How I pursued my crush friend

I've never told this story to anyone before, not even to my closest friends, because it was very--- "orz

There was a particular person whom I'd been crushing on during my entire high school years. At that time, that was my biggest secret, especially after something* happened in my 2nd yr high school, I didn't dare to tell anyone that I liked him.

*It's just a small thing actually. When my 2nd yr of high school started, everyone just seemed to know that I liked him. They started teasing the two of us. Probably it's because it's pretty obvious from my unconscious moves of trying to get close to him. At some point, when my math teacher let the two of us solve a problem on the board, the whole class just went "YIEEEHHH!!!!", very loudly. My teenage self felt humiliated, shamed, bared, and couldn't take it anymore. Since then, I watched out on my unconscious moves towards my crushes including him, if I can't help it, I tried to be as sneaky as possible, and I always wore the mask of asceticism/abstinence/celibacy anything you call it lol.

ANYWAYS, BACK TO THE STORY. I had been good friends with this crush since our first contact in first year. I started having feelings for him around the middle of first yr. My infatuation for him grew over the years. Along the way, I made small moves towards him, whether it was unconscious, impulsive or deliberate. This story is one of the moves I made that left a distinguishing memory to me.

One afternoon in my last year of high school, I suddenly remembered that my crush's birthday was coming up. Out of nowhere, I got an idea of giving him small gifts as a count down to his birthday just like in the song "12 days of Christmas". On a whim, I carried it out, thinking I would also do it to my other friends in the future so that no one would suspect my intention.

There were still 4 days before his birthday. Coincidentally, I brought tangerines with me. I sneakily put 4 of them in his locker. Later, while I was talking with my friends, he suddenly called out to me, "<my real name >! Were you the one who put these tangerines in my locker??" with bright eyes and wide smile . [Apparently, it was obvious because I was the only one who had tangerines at that time.] I was shookt . I thought, "OMG, I was caught." But then there were people around us . I tried to calm down and keep a straight face. I said, "Yeah. That was me ." Then I stepped closer to him and whispered "4 days to go before your birthday ." I acted as if it was a trivial matter. like hell .

After that, I openly gave small gifts to him, though only when there were no people around us. 3 days to go - 3 chocolate candies. 2 days to go - 2 cupcakes. 1 day to go - 1 pack of cookies.

On his birthday, I decided to give him a cute drawing~ During lunchtime, I sneaked towards his seat while he was not around and put that drawing on his table, hidden under his notebooks and papers, to surprise him. Then, I returned to my seat like nothing happened.

HOWEVER, what I didn't expect was that the class also prepared a surprise for him. When my crush came back to the class, my classmates suddenly started singing happy birthday and brought out a prepared cake which was personally handed over by none other than the girl he was having MU* with at that time in front of the class.

*mutual understanding, not bf-gf but they know they like each other.

Of course, I got lost. I tried to sing with my classmates but I can't smile. After the song ended, when they were letting him blow the candle, I stood up from my seat and went to get my drawing. It was a good thing that there was no one around his seat because the people were in front of the class surrounding the couple so no one noticed me, I guess. When I got my drawing, I crumpled it and threw it into the trash can. I sort of walked out of the classroom and pretended to buy food from canteen.

So I kinda forgot to greet him at that time. He never knew I made a drawing for him. No one else remembered the count down surprises, I hope. And I never made that kind of initiative for my friends' birthdays ever again. That's all