I wanted a rom-com but life gave me just half of it

It was a chilly Saturday in January. Hong Kong was in its most brutal wintertime. The temperature was around 50 degrees with no snow. But the wind would sneak into the slightest gap between layers of clothes and the skin.

I rushed to the theatre after getting out of bed and ready to leave my place before 10 in the morning. Who would watch a romcom on a Saturday morning? Well, I do. I had been waiting for the movie Anyone but You and got hyped by its box office record. So on that frigid winter morning, I sat in the middle of the theater with a small caramel and cheese popcorn and a cup of icy coke. That was my breakfast of the day. Another senior couple and a few other people were in the dark theater too.

The light was out. The show was on.

No spoiler of the movie itself but I would say it is a very classic romantic comedy that I once fantasized about in my teenage years. I walked out of the theater feeling extremely satisfied and its box office should say something about how good it is. I have no shame about being a huge fan of this type of movie. I love watching romcoms. Life is already complicated. Why try stuffing the already-spinning thoughts with even more obscure movies? I could not remember the last time I watched a rom-com in a movie theater. Anyone But You definitely lived the praise of being the renaissance of rom-com movies.

Still savoring the cheesy moments between the leading characters Ben and Bea and the supporting roles, I walked into the now busy streets in central Hong Kong. It was lunchtime. What should I get?

I was familiar with the area enough to know where my favorite gelato shop was. But I did not know it well enough to find out Fiata, the now fourth-best pizzeria in Asia-Pacific, was just a short walk from the gelateria. Pizza for lunch it is.

It was located on a hill, and I would not mind a short hike if the pizza was this good. As I approached the storefront, I found other hungry people crowding in front of the store. Yikes. The server seemed too occupied to spare a few seconds to answer the same question from different people for a table to fit a group of diners.

I was on the fine line between walking away and waiting for my turn to ask the question after she told a group of four that they could not take more orders for the remaining lunch hour. I caught a quick eye contact with her and shot my question, “Do you have a table for one?” The size was small enough for her to look around the packed dining area and calculate the possibility.

“You can share a table with me if you don’t mind.”

It was a guy sitting on a makeshift table right at the door. He was alone with two other empty stools.

“Sure! That would be great!” I answered him and the server before she could finish asking me if it would work for me. Of course yes!

It was another round of waiting for the menu after the server gave me a glass of water while already in the direction of another table.

A few moments later, another server delivered his pizza order. It was the signature dish of Fiata, the Diavola Pizza. I could smell the spicy salami mixed with a hint of tomato sauce. I could even feel the heat from the dough fresh out of the oven, or maybe from the patio heater next to the table.

“We can share this if you would like to. I cannot eat a whole pie. And the wait time seems long if you place your order now.”

“Can I?!” I asked. It was more of a yes feign as a question. With no mirror in front of me, I was 100% sure I looked very surprised and happy.

The past few minutes were almost the same as the opening of Anyone But You except that I was looking for food and Bea was desperate about a key to the bathroom. At that point in my life, I had lived a quite dramatic life that I always enjoyed writing and talking about. Sitting among people coming with a craving for pizza and leaving with varying levels of disappointment, I was still trying to process everything that had happened to me.

The pizza was in full exposure to the chilling breeze. I better spare no time to savor it. The tomato sauce spread on the bottom brought out its always bright and tangy flavor yet the short stay in the oven gave a deeper layer of fragrance. Though I was sitting outdoors in January, the spicy salami felt like the sunshine in the Mediterranean to bathe myself in while relaxing on the soft fior di latte di Napoli and buffalo cream. There was a light breeze across the tastebuds by the fresh basil sauce. As I chewed through the dough, the fluffy and moist texture was right on the spot. The first slice was a real treat and a bonus for this trip to the unknown destination.

We chatted a bit over the remaining slices of pizza. He also came to Hong Kong alone for a concert later in the evening. He also heard about this place and came for its fame. He is STILL in his undergraduate years, studying math at the University of Oxford.

As we finished the pizza, he suggested to Airdrop the photos to me.

My phone buzzed with the Airdrop notification. On the screen, it was his iPhone ID,

“Any top?”

I grabbed the glass and drank it bottom up. I was not sure if I was trying to quench my thirst because the pizza was a bit too salty. Or I was trying to swallow down the funny chocolate that my life tried to give me.