Prologue

It would be many months later that she would continue to recall the kiss that they shared, not out of lust or love, but the result of a game with their mutual friends.

"Three minutes," the short-haired girl known as Situ Shao chirped. "That will be the duration of the kiss. We girls draw lots, and the lots determine who we shall kiss."

After much disagreement and debate from the others, they finally agreed on twenty seconds.

Yu Bing sighed and put on his best smile. How he could have agreed to such juvenile games was beyond him. Before stepping into the game room, he was still very perturbed about the situation between him and his high school crush Lu Lu.

He and Lu Lu had known each other for about a decade, and he had continuously pursued her for five years. Still, in the end, she had accepted Superman's proposal, and they would soon be engaged. Since her engagement to Superman would be hosted on the island of Bali, he hoped that he would take up his offer to film one last advertisement with his father's company before she was gone for good, without any opportunity for him to see her again.

Probably, if not for his father's close friendship and business dealings with Myra's father, he wouldn't have got to be invited to the party. He admitted that she had really grown prettier from the last time he had seen her. The girl also appeared to have a crush on him since her childhood, up to the point of confessing to her best friends that her dream was to marry him. He had only overheard her talking to her friends when he had passed by to look for Professor Wang. Fortunately, the girl hadn't seen him walk past, otherwise she would have been embarrassed.

Tonight, she had looked really refreshing and fascinating in her short little dress and light makeup. He wondered who her target would be.

She looked at him bashfully as she said his name, and faced him. He questioned himself on why she was so shy about the impending kiss. Unless, she had never kissed before?

He gazed into her pretty face as she leaned back and closed her eyes, accepting the kiss as it happened. For some reason, he had felt extremely a turmoil of emotions raging inside him, and he just poured his feelings into the kiss, which turned out to a deeper kiss than expected.

She popped open an eye to realize how he had just devoured her mouth, with all her best friends laughing and clapping before her.

And, what was that called? A French kiss?

She was burning with excitement, but protested.

"Twenty seconds is not up yet," Situ Shao chimed. "Do it again."

She arched her eyebrows and leaned forward, this time kissing him with such a fervency that he would remember her.

And he was sure, he would.

But would the kiss erase his pain and give him the strength to love again?