirs, including those who teased them relentlessly, cast them looks of odd admiration.

Seth would even go so far to say they were touched. Some of them were amused.

At the end, Seth and Nina did end up together. It was a tale nobody saw coming.

Bianca and Nina caught up briefly, ushered away to a corner where years peeled between them, and they reverted back to their old selves. As though time hadn’t swept them away.

Joshua gave him a curt nod from his table, but Seth felt no drive to chat with him.

His old classmate, Dennis, happily exchanged his story of how he met his partner, Kiernan, on a guided tour in Switzerland.

Being in the hall again, with the people he’d spent all of his childhood with, was strange.

They held memories of him, views of him that were essentially ghosts of his past. They didn’t know him beyond the mask he’d plastered all throughout high school, and maybe that was his form of punishment.

For that part of him to always live on in their memories, even though it wasn't true. But it’s fine, because the one person that mattered to him knew who he really was.

It wasn’t until halfway through the night, when music started blaring through the school hall, that Seth knew it was time. Nina was on the dancefloor, dancing hand-in-hand with Veronica to an old Destiny’s Child song.

As it ended, their eyes met from across the room, and subtly, he motioned for her to join him outside. Onto the hall steps.

“Why are we out here? It’s cold!” Nina exclaimed, but Seth quickly silenced her with a kiss, pulling her closer against him. In a swift motion, he slid off his jacket and placed it atop her bare shoulders.

“You know, this is my favourite spot.”

Nina glanced around, eyes scanning their surroundings, until her features softened into understanding.

“You know, it was actually over there,” Nina professed, pointing toward a spot just two metres from where they stood, next to where the walls of the school hall ended.

“Ah, so it is,” Seth stated, smiling.

Still holding her hand, he pulled her forward, toward the spot where everything began.

“I like Seth Moore!”

The memory of her words floated through the air, forever chained to this spot.

Well, if he was being true to himself, it all began for him in their math classroom. But since they’ve graduated, the school has been renovated, and the classrooms he remembered from Year 7 had been knocked down and rebuilt with newer technology.

“What are you doing?” Nina laughed, “Are you trying to have me relieve one of the most humiliating moments of my life?”

“Excuse you, that humiliating moment led me to realise that the love of my life, had the biggest crush on me,” he cooed, dipping his head to plant a kiss atop her hand.

“When are you going to stop mentioning that?” she laughed.

“Never ever.”

Over the past 6 years that they’d been officially dating, he’d come to learn that she was a hopeless romantic that savoured the quiet moments.

When he once thought she loved grand gestures, he understands now that those intimate gestures, the one that really shows her she’s seen, is what she treasures the most.

After their first, official date, when he’d stressed over the reservation he made at a fancy, fine dining restaurant all the way in the city, she assured him that it doesn’t matter so much to her if it was perfect.

Nina loved to feel seen, to be known.

So he’d swapped the grand dates, the loud gestures, for ones that held a piece of Nina in them.

For their first Valentine together, he’d set up a small dinner picnic at her favourite bookstore.

For their one month anniversary, he’d read through her favourite Jane Austen book, Persuasion, and annotated it thoroughly.

He knew she loved annotating her books, so he wanted to give her a deeper glimpse into his mind.

And for their 6 month anniversary, he hired an outdoor cinema to play her favourite movie, When Harry Met Sally. Then, for their one year anniversary, he compiled together all the photos and video’s they’d taken together over the course of their first year, editing it into a little movie.

He’d do anything and everything for Nina to know that she was seen all the time, by him. Which led him to this moment.

Atop the school steps, where the first chapters of their unending narrative were first penned.

It began with a secret that wasn’t meant to be shared, but a secret that strung them together for the rest of their lives.

Everything was right, and perfect. He’d already bought the ring, 5 years ago. A year after he and Nina started dating. And so, it was here, that Seth found it most fitting to ask:

“Will you marry me?”