I remember the railroad tracks where it began.

It was a cool autumn day in the middle of October. The leaves were changing color and tiny animals were scurrying about. A family of rabbits hopped on by as I watched them running away from a boisterous young boy.

"Baekho, stop it!" yelled the mother from a bench. The boy had a huge grin on his face, but he did as he was told. I was waking along the road in their direction when he stopped and looked at me. Then he began to cry.

"Baekho, what's wrong?" his mother asked. He ran towards her with his face hurried in her lap. Then he turned to look at me.

His mother looked up and saw what he had been crying about.

Walking towards them, I was covered in blood. Just a few minutes earlier, I came out from a fight. Three seniors in my school didn't like the way my face looked. That's how easily fights can start in high school these days.

I walked by them without making eye contact. It didn't matter what they thought anyway. I just wanted to go rest and have some alone time.

There is an area with train tracks on my way home. Although I had only been going to high school for a month and a half, I passed by this area nearly every day since I could remember. My old school was on the opposite side of the tracks to my home as well. It was nothing new.

There had been reports of suicides in this area for a long time. Stories about curses and evil spirits circulated, and as a result fewer people crossed the tracks here. The trains rushed on by at full speed in these parts. With their heavy and massive iron builds, I'd doubt a train conductor could stop the train anyway, even if he spotted someone stuck from a distance.

I had been coming to this particular spot for a few weeks now. Very few people wandered by. I would sit against a post several feet away from the tracks for hours on end, just thinking. Other than the passing trains, it was fairly quiet here. I liked it.

When I arrived, I planted my on the floor and rested up against my usual post to think. I hated school. I was targeted by the same three guys since the first day there. It's like they were there solely to make my life a living hell. Other students in the same year as me kept their distance in fear of also becoming a target. I couldn't blame them though. I've been in worse shape before in front of a lot of them.

A train passed by. Ah, wouldn't it be great to just end my miserable life? I thought to myself, as I stared silently at the train rushing through.

"No, you shouldn't think about that," a voice said from behind me. Startled, I jumped a bit in my seat, then turned to see who it was.

A young guy, roughly my age, looked back at me with wide eyes. He looked maybe 5'6 with a relatively thin build. His top part was particularly buff, though it was tough to notice due to his loose fit tshirt. He had full lips that seemed to be pouting as he looked at me.

Wait, how did he know what I was thinking?

"Who are you?" I asked. It was strange for him to say something like that out of the blue. I didn't want him to know what I was thinking at that time, just in case his question had to do with something else entirely.

"My name is Kikwang," he said. "What's yours?"

"Junhyung," I responded. He looked at me expecting more of an introduction. I ended with that.

"I've seen you come here nearly every day for a while now. What brings you here?" he said. That's weird. I rarely saw people in this area, even before I made it my personal hangout spot. And I definitely haven't seen him before. I was about to question him about that, but I didn't really care at this point. I just wanted to be left alone. So I ignored him.

He continued to look at me in silence, waiting for a response. When he didn't get one, he sighed, then sat down next to me against the post. If he thought that would get me talking, he was wrong. I let him sit there for the rest of the day, not saying another word. I left about two hours later, still not saying anything. But as I got up to leave, he began staring at me again until I was out of sight.

I came back the next day, and the day after, and the days after that. The same bullying, bruising, and bleeding happened every day. No matter how many times it happened though, I would never get used to it.

Every day I went back to my spot, I would find Kikwang there, sitting against my post. I would not let him throw my routine off, so I sat next to him in silence. he would just sit there, next to me, and stare off again as I left.

After a few weeks of this, I came to expect him there. It was strangely comforting having him there every day. I'm not sure when it happened, but I finally responded to him.

"I like coming here to think," I said. I wasn't expecting a reply. I had been ignoring him for the last few weeks. I was surprised he still showed up everyday, expecting a response. But he did.

"I like this spot too," he said. "I find myself strangely attached to this place."

"You know, I've never seen you here before," I said, "prior to a few weeks ago I mean. You said you saw me here everyday, right?"

"Yes, that's right." Kikwang looked far into the distance. "I saw you from all the way down there," he said, as he pointed off somewhere east along the tracks. "Since you started to camp out at this spot, I finally decided to come here and see who you were."

Well, that seemed like a reasonable answer. I stared off into the space he was pointing at.

"Why are you always covered in blood and bruises?" he asked. He looked at my face with sincere interest and concern. I guess I looked like I didn't want to talk about it, because he added "it's fine if you don't want to talk about it."

"No, that's all right, you've been sitting here next to me for the last few weeks without saying anything, and sadly, you're the closest thing I have to a friend right now," I said. "I'll tell you."

I told him about my school bullying problem, and he listened intently for as long as I spoke. He responded when I left a pause for him to interject. Somehow, the conversation turned to other aspects of my personal life too. I told him that my parents worked abroad most of the time, so they were rarely at home, and that my older sister was taking care of me for a while before she got married and left me on my own.

I found out that he came from a family with one brother and both his parents. We talked long about everything we could think of until it extended into late at night. Then I took off and went home, with his eyes still following me until I was out of sight.

This became our new routine. Everyday, after school, I would find him sitting there and we would just talk. I found out he was in the same year as me and was supposed to enroll at the same school too, but didn't attend at the last minute. Some of his friends were there right now, though he didn't tell me who they were. He was ashamed that they were ignoring me because I was a target of bullying.

Months passed, and this kept up. I didn't tell anyone about Kikwang. There was no one to tell anything to anyway, except Kikwang. I had suggested hat we could try and go somewhere else for a change, but Kikwang was content with staying where we were.

Teachers at school were finally beginning to take notice of the bullying problem. I had never reported it before because of pride. Or maybe I was a bit intimidated by the threats the seniors made if I did tell on them. But during the new semester, one teacher finally noticed all of the bruises I had on me and decided to investigate. She walked into one of my daily beatings and scolded the boys who were hurting me. They were suspended for weeks.

She asked how I put up with it when I told her it was going on for months. I just always took the beatings before. I was never happy with it, and I probably would have ended everything months ago. But every day, after the beatings in school, I knew I could look forward to hanging out with Kikwang. Being with him made everything in life a lot more bearable.

When the beatings stopped, some of my classmates began to approach me. We even became friends. They admitted that they were scared of the seniors before and apologized for not standing up to them. Things were looking up at school.

This one guy named Yoseob become particularly friendly all of a sudden. He would invite me to hang out after school with three of his other buddies. It made me happy, and I would have accepted, but my time after school was dedicated to Kikwang, who was there with me from the beginning.

I told Kikwang about the progress in school, and of the new friends I had made. "You should come and hang out with us!" I exclaimed one day. Even if he wasn't attending that school, I wanted to introduce him to everyone. But every time I asked, he would decline. He'd put on a smile, but beneath it I felt a lot of sadness.

One day, after persistent nagging from Yeseob, I decided to hang out with him and his buddies after school. They were all nice guys. He introduced me to his friends Doojoon, Hyunseung, and Dongwoon. We had a blast going to karaoke, eating street food, and watching a movie.

At the end of the day, I went by the railway as I always do when I go home. I thought Kikwang might still be there, and that I could apologize for missing our regular hangout. But he wasn't there. Well, that figures, I thought, I can't expect him to wait for me. It's already 11pm. I figured I'd see him the next day to apologize.

But he wasn't there the next day. Or the day after that. Or the many days after that when I returned to look for him. I had rejected Yoseob's requests to hang out more to look for Kikwang, but he never showed up. I went back for three weeks straight, waiting at my same spot - our same spot - for two hours a day before finally giving up.

The next time Yoseob asked to hang out, I accepted.

I began hanging out with the four of them daily since then. It had become my new ritual. We did different things every day, and there was always something fun to do with them.

One day, we walked through a run-down area. It wasn't our typical hang-out kind of spot, but Yoseob said he and the others had something important to do.

We stopped in front of a small, old hut of sorts, and Yoseob knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" asked a voice from behind.

"Haekyung, it's us," Yoseob replied.

After some clicks, the door swung open. Behind the door stood a familiar looking boy. He looks like Kikwang, I thought. The boy had a sad look on his face, but he came out to greet the others.

"This is our friend, Junhyung," Yoseob said. We introduced ourselves to each other.

I found out from Dongwoon that Haekyung is the brother of a good friend of theirs. He came out of his home and walked with Yoseob up front, and they both led the way to our destination.

I couldn't help thinking of the striking similarity to Kikwang, but I brushed it off as a coincidence. There are many people who look like others. I saw a woman that looked like Hyunseung just the other day. Seeing his face on a busty body evoked some funny thoughts.

We were heading towards my home. Or at least that's what it seemed like. I never mentioned to them where I lived though.

As we made it to the railroad, we stopped. "This is it," Yoseob told me. We were right in front the spot where Kikwang and I used to sit.

The coincidence was alarming. "What are we doing here?" I asked.

"We're here to visit a friend," Yoseob said. Haekyung knelt down in front of the post where Kikwang and I used to sit, and began crying. I looked at the others, a bit taken aback. They all had sad expressions on their faces as they watched Haekyung crying in front of the post.

"What's going on?" I asked. Yoseob took me to the side as Doojoon sat next to to Haekyung to comfort him. When we were an earshot away from the others, Yoseob began explaining everything to me.

"Around a year ago today, a friend of ours died here," he said solemnly. "He was Haekyung's brother." Yoseob didn't even finish speaking yet, but I already knew his name. "His name was Kikwang."

Shocked and speechless, I just let my mouth hang open. I looked back to the others who were still at the post. I hadn't noticed earlier, but Dongwoon pulled out a bouquet of flowers and laid them next to the post.

"He was killed crossing the railway here," Yoseob said. "We were playing around when his foot got stuck on the rail. There was a train coming, and we all tried to help, but..." Yoseob stopped talking and broke out into tears. I didn't know what to say, or what to do. It was all just unbelievable.

We walked back to the post and everyone paid their respects. I found out much later after we left that Kikwang's family was poor and couldn't afford a funeral service. The other guys helped chip in for the funeral, but they couldn't afford to bury his body at a graveyard. After talking it over with the city, they managed to have his body buried near the railway where Kikwang used to love to play, and they used an existing pillar post there as a tombstone. The very same one Kikwang and I used to rest up against.

It is now years later. I am still friends with the guys, and have become better acquainted with Hyekyung. I still hang out with them every day, but I have not once told them about my meetings with Kikwang. Every now and then one of them would ask me about the guy I used to ditch them for after school, and I would just brush it off and quickly change subjects.

I still pass by the post next to the railway every day coming from and going back home. And every now and then, I would sit down against the post, look at the railway, and think of him. I did so today.

Kikwang. He died here years ago. He also saved my life.

I'll never forget him.

A strong breeze whooshed by as a train sped along the tracks. As my hair whipped across my forehead, I looked off into the distance towards the east, and thought about the good times and heart to heart talks with him. When the train had passed by, I looked at the spot where he used to sit and imagined him there with me. Then, as I usually do before I walked back home, I stared at the empty space and whispered:

"Thank you."