10 years ago...

"Mrs. Park! Mrs. Park!" You ran yelling into the kitchen. Mrs. Park was humming her favorite trot song, when she saw you.

"Yoon Mi, is everything okay?" she asked as she stirred something in a pot.

"Do you need help cooking?"

"Aren't you playing with Chanyeol and Lay?" she asked while she continued to stir.

"Not anymore. They're being mean to me again." You pouted.

"Why? What did they do?" Mrs. Park walked over to you and put a hand on your shoulder.

"They keep making fun of me. But they're just jealous since I play gonggi better than them," you scoffed.

"Aish, those boys. Don't mind them. Go wash your hands, then go to the living room. You can help me make dumplings for the soup," Mrs. Park turned off the stove. You did as she told you and the both of you began to wrap dumplings in the living room.

"Oh!" Mrs. Park raised her index finger in the air. "I have an idea." She ran to the kitchen and came back with a tube of wasabi in her hands. You started giggling. "You can get back at the boys with this." She waved it in the air and handed it to you. "Just make sure you know which dumplings have wasabi and which ones don't." She winked at you.

"Aigoo, Mrs. Park. You're the best," you said as you squeezed a whole bunch of wasabi on a dumpling.

*

"Chanyeol! Lay! It's time to eat!" Mrs. Park yelled out into the yard. Chanyeol and Lay got up from the gravel and ran inside the house.

"Eat up," Mrs. Park said as she sat down. You and Mrs. Park smirked at each other.

"Yay! Tteok-manduguk!" Chanyeol chimed as he slurped his soup. You and Mrs. Park watched as he and Lay took a bite of a dumpling. The two of you burst out laughing when Chanyeol shot up from the ground and fanned his mouth while Lay buried his face in his hands. You saw a tear fall from Lay's cheek. Or it might've been sweat.

"That's what you guys get for being mean to me!" you yelled. They couldn't really hear you. They were still crying.

Chanyeol took a sip of water. "Umma! You let her do that?!" Chanyeol asked.

"Let that be a lesson to you boys," she said and ate the rest of her soup.

Five minutes passed until the pain finally went away.

"I think my tongue is numb," Lay stuck out his tongue and tried looking at it.

"What a great way to start off the New Year..." Chanyeol said sarcastically.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

10 years later

It was Thursday today and Mr. Kang was in the middle of his routine lectures about the Japanese Colonial rule. You looked up at the clock and saw that there were two more minutes left until school would be over.

As you were putting some notebooks back into your backpack, you accidentally knocked over your pencil with your elbow. "Whoops..." you muttered. "Aigoo," you sighed as you saw it roll to a few desks in front of you. You searched for another pencil in your bag, but the bell rang already signaling the end of the schoolday. "Oh well. I don't need another pencil anyway since class ended," you said and gathered your things. When you were about to head out of the door, someone tapped your shoulder. You turned around and found Hyung Seok standing in front of you, his pretty brown eyes looking into yours. You gasped.

"Hi Yoon Mi. I think you dropped your pencil," he smiled. He grabbed your wrist, opened your hand and placed the pencil in your palm. His eyes never left yours as he did this. You gulped. He's holding me...aigoo...is this real...

You gripped the pencil and held it tightly. He hadn't let go of your wrist yet. You kept staring at him. You stared at his smile and his eyes. For a moment, you couldn't say a word; you were speechless.

You found your voice again, but you stumbled on your words. "I...erm...uh..." you cleared your throat. "Thank you," you finally said. Hyung Seok let go at last. You quickly stepped away and sprinted down the hall.

"Yoon Mi! Wait! I wasn't done talking to you! I wanted to ask you something!" Hyung Seok yelled down the hall. "Man, she's fast..." he sighed.

You put the pencil in your pocket and ran until you felt you were out of sight. You didn't know why you always ran away from Hyung Seok. You longed for that chance to talk to him, but you blew it. Maybe it was because you were afraid you might humiliate yourself in front of him; you might say or do something wrong and embarrass yourself. You shuffled down the stairs and ran towards Chanyeol's locker. He was standing there, struggling to put books into his locker. You ran to him and hugged him from behind. Normally, Chanyeol would get mad if someone made him knock over his books, but when he saw it was you, he didn't mind. He liked it when you hugged him.

"Aish, mianhae!" you exclaimed. You immediately began to pick up the books he dropped.

"Ani, ani, don't worry,