Who Peels Your Orange?

Kate Chung

Dedicated to Sophie Kim (ACT ‘26)

The world felt lighter the moment I realized that love doesn’t need to be bold to matter. Sometimes, love is found in quiet, unassuming and humble sacrifices. Often unspoken, love’s careful attention goes unnoticed—the result being a thriving relationship between two people. 

A popular expression circulated the internet last year. The Orange Peel Theory—who would you peel an orange for? The act requires sacrifice. Rind under your nails, sticky residue from the fruit juice, time spent carefully unraveling the jewel. To peel someone’s orange is to care. And so, love, I’ve realized, is care found in the common task, love so ordinary that we forget it is even love at all, love given to us so naturally, so generously, that it becomes part of the air we breathe. It is acts of service wrapped in the mundane, a thousand tiny gestures that speak in a language that we often forget to translate. This is love. 

It was in a single act, so simple yet so meaningful, that I found myself marveling at the depth of platonic love. I remember my best friend peeling off the little white bits of an orange slice for me. A gift in the form of a small baby slice of fruit, stripped clean of every imperfection, offered to me with a tenderness that words could never capture. The scent lingered, fresh and sweet, on her hands, a fragrant symbol of the care she poured into that moment. I don’t think there’s ever been a time when we’ve truly given platonic love the credit it deserves. We think of love as romantic, monumental, as something grand. But here, in the quiet spaces of friendship, it thrives. 

Love is at the risk of messy hands, in the quiet sacrifices that demand no recognition. It hides in plain sight, so present that it becomes invisible to our eye. Platonic love isn’t adorned with ribbons or drenched in perfume, and it doesn’t arrive with the ceremony of roses and a box of chocolate. It comes in the sticky residue and the scent that lingers. It shows itself in the pauses between conversations, in the laughter shared over everyday tasks, in the way someone hears your silence and understands it without question. 

The moment my friend peeled my orange wasn’t just an act of kindness. It was a language of love, spoken so naturally that it could have been overlooked. It was a reminder that love, given without condition, is as precious as it is rare. My friend showed me a kind of love that endures. This is the love we need to notice. The kind we need to hold sacred. The kind that reminds us that platonic love, in all its quiet simplicity and stickiest moments, is always a gift. She’s worth the time and effort. I’d peel a thousand oranges for her.