“Yerin… you’re finally a woman.” Juyeon congratulated the girl, who was sitting in front of her with a deep shade of red blood stain marking her jean shorts.

Everything was fine an hour ago when they were playing a game of soccer on the beach. It was the usual game of girls against the guys. Of course, Jongdae sat on the side lines and had the job of scorekeeping so the teams would be equal. Unfortunately though, the girls lost but they always do anyways, the boys just had too much energy compared to the others. So Chanyeol said that they would go and buy them ice cream from the convenience store that was run by the old man who just spoiled the neighbourhood children. Thus leaving Yerin, Eunhui, and Juyeon sitting on the beach watching the wave’s crash against the shore.

Yerin felt something weird down in her womanhood. But she pushed the thought aside until Juyeon, who already had her period for quite some time, noticed the stain. Eunhui, who was considered the late bloomer of the three girls, gasped in shock. Meanwhile Yerin, still didn’t know how to process the thought of bleeding from her girl parts. She didn’t feel pride in this milestone, especially when in the distance she saw the four boys walking to them with tons of ice cream in their hands.

The girl quickly got up off of the sand. “They can’t see me like this.” She was embarrassed, to say the least. She didn’t want to be a woman. Why couldn’t this wait until the school year? Her mom always told her that when she gets her period, she couldn’t go swimming (because her mother forbid her from ever wearing tampons). And being the fish out of water she is, Yerin didn’t want that.

“I’m leaving.” Yerin said in a rushed tone. Before Eunhui or Juyeon could stop her or much less say anything… Yerin was out of their sight, running back to the cottage she has been staying in the past few weeks.

“Why did Yerin leave?” Jongdae spoke up, he noticed the panicked look on her face and he got worried that something was wrong.

The other boys shrugged their shoulders before or taking a bite of their ice cream.

Jongdae looked to the other ice cream in his hand, vanilla and chocolate chip, her favourite.

As Yerin finally got back to the cottage, she bolted straight to the bathroom where she pulled down her shorts and underwear to see the mess of blood. She wanted to cry. She was embarrassed. Humiliated even. At least the boys didn’t see. She only met them a week or two ago, she didn’t want to have them make fun of her. Boys around that age could be mean, she knew that from past experiences.

For the rest of the day and night, Yerin didn’t want to come out of her room. Her mom helped her through having her first period but it was no use to convince her to coming out of her room. When she would close her eyes to try and sleep off the cramping pains, all she would see is red. Almost like it was mocking her.

But she heard a knock on her door all of a sudden, then a low voice. “Yerin, I’m coming in. Your mom said I could.” The slightly cracked, pre-pubescent voice said through the door.

Then Jongdae entered the room slowly to which he saw Yerin huddled under the covers. “My family is over for dinner and your mom wanted me to tell you that dinner is ready.” He shyly said, standing in the doorway.

“I’m not hungry.” Was all she said.

“B-but…” Jongdae stuttered. “We are having barbeque. Isn’t that your favourite?”

“No. Now leave me alone, please…” she said sadly. “Please Jongdae.”

He nodded, even though she couldn’t see. But then he backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Jongdae walked down the hallway into the dining room where his parents and Yerin’s were having a pleasant conversation.

Yerin’s mother noticed him but to no avail, did she see her daughter. She kind of knew that would happen but she thought Jongdae could coax her out of the comfort of her blankets. “No luck?” she asked the boy.

“No. I’m sorry, she just sounds so upset. I don’t know what’s wrong, she was fine earlier today but then we went to go get ice cream and as soon as we came back, she ran off in a hurry. Juyeon or Eunhui won’t tell us the reason but I just hope she is okay.” Jongdae sighed. He glanced back to Yerin’s closed bedroom door before sitting down at the dinner table. He hoped he could see her smiling face.

“That’s alright, she is fine. Just a little moody.” She responded and Jongdae looked up in confusion. Beside him, his mother gasped in shock.

“You don’t mean what I think you mean?!” Jongdae’s mother had a look of excitement written all across her face. It made the boy confused. He then looked to Yerin’s mother to understand what they meant by their words.

But all she did was give a small smile and nod her head.

“Oh my goodness! I’m so proud of her! I wish I had a daughter to share that moment with but I only have Jongdae and his older brother, who I rarely even get to see because of his work schedule.”

Jongdae was still confused. But he decided to give up. There was no use to finding out the information that he wanted.

 

///

 

“Jongin! Let’s go climb the cliffs today!” Eunhui suggested to her cousin. The boy only nodded and turned to the others.

“Who wants to come then? Climb the cliffs and maybe jump into the water.” Jongin smirked because he knew that only he would do it, maybe Eunhui if she doesn’t get scared at the last minute. She tried to be like him but her random fears always came back to haunt her in the moments where she just tried to be one of the guys.

Baekhyun looked to the cousins and knew that they were crazy. Climbing the cliffs was dangerous enough. Then jumping into the water? No way. If they jumped a metre away from the safe zone, they could break a bone or just die in an instant, depending on what they landed on…

Juyeon knew what cliffs they were talking about, the steep ones with a bunch of sharp rocks that could easily slice the hand if you grabbed a rock wrongly. She didn’t mind the safe cliffs that every tourist and resident did because everybody knew they were safe.

Jongdae and Yerin were just plain scaredy cats. Even the safe cliffs they wouldn’t jump off of unless Eunhui or Baekhyun had to actually push them off.

But Chanyeol… Park Chanyeol knew that if he didn’t do it, the cousins would make fun of him for being from the city, considering that other from Yerin, he was the newest member to their little circle of friends. He had to prove himself that he had the guts to do it. While Baekhyun was too smart and Jongdae was too scared so it was up to Chanyeol to show all of them that he could do anything they could do even if he was from Seoul.

“You are going to get yourself killed. I heard from one of the elderly ladies in the bath house that some kid twenty years ago tried that and got himself killed. He snapped his neck on a rock and died instantly.” Juyeon had spoken up to try and scare them. Obviously the story wasn’t true but she wasn’t going to admit it, being the oldest, she had to look out for the rest of them so they don’t get themselves, you know… killed.

“Aw come on Juyeon.” Jongin walked up to her and smirked. “You know that is a lie.”

For a 13 year old, Juyeon had to admit that Jongin had more bravery in his pinky finger that the rest of them had in their entire bodies combined.

“He totally lost consciousness on the jump down from being so scared and when he hit the water, his body basically snapped.” Jongin retaliated back to the older girl. Meanwhile Eunhui was having some second thoughts, she knew the two of them were making up lies but something about them, just terrified her. But Chanyeol though, tried not to let the thoughts get to him.

 

And when it came time for the three "brave" ones to start climbing the cliff, one of the towns people yelled at them and threatening to tell their parents what they were doing.

///

 

A summer romance happened halfway through their two month vacation. But being twelve, almost thirteen years old, it wasn’t much of a romance. More of a crush between each other. Yerin was sitting in the sand one day, just running her hands through it when she heard the sweet laughter. She looked towards the sound and saw Jongin laughing like an idiot at Baekhyun who has being tackled to the ground by Chanyeol. Yerin’s cheeks were tinted with a rosy blush when she saw the tanned boy smile that way while laughing. The more she thought about it, Jongin was that “bad” boy who she could never obtain if she was back home and it made her preteen heart swoon.

Of course, she has seen all those movies on television about the good girl getting the tough boy who breaks the rules. And she wanted that. For some reason, it was Jongin who caught her eye. She never noticed it before but there was just something about him.

He made her feel included and didn’t pressure her into the things that were out of her comfort zone. She liked to watch from a far as he showed off in front of the girls and also maybe Chanyeol (because he was always jealous of Jongin).

But Jongdae was beside her, reading a book when he looked up and saw the way she was looking at Jongin. Something inside him just felt like it was being crushed. Maybe because the way Yerin was looking at Jongin was also the way that Jongdae looked at Yerin.

A few nights later when Yerin knew that she 100% liked Jongin, she got together with only the girls at Juyeon’s place so they could have a sleepover.

“I like someone.” She blurted out, too excited to contain her secret. She considered this her first real crush. Not a simple school yard crush but an 'I-want-to-go-on-a-date-with-you' crush. “It’s Jongin.”

Eunhui almost choked on her soda when Yerin told them. While Juyeon just smiled because she remembered when she had once had a small crush on Jongin. It might have been a few years ago, she couldn’t remember. Juyeon, Jongin, Eunhui, and Baekhyun have known each other since they were almost four years old. It would have been obvious sooner or later that Juyeon would like Jongin even though he was a year younger but they spent so much time together in the summer that something just changed the way she saw Jongin. An innocent school yard crush, unlike Yerin’s type of crush which was filled with more passion towards him.

“My cousin?” Eunhui gaped. “You’re kidding me, right? Jongin? Like Kim Jongin?”

Yerin blushed but nodded.

“Well I’m happy for you. Wait till you come back next summer and see how much he has changed.” Juyeon teased the embarrassed girl. But it was true, all seven of them will leave to go back home for the school year and not see each other till this time next year. That’s if they do come back. “I’ll be fifteen by then and you guys will be either fourteen or thirteen, depending on your birthdays.”

Yerin got excited thinking about how much everybody would change. The boys might go through their growth spurt and even have their voices deepen. Even Eunhui and Yerin might develop into their bodies more like Juyeon who was already wearing an A cup bra while the two other girls were still in training bras or AA cups at the very most.

“Can we make a promise for next summer?” Yerin spoke up. The two girls listened in closely. “If we have crushes next summer… we promise to help each other out.”

Juyeon thought that she wouldn’t have a crush on the boys because she was too mature for them (meaning that she was only a year older and liking someone younger was a no-no). But Eunhui on the other hand thought it was a great idea because she herself might have eyes for someone in their little group.

 

///

 

There was only two weeks left in the summer. It went by fast but that’s what you get when you live the summer to the absolute fullest. Even though the days felt like they were longer, it just went by too quickly.

One night, in the small little part of town where all their cottages were, was an outdoor movie screening happening. All of the families went and hung around each other. But once the kids were altogether, they immediately ran away from their parents so they could talk about things only kids could hear.

There were two movies being shown, one was some animated movie for the younger kids then afterwards when the small children would go to bed, the adult movie was being shown. It was some action packed movie that involved car chases and killing people.

Jongin loved movies like that, he wanted to find the adventure in everything. When he watched movies like those action ones, adrenaline just coursed through his veins. He wanted to do that. That’s why he could doing dangerous things because in the movies he knew that the main character never died and Jongin believed he was the main character that was invincible.

The seven friends all sat next to each other when the action movie was on. It went Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Juyeon, Eunhui, Jongin, Yerin, and Jongdae. These were moments like this that all of them wished that lasted forever. They considered each other best friends.

There was a big shooting scene that happened during the of the movie and Yerin jumped and squeezed her eyes shut because she hated seeing people get hurt. But she felt a tight grip on her hand, the person was trying to reassure her that everything was alright. To not be scared because that stuff only happened in movies.

And that person who held her hand throughout the rest of the movie was no other than Kim Jongin.

That moment, Yerin’s heart raced so quickly that she swore that people could hear her heart thumping against her chest. While Jongin thought that he liked holding her soft, small hand in his because after all, he thought Yerin was the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.

After the movie and hanging out by their usual campfire, everybody started to head back to their cottage. Yerin was walking back by herself because everybody else’s cottage was the opposite ways (except for Jongdae’s but he couldn’t keep his eyes open throughout the movies so he went to bed early). Jongin, although, decided that he was going to let the others go ahead while he walked Yerin back to her cottage, you know… in case something scary happened in the four minute walk it took her to walk back.

“Hey.” He said, getting her to stop and look at him. Her cheeks heated up so quickly when she realized he was walking after her.

“Hi.” She responded because what else was she going to say.

Jongin quickly took her hand in his because he wanted to feel her soft skin once again. Yerin looked down because she was sure that Jongin could see how red her face was under the moonlight.

“Happy Birthday.” He walked closer to her, kissing her cheek lightly. It was finally past midnight, meaning that it was August 1^st, Yerin’s thirteenth birthday.

That kiss was the best gift she ever received in her thirteen years of life.

 

///

 

Jongin would sneak to Yerin’s window every night and knock on it after everyone was asleep. It was there little code to know that they could finally spend some alone time together. The past week was filled with little moments of them that was filled with secrecy. They didn’t tell anyone of the night that Jongin kissed Yerin. They were thirteen now and they wanted to keep their little relationship a secret. Well if they really could consider their late nights together a relationship.

Yerin saw Jongin through her window and he gestured to the deck at the back of her house. She tiptoed through the cottage. Her parents were such heavy sleepers so she was safe from them.

She opened the back door and was instantly hit with the moonlight and Jongin saw how it illuminated the contours of her young face. He blushed and smiled. “Hey.” He said when she was in front of him.

Jongin held out his hand for hers and she gladly agreed, intertwining their hands together. His hand was so much bigger than hers. Jongin was just bigger in general to her. He hadn’t had his growth spurt yet but he still towered over her. It was the same with Chanyeol but Jongin’s height was a perfect match for her.

“Hi.” She smiled back to him. They started walking along the beach enjoying the cool ocean breeze as well as the early August warm winds. This was their usual nights. A couple spent on the beach just talking because they were still young and were too scared to do anything more than just holding hands.

Yerin still couldn’t believe that she was doing this. She would have never done this at home or even would have the chance. Jongin, on the other hand, always snuck out at night, both home and the cottage. He didn’t consider himself a rebel, only wanting to make every moment worth living.

“What is going to happen to us Jongin? When we leave in a week, what will happen? How will we stay in contact? I don’t want to be forgotten by you guys…” Yerin mumbled sadly because this summer was truly perfect, except for the whole “becoming a woman” thing but everything else was great.

Jongin chuckled, sweetly and looked over to the girl. He stopped them from their walk and got her to look straight into his eyes. “We always will be here when you come back next summer. That’s the thing. The cycle of our lives. We live our lives during the school year and then we come back to all this once school is done. We won’t forget, we have the memories to reminiscence with until we all reunite the first day everyone is together.”

“I guess then summer doesn’t last forever but our friendship will?” Yerin wondered because she was glad that she wouldn’t be forgotten.

“We’ll grow up and change but we will always have the memories.” Jongin leaned closer to her and wrapped his arms tightly around her. It was awkward but they both enjoyed it though.

 

///

 

Chanyeol was back at his cottage for lunch because his mom always insisted on having lunch together because she barely sees him during the day. From the moment he wakes up and to the moment he was going to bed, he was always with his friends. Lunch was their special time together. He would tell her all about what they did in the morning. Like if Baekhyun tripped during their games of soccer in the fields near the mountains or if Juyeon freaked out once she saw a snake or a really big bug.

His mom watched him ramble on and on about his friends. She was so glad that she was able to work from home in the summer so she and her son could live up here while he wasn’t in school. She hated living in the city, too much pressure to be like everyone else. That’s why when she saw the chance of coming here, she took it.

The first year she came here with Chanyeol was the summer after she and her husband had gotten a divorce. Chanyeol wasn’t handling it too well so she wanted him to get his mind off everything and relax. That is when she saw the ad for a cottage rental in Gangneung.

“I’m kind of sad that summer is almost over.” Chanyeol mumbled into his sandwich and his mother just looked cautiously at him. She knew how much he hated living in Seoul but her business was there, their whole life was there. If she could, she would sell everything from the city and move here but it just wasn’t possible.

“Don’t worry baby, the school year is going to go by so quickly and before you know it, you’ll have your feet back in the white sand here.” She reassured him like the great mother she was.

 

///

 

It was that time of the summer. The last night. The seven of them didn’t want to have a usual campfire, instead they decided to climb up the mountains and spend the night overlooking the whole village. It was the tradition. To watch the sunset and try to stay out as long as possible.

Climbing the mountain was a lot tougher than it looked. Jongdae was having trouble but he still managed to climb it with some ease. Chanyeol was having a hard time but he didn’t want to show it in case Baekhyun or Jongin made a comment about how heavy he was breathing. Juyeon, Eunhui, and Yerin were taking their time. But Jongin always kept close to them because of Yerin. He glanced back every couple minutes to make sure that Yerin was handling everything well.

He smiled when he would look back to see her talking with Juyeon about the movies that were coming out soon or any other topics they were chatting about.

They kept their small relationship hidden really well because nobody has even noticed how Jongin would sometimes brush his hand against the back of hers orsend flirtatious smiles to each other. They promised to each other a few nights ago that if they still had the feelings toward each other they felt today, next summer then they would seriously act upon it and tell their friends.

Finally, the seven friends reached the top of the mountain. The sun was just about to set and the sky was painted with oranges, yellows, purples, and blues. It looked like a piece of artwork that you would find in an art gallery. It was truly magnificent. Nothing about his moment could be ruined by anything.

In that moment, nothing was wrong. There was no worries about school that was starting in just a few days. Or that fact that one day, they might not be able to enjoy this scenery together. Because people grow and they change. You think you all have the same interests now but soon, you won’t. It is a part of growing up. The sad reality of how people come and go in your life so quickly.

“Thank you.” Yerin spoke up to all of them. She felt truly blessed to be in this moment with all of these people she called her best friends. She would remember this moment forever, no matter how old or young she was. They all stood next to each other, shoulders almost rubbing, and just looked off to the sunset quietly as they took in Yerin’s words.

It was a thank you for being her friends and for making this one of the greatest summers she has ever had. She wasn’t stuck inside every day like the previous years. All her friends were always together whether it was rain or shine. They had sleepovers, went to the pool, swam in the ocean, went on bike rides through the town, and finally spent night after night under the stars.

“For everything…”

 

///

 

Jongdae stood next to his parents and waved goodbye to Yerin as her family drove away in the car. He was the last one left because we was leaving the following morning.

Yet as he said goodbye to Yerin before, he was still feeling saddened. This was the first time that saying goodbye was the hardest thing to do. It could be because he had met Yerin. The girl who was incredibly shy but also incredibly considerate towards others. She was the girl who would sit on a beautiful summer day and read quietly with him because neither of them were not good at sports. Yerin was just Yerin and Jongdae loved everything about her.

But… he also noticed the nights where he would be lying in bed, reading a comic book and could hear voices coming from outside his window. They were two distinct voices that were easily recognizable. When he would look out his window, he would see Yerin holding hands with Jongin.

Jongin was everything that Jongdae wasn’t. He was handsome and dangerous. He didn’t care about what others thought of him and didn’t run away from taking risks. So now Jongdae noticed every little thing that happened between the two lovebirds the last few weeks. The looks of tenderness, the touching, and how the two never left each other' side.

He wanted to hold Yerin’s hand like he saw Jongin do. But after all, it was only their first summer together.