Spark Between Us

2. "I remember when we first met..."

Chapter 2

Gray's POV

"Now you're back living in the basement." My best friend, Chance Park, says. He's eyeing the pile of dirty boxes stored by mom in the basement for years. Mostly, old clothes, Christmas decors, books, shoes and other stuff.

"When things come easy, I'm going to find a big place to live, and put up a big studio and an office."

That's my initial plan. A place where we can work full time together, in creating video contents, doing editing works, selling merchandise and other stuff without distractions.

"You have a lot of cleaning to do here, dude." Riggs Ryan, my other best friend, swipes the dusty table with his forefinger.

"We." I toss a box on the floor, making all the dust fly. "I asked you to come, so you can help me with the cleaning."

"Seriously? I just had a bath." Chance complains, waving his arms to get rid of the flying dust. "I thought we're going to film for your YouTube channel."

Chance and Riggs are both jobless in this pandemic. As my best friends, they volunteer to help me on my YouTube channel to make it big.

"Not today. I need to tidy this first. I don't want to sleep in the living room anymore, with Sakura lying on my face."

Sakura is my sister, Brooke's cat. Just like her owner, Sakura has a bad temper and has her own world.

"She scratched my leg when I entered the house." Chance shows us the two thin lines of red marks on his leg. "I thought she was being so sweet, rubbing her body against my leg. What a traitor! She opened her claws and suddenly attacked me."

"She thinks your leg is a scratching post." Riggs laughs aloud.

Chance and Riggs have been my best friends since middle school. We were classmates in a public school, and after class, we saw each other in an arcade to play video games. That's how our friendship started. They witnessed my struggles in school being a victim of bullying and helped me gain confidence. They also defended me from the bullies.

Chance Park is half Asian, half American. His family was religious. He grew up decent, well-mannered and a good Christian boy. He used to sing in church on Sundays, with his sweet angelic voice. But what he really loves is singing pop songs and dancing to hip-hop music.

We were inseparable after we graduated high school. We took the same degree, Computer Science during university and graduated at the same time. Afterwards, we worked in the same advertising company in New York, creating videos and making content for different clients.

Riggs is a civil engineer. He stayed in Maryland after university to help his dad's construction business. Unfortunately, the pandemic affected their business, forcing them to shut down.

"I can't believe that after four years in New York, we're back here. It feels like we're newly graduated again." Chance starts mopping the floor, getting rid of a hard stain.

"If not for the pandemic, you wouldn't be back here." Riggs says, pushing the boxes to the corner of the room.

"It has nothing to do with the pandemic."

Riggs turned to me, his face apologetic. "Sorry, dude, for being insensitive. I totally forgot."

"It's okay. Don't worry about it."

Working in New York was more exciting than when I met Sasha. We worked in a team and eventually became lovers. We were together for a year until a promotion ruined our relationship. All of us thought I would get the promotion of being the head of the Marketing Department until the fucking maniac CEO announced Sasha.