Both of them had been schoolmates since grade school.

When they were in 2nd or 3rd grade or so, Chanto had a small garden beside their school playground which she tends to every recess, lunch and before she goes home- which was around 2pm. She cared deeply for the garden, and she took a lot of time making it pretty and colorful.

There was a bench next to the garden to which Duncan does his book-reading every 4pm, 2 hours after school ends. Duncan didn’t know that the garden was personally owned and thought that it just belonged to the school.

One day, after reading one of his books, he decided to mess around with the small garden since he thought no one cared about it anyways. He was bored, waiting for his parents to pick him up to he wanted to entertain himself. On that day he brought with him two important books that belonged to his mother, so he had to keep them both safe. Duncan forgot about this fact though, so he brought his two books with him while stepping on the flowers and kicking the dirt.

Chanto had to stay until 4pm on that day because she had to catch up with schoolwork. She had been absent for the past 3 days due to a sickness, so she had missed out on plenty of lectures and homework. As 4pm finally rolled around, she got her watering can to water her small garden by the playground after a few days of being neglected. When she finally got there, that’s when she saw the garden. And him.

Everything was ruined- the plants, the rock arrangements, the grass, everything was a mess. Duncan stopped kicking around and looked at Chanto while she stared back at him. It was silent for a few minutes until Chanto started crying slowly. She couldn’t stop crying until Duncan slowly spoke up, but the first thing he said was “Why are you crying? It’s not like this is your garden anyways”.

Chanto finally stopped crying for a few seconds but soon after, she screamed and took off the cover of her watering can to throw all the water contained inside at him.

Duncan yelled loudly as he stepped back a few steps, soaking wet. He didn’t care that he was wet though, the only thing that was on his mind was the fact that the two books he brought with him were soaking wet as well. He knelt down, checking the books. No good. The pages were fully drenched and the words were blurry and hard to read. He should’ve put those books on the bench, he told himself. He was in big trouble.

He didn’t have time to dry the books though, right at that moment his mom’s car finally came. Duncan panicked and thought to blame Chanto immediately but when he looked back, Chanto was gone. She had run away in tears to tell someone about her ruined garden.

Duncan’s parents were immensely disappointed with him for failing to do the simple task of taking care of those books. He had been grounded for a week and even though he reasoned repeatedly that Chanto was the one who threw the water, his parents did not take any excuses. Duncan hated disappointing his parents, and this was the first time he’d been harshly scolded by them.

Ever since that day, Chanto and Duncan hated each other. Every time they would pass by each other in the hallways, they would glare at each other and even start physical fights. It seemed like luck was not on their side though, as there has not been a year where they have not been classmates. Time passed, and their sheer hated for each other slowly dissolved as they slowly learned to get used to each other’s presence. They joke that they will never forgive the other because of that incident, but they both know they have long since moved past that.