Some days are like today, and some are special, magical days tucked around curves and corners so he never sees them coming.

Some days he has the twins.

They barrel through the grass, send gravel flying, and trip over themselves to stop without trampling him. Their words drown him in a rushing river of sound and excitement, so different from Donghae and The Pied Piper’s customers. Sumi and Misun are sunlight bottled up and shaken, unleashed on the world in a blazing beam that burns away the darkness, merciless. Hoseok lopes behind, always smiling that crooked smile like he’s in on a joke that’s not yet been told.

Dragged into games of tag that leave him wheezing and spending altogether too much time chasing down a terribly-thrown frisbee, sometimes Namjoon wonders if he’s found heaven. He can believe that heaven is scratching his itchy ankles, dumping gravel from his shoes, and pushing the twins high enough on the swings to run beneath the seats, just barely avoiding getting a heel to the eye. There’s no reason heaven can’t be sharing a sweating bottle of water with Hoseok while the twins show off their climbing skills by charging up the slide.

Park days with the twins mean crowding into the small space between the slide and the climbing wall, sheltered as the other kids’ shoes pound above their heads. The three of them form a rough circle, bony knees almost touching. The shade is welcome relief from the burning heat that wafts from the playground equipment. Light shines through the platform above, dappling Sumi and Misun’s hair with golden circles. Misun authoritatively discusses their secret handshake, the harrowing debate of the superiority of plain M&Ms versus peanut M&Ms is settled (for today), and Sumi draws them into a game of truth or dare where no one picks dare because this is the only way Sumi can share her feelings.

For a girl of eight, she’s secretive and tightly wound, like a top charged with potential but never released to spin everything out. Sumi’s smile doesn’t shine as bright, darkened by a tinge of shadow familiar to Namjoon. Unrelenting and cruel, life has smudged her around the edges. While it’s clear Misun doesn’t understand Sumi’s sooty edges, she smiles that much brighter in the moments that Sumi is dim. She holds her sister’s hand and drags her into newly-imagined games until they’re both laughing so hard they can’t breathe.

Beneath the slide they sit. Sumi dribbles gravel from one hand to the other, coating herself in grey dust. works for a minute, the stubborn curl of it finally relaxing.

“I got mad at Mom and yelled at her yesterday,” she says quietly. “I got in trouble, but it wasn’t my fault. She wasn’t listening to me!” Misun nods gravely, picking at her shoelaces. They dissect the scenario until Sumi sighs, dumps her gravel, and wipes her hands on her pants.

Something about the honest and powerful feelings of children drags the truth from Namjoon. He’s helpless, unable to lie or deflect when Sumi and Misun feel so strongly every day of their lives, then spill their vulnerabilities like he has any right to know. Like he could offer useful advice.

“I was sad a lot this week, and I had a bad day at work,” he says when it’s his turn. He pushes gravel into uneven mounds with the side of his shoe, trying to examine the memory with a veil of detachment. It’s not working. Something hot, like shame, is rushing up into his face and he wishes he could turn his brain off. His fingers dig into the gravel. Dirt lodges under his fingernails, but the sensation isn’t enough to ground him.

Misun pats his hand comfortingly and drags it from the gravel to present him with a pleasingly-shaped twig. Minutes ago she announced that the near-symmetrical fork near the top to be quite charming. Sumi stares intently, eventually catching Namjoon’s eye. “Did your boss say something mean to you?” she demands, looking ready to fight the man should Namjoon say yes.

He cracks a smile. “No. Mr. Lee is very nice. He helps me a lot when I’m not feeling good.”

Unsatisfied, Sumi leans in, hands gripping her knees. “Was it a customer? Is someone bullying you?” The twins are currently learning about bullying in school, so the word comes up a dozen times in any given conversation.

“No, I’m not being bullied by customers,” Namjoon assures, touched by her concern. They’ve effectively dragged him back to the present. “Sometimes I feel sad because I remember something sad from a long time ago. It makes me want to go home and lay under the blankets and never come out again.”  He huffs, wondering if that’s too much. They’re not his therapists. He doesn’t have a therapist.

“If you did that, we couldn’t play in the park anymore!” Misun protests, “I’d miss you!”

Sumi leans forward and stills Namjoon’s hands, which are compulsively twirling the twig. “If you’re sad, you can call me on the phone. I’ll listen. I want you to be happy, like Minsun. Don’t die, Namjoon.” The offer is so heartfelt and Sumi’s dark eyes so solemn and kind that her final command is even more startling.

Light from above stripes her face. This girl sees to the heart of the things.

Minsun beams. “Yeah, happy like me!”

He slowly pats Sumi’s hand and wishes she didn’t see so clearly, for her own good. Maybe that’s wrong. “Thank you, both of you,” he says. “Of course I want to keep playing in the park. And I promise that I’ll call and talk to you if I start to feel too sad.”

When everyone’s shared a truth (Misun finds salad personally offensive), they clamber from the darkness and into the blazing Sarkosa sunlight. Hoseok comes wandering over with his hands full of ice cream bars liquefying at an alarming rate. The girls shriek with joy, a two-person stampede. Namjoon is reacquainted with sweat in uncomfortable places as he trails behind. He barely manages to catch the damp package tossed at him by an all-too-pleased Hoseok. The ice cream is cool and delicious and Namjoon thinks that heaven is melting ice cream in the afternoon heat shared with friends who know your secrets, or at least the important bits.

In the park, Namjoon rediscovers suffering, feels it in a way he hasn’t yet. It comes as somewhat of a shock that there are new types of pain floating in the ether, waiting for their cue to swoop down and smother him.

Hell is hearing that the twins he’s beginning to know and can’t help but to love have seen too much hardship. Born to unfit parents and shuttled to grandparents, old but doting, the twins have known loss. Hell is knowing where Sumi’s sooty edges come from. There’s a bit of devil fire in Hoseok’s soft retelling of a car accident, hospitals, and the death of the other driver, unconscious from a when she crossed the center line.

Namjoon soaks in an exhausting pool of sympathy and empathy and useless, powerless, yearning for the chance to fix everything before it began. He’s not new at hurting for others; the crash course has been long and brutal, but this is the first time he feels so keenly for people he knows. When he left, he couldn’t mourn Yoongi and the life he lost; the man started too young, was too far gone. Namjoon never knew him anyway. He never knew what was missing.

Sumi and Misun are only eight, with enough brightness between them to half-convince Namjoon a little of that light could be shining back from his own tar-black soul.

The park is glorious therapy. Grounding sensations and tough, thriving nature call to a feeling, a hope that’s been long tucked away. Namjoon lies against the gnarled maple, imagining he’s touching everything the roots touch. Infinite bugs, plants, and animals are within its reach. He’s hardwired to the ground. Slipping into this headspace is electrifying and Namjoon never feels more alive and vital than when he’s roasting in the sun, breathing in the dust and faint tang of crushed grass, eyeing the squirrels gnawing and scrabbling above him. Life is where the sun is, bug bites and peeling sun burn included.

When the sun begins to set, the sky is awash with more colors than a painter’s palette. The brilliant reds and delicate purples are painful in their beauty, the sensation nearly as novel as empathy. Namjoon sits in an abandoned swing, swaying gently and staring, transfixed. The air cools until goosebumps ripple up his arms and the back of his neck. Still, he watches until the colors meld and fade into dusky blue dappled with stars and silvery clouds. That moon, the giant eye that’s been his sun for too long, watches back.

Namjoon returns home under its cold light. He’s no longer a night creature, and the park belongs to the daylight. When he returns, it will be under the light of three redeeming suns.