2. Rain was falling in the street.

 

They say that a person blinks about sixteen to twenty times per minute. For an hour, it’s 1200, and for a day? It would be thousands by then.

 

How many times is it, then, for people who fall in love at first sight?

 

Ten times? Five? One? Impossible.

 

She thinks as her lips curl into a pout, her yellow boots slapping against the puddles; rain pelting against the rough surface of the pavement. She raises her head just in time for a red car to zoom past her. The walk signal is red; she jumps on puddles a little longer.

 

How old are people when they start falling in love, anyway?

 

She is only sixteen and she’s never believed in love, never have fallen – never have felt it anyways (well, beside from her mom and dad, and from her brothers, probably, but from other non-relative people) she tilts her head and comes up with no names.

 

Aren’t girls her age supposed to have those prince charmings whisking girls off of their feet and charming their hearts away? Where was – is her prince charming?

 

She stops walking, feeling unfair all of the sudden.

 

She wants to fall in love, wants to feel that warm feeling girls in her class always gushed about; that butterfly effect, that fit of giggles just waiting to burst out from their throats as soon as their princes passed by and sent a smile their way.

 

A gust of air suddenly passes through her, wrinkling her clothes and tangling her long blonde hair (although it was already slightly tangled to begin with, only slightly!), she couldn’t help herself but to scowl at the dull, grey sky once she looks up.

 

And then she blinks.

 

How many times does a person blink on average again?

 

How many times do they blink before they fall in love?

 

She blinks twice.

 

How old do they even start falling in love?

 

Falling in love at first sight, at that?

 

She blinks thrice before the person before her grins at her and all she sees is a bright set of eyes and teeth, and a very handsome nose, slightly crooked but complimented an equally handsome set of lips; perfection.

 

Three times.

 

Her lips part slightly.

She blinked three times, and that was all she could think of (that and this handsome boy in front of her).

 

“Hello?” The boy’s voice sounds unsure, and his eyes looked at her cautiously, as if approaching an unfamiliar puppy that would scurry away once it feels threatened.

 

“Hi,” she squeaks, fingers awkwardly hanging in the air like an ignored wave or something, and then she doesn’t know what to do so she says the first thing that comes in her mind, “Three times!”

 

Silence. If only she could slap herself right now, she would (double hardcore-ly-ish, whatever).

 

“Um?” He laughs unsurely, tilting his head to the side.

 

She blushes before quickly averting her gaze, her hand dropping down to her side, “three times, I mean. It took me three times.” God, what am I saying? She mentally scolds herself for embarrassing herself in front of the boy. She hopes she doesn’t say anything more stupid than that.

 

The boy laughs again, this time he pulls his head back and lets out a very light laugh, the kind that gives her, what – is this how it actually feels like? The butterfly effect?

 

She decides then that she loves it very much.

 

“I know, three times, but what does that mean?” He asks, his voice now laced with interest and light humor.

 

“It took me three blinks to fall in love,” she mutters, then it hits her; her eyes widen as she stares at the taken-aback face of the boy, she stutters, “I – I mean, because I was thinking earlier of how many blinks it would take for a person to fall in love at first sight and then you came and I saw you and then I counted how many blinks it took me to fall in lo – wait, what am I saying, ugh,” she covers her face with her gloved hands. Even her hands could feel her warm stupidity with gloves on, she groans.

 

Then he laughs, again. And this time, it’s longer – much longer – and it has much more butterflies in it, like every breath, every laugh and every shake of his chest summoned butterflies in her stomach. Then he stops, and he looks at her with his beautiful blue eyes and everything stops – something that those girls forgot to add, that world-stopping moment where the prince makes you feel like you’re the only one he sees and you’re the only one who matters (because that’s what she feels like right now with his eyes on her).

 

“Three times, huh?” he jokes, there is a poorly disguised humor in his tone and his eyes are sparkling (okay, make that three sets of beautiful sparkling features on his face).

 

She only nods, feeling the burn of her cheeks more and more. “yeah.”

 

“So what is this theory of yours then?” he prods, a dimple on his chin slightly showing. She wonders how many dimples does he have hidden, if he did have more than one.

 

“Well,” she mumbles, and then gains this kind of confidence she doesn’t know she had before but it makes her look straight into the eyes of the boy, “Well, I still don’t have your age so I can’t actually make a theory right now.”

 

And maybe it is just so cold, but she thinks she sees a slight tinge of pink on the boy’s cheeks and her insides swell with pride a little bit.

 

“Oh really,” the boy grins, raising an eyebrow at her and she only giggles; (oh lord, her prince hasn’t even left and she already feels her throat tightening due to the giggles that just want to be released) “I’m eighteen. How about that?”

 

“Eighteen, huh,” she pretends to calculate, tilting her head to the side and her hair cascades on her shoulder, “A two-year difference, but I think that’s good, no – that’s better, statistics of mine says.”

 

She faces the boy with a grin identical to his and it only takes three seconds (maybe less, maybe more, it doesn’t matter, really) and they burst out laughing, her grip tightening around her bag’s strap and his scarf muffling his voice.

 

“Okay,” he finally says, pausing to look at her – with the same sparkle, same glint of mischievousness in his eyes, “Three times it is then.”

 

“Mhm,” she hums, not knowing what to do (but to stare back, shamelessly so).

 

“Do you want me to tell you how many times it was for me, then, as a fair trade?” he leans close to her, his breath warm and minty in her face.

 

“Huh?” Her eyes widen at the sudden intrusion of private space, but she doesn’t mind, honestly.

 

“Three times, exactly,” he grins, raising up three fingers to the side of his face, “three seconds to spot you among the crowd in your cute yellow boots, three seconds to think of approaching you, too and exactly three blinks, too, to fall in love at first sight.”

 

She doesn’t see it, doesn’t hear it, doesn’t even feel it when the rain falls harder against their clothes and skins and against the pavement, even when raindrops land on her eyelashes and on his nose and cheeks, and the tips of his hair are already spiky because of the rain but it doesn’t really matter, it doesn’t really because she remembers the girls in her class and they were definitely way off with the whole prince charming story they had going on – because it definitely isn’t only the butterflies nor the giggles, it is everything; The world’s rotation, the whole body’s function, the mind’s signals and the heart’s beating. It’s everything, she decides, when he leans in again and she’s expecting a kiss but he doesn’t do that, nope.

 

He grabs her hand instead, and they run for it and he’s laughing harder than he’s laughed all day before and she feels it through their connected hands, against the feel of her palm and because he’s holding her hand, she lets him take him away, although without a prince’s horse but with him holding her, still.

 

Three blinks, they decide on later.

 

It sometimes might take less, or it might take more (and even forever) but for them, it’s three blinks and three seconds.

 

And it’s everything.