It was a warm school day afternoon when I was making my way down to the 2nd floor, as always, to meet up with my friends.

A friend introduced Niña to me during that afternoon recess, and as a socially inept person, I shook her hand. It was a casual encounter, but I saw right away her gleaming personality.

What followed went initially unnoticed, but I realized I wanted to spend more time with her, even more than I'd want to spend with my other friends. Being around her felt wonderful, and I came to understand that she was truly the perfect match for me, albeit with slightly opposing personalities.

It's funny recalling that most of our previous dates always involved some errands incorporated into them. If there was a way we could be together despite needing to do mundane tasks, we would try to meet up even if we had to go out of our way.

This was what our relationship was mostly – trying to be with each other as much as possible. You see, we were never classmates during our high school years; we were also in different colleges after high school. Even when we were working, we were usually apart. She was in Singapore for a few years, and I was in Mindoro for my training and work.

After fourteen years of mostly smooth sailing, which only felt like one year, I finally proposed, feeling that any time spent apart would only be in vain.

As a big kdrama buff back in the day, I always wanted to have my meet-cute and the universe did not disappoint. You know in rom-com films where this quirky and silly girl with poor taste in fashion meets a cute guy in glasses and everything around them just slows down and it suddenly feels like it's just the two of them in the world? Cringe, I know, but that's what it was like.

I've known Mat since we were first year. I mean, who wouldn't know him? He was always in our school pageants, plays, and in math competitions, He was even in a band! So when the chance finally came through a mutual friend who introduced us to each other, I tried to play it cool and established a conversation by asking about a game that I heard he liked.

He started talking about it while I stood there, staring at him while nodding my head, pretending to understand when I absolutely had no idea what he was saying. When he stopped talking, still had no idea what he talked about, I wanted to impress him so I replied "Wow, gusto ko nga bumili niyan sa National kasi nakikita ko meron sa games section". I knew I gave it away when he laughed so hard about what I said because he was apparently talking about an online war game involving actual flying fighter planes and helicopters. We eventually started to hang out and became the best of friends with me mostly bothering him on non-school days through calling him on the phone, not realizing we've spent 3 hours talking about the most random of things.

From what I thought was going to be a platonic friendship with one secretly liking the other (hulaan niyo na lang sino lol), we eventually realized that we wanted to be more than friends and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since that day, I always feel like I am living a life out of kdrama when I'm with him (most days lol). He still talks about very technical stuff but now to make me sleep.

Can't wait to share the rest of our story with all of you on our wedding day! :)