Before we Knew
I’m back in my hometown after years away—not because of a dramatic event, but because life has a way of circling people back to familiar places.
The café still stands across from the university. Only the paint has changed. I heard the old owner passed away a few years ago. His grandson runs the place now.
I step inside.
“Table for two?” the waitress asks.
I hesitate.
“...Just one.”
She leads me to the table by the window. The same table.
Outside, a father carries his son on one arm while feeding him melting ice cream with the other. Beside them, the mother laughs as she wipes the sticky mess from both their mouths.
A stream of college students fills the sidewalk. Some are heading home. Others hurry toward the university gates, backpacks bouncing against their shoulders, voices loud enough to drown out the afternoon traffic. None of them know that ordinary days have a habit of becoming unforgettable.
One student catches my attention. Thin. Glasses slipping down his nose. Running because he’s late.
I smile before I realize I am.
Once upon a time, that was me.
“Back then, I thought I was only running late for class. I didn’t know I was running toward the person I’d spend the rest of my life remembering.”
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I hurried across campus with my backpack hanging from one shoulder, a paper cup of coffee in one hand and my phone in the other. It was my first day, and I was already late.
Miss Castro had a reputation. Strict. Punctual. Unforgiving.
A great first impression, Nerion.
I rounded the hallway without looking when someone collided with me.
The lid of my coffee shifted just enough for a few drops to splash onto my sleeve. My books slipped from my arm and scattered across the floor.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I blurted, crouching to gather them. “I wasn’t looking.”
“Neither was I,” the stranger replied with an easy laugh.
Instead of walking away, he knelt beside me and handed over the notebook that had slid the farthest.
“You always run like the world’s ending?” he asked.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“No.”
I slipped the last book back into my bag.
“...Only when I’m late.”
He stood first, then offered me a hand.
“I’m Mavren.”
I took it.
Back then, it was just a handshake.
I had no idea it would become a memory I’d spend years trying to outrun.
“So,” he said, letting go, “where are you headed in such a hurry?”
“Miss Castro’s class.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Ouch.”
“That bad?”
“Let’s just say she’ll notice if you’re even a minute late.”
He pointed down the hallway.
“Go straight, turn left at the end, and you’ll see a classroom with a broken door. That’s hers.”
I followed the direction of his hand before my eyes drifted back to him.
He was taller than me, sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows, his hair slightly messy as though he’d run his fingers through it more than once. There was nothing extraordinary about him.
At least, not then.
He simply had the kind of smile that made strangers feel like they weren’t strangers for very long.
“Thanks,” I said, adjusting my backpack.
“And... I’m sorry again.”
He shrugged with another small smile.
“Try not to run anyone else over.”
“I’ll do my best.”
With that, I hurried toward Miss Castro’s classroom.
I didn’t look back.
Neither of us knew that an ordinary Monday morning had just become the beginning of a goodbye neither of us was ready for.
I finally found the room.
The moment I stepped inside, the room fell silent.
Thirty pairs of eyes turned toward me.
Behind the podium stood a woman whose reputation had reached me long before I ever entered her classroom.
Miss Castro.
She folded her arms.
“First day,” she said, glancing at the clock, “and you’re already late?”
A few quiet chuckles rippled through the room.
Heat rushed to my face.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am. I got lost.”
She studied me for a moment before pointing toward an empty seat near the back.
“Sit down. We’ll discuss directions after you learn how to arrive on time.”
More laughter.
I kept my head down as I hurried to the vacant chair by the window.
From there, I could see the courtyard outside. Students crossed from one building to another without a care, as though the day hadn’t already found a way to embarrass me.
Miss Castro’s voice filled the room, but my mind stayed somewhere else.
I replayed the collision again and again.
Had I thanked him properly?
Did I spill coffee on him?
The lecture ended just as the bell rang, its echo rolling through the hallway before the entire building seemed to come alive.
Chairs scraped against the floor. Conversations that had been held back for an hour burst into laughter and chatter. Students hurried out of their classrooms, some racing toward the cafeteria while others wandered across the campus as if they had nowhere else to be.
I remained seated for a moment, waiting for the crowd to thin.
“You’re really taking your time.”
I looked up.
The girl sitting in front of me smiled as she slipped her notebook into her bag.
“I’m Fay, by the way.”
“Nerion.”
“I know.” She grinned. “Miss Castro said your name three times.”
I laughed awkwardly.
“Sorry you had to witness that.”
She shrugged.
“Don’t worry. Everyone embarrasses themselves on the first day. You just happened to do it in front of the entire class.”
I sighed.
“That somehow makes me feel worse.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
As we walked out of the classroom, a loud cheer erupted from the open field below.
A group of students was setting up a volleyball net while others tossed a ball back and forth.
One of them caught it effortlessly before spinning it on his palm.
“The tall one?” Fay asked, noticing where my eyes had wandered.
“His name’s Mavren.”
I blinked.
“Oh...”
“The guy from this morning?”
I nodded.
“So you know him?”
“Not really.”
“We sort of... bumped into each other.”
Fay laughed.
“That’s one way to make a first impression.”
Before I could answer, the player she had pointed out looked toward the academic building.
For the briefest moment, our eyes met.
He lifted a hand in a small wave.
Almost instinctively, I nodded back.
Then someone called his name.
“Mavren!”
He turned, caught the ball tossed in his direction, and jogged back toward his friends as though nothing had happened.
I watched for another second before Fay nudged my shoulder.
“C’mon. If we don’t leave now, we’ll be eating whatever’s left.”
I followed her toward the cafeteria.
At the time, I thought it was nothing more than a polite wave from someone I’d accidentally run into that morning.
Looking back now, I wonder if that was the first moment he remembered me.
I was on my way back from the cafeteria. I hadn’t eaten much. The food wasn’t bad—it just wasn’t to my taste. Let’s just say vegetables and I had never been on good terms.
There was still time before the afternoon classes, so instead of returning to my room, I wandered around the campus.
Not too far.
Just far enough to explore, but close enough that I could still see the building with the broken classroom door.
At the corner where two buildings met stood an old stone fountain.
It no longer carried water, yet it somehow hadn’t lost its beauty.
Time had weathered its edges, but the intricate carvings remained, as though the artist had expected people to stop and admire them long after the fountain had fallen silent.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” The voice startled me.
I turned.
Mavren stood beside me, hands tucked into his pockets, looking at the fountain instead of me.
“I didn’t hear you walk over.”
“I noticed.” He smiled.
“They say an art student designed it years ago. It was their final project.” He continued
“It has a meaning?”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“What is it?”
He shrugged.
“No one seems to agree.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
The silence wasn’t awkward.
Just... unfamiliar.
He glanced at me before chuckling softly.
“You know, I just realized something.”
“What?”
“We never actually introduced ourselves.”
I laughed.
“I guess we didn’t.”
I held out my hand again.
“I’m Nerion.”
He shook it with the same easy smile I’d seen that morning.
“Mavren.”
“Nice to meet you.”
He tilted his head with an amused look.
“I think we’re a few hours late for that.”
We walked side by side toward the academic building.
Most of the conversation was ordinary.
Where I grew up.
Why I chose this university.
How many times he’d nearly fallen asleep during Miss Castro’s lectures.
The more he talked, the more I noticed something about him.
He smiled before almost every sentence, as though smiling wasn’t a reaction but simply part of who he was.
As we crossed the courtyard, students greeted him from every direction.
“Mav!”
“Practice later?”
A group of girls passed us, whispering among themselves before one finally gathered the courage to wave.
He waved back with the same easy smile.
“You seem popular.”
He laughed.
“I just spend too much time outside.”
“I believe that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Before I could answer, the afternoon bell echoed across the campus.
Students immediately began moving toward their classrooms.
“Looks like you survived your first day,” Mavren said.
“Barely.”
“You won’t be late this time.”
“I hope not.”
We stopped outside my classroom.
The familiar broken door stood exactly where he’d said it would.
“Well...” he said, taking a small step backward.
“I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah.”
I watched him disappear into the stream of students before turning toward the classroom.
“Nerion.”
I froze.
It was the first time I’d heard my name in his voice.
I turned around.
Mavren was walking back toward me, one hand tucked inside his pocket.
“I almost forgot.”
He opened his hand.
Resting on his palm was a black ballpoint pen.
“You dropped it this morning.”
I stared at it for a second.
“I found it near the stairs after you left.”
“I tried catching up to you, but you were already inside.”
I accepted the pen.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He smiled again.
The same effortless smile.
Then he walked away.
I slipped the pen into my pocket and entered the classroom.
At the time, I thought he had simply returned something I’d lost. I realized it wasn’t the pen I remembered. It was the fact that, in a campus filled with thousands of students... Someone had noticed I was missing one.
