| C a r v i n g o u r n a m e s |
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After a year we were the best of friends you could imagine. We started calling each other nicknames at our personalities.
Hyuk Jae was Eunhyuk, meaning ‘silver’. We didn’t come up with that but he was popular among the girls in our school, and among the guys of the school’s anticipated soccer team.
If Eunhyuk was there, they always won.
Most of the time it was silver, and thus he was called like that. Soon enough it started to be contagious to us.

Jung Soo was Leeteuk, meaning ‘special’ because he was special. He was the only geek from the poor neighbourhoods who could afford to make half of the girls in school fall for him because he happened to be hanging around with Eunhyuk, though his popularity never changed his humble personality and despicable nerdy look. In the end I realized how much of a wonderful person it had made him. But at that time, we just called him special because he was different.

I was just Na-Young since I needed a Korean name, according to Leeteuk.

“What does Na-Young mean?” I asked him.
Eunhyuk looked up from his math book and grimaced at Leeteuk’s remark. That boy couldn’t even keep his concentration for two seconds. We were tutoring him in maths, physics, chemistry and biology so he wouldn’t drop out of school.

“It means nothing, but I think it suits you.” Leeteuk said showing no emotion, and continued reading his own book.

Years later I found out that Na-Young meant ‘splendid blossom’ in Korean.

I was getting along with Leeteuk really easily. Eunhyuk was harder for me. I don’t even know how our friendship started since we weren’t really ‘the best matches’.
Eunhyuk was incredibly and increasingly popular.
All I remember is that Eunhyuk managed to let go of my forced payment for his PSP when he accidentally kicked a soccer ball through my window while he was practicing for a match in the huge backyard behind the enormous house my father and mother left me.
It went something like this:

I ran outside by the sound of an object crushing something else when I noticed Eunhyuk standing there on the grass, looking like he lost something important. I realized what had happened when I saw the huge gap in my window.

“Did you just break my window?!”

“, it must be deflated right now.” Eunhyuk murmured.

“Yah! I don’t care about your soccer ball! You’re going to pay for that!”

“But what about the payment which you have to make to ME that is still running?”

“Hyuk Jae, thanks to you I’m already working two jobs and now you broke my window! So, I think we’re on the same level now, okay?” I was hinting at terminating our contract. I really hated spending time with him.

“But…” He always knew something to say back.
In the end he told me to go eat at an Italian restaurant with him and pay for the dinner as a refund for his soccer ball. He said he wanted to go to that place anyway and he hadn’t found somebody to join him yet.
That night, something changed. I was getting to know Eunhyuk better, even though I already knew him for about a year. We talked more that night than we had all year.
He told me about his dreams of becoming a famous soccer player more than going to university as everyone wanted. For the first time I felt sympathy for him, because develop yourself in a talent and approach something with that is truly more difficult than going to college.
Ever since, I think Eunhyuk joined our ‘friendship club’ and the three of us were inseparable.
We all wanted to achieve something; three different teens with three different goals. After two years of being together we became more like family instead of friends.

- ding dong –

I woke up from the doorbell ringing as I wondered why on earth someone would be up so early when it was summer vacation.
I stretched a few times and yawned when I peaked out of my window and saw Leeteuk standing there with the brightest smile I ever saw.

“What the heck…” I let out and pulled my head back inside.

“Yah! Get your down here! Ahahaha!” He laughed his familiar unique high-pitched laugh but I didn’t listen and went to lie down on my bed again.

“You have ten seconds or I’m coming in with the spare key and do something you don’t like!” He shouted. His booming voice probably woke all the neighbours.

“10! 9! 8…” He started counting backwards with the same volume. If it wasn’t for his roaring noise I might have fallen asleep again. I took the blanket to cover my ears a little further, until I heard the soft click of my doorknob getting turned. The footsteps were getting closer but I simply didn’t bother to get up.
“Yah! You get out of it!” He jumped on top of my bed and grabbed each sides of the blanket to pull it away, but just then also Eunhyuk ran in and jumped on top of us. I started whining by the cruel awakening

“WHAT ARE WE DOING TODAY NA-YOUNG?!” Eunhyuk shouted in my ear and Leeteuk pushed him off the bed. Then he took the edges of the blanket and ripped it away, exposing my white spaghetti strap pyjama top and shorts with cartoons.
Don’t worry. We weren’t attracted to each other or anything. I wasn’t embarrassed. That’s how strong our friendship was; although it’s awkward to say that we were accustomed to each others bodies. Our friendship was like a family bond; we would never fall in love…

Leeteuk and Eunhyuk looked at me weirdly as I lay there emotionless on my side.

“Na-Young, have you forgotten what day it is or something?” Leeteuk asked.

“I’m going to get the water…” Eunhyuk murmured as I thought about what day it could be.
Just when Eunhyuk turned around I shot up. “Oh my God, it’s my birthday!” I shouted happily causing them to laugh at my slowness.
My 15th birthday: it was the most memorable day of our friendship. Leeteuk and Eunhyuk saved money to rent a hot air balloon.
The tree of us drove down south through the country side and met up with a crew to give us instructions for taking off and touch down. In the end they gave us a gas balloon with ballast because the hot air balloons were in use.

“Hyung… I think I got a problem…” Eunhyuk let out slowly when we were high up in the air for two hours already.

We looked at him wondering about what it could be. Everything was prepared and settled just fine. No worries.

“…Turn off the radio for a second I don’t want the crew to know about this.” He continued.

Leeteuk did as he instructed.

“I have to er… pee.” Eunhyuk said really fast and soft causing Leeteuk to burst out in a high giggle.

“Just hold it in; we are there in half an hour.” Leeteuk let out nonchalantly, but knowing Eunhyuk, he can’t do that.

“I’ll turn around for a second.” I said and looked the other way.

“Aahhh…” Eunhyuk let out a deep sigh as he relieved himself.

“You look so uneducated.” Leeteuk noted.

“What does it matter, we’re too high, nobody can see me anyways.” Eunhyuk defended himself.

I chuckled lightly as I looked out over the wide meadows. Leeteuk came next to me to enjoy the view together.

“It looks so peaceful, don’t you think?” I asked.

“Everything looks peaceful from this height.” Leeteuk smiled.

When Eunhyuk was finished he came to join us. “That was good…” Eunhyuk let out.

“You’re disgusting!” I hit his arm.

“What? It feeds the soil.” Eunhyuk mentioned discreetly

Leeteuk and I started laughing.

“Hey isn’t that the sea?! We should land immediately!” Eunhyuk suddenly pointed out when we were done laughing.

“Oh . I forgot about the radio!” Leeteuk announced, hopped over to the other side and turned it on directly.

“Yeoboseyo?” Leeteuk asked.

“Yes you can open the valve now…” The man sounded sarcastically.

You could hear the gas escaping the balloon as we slowly started to lose height. But when we gradually lowered faster we stole glances at each other looking worried.

“Um, is this normal?” Leeteuk asked the guys below.

“You were really high already, so you might go a little fast at the end, but you have to throw out some ballast when you’re almost there…”

Unexpectedly we made a sudden acceleration downwards and ended up in a sitting position as a reflex. Eunhyuk tugged on my arm.

“Na-Young, I’M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!” He shouted, closed his eyes and hugged me even tighter. I started screaming and Leeteuk hastily crawled my way while holding the edge of the basket.

“We are almost there; I see the beach, we’re going to land just fine!”

“HYUNG, THROW THESE SAND THINGS OUT NOW!” Eunhyuk panicked but Leeteuk waited for the approval from below.

“You have to lose some weight now.” The man finally spoke.

“Okay!” Leeteuk replied happily, a little relieved they would end now and threw out all the ballast. With that, he made a huge mistake. Because of the big loss of weight, we made acceleration upwards again. “Woaaaaaaaaahh… hyung, what are you doing?” Eunhyuk was still strapped at my arm.

“Oops.” He giggled.

In the end, all the gas had escaped from the balloon and we didn’t land on the beach but in the water. We were soaked to the core when we finally got on the land, and the instructor was pissed because he had to take us back in his car.

After reaching our car we decided to have a lunch there and let our clothes dry before we would go back in our own car.

I took a bite from my sandwich when Eunhyuk carved something in the tree he was sitting beneath.
Leeteuk noticed and asked what he was doing.
Then we stepped closer to take a look. He made a heart shape with all three our names in it ‘forever’ and ‘2005/07/16’, my birthday.