First Love [First Love - Book 1]

The flight attendant hands me the third glass of champagne I had asked for.

I immediately take a greedy gulp, drinking half of it. I need to keep my nerves in check. This third glass has just done the trick.

I feel my body slowly relax.

I sink into my comfortable first-class seat and watch the fluffy clouds outside.

It has been thirteen years already. I wonder if Tokyo has changed.

‘Tokyo, huh.’

My mind starts wandering back through memory lane.

I blame the champagne.

Memories flash in front of me like a roll of film. Some happy, but others painful. I close my eyes and see Kei’s face. His beautiful green eyes. I can’t help but sigh.

‘Kei... my first love.’

I remember when I was about five. I was sick of playing with my older brother and his friends. They used to always leave me behind and Tom hated it when I followed him.

He used to complain to mom and dad all the time. He was ten at the time and too cool to hang out with his little sister.

My younger brother, Daniel, was only three. So, when I was with him, it was more watching than playing.

I felt so lonely.

There was not even one kid my age in our block. That’s why I kept running after Tom and his friends.

That is, until a family moved into the house next to ours. The Ichihara family.

A few days after they did, my mom took me along when she brought an apple pie over to their house. It was a ’welcome to the neighborhood’ gesture.

The blond woman welcomed us and immediately invited us in. I remember there were a few boxes still laying around the house.

We sat on one of the green couches in the living room and our new neighbor smiled at me sweetly.

I remember thinking that the woman, Amanda, was beautiful. She had long thick locks of blond falling on her shoulders. Her eyes were green and captivating. They looked like my mom’s emerald earrings.

“I was just making some tea, so your timing is perfect,” Mrs Ichihara said as both her and my mom giggled.

She disappeared into the kitchen for about three minutes and came back with a tray of tea and some plates for the pie.

“Kei, come say hi,” the woman called while pouring tea.

A shy little boy showed up from behind the dining table. He had been hiding there the whole time.

“Hi Kei,” my mom greeted. “Sam, do you want to go say hi?”

“Yes,” I replied, already walking toward the boy.

As I got closer to him, I noticed he had his mom’s eyes. The shape was different from hers, different but lovely. I found out later that his eyes looked like his father’s—Mr Kenji Ichihara—who was originally from Japan.

“Hi, my name is Samantha. And you?”

“Kei,” he replied shyly.

“How old are you?”

“I am five years old,” he said.

“Me too!” I yelled. I think I even ran to my mom to tell her that we were the same age.

Kei also had a younger brother. Like Daniel, he was also three, but he was sleeping the whole time we were there.

I played with my new friend for a couple of hours as our moms enjoyed their tea and conversation.

It was my first encounter with Kei Ichihara, but far from the last.

That summer, we played together every day. We celebrated Kei’s birthday in July and then mine in August. And a few weeks after that, we started school together.

When our moms dropped us off at school on the first day, Kei was crying while clenching Mrs Ichihara’s skirt. I walked to him and took his hand.

“We’ll stay together the whole time, don’t cry,” I whispered in his ear and gave him a hug.

‘Ahh, kids.’

He immediately stopped crying. We ended up enjoying our first day in school quite a bit.

A few weeks later, some kids in school were making fun of Kei. It made me so angry that I beat them all up. I wasn’t going to let anyone bully my only friend.

Did I mention that I was a tomboy? Moreover, I was taller than most of the kids my age.

After that incident, everyone was too scared of me to even look our way.

Kei and I were inseparable, especially that our parents became close friends. We even went camping all together a few times.

When Daniel and Jiro—Kei’s brother—were about six, they started following us everywhere we went. But we always managed to lose them.

I finally understood what Tom had been so mad about a few years back. We didn’t want to play with them. We were older and didn’t enjoy the same games.

So, we just ran away and hid from them. Sometimes we pretended to go outside so that they would follow us, but we would sneak back in and play video games in Kei’s room or mine.

Kei wasn’t shy anymore. He was also very smart. He became very popular at school. Especially with the girls.

Everyone wanted to work with him on projects, but he always chose me. It always made me extremely happy when I heard him say: “Sam is already my partner.” I felt I was above all the other girls.

This made all the girls in class hate me. It also didn’t help my status of tomboy since I didn’t have a single female friend.

My dream of being Kei’s only partner was shattered when, one day, the teacher decided to choose the pairs for a project herself.

I was sure it was Sandy Reynolds who complained that Kei and I always worked together.

To top it all, Miss Peters paired them together, Kei and Sandy.

This was the first feeling of jealousy I had known. It was awful. I hated every minute Kei spent with that witch.

I couldn't even concentrate on my project. I was watching them the whole time. And when I glimpsed a shadow of a smile on Kei’s face, I felt so betrayed.

The feeling was so intense, I wanted to make Sandy Reynolds disappear.