I met you in either kindergarten or first grade. People in the class already had a partner or a to-go friend; I didn’t, and you didn’t either. When the teacher told us to “find a partner,” I saw how everyone was already paired up and we were left, so I went towards you. You didn’t speak much English at the time, so I had to adjust to speaking Mandarin to you, which was hard because I just started attending Chinese school too. You helped me with Chinese, and I helped you with English, and we did everything together. From playing together during recess, sitting next to each other during lunch, making plans together on the weekend, and many more.
You were the one who introduced me to Chocomimi, which is a Japanese manga series that started in the early 2000s but eventually got discontinued because the author got breast cancer. Due to her death, the official English publications of the first five volumes were canceled, which meant we stopped reading them together.
That was the first manga we’ve read together, but also the last one. You told me to be the Mimi to your Choco, though our characteristics didn’t match the character’’. I said “yes” because I couldn’t say no to you. You’d find panels of the girls being silly and saying, “Look, it’s us.” I’d agree because you weren’t wrong.
You told me you were going to return to China for reasons I’m unsure of to this day. I thought it’d be okay because I had your phone number and you had my home phone number, and I assumed we’d stay in contact without struggle. Right before you left, you told me to call you the following night after you’d given it to me, which I did, but when I spoke, you kept asking, “你是谁？(Who are you?)” I stated my name a few times, but nothing went through, according to you. When I told you the next day at school you went, “Oh, that was you?” I got confused naturally because I basically screamed my name to the point where the neighbors of my apartment could hear me.
I told you in class that I was planning to call you at around 7 p.m. so you’d know that the person calling was me, and you nodded, signaling that you’d be prepared for when I called. The night came along, and you picked up, and I spoke, but you told me you couldn’t hear me, so I gave up.
You suggested that we’d make a Gmail account together and make little journal entries in Google Docs. I agreed since that was easily accessible and we wouldn’t have much trouble communicating through that.
A month after you left, I tried to access the account but realized that the password didn’t work. I double-checked my notebook to see if I typed it wrong, but I didn’t. Assuming that you changed the password, I tried to do “Forgot Password” to see if I could recover it, but when I plugged in the Gmail username, it said it did not exist. So my next shot was to call your number, which I did, but once I did, I found out that your phone number no longer existed, leaving me forlorn.
Years later, the nostalgia of our shared past often crept into my thoughts. Whenever I walked through the children’s book aisle in the library and saw Chocomimi, my thoughts would always go straight to you. I’m wondering where you are now, how you’re doing, and if you’ve found a new Mimi.
