Caddo

@yongonyong

Wheein

On the first page of their story, they meet inside the beginnings of a dream. She is only a baby, and they—young as they were—are oblivious to what the world has to offer, oblivious to the way their hearts would beat in sync, mere miles away from each other. She is content with food and warmth, far too young to understand what she is waiting for. And yet she cries when the warmth of a bottle of milk isn’t quite enough. She cries and reaches for comfort in the shape of a shaggy-haired lion with a lazy smile. There is a drop of something—an unknown stain—on the side of the lion’s mouth. The littlest speck of imperfection—caused by too much love over the years—sits on the mysterious black dot on the lion’s cheek. And yet she doesn’t mind. Somehow, even then, she loves her lion with all its imperfections—even after all the patches and all the obvious attempts to keep the stuffing inside over the years. Somehow, she knows that those imperfections made it hers. When she sleeps, she dreams of the mighty lion and the soft, soft fabric beneath her little fingers.

Hyejin

On the first page of their story, they meet inside a dream. She is only a baby, but images swirl around her mind. She doesn’t have the words to speak them yet, but the world and its colours are brilliant in her curiosity. She watches the world roll by with eager eyes, as if she knows that someday she will go on to conquer it all. But the things that make her happiest are simple still. Her neighbour has a little yellow dog, and she reaches out for it every time they pass. She wants to hold it, feel it’s fur against her skin—see, touch, feel the world beyond the images from inside her stroller. But when she is allowed to get close, she drops her hands and cries because she is scared. As she gets older, she will learn to get closer, learn to understand its cues and its ways of thinking. She will learn to offer kindness, then love. For now, it simply makes her happy from afar. When she sleeps, she dreams of the yellow dog, curled up beside her, and the soft, soft fur beneath her little fingers.

Wheein

In a few more pages, she’s ready for school. The world is different now, already far more complicated outside of her crib and lion. She likes to draw—it’s easier than speaking. Sometimes the words don’t come out; sometimes she doesn’t think the world wants to hear what she has to say. And when she draws, the abstract lines and colours inside her brain take physical form. Her ideas make sense, contained on those white pages. They don’t hear her—they never did—but when they look at her pictures, it almost feels like they do. At the very least, they praise her work. At the beginning, while she is still young, they think they understand those lines, believes them to be more than they are, and at five years old, she hasn’t learned to object.

School is a whirl of new complications. She doesn’t know anyone, and doesn’t want to. She sees the other kids laugh and the other kids fight. She sketches it all down on paper, just tangled colours still, and keeps to herself. It’s easier and far less confusing. In this moment, it’s enough.

Until the day someone shows her it isn’t. She is drawing on the floor when a shadow appears beside her. It’s breathing loudly and crunching down on something. She looks up—sees the scruffy head of hair, the lazy smile, and the dark crumbs sprinkled on the cheeks. “Lion?” She says in utter disbelief. The other girl blinks. “I’m not a lion,” she says. Then, “Do you want a cookie?”

Hyejin

In a few more pages, the seasons are changing. She goes to school and discovers the power of words. The power to draw in, to divide, to build, and to collapse. Other children flock to her, and she watches them, wonders at the extent of her power sizzling at her little fingertips. She watches the world from on high, and they all look back up at her. All except one. A little girl surrounded by pictures; a little girl who only ever looks down. She doesn’t know the words to describe how she makes her feel—she thinks of the yellow dog. She wants to get closer, but something holds her back. She doesn’t understand her: doesn’t understand her cues, can’t see the thoughts jumbled in her brain. Everyone is so predictable. At this age it’s easy—snacks, naps, teddy bears and holidays. But her—does drawing make her happy? Does she have any friends? Does she like cookies? She wants to know, wants to get close. Wants to tell her that she makes her happy, and it’s not enough to wonder from afar.

One of the happiest days of her life was when she fed her neighbour’s dog a treat out of her hand. It was both terrifying and exhilarating, and somehow it’s all the more so when she approaches the girl and holds out a cookie.

Wheein

Fast-forward to middle school, she approaches the front gate. Ever since kindergarten she has been moving around the country. Only a week after meeting the girl with the wildest hair—an image of her offered cookie still emblazoned in her mind—her family moves. They go to Seoul, but it doesn’t last. They try Singapore, then Dubai—London, Glasgow, Madrid, San Francisco, Atlanta, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong—her parents go where the jobs take them. Ten cities in seven years, and she, at twelve years old, is tired. Finally, her parents send her back to Jeonju and lets her grandmother take over. It’s all the same to her. She walks in, two months into the school year, her newly purchased uniform immaculate—she doesn’t want to get it dirty when she is almost sure she would just have to return it in a few months. She shuffles down to her homeroom, hearing her grandmother’s voice, reminding her to smile. To make a good impression. Outside, she can hear the din of excited voices. Can almost picture the sea of nameless faces—she won’t remember them; they won’t remember her. She knows this. She’s been here too many times before. The teacher calls out to her—she smiles one more time, then braces herself for the murmurs. Her shaky fingers reach for the door—it never gets easier, not when she isn’t used to so much attention. They won’t remember her, she reminds herself one more time.

When they meet again, her eyes are on the pleats in her skirt. She is trying to remember to breathe, to look up when the teacher reads her name.

Hyejin

When they meet again, she has to remember to breathe. When she looks up and finds her eyes, she has to blink several times to see if she’s dreaming. There, at the front of the classroom, like a long forgotten dream, was the girl who disappeared. The girl who never failed to float in and out of her thoughts over the years, like the yellow dog that used to live beside her. She’s gawking, she knows, but she knows enough now to know that she finds her beautiful. Fascinating and beautiful, and she wants to get close. As the girl watches her, her fingers curl tight on top of her desk, as if clutching invisible fur. She recognizes the loneliness in her eyes, and the fleeting light when she took the cookie all those years ago, fingers brushing ever so slightly. She recognizes the slight parting of her lips, as if to say, “How did you find me?”

Finally, her heart sighs; finally, she found her.

Wheein

She blinks several times as she rattles off her well-rehearsed introduction. She doesn’t know what she is saying, but is certain it makes sense. She thinks instead of the girl at the centre of the room, watching her. She recognizes her, but from where? There is a sort of mutual confusion, a mutual fascination as they study each other, as if unsure whether the other truly exists. Why does she look so familiar? She takes in those dark, sparkling eyes beneath thick waves of hair, tamer now, but—could it be? The girl smiles, a wide, lazy smile. There are no cookies, but the smile warms her nonetheless.

She smiles back, as if to say, “I remember you.”

For now, that is good enough.

But as she walks by to take her seat, the girl takes her hand. She looks down in surprise—closer now, the girl is beautiful. The lazy smile turns into a grin, and her heart flutters for the first time in her life.