16/09/2025
LOVE BEHIND THE TEASING & LAUGHTER
Prologue
People always think love arrives in grand gestures—flowers, confessions, fireworks, and big, undeniable moments. But mine? It didn’t arrive with a bang. It slipped quietly into the spaces between laughter and teasing, hidden in the smallest, most ordinary details. It was in the way he called my name with a smirk, as if testing how many times he could annoy me before I gave in. It was in the careless brush of his arm against mine during practice, in the playful “asaran” that looked so simple to everyone else but meant everything to me. Maybe to the world, we were just schoolmates. Just two people stuck in the same circle, placed side by side by accident, laughing too much over nothing. To him, it was probably all harmless fun. To me, it was the very thing I waited for every single day. Because behind every joke, I found myself searching for meaning. Behind every tease, my heart beat a little faster than it should. Behind every laugh we shared, I realized I wasn’t just laughing anymore, I was quietly falling.Ten months. That’s how long I’ve carried this crush, this almost-love, this feeling that refuses to leave no matter how much it hurts sometimes. Ten months of stolen glances, of hiding my heart beneath jokes, of choosing him in silence over and over again. And here’s the truth even through the pain, the what-ifs, and the ache of almost… I would still choose him. Again and again. Because somewhere between the laughter and the teasing, I found a love I never meant to discover one that I cannot unfeel, no matter how hard I try. This isn’t just about banter. It isn’t just about a crush. This is about the love behind it all.