I was raised in a conservative family where love was hardly expressed verbally. I remembered that year; I was just seventeen when I was introduced to him. His name was Gilbert. He was my classmate in the Chemistry Class and for some reason, we were always put in the same discussion group. One afternoon after our class, Gil offered to send me home. We started talking and it was then that we decided to see each other everyday.

Being an introvert, Gil was more of a pragmatic rather than sentimental person. Born of a not so well off family, he had never showered me with expensive gifts. Nevertheless, there were few occasions where I received gifts personally handmade by him. He made me cute little music box and small cupboard. Although those were inexpensive gifts, they were invaluable to me.

In my final year at university, I saw a friend wearing a very unique bracelet, made of red beans. I fell in love with these red beans almost immediately. These tiny red beans looked unique as they came in heart shapes and were in red blood color. These beans were all very similar in size and shape. When all these beans were stringed in a bracelet, they reminded me of everlasting love and faithfulness. That night, I spoke endlessly about these unique red beans. As usual, Gilbert responded indifferently without much enthusiasm. He smiled and said he would bring me to see the red bean tree one day.  

After my graduation, I decided to follow Gil back to his hometown, to look for a job and to settle down in long run. Back then, it was a small and deserted town, with little fun or entertainment. However, our life spent together was simple but contended. The only little thing missing was perhaps Gil had never brought me to see the red bean tree.

Two years passed. Gil finally asked for my hand in marriage. That day, he brought me to this beautiful garden where he secretly revealed a very unique gift that he had prepared for me. It was my favorite love beans’ bracelet. Gil pointed at the trees surrounding us and told me those were the red bean trees that he had brought me to see several times in the past two years. He said he had spent two years collecting seeds from these trees to make me this very precious red beans’ bracelet.

I looked above and gazed into those big trees, with innately compound leaves and dense racemes of fragrant, light-yellow blossoms. I never expected the red bean trees to grow so tall and huge. In my mind, I always thought that red bean tree was a very small plant. Remembering how Gil had waited for 2 years to collect enough seeds to make me this red beans’ bracelet, I have then decided to call these red beans, the love beans. Under those red bean trees, Gil hugged me tightly in his arms, whispering to me that he would never let me down and would love me for the rest of his life.