Love is an interlac­ed hope over your wrist that pulls you into a bright tomorrow, as it is what most of us perceives it to be; a form of salvation from the misery of life. Carved from generations to generations, as in each passing time, humans have proved us how love saved those in need of help and affection.

And the most important thing is how love conquers everything.

Love cures the loveless from their sickness of lacking desire to have someone who loves them, and lacking the person who desires to be with them.

Love is a silent hum of comfort in the middle of the night, when the wind catches them holding and chanting their wishes to the empty space beside them, for the shadows to come back, for the shadows to call its owner back and replace them.

Æ

We, humans, grow up believing that we are carved out from our parents' love, a manifestation of two human beings who agreed to reproduce a child; a legacy that would leave a mark on this world; a legacy that they have succeeded to forge with their hopes, expectations, and wishes. There is also a promise that they silently recited in their hearts: of how they would dedicate their whole lives solely for the purpose of their child to survive living through this enigmatic thing called life.

They vowed of love; to love selflessly without any limitation, to love with patience and kindness, to love for the sake of their own child feeling loved and wanted in this world, as a precious gift to their life.

A child unwanted is even worse than a child aborted. The two resemble each other so much. However, the differences lay on the case of existence and acknowledgement. A child unwanted is a child born yet neglected with no attention received by the parents. Then, a child aborted is a child whose life span is cut away before he even sees what the face of his mother looks like, of reasons commonly named as accidental pregnancies by youthful beings who jeopardise their futures by putting their worries and responsibilities behind, as they commit adultery at cheap motels that reek of callousness and irresponsibility.

I was born neither from the two categories above. My parents are a real life example of true love, principally at its most refined form. They were college sweethearts, the result of an unexpected meeting in the rain when she had forgotten her umbrella and he offered her to share with him. Their feelings matched, and my father often said that they always walked in the same spectrum of thoughts. Therefore, there were never any arguments that lead them to the topic of a divorce.

My mother is bright and virtuous, whilst my father is kind and wise. She said they were not like that in the past, and I understood because overtime as they grew up they might've had their share of pain and loss, yet stayed true and hopeful to themselves. And in return for that, they become beings who are very strong and extraordinary, with qualities I rarely see in parents of my friends, who mostly gossip about the latest celebrities' issues and complain over the rise of electricity fees (based on my speculation of my middle school friends' tell-tales about their parents).

My parents are not perfect, but they are the perfect parents for me. They try to set themselves as an example for me to be a good son. They resist themselves to utter complaints and nagging in front of me and whenever they fight, it would be about small things that later will be talked and discussed between them. Their sense of understanding with each other never fails to astound me, but I assume it's the result of how love conquers them, and perhaps with the little reminder behind their heads of how they love each other plays a big part, in this whole understanding between the two of them.

It is what keeps their marriage intact for nineteen years, and more as my life goes by.

February fourteenth, 1993 was the date of their marriage and every Valentine’s, we would celebrate their anniversary together on that particular day. They had me in April and nine months later, I was born into this world on the seventeenth of December in 1993. Lots of people have believed the idea that they had me before the wedding, but they were so into each other that they didn't listen. For me, whatever they had was pure and sacred. These are the tell-tales that were told by my grandmother whenever I visited her house, who had found the marriage of my parents as a gift from God.

The only little thing that was lacking, and what my parents had lost, was the presence of my aborted younger sister, who was diagnosed with Down Syndrome when she was four months old in my mother's womb. My mother had begrudgingly agreed on the surgery. Because, though she wouldn't be like the others, she was her child and her daughter, her soon-to-be first daughter. My father was able to get some sense into her head that she wouldn't live a long life and she would suffer trying to understand the world.

I was six years old and my mother had wept so much sadness in their bedroom when we arrived home after the recovery of her surgery for a few days in the hospital. My father the radio in the living room and went to comfort my mother as the voice of Freddie Mercury singing "Too Much Love Will Kill You" drowned the cries ripping out from my mother's soul. 

Despite all of this love that rotated and revolved around me, I can never put my finger on it and can never understand what love is. My father who had always answered to my questions and wonderings, left me unanswered for the first time.

"Love can never be described, Wonwoo. It can only be felt." His rough hands of working before the computer as a scriptwriter had resulted cracked tips in his fingers. But I would always be comforted by his hand ruffling my hair lovingly, in the way that I felt my father would always be there to answer my questions.

At the age of fifteen, I asked this question to my father with the expectation of an answer, but only to receive more warmth from his presence.

Æ

When I was too young to know about anything, I learnt of the existence of the opposite gender, and how we shunned our feelings to glance in the smallest affectionate way to those who we found intriguing. We ended up pulling on their braids, making them cry and stealing their Barbie dolls. I would also take a part in it because I was a puerile young boy and it was fun to see many different kinds of expressions the girls had when their little precious things were ripped from their grasp. 

I had my first wet dream when I was in the second grade of middle school. It was so embarrassing because I was thirteen and I thought that I had wet my pants with urine. I ended up pouring a lot of water to my pants, while I took a shower in the morning, intentionally to cover it up. In the evening, I consulted this with my father and he explained that this was a stepping stone to become a teenager and this was what all normal boys go through.

My father didn't ask of the person in my dream, but I want to tell you that it was the neighbouring pretty schoolmate in the class beside mine, who wore a butterfly pin clipped to the side of her bangs. Ever since then, I could never speak or walk without stuttering or stumbling in front of her. She was a very cautious person, and I noticed how every Valentine, she would play with her fingers whenever a boy would confess as she casted her eyes downward. Perhaps she was expecting someone who wasn't amongst all those boys in the past to confess to her and the littlest hope ignited in me of the possibility that she liked me, even in the smallest way possible.

She still smiled to me, despite of seeing my clumsy self. But, whatever feelings I have ever felt for her only reached that point and stayed like that until we finally graduated and busted our ways out of middle school, which always felt like hell.

Mingyu, my best friend, also liked her but he was bolder and braver than I was. We were pretty blunt with our feelings, and he had asked of my thoughts about it. I let my feelings go, because Jung Soojung was too brilliant to be with someone like me.

Mingyu was straight-forward with his feelings. Perhaps because of that, she noticed him a little bit more, even though all he earned was a shove in the shoulder and a scrunched forehead in return.

Æ

Her disgruntled expressions were enough to make him laugh and when all the three of us ended up bumping in the same high school, we somehow got stuck together. We just got out from hell, to enter a devil's den. Yes, that's how I would describe high school. I have always loved the idea of learning new things but in high school, we were taught how to conform and uniform ourselves with the society's standards so I obliged in the smallest sense that ever was, as by this time I regained my roguish nature that was lost in middle school.

I wasn't boisterous enough to have my parents being called to school, as I was skilful in hiding my wrongdoings. Smoking was by far the only rule that I have broken outside of school. I didn't smoke because my father started smoking around my first year in high school: it was a choice that I made to fill the gaps between my lips, lacking something to fill my soul.

Mom was unwell and my father started smoking in places far away from our house whenever he got the chance, as whenever I came to the door to open it for him, a waft of nicotine passed briefly as he ruffled my hair like when I was six and proceeded to walk into their room to change his shirt, and perhaps brush his teeth to cleanse the smell of cigarette. I couldn't be sure since I would stay sit in the living room. Then, he would move towards my mom by the rocking chair, accompanying her under the approaching moonlight as they sat beside the window.

I also began, but not because of my father. It was because my mother was a smoker herself. There used to be signs of nicotine smells around the house, but it would soon fade away as my father would open the windows all day long, letting the pure air in our house circulate, letting the new breath of fresh air cleanse our house from the pollution extracted from her lungs.

We began to smoke the moment my mother stopped, in the hopes of replacing her lips to comfort the cold cigarette, in her place to exhale whatever worry and anxiety that she had felt all these times.

I was too engulfed by the realisation that my mother wouldn't be here with us forever that I found salvation in the comfort of a mere cigar stick that was ready to strangle me, like what it did to my mother.

Æ

In the second year of high school, I officially became a third wheel as Mingyu and her got together. I didn't exactly know how it happened, but somehow Mingyu was able to see the frailest and most private parts of her personality and he understood her. Perhaps, she fell for him because he understood everything that he was forced to see. Or perhaps, because Mingyu all along was the guy whom she was expecting to profess his love for her, two years ago on Valentine's Day.

Her name is Jung Soojung and she was a storm that never left. At least for us, in our little trio, Soojung became a storm. Soojung had been a very jealous and sensitive lover and she was pricked and hurt by the smallest of things that Mingyu did, which I found as an enough reason for her to break up with him; hitting on girls while she wasn't around, playfully doing skin-ship with girls in our class. Soojung had her share of friends who kept an eye on him and sometimes, Soojung would come to me, then shout and shriek at me for having a as a friend and she would cry in the process.

"Just tell your in’ friend, Jeon Wonwoo, I'm done with him – like, I want to stop!" Recalling Soojung from two years ago, I realised how love had turned Soojung to a person she was right then, worrisome and almost mad. This was the third time Soojung had been exhausting her anger at me, with tears streaming down her face as I sat down beneath the tree near our school at three in the afternoon. 

Soojung came closer and I embraced her, trying to soothe the pain that was caused by my own best friend, whose love she found not enough and not sincere for her. "Why did I fall for that guy? That stupid, Kim Mingyu who cheats on me all the t–”

I had come to be one of the closest people ever to Soojung that she didn't hesitate to close the gap and embrace me as I was embracing her also. Two years ago, this would have been a dream come true. But Mingyu was my best friend and Soojung, despite everything that he did to let her down and crushed her hope, was the girl of his dreams. "Mingyu always comes back for you, Soojung. He never leaves, right?"

Her strong cheekbones knocked on my chest and Soojung nodded timidly yet unwillingly to my word. "You have a point there–"

"Hey, what's happening here? Am I missing som– Jung Soojung, why are you crying again? What are you crying for this time again?" Mingyu's eyes went alarmed which Soojung saw most likely as mocking, whilst I saw his expression as sincere and anxious. Because I had listened for countless of times, how Mingyu had spoken of Soojung as if she was the constellation of our galaxy, and how she made us aware that girls are very sensitive beings who fall for the smallest of things and hate for the biggest of pretence. 

"It's because of you, you stupid idiotic Kim Mingyu!" Soojung ran to him and threw little thwacks of punches in his arms and his shoulders, shoving his shoulder once again like in the past. "–I'm breaking up with you!" Soojung wiped her tears and the snots below her nose with her blazer's sleeves, then stomped away furiously, leaving Mingyu putting his hair into knots of mess.

"Oh God, not again!"

"You should have listened to me, Mingyu. Why do you keep doing this? You were the one who told me how insecure Soojung was with herself, and you, by acting all rash and fooling around with girls all the time, don't help Soojung at all in believing herself." I wanted to scream at him so that he would listen before it would be all too late. Mingyu only looked at the sky and the gathering mist, and I could see him chanting Soojung's name again inaudibly.

I couldn't understand Mingyu at that moment. Because, if he could chant her name countless of times with a smile as if she was the most beautiful thing, why did he do all these things that only hurt and ruin her in the process? Mingyu didn't answer my question and looked up upon the sky, and I could see his lips moving, uttering inaudible sounds that could resemble ‘Soojung, Soojung, Soojung.’ I could never understand Mingyu, whose feelings built and destroyed her at the same time. Soojung also couldn't understand, how could she when she couldn't even understand herself? 

Æ

The next day, Mingyu made up with Soojung for the third time. I didn't know much about how they reconciled, but for all I knew Mingyu had his arm around her shoulders again as they arrived together in our class. I had always known of their fights and their worries, but never had I known what things he promised to her, so that she would be willing to take him back. By that time, I had realized how private the relationship between the two of them was. Before, it seemed as if I had figured out all the layers of their lives, when in fact they already built a wall around themselves to prevent other people to look inside, including myself. 

I was deeply hurt over this realisation that they had used me as their shield from each other, yet at the same time, they didn't even spare a second thought of my feelings in choosing between both sides. Mingyu would destroy Soojung, and she would also destroy herself while I was left to patch things up between them as I tried to fix her, all at the same time.

Once she was fixed, Soojung would be back into his arms and I would be alone, accompanied by the comfort of my aloofness, which unintentionally had caused me a greater amount of pain. I distanced myself away from them as I hung out with another group of friends, who were too lively for my taste but they accepted me just fine by saying, "You're a pretty chill person, Wonwoo, you know that?"

Seungcheol had been the one who said it as he slung his arm around my shoulders as he did a fist bump with me as he, Junghan and Soonyoung grinned comically. They let my thoughts become more laid-back and free. They took my thoughts away from my unwell mother and my fading father, who would throw away cigarette sticks that my mother slipped into her dress pocket sometimes.

Mingyu noticed this, but he kept his silence and understood that I was done with becoming the third party to fix his mistakes, that he should grow up and decide whether to be faithful to Soojung or not. Soojung didn't take my leave lightly though.

"Stupid Wonwoo, why are you ignoring us now? Aren't we friends? You're so cruel, to think I care so much for you–"

The park near our school was deserted at seven in the evening. She had chased me from her mansion, clad in a baby blue sleeveless dress with slippers. Soojung's mansion was not far from the school, and I was baffled how Soojung could notice me in the dark. I was stunned seeing Soojung not dressed in any warm clothing and how her maids had not chased her here yet.

"Stop, Soojung," summer was approaching, yet Soojung was paler than any girl in town, painted in winter skin and strawberry lips. Her eyes were looking in disappointment at mine but I had enough of being used by them, therefore I fought back. "I don't want to be your get-away anymore. I don't want to see you come to me, shouting and screaming at me because Mingyu let you down and break your heart for another time," she was staring at me and I was staring at her, but it felt like her mind wasn't there with me.

"I thought you would understand, Wonwoo, amongst all people," Soojung's voice was trembling and her eyes were casted down like that time three years ago, only that she was on the brink of falling apart before me. I held back myself to hold her in her posture, so she wouldn't fall.

"I understand, Soojung. I already understood both of you, too much to my own liking," I looked away as she peered up from her eyelashes that have always curled like a butterfly's wings. Sweats were collected on the edges of her temples and tears brimmed in the rim of her eye sockets, and I was angry and frustrated with myself to cause so much grief to her. I wondered if Mingyu always felt this way, whenever she dropped a tear for him.

"Don't you know that in second grade of middle school, I used to like you? It's hard for me as it is, Soojung. Don't you know that?" The feelings that I had kept close to my heart and buried beneath every little things I chose to forget, managed to slip out between my lips. I was unaware of the pain I was going to cause.

Soojung raised her hand to hit me, only to ball it into a fist and let it fall by her sides. "Why the didn't you tell me then? I used to like you, Wonwoo. I even smiled to you, didn't you notice? I didn't smile to anyone, except to you."

She didn't push me or shout at me. She said it all in a whisper, spoken painfully as if each word seemed to cut her heart. I imagined Soojung's heart bleeding as she clutched it close to her body. "I wouldn't have suffered this much if you were braver than Mingyu was. I wouldn't have fallen for Mingyu if you were braver."

"We could have been beautiful, Won," for once, she reached out and touched my face. At that moment, the feelings of the past came back and I had the urge to pull on her hand and run away, to run from all these responsibilities of being selfless and to escape the terrible faith that had fallen between our odds, to escape from my parents who were losing their colours.

But Soojung no longer liked me and I no longer liked her, and all of the chances we didn't take stay in the past, like our infatuations that remained as a secret between ourselves. When her fingers left my face, I realised that we were saying our goodbyes for each other. She placed her lips for the first time in my forehead, and I was sure it would no longer be the same between the three of us.

She walked away silently, away from the park near our school as I stood up, watching her back fading away. Her maids stood far away, slipping Soojung into a warmer piece of cloth.

That was the last time I had ever spoken to Soojung. Or so I thought.

Æ

Soojung came from a family in which she was raised with a silver spoon in . Her being was groomed from head to toe to be a well-mannered lady in its true essence: calm, collected, also rational and amiable. Flawlessness in the case of etiquette in speaking of walking, sitting and also eating was expected of Jung Soojung. She was nurtured to be the epitome of living perfection, and she was already beautiful herself, possessing an exquisite beauty with strong features and sharp eyes that stood out amongst our schoolmates. This was Soojung in middle school and despite being the prima donna in our grade, she had this faraway look in her eyes. As if she wasn't really there with us, as if she wished she could be in another place than here, in the years I had my own share of infatuation with her.

It would have been a happy life for Soojung if she believed and loved herself, and actually not burdened by all the expectations on her shoulders. Mingyu somehow unlocked all the flaws and humane sides of Soojung by being on her side, therefore the existence of Kim Mingyu had drastically changed her. She would only let this side visible to us, and Soojung could not look more alive and humane when she was with us.

Along the course of our short-lived friendship before Mingyu and Soojung happened, it was the most colourful time of my life. Mingyu had always been adventurous and he infected Soojung with it, resulting both of them to take me into places we shouldn't have entered. Midnight local stores who offered you condoms, stumbling into clubs using Soojung's pretty smiles and Mingyu stealing his father's bottles of wine from his wine collection.

We would drink it in my room, slipping it into Mingyu's backpack as the smiles of my mom, knitting in her rocking chair, welcomed them. My father would be in his and mother's room, typing away as his job as the screenwriter, whose salary had increased by then rather than the few years before. Despite of that, he never ceased to lower the quality of his works, as he only got better and better with the time.

He also had to take care of my mother, as in the year of 2009 when I just entered high school, my mother was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. It was caused by her smoking habit, which was rarely seen around the house. Perhaps it was the effect from their college days, where her lungs were too polluted that even time and attempts made by decreasing the amount of cigs being inhaled were not enough to prevent her sickness. My father never complained and even though I never really saw them kiss each other on the lips, there would still be light pecks on the cheeks, and I frequently saw my father holding into my mother's hand, holding it like a golden precious thing.

Due to her sickness, my mother had to stay home as she had difficulties of breathing, therefore she couldn't do any hectic activities. She was lucky to be diagnosed in the early stage of her disease, in all honesty. So, she stopped before it got even worse, as she had said that she wished to live a long live to be able to see my future grandchildren.

My mother stopped working for the television company where she worked as a public broadcaster. They were sorry for my mother's condition, as she was one of their top-notch workers. The director would constantly send us Christmas cards every year, until he was eventually replaced by a younger and brighter director, and with that my mother's legacy was long forgotten.

Æ

The three of us would take turns drinking from the bottle, drinking it little by little as we were fifteen and too young for alcohol and personally, I didn't like the warmness of wine that left a vague feeling inside of my throat. 

"What do you want to do, Wonwoo? When you grow up?" Soojung was staring at me while sitting by the edge of the couch in my room, her skirt replaced with a pair of blue pants she brought from home, as we had planned this a few days ago. Soojung didn't drink much, as I barely drunk any that night. I couldn't forget the fact that Soojung was a girl in a room with two boys, consisted of Mingyu and I, and things happen when there is a bottle of wine and a rash behaviour of finishing a bottle too fast. Soojung was still cautious even though we were already her friends and I understood silently.

"I want to do graphic design–" I went to the window to open it, as the room was too warm for three people with wine running in their blood. "It's more like a plan, really. I already have my eye on a place I want to work at," A strong gust of wind rolled in and I stood there, letting the wind erased every warmth that the wine left in my body. "How about you, Soojung?"

"There's no point in asking me, Wonwoo. I will let my parents decide for me – for the sake of my family's name."

"It doesn't hurt to dream, Soojung–"

"It does, if you want it to be a reality," I turned to Soojung, who looked at me in such sad eyes. I looked at Mingyu who sat on the floor, leaning against the couch beside Soojung's legs, the bottle in his hand and he was in a trance, reminding me of the boy I met when I was in fifth grade. 

Mingyu used to be a quiet fellow, keeping things more to himself. Being the tallest in the class, he stood out from everybody and felt bad about it. I think that he began to change as he grew up and became my friend. I had referred him as my best friend, but the more we spent our time together, the more I realised that we were only friends, just for the sake of having a company, a person to talk to. I was more of a best friend to Soojung than Mingyu, despite the fact that I have known Mingyu for such a long time.

To describe Mingyu, he was adventurous, playful, outgoing and not to mention capable of doing lots of things that were out of my reach. He was also ambitious, but his occasional flirtatious manner in treating girls were contradicting his so-called love for Soojung. Just like that, Kim Mingyu was a walking paradox. 

"I-I want to open my own flower shop; I want to become a florist," her voice came out in stutters, unsure of voicing it out. I nodded understandingly, even though I was surprised at how ordinary her dream was. Perhaps, that was the reason why she hesitated. I had expected Soojung to have brilliant dreams and visions, as she seemed like someone who strived for the highest position in this world.

"You'll be able to," Mingyu's voice came out raspy, and Soojung only chortled bitterly.

"I don't want to believe," Soojung's voice was void of emotions. The wine must have not been the cause, since Soojung barely placed her lips to down the wine. The sun was setting outside and her head was turned to the window, so I believed that the sun had pulled her heartstrings in all the right ways. "I'd rather not believe I'll be able to," Soojung spoke in whispers but what I heard was a scream of help, a scream of despair.

We stayed in silence after that, until my father called us for dinner, until the laughter of my parents buried all our sorrows and hopes for the future, until Soojung was fetched by her chauffeur and earned a kiss on the cheek from my mother because she found her such a darling, until Mingyu walked home but not before earning a pat on his head from my father and to give his father a message because it turned out our fathers were college buddies back then, until I kept myself awake thinking all night how these two people would stay for the rest of my life, just because they had met my parents.

Æ

Jung Soojung was a storm that never left, but eventually she did. We separated after graduation day, as Jung Soojung signed into a business school, whilst Mingyu was signed to a medical school. Mingyu had always wanted to be a doctor, and I also received a scholarship as a graphic design major from a university I had always wanted. Out of the three of us, Soojung was the only one who had her path lined by her parents.

I thought that Soojung was being overly dramatic over it, but it turned out to be true. Soojung couldn't look anymore grey that day. 

"We should meet again here, ten years later from now!" Mingyu's voice was exuberant and for the first time, and probably the last time, Mingyu stood between the both us as our shields. His arm was wrapped around Soojung's slouched shoulders, as she avoided my eyes.

In all honesty, I still couldn't find in my heart to forgive their selfishness, but I was willing to try. Time may be able to heal me, someday. And even though Soojung wouldn't believe, I hope that Mingyu would. "We should," I smiled, but I held no expectations.

"We will still hang out right? We have a lot of time before college begins–"

"We will–"

"We should never forget each other–" I had been looking at Mingyu for the whole time, but this time I turned to Soojung, who gazed at me as if hoping silently for me to never forget her, to never forget her feelings, to never forget how we could have been beautiful together. I smiled to her and she smiled back, and it reminded me of the reason why I had liked her in second grade of middle school, where I found pretty smiles endearing. Looking at her now, I wouldn't have thought there would be so many stories hidden behind that. Star-like eyes with butterfly eyelashes, jet-black hair falling to her shoulders, her lips smiling at me; this would be the image I kept of Soojung in my memory.

I gazed at my best friend, who had improved himself so much in all aspects, and perhaps he would be one of the greatest leaders in the future, though his paradoxical trait would be the death of him if he couldn't keep it in check. Sharp and lively eyes, wide and awake gleaming with curiosity, a smile which charmed all the girls in my school, and eventually Soojung, with a height so tall that it wouldn't take a second for me to recognise him from afar, and his dark black hair that was often messy somehow combed neatly; this would be the image of Kim Mingyu that I would never forget.

Mingyu's eyes latched to Soojung, and as if their thoughts were in synch, she turned to him and they looked at each other, speaking words through their eyes I would never understand. It reminded me of how they had built a world of their own without me in it, and I was going to walk away to avoid the pain from coming back, until I heard Soojung sighed.

"I can't be mad at you for too long," Soojung's voice cracked and she hugged me while covering her eyes. "I can't believe we are going to our own separate ways. I'm going to miss you so much, you dumb idiot," she hiccupped and cursed, and I laughed. I guffawed because of how adorable Soojung was being, and how she was able to crack the ice between us, in such a short amount of time. 

It had been a year since that time. I was put in another class from Mingyu and Soojung, and I earned a new set of friends. It was the first time we spoke to each other and I was glad that we would separate in good terms. It seemed to me that Mingyu finally listened while I wasn't there, and I no longer heard of news being spread out that both of these best friends of mine were fighting over his flirtatious habit.

As I hugged Soojung, I saw Mingyu standing behind her, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his expression soft as he gazed at me, then to Soojung. That look Mingyu gave to her assured me that ten years from now on, somehow, this scene would be repeated, only a child would be holding to Mingyu's little finger, and Soojung would be too excited to introduce me to their own child, the product of their love.

Despite all of my wishes, if things would turn out for the better for all of us and we ended up not meeting each other ten years from now on, I would accept it whole-heartedly. Because one year ago, I had decided to let them go, as I realised despite the fact that I cared and wanted them by my side for my whole life, they were unintentionally hurting me with their actions. Despite how much I loved them as my friends, they weren't good for me. They were like toxic that slowly spread out through my body, and I had to get rid of them so I could survive.

And somehow, the people I thought would never leave my life, got up and left and slipped away between my fingers. Soojung and Mingyu left, except my parents who promised me love and loyalty no one ever could.

Ever since then, I stopped believing in anything, like how Soojung did to her dreams, as I didn't want to repeat the tragedy that happened between the three of us.

(Then, Seulgi comes in the form of fluid movements and feline eyes, who burns brilliantly more than Soojung ever was, who shakes the world more than anyone ever has. And unlike the ones who left, Seulgi comes to spread light, not to b–)