When I was little, and the boys were little, and we all played together; there was a thing called 'playing house.' The girls and I would always fight on who would be mommy of this boy with the big brown eyes. His name was Nich Khun. And he had the prettiest smile, the pinkest lips, the biggest eyes, and he just shined with that baby boy face. We would also fight on being the wife of Park Jaebum.

He was just so... charming. Even at the age of five.
He was different from the other boys. He and Nich Khun were different.
Because they were both liked by everyone.

When you're young, you tend to 'like' someone and 'dislike' someone for the stupidest and oddest reasons. For instance, Lee Jinae 'disliked' me because I looked like a boy with my dirt-covered face and I 'disliked' her for always wearing pretty skirts to elementary school. It's funny how we both ended up being best friends in middle school when we both 'disliked' each other at five years old. We fought over everything. Including boys.

Boys like Park Jaebum.

"Why can't I be mommy for once?" the five-year-old me frowned.

Jinae stuck her flat nose in the air. "You don't look like a girl enough to be mommy."

"But I'm still a girl." I hissed, my teeth clenching as the other girls watched us argue. They had all taken a step back, knowing that Lee Jinae would always be picked as mommy and wife by the boys. Those girls didn't even bother on arguing with Jinae but why was it always Lee Jinae who got to be the center of attention? Why couldn't I be the center of attention for once? Why couldn't I be mommy?

Why couldn't I be Park Jaebum's wife for once?

Jinae wasn't the only one who liked him. And it was obvious she liked him too. Even if I were five years old, I wasn't stupid when it came to liking a boy. But in the end, Jinae got picked by the others to be mommy and wife. I didn't like her at all. Nope, not at all.

--

2 years later.
I was laughing so hard, I started crying.

It's funny how fast I had to grow up. Mommy and daddy 'played house' differently from how the boys and girls did at school.

Because we never yelled at each other. We never hit each other either like mommy and daddy did.

At seven years old, life became funny. I felt like an old lady at seven. I think I've seen too much of the way mommy and daddy 'played house.' It was sad and it hurt me. Mommy and daddy were hurting my feelings and I didn't like to cry by myself. I wanted someone to watch me cry. I wanted someone to feel bad for me. But I end up laughing and crying when I'm with someone. I end up pretending that those sad tears for mommy and daddy were happy tears from the funny jokes my friends make. I end up lying, laughing, and crying.

I was only seven years old.

"You're crying again, Eunsung!" Chae Yeon laughed, pointing to the tears that were now trickling down my cheeks.

With a big smile on my face, I forced myself to laugh. "Your jokes are really funny, Chae Yeon!"

My other friend with the big purple bow in her hair laughed too. "You always end up crying with that big goofy grin on your face."

I frowned, the tears still escaping. "I don't have a goofy grin."

"Your tears match your face better when you do that." Oh, it was that voice.
I had always watched him secretly but I had stopped wanting to be his wife during 'playing house'.
I stopped caring about wanting to be the center of attention because my mommy gets hit a lot by daddy.
I didn't want to get hit either. So I had stopped playing.

"What?" I asked.

My other two friends questioned the same thing.

Park Jaebum, his handsome face glowed against the sunlight. He looked like such an angel even though his hands were dirty from finger painting and his shirt was splattered with paint. He was looking straight at me, his eyes never once leaving my teary eyes. "That face looks better when you cry." He imitated me, frowning and crying in an overdramatic way.

I fumed. "I do not look like that!"

"You do too." He smiled. "Your bottom lip sticks all the way out!"

"It does not!" I puffed out my cheeks.

He laughed. "And your eyes get really small."

This is why I decided that crying while frowning was a bad thing. It was better to smile and cry. I look prettier that way.

"It's so ugly when you smile and cry." Park Jaebum hissed. And my friends gasped. I think I gasped too but I couldn't hear myself do so because I was too surprised by his words. "It's gross. I don't like girls who do that." And then he walked away to wipe his paint-covered hands all over Nich Khun's baby face. Everyone was laughing.

Except for me. I decided to stop laughing at the things Park Jaebum did. I decided at that moment... that I hated him.

--

"Bye Eunsung! I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" Chae Yeon and my other friend with the big purple bow in her hair waved to me with their free hands. Their other hands were holding onto big hands—their mommy and daddy's hands.

I waved back with both hands. Because I didn't have anyone to hold hands with. After they both left with their mommy and daddies, I sat on the steps of the school and thought to myself, "how do they 'play house' with their mommy and daddy?'"

The sun was very bright today but the leaves of the trees were beginning to turn brown. The grass was beginning to turn yellow. And my friends and the other boys and girls were beginning to wear warmer clothes. I was too. Mommy just bought me this navy blue jacket the other day! I stood up and looked down at myself, admiring the navy blue color of my jacket. The jacket went all the way down to my knees. I chuckled to myself because I had begged mommy to get me the same jacket as Chae Yeon and the other girls in my class.

"I don't like your jacket." Oh, it was that voice of the person I decided to hate today.

I sat back down and turned my head away from him. "I don't care."

"That color makes you look evil." Park Jaebum smiled at me.

I ignored him and pretended that he was invisible. I never knew that Park Jaebum, the one with the angelic face and playfulness, could be so mean.

"You would look better in yellow."

I ignored him again.

"That way, I can find you easier."

I stopped ignoring him and turned to look at him.

He smiled prettily at me.

"Find me?" I muttered.

He frowned. "I don't want to be staring at someone's back thinking it's you but end up not being you. That's embarrassing."

"Why would you want to stare at my back?"

He stared at me for a really long time, looking at every inch of detail on my face. My eyes, my nose, my ears, the bangs that covered my eyebrows, my lips, my chin, and even that small dot mommy calls a mole on the side of my face. And then he said to me "because when I look at your face, I get shy."

And was I just imagining it but did his face turn pink? Or was it because of the cold weather today? Has his eyes always been that hazel? Has his lips always been that thick? Has his eyelashes always been that long?

"Jaebum." His mommy was calling him now. "It's time to go."

He looked away from me and rushed away to hold his mommy's hand. With the other hand, he waved to me. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

I waved to him with one hand and then both hands started waving to him. It was because I didn't have anyone to hold hands with.

'I wonder how Park Jaebum plays house with his mommy and daddy?' I thought to myself as I watched him drive away with his mommy. Silently, I watched as my classmates left one by one. Silently, I waved to every one of them with both my hands. Silently, I was left alone on the steps of the elementary school. Silently, I knew I was forgotten by mommy and daddy.

My homeroom teacher took me to her home an hour later after and I asked her why she wouldn't take me to my home. She only smiled and told me that mommy and daddy were busy with something. I found out later that my homeroom teacher was lying. Mommy had been rushed to the hospital after having a fight with daddy and daddy took his things and left to go somewhere faraway.

So that was why mommy didn't come to take me home. That was why she didn't come to hold my cold hand on that cold day.

It was because mommy and daddy had been 'playing house' again.