A Boba per Secret
Mei really loved boba tea — chewy, soft tapioca pearls floating in tea, balanced with just the right sweetness and milkiness. It doesn’t always come in the same flavour — milk tea, matcha, strawberry, lychee — and the toppings vary too, from jelly to crushed cookies. However, that wasn’t the sole reason why Mei savoured it. She thought that her favourite drink represented humans perfectly — at first glance, they seem plain but once you try to find out more about them, you keep discovering complexities underlying their seemingly simple surface.
The metaphor of boba worked well for Jun. That guy was the star footballer of the university — tall, handsome and charismatic. Girls flocked around him, following his every footstep. Guys wanted to be like him. A typical ‘Mr. Perfect’ — at least, that’s what everyone thought. But Mei knew the truth.
She remembered the first time she saw the cracks in his perfect image. She was walking down Sanxia Old Street one day, sipping on her favourite Taiwanese milk tea with brown sugar boba. The smell of freshly baked goods wafted through the air. The place was lively with the hustle and bustle of the people walking, chatting or eating gua bao. As she observed the chaos, she spotted a delivery guy exiting a chicken shop in its midst. She did not think much of it until the man turned. It was Jun. She clearly remembered him stepping out of a luxury car in front of the business department. Why would he be here, delivering fried chicken? She couldn’t think of any reason. The ‘golden boy’ Jun didn’t align with the guy who was hanging plastic bags of black takeaway containers on the handle of his red scooter. Curiosity tugged at her, but she forced herself to walk on. She sipped on her drink and quickened her pace.
The next time Mei spotted him in an even sketchier place. She went out for dinner with an old friend of hers, and he was accompanying her back to her hostel. This time she had grabbed a cup of coconut and mango sago tea. The streetlamps were flickering erratically above, with barely any people in the alley. She saw Jun again, this time leaving a dimly-lit shop. He practically ran out of the shop, his breath coming in ragged gasps, eyes darting down the alley as if afraid of being seen. His hair was a dishevelled mess, clothes covered in sweat and dirt. She looked up at the shop’s sign — Huang Pawn Shop. An old guy covered in tattoos, possibly the owner, stepped out onto the street and lit a cigarette for himself. The entire way back, her friend talked about his internship, but she barely paid any attention to him. The pearls in her cup had long sunk to the bottom, but her thoughts refused to settle.
Mei was going to her elective class in the business department. Near the entrance, she saw Jun — dressed in a clean striped shirt, formal black pants and slicked-back hair. A group of girls gathered around him, gesturing something with their hands and giggling at whatever he was saying. A complete contrast to the paranoid guy she had seen days ago. The psychology student in her wanted to ask him — “What’s going on with you? Why were you delivering chicken? Why were you in the pawn shop? Why is the Jun in the uni so different from the Jun outside the campus?” — but with his fans around, she didn’t dare to.
The alarm rang to signal the end of the class. Mei had barely focused, her thoughts wandered to the guy sitting four rows ahead. While walking back, she was about to bump into someone when a pair of arms pulled her away.
“Careful, you could have hurt yourself.”
She stared at Jun’s face — no traces of the anxiety or tiredness he had that day.
“Wait Jun, I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.”
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t question her.
They went to the park, which was rather empty in the warm summer afternoon. Perfect for the talk they were going to have. Mei’s palms were sweaty and Jun’s intense stare did not help.
Okay, don’t panic. Just say something casual… fried chicken? No, that sounds ridiculous. Pawn shop? What am I even thinking? Why is this so hard? Just ask him. Or maybe joke about it? Ugh, stop overthinking…
She thought of a thousand different ways to break the ice, but Jun’s stern voice cut through her chain of thoughts.
“Please make it fast.”
Her heart pounded. Enough hesitation — she had to say it.
“I saw you that day, running out of the pawn shop.”
Mei blurted out. She should have been more subtle, but the cat’s out of the bag anyway.
“Wasn’t me. I think you were mistaken.”
Jun stood up. She observed his jaw tightening. His voice shook as he spoke while his eyebrows scrunched up.
“If that was all, I will be on my way now.”
He prepared to walk away.
“I also saw you at the chicken shop in a delivery outfit.”
He turned around. His face contorted — confusion, fear then dismay. His posture slumped, his head hung low. For minutes, there was silence between them. Then he uttered something, his voice barely audible over the chirping swallows.
“Who else knows?”
“No one. I didn’t tell anyone else. It’s not my place to, anyway. It was just eating away at me. I am sorry.”
He plopped down on the bench, his face now expressionless.
“You did nothing wrong. I should have been more careful.”
He sighed, opening his collar to make way for the sweat to evaporate.
“I… I don’t know what to do. My family went bankrupt overnight. We lost almost everything. First the house. Then the cars. We fell into debt, lots of it. I took several odd jobs. Delivering food, waiting tables, even collecting junk to pay it off part by part. But the debt doesn’t even seem to be lessening.”
There was a sheen in Jun’s eyes. Mei felt a pang in her chest.
“I don’t want people to know about it. I don’t want their pity. I know how fickle public opinion can be. One day they worship you, the next day they try to drag you through the mud. I want things to stay the way they were, at least in university. Promise me that you won’t say anything about this to anyone, not a single soul?”
“Promise, I won’t tell anyone.”
A silent friendship grew between the two since then. It started with Jun quietly following her around, as if monitoring if she was spilling the beans to anyone. Whenever she passed him in the cafeteria or the grounds, his eyes would find her and trail her until she left the area.
Then it progressed to the two exchanging notes in class, when Mei, reluctantly, asked him for the notes on International business management strategies and he actually helped her out. He warmed up to her gradually after realizing she meant no harm at all. He started asking for her help too and that led to shared study sessions.
Mei pushed her notebook towards Jun. They were sitting at the library to discuss the last class’ topic.
“You skipped almost the entire lecture.”
“I had a shift,” he said, glancing at the pages.
“Excuses.”
He grabbed her pen and scribbled corrections in the margins.“These notes are terrible.”
“Then fix them.”
“I already am.”
Mei was sitting at the corner of a cafe, waiting for her order.
“A strawberry and matcha boba tea for you.”
Jun placed her drink in front of her. A mischievous grin played on his face. He relaxed around her. Thankfully that no one else knew about his situation, and together they planned to keep it that way. The other students at the university still saw him as someone untouchable, well, except for Mei of course.
“Hopefully you didn’t make it too sweet this time. Otherwise I have to complain to your employer.”
“Hey, don’t doubt my skills like that. Just take a sip.”
The grassiness of the matcha hit her taste buds, followed by the tartness of the strawberry. It wasn’t too sweet. The drink was milky and the chewiness of the tapioca pearls was mouth-watering.
“It’s perfect.”
She passed the glass towards him, nudging him to try his own creation as well. He grabbed another straw and sipped on the tea through it.
“I am really proud of myself right now. I might cry tears of joy.”
Jun pretended to cry while she face-palmed from his goofy antics. She couldn’t help but smile.
“Where did you learn all that? You used to be as dry as mullet roe left in the sun.”
“I learnt it from the best.”
He winked at her. Mei kept drinking the tea.
“Seriously though, do you know why it tastes this good?”
“Because I am a boba prodigy,” he mock-teased.
“No silly. It’s because you are just like this boba.”
“Hey, you take that back. How can someone as fit as me be like a round boba ball?”
“Not physically. See these boba pearls? Don’t let their appearance deceive you. They are complex, just like you. Our peers think that you are someone who has it all, someone beyond their reach. But really, you are just a normal guy, trying to survive like the rest of us.”
He sat down beside her, lost in thought. Mei tried to lighten the mood.
“But, hey, they don’t know how good you are at making boba tea. Why not open a stall of your own, probably further away from here? You have the talent and also the knowledge.”
Jun’s face lightened up at the suggestion. He straightened up, his ears perked and eyes shimmering.
“That’s actually a great suggestion. Why didn’t I think of this before? And I could afford one of those carts too. Damn Mei, sometimes you do give good advice. After all, I do have that entrepreneurial spirit so it might work out, who knows.”
They huddled together, planning for the future boba tea stall — until Jun got scolded for abandoning his station.
“Farewell, dear madam. Until we meet again, please enjoy your drink.”
Mei punched his shoulder playfully. He pretended to be hurt, and went back behind the counter.
She sipped her drink. Well, what could she say — boba really is life-changing, as it did for the boy who made it.
