Thanks to both our mutual friends, we first bumped into each other in Malaysia. Lushantha had made the trip back for his long-overdue post-covid graduation, and Shayala was still in the middle of her final year at Monash. Two people who'd gone to the same university, just never quite at the same time. The first "excuse" to spend time together? Lushantha asking Shayala to help him pick something out for his sister. Shayala, being the shopaholic she is, didn't need much convincing.

What started off as a casual friendship gradually turned into something neither of us had ever planned for, but something that we always look back on and talk about is how there was never an awkward "getting to know each other" stage. It always felt like we had somehow known each other from a lifetime ago; if there was ever a case for the invisible string theory, this would be it. Some of our friends say he came to collect his degree certificate but left with a better prize instead! Shayala seconds this.

What followed were 3 of the hardest but best years of our lives: long distance between 2 time zones and learning to make the most of the time we got to actually spend with each other, but through all of it, the only thing that we've been looking forward to is doing life together.