posted Apr. 12, 2013

Ren wakes up early as usual. It is Monday again, meaning it’s the start of school day. It’s been a while since he entered grade school in Seoul and he was able to befriend a lot of children his age. He isn’t hard to approach since he is really a playful kid. He looks friendly too, always smiling and talking to everyone. Everyone, well, except his “best” friend.

It’s been a while since he met JR too. They aren’t really of the same kind. Ren is the cheerful, bouncing-little-ball-of-sunshine type while JR is the antisocial, I-don’t-like-to-talk-to-you-coz-I’m-great type. Ren has a lot of friends already even though he joined school a week late but JR literally only has Ren as his friend. If their parents aren’t friends they probably won’t talk to each other. Ren has his own circle of friends and JR has his PSP.

Ren and JR are often caught arguing. JR is the teasing type, but he only teases Ren, which annoys the pretty boy so much. JR also likes to tickle Ren but Ren doesn’t want to be tickled, who wants it anyway? When it’s Ren that’s teasing and tickling JR, JR throws a fit. Sometimes, JR doesn’t want it when Ren’s playing with his other friends, or when Ren chooses his other friends over JR. What will they do anyway? JR still doesn’t want working his body out, so when he invites Ren it’s either he’ll share Ren his PSP or just let Ren watch him play.

They are just so different.

Another thing Ren hates about JR is that he’s a buzzer beater. He’ll arrive a second before their teacher does. When Ren asks him why he’s late, he’ll always answer that he overslept and then he’s going to blame his parents for not waking him up early. It’s always like that. At first, Ren adviced JR to change his sleeping habit or set his alarm clock on an earlier time but JR just shrugged it off, so Ren let him do what he wanted.

But that’s not the thing that annoys Ren the most. Because JR always wakes up late he always fails to check his bag. Does it have papers? a pencil or two? crayons? Sometimes it does have and Ren assumes that JR’s mom fixes his bag for him on those moments but most of the time the opposite happens, and luckily, this is one of those times.

“Ren-ah, can I borrow your crayons? I left mine at home. Please?”

Ren just looks at the other boy who is trying his best to give Ren his best aegyo but it is still, a terrible one. “How can you leave your crayons when you know that we’ll be drawing today?”

“I swear I put it inside my bag last night! But then it was gone!”

Reasons. For a seven year-old kid, JR has a lot of that. He won’t run out of it, actually. And Ren knows that he’ll never win so with a sigh he put the crayons between them. JR’s lucky enough that Ren’s his deskmate, or else… “Next time bring your own, okay? And, and don’t break them! They’re new! Appa bought them for me two days ago!”

“Okay. Okay! And thank you!”

The two of them then start to draw. They’re asked to draw something or someone that is special to them. Ren decided to draw his family. He drew his father first, then him holding his father’s left hand and his mother’s right hand, and his mother. He used circles as head, adding an ear-length hair for his father, him with shoulder-length hair and his mother with a long hair. All of them have crescent-shaped eyes, line-shaped noses and are smiling brightly. Their bodies are triangle-shaped, with a violet necktie on his father, a pink ribbon on his mother and him on plain pink. Their hands and legs are brown lines. He then put black shoes on his father, a yellow sandals on his mother and a… He searched for the pink crayon on the box but it’s not there. He wants his shoes pink because it’s his favorite color. Seeing that the crayon isn’t on the box, he looks at JR and sure enough, he has it.

JR’s covering his work using his left hand, making it hard for him to put colors on the left side of the paper, so he unconsciously gripped the crayon hard. Ren found it weird that his friend’s covering his work, it’s not like he’s going to copy JR’s work. In fact, he’s almost finished, only his shoes and it’s done. “JR, can I have the pink crayon first? I’m going to draw my shoes and it’ll be really fast!”

“Wait Ren, just a bit, I’m coloring this side here.” JR said while pointing the crayon on the left side of the paper.

“Why are you covering it anyway?”

“It’s a surprise!”

“What surprise? And let me have the pink crayon first. It won’t take 10 seconds!”

“If I tell you it won’t be a surprise anymore and I’m about to finish!” JR exclaimed as he held the crayon for dear life.

“Don’t hold it like that! It’s going to break!” Ren said as he tried to get the crayon from JR.

“No, and just wait, okay, I’m about to—“ JR stopped and his eyes grew wide. “Eomma. Oh my eomma.”

“What happened, JR?” Ren asked as he moved closer to the other. JR looked like he’s seen a ghost because he’s suddenly so pale. “Are you okay?”

“Ren, oh my…”

“What happened!”

“I, the crayon, sorry.” JR whispered as he laid the crayon in front of Ren. Who knows the after 30 minutes the brand new crayon will be broken into two? “I’m really sorry.”

Ren looks at his crayon, his favorite color, in horror and after 30 seconds of just staring at it, tears started to drop from his eyes. He can’t believe it. He’s sure he’d told JR to use it properly, or something near that, but why is the one-piece pink crayon two pieces now? He picked one piece of the crayon and started coloring his shoes. He doesn’t even notice that he’s still crying and he’s totally ignoring JR because he’s too sad about the crayon.

“Ren-ah, I’m sorry. Look at me.” JR begged, but to no avail. Ren really can’t hear him as the boy continues sobbing. After 10 times of trying, JR gave up. He lets Ren cry silently as he drowns himself in guilt.

Both of them stayed quiet until the teacher returned. She asked each of the students to describe their drawings and why are those special. Ren and JR didn’t listen and both were surprised when the teacher touches both of their noses.

“I said it’s Choi Minki’s turn now. Why are you two not moving? Is something wrong?” the teacher calmly asks, knowing that the two are best friends and they’re seldom quiet when together. “Did you two fight?”

Ren shakes his head and stands up to go in front of the class. The teacher gave JR a knowing look before following Ren in front. “Okay Minki-sshi, do you know what you’re going to say?”

Ren shakes his head again. “I’m sorry Teacher Park.”

“No, it’s okay, but next time, try to concentrate in class, okay? So, describe your drawing and why it is special.”

“I drew my family. My father, my mother and me. They are special because they love me and I love them. They make me so happy so I try to make them happy, too. But I’m wondering, Teacher, why did they say that I make them happy when I am not doing anything?” Ren asks, memories of his pink crayon suddenly drifting from his mind.

The teacher smiles and answers, “I actually don’t know too, Minki-sshi, but I think a parent’s happiness depends on the happiness of their children. Uhm, how to say this, when they see you smile, they smile too. When you’re sad, they comfort you because they don’t want to see you sad. And when they’re able to make you smile, they become happy. Do you understand?”

Ren tilts his head. It is hard for a child to understand such things. It is also weird that a child asks for things like that. When Ren thinks that he already understand what the teacher have said, he begins to nod. “So Teacher, if I am happy, they are happy, right? So I shouldn’t be sad?”

“Yes, Minki-sshi. I think so?”

Ren nods again and hands his drawing to the teacher. “Okay, thank you Minki-sshi, now let’s see Jonghyun-sshi’s work.”

JR slowly makes his way to the front with his head down. When he’s in front he unfolds his drawing and Ren sees two people. One looks like a girl because of the long hair and the other one is a boy. The girl wears a pink coat and the boy wears a blue one. The girl has a pink mask, too. The two people seem to hold hands with something like a glove on top of their hands.

“Is that a girl and a boy in your drawing, Jonghyun-sshi?”

“No, no Teacher. This is me and my best friend. This is one of the most special moments in my life. I was very mean on him on our first day, but when he saw that I wasn’t wearing any gloves and it was so cold back then, he held my hand to keep it warm. I was really touched so it remained on my mind. Now I feel really bad because I made my best friend sad. What should I do, Teacher?”

Ren notices that JR’s eyes begin to water. He wants to smile because his best friend drew him but he feels sad seeing that his best friend’s sad. He then looks at the broken crayon and he doesn’t feel anything at all, not even a bit of anger and disappointment that he’d felt earlier. He eyes JR again and he is looking straight at him.

“There nothing that can’t be fixed, Jonghyun-sshi. Come here.” the teacher said as she gets something from her drawer.

When JR inches closer, he sees a tape and a pair of scissors. “What—“

“Okay class, since Jonghyun-sshi’s the last to present and he is already done, you can go out now, I’ll follow real soon, I’ll just arrange your drawings.”

JR hands his drawing to his teacher and he looks at his classmates who are rushing out of the room. He looks at Ren and is surprised that his friend doesn’t move a bit from his seat. When everybody, except JR, Ren and their teacher, are gone, the teacher asks Minki to bring the broken crayon to her. JR and Ren are surprised that the teacher knows about the crayon when they haven’t told anybody.

“You know, it’s scary to see that both of you are quiet when your next to one another. I think, this is the problem, right? Minki-sshi? Jonghyun-sshi?” the teacher asks as she picks the broken crayon.

The two nodded and JR said, “But I didn’t really mean it. It’s… look Ren-ah, I am sorry, really.”

JR sighs seeing that Ren isn’t going to answer. He then turns to his teacher with a defeated look. The teacher smiles at him before she gets a tape and cuts it. She then asks JR to take one part of the crayon and Ren on the other part. She connected the two parts like a puzzle and attaches the tape on the line separating the two parts. “You know, as long as it fits, you can still fix it. See, it’s a whole again. If you want to make sure that this won’t break again, just make the tape thicker! Then the crayon will be stronger than any other crayons on the box, because there’s something that connects it.”

The boys nod and Minki gets the crayon. He tried to break it but as his teacher said, it is harder to break this time. “Thank you Teacher. And I’m sorry too, JR, if I felt angry a while ago. It’s just, no, but I felt sad seeing you sad. I’m sorry.” Ren said.

“No, Ren, I should be the one saying sorry, forgive me please?”

“It’s okay now, JR. I forgive you. And thank you for drawing me a while ago. That actually made me happy.” Ren said as he smiles.

“Really?” JR asked as he, too, smiled at Ren.

Ren feels happier seeing that his friend’s also smiling. He then realizes that the teacher’s right, when you see someone special to you happy, you feel happier. And so the smile on his face grows wider.

And the teacher, too, smiles at the lovely sight in front of her.

---

Hi! So, this is actually a one-shot, but with kid!JRen in it, too. This is connected with the first one, yep, but you can read it separately so I didn't change the one-shot tag. I might add another chapter, but it depends if I'll be able to find inspiration. Hehehe.

I can't update my other story so here's a compensation. I can't because I can't complete a chapter, uhh, I am not satisfied with what I have now (and I feel guilty for not updating, I'm so sorry) ...

So... yeah, what do you think about this? Of course this isn't beta-ed, and it's already 4:30am. I'll try fixing errors later. I'm just so sleepy and... zzzzzzz

nowplaying 내 손을 잡아 (Hold My Hand) - IU