She woke up with a jolt, muttering that all so familiar name as her eyes shot open at the sudden sight in her dreamland. Even though it had been a good few years since she last saw him, it doesn’t really mean that she had already forgotten about him. Some people she knew during her childhood years, yes she probably could not make up their looks nor call out their names, for they existed only at that point of her life, but no, it was never the case for him. True, he left her life since that few years ago, but he remained lingered in her mind all these years. During the first few months after his departure, she did dream of him occasionally, and then it stopped for a good few years time, until now.

He came back into her dream again, his frog-like features imaging in her mind. Well, yes she did laugh at him for looking like a frog, but that was really just a friendly joke.

I wonder how he is. She thought to herself. I hope he has gotten over that hurt I inflicted on him the other time. Then, she decided that no amount of thinking about him would help, and plodded back onto her bed. She shut her eyes gradually, and drifted back into her dreamland.

“Jinri ah, I like you.”

The image from 5 years ago replayed in her dream, as if trying to rewind time back to that very moment. The big-eyed boy looked at the giant-sized girl in innocence. The boy seemed hopeful, and the girl merely looked down. She was actually afraid of looking at him face to face. She knew that she would not bear to look at his despondent look upon the answer she knew she had to give. Then again, no amount of rewinding can help. Even if she had a time tunnel, could travel back to the past, and not just merely revisiting an incident that occurred in the past via a dream, her answer would remain the same. She cannot change the ending. Neither does she have the ability to do so.

“I’m sorry…” She muttered in her sleep, just like the 5 year ago self when she halted in her steps, turned her head back, and saw his retreating sight, heads down. He always thought that she was the one that left the scene first, but in reality, she was the one who saw him leaving, walking further away from her, out of the scene, out of her life. The next day, she was informed that he had left Korea to continue his studies overseas instead. Was it the pain from rejection that made him decide to leave, she did not know. What she knew was that she missed his presence. She missed him badly.

She clenched her bolster tighter as a tear trickled down her cheek. Unknowingly, she muttered his name again. The tear dripped into instead, and perhaps it was the salty taste in that triggered her awake once again.

It had been a good old years, and she should by right, be over him by now. Yet the reality is always cruel, not going according to one’s wishes. People may look at it as some simple teenage love that isn’t really worth considering as a first love, but perhaps, it’s the separation that leveled up their ties into something more than just a childhood love. It’s the pain that stays, that intensified the love. Then again, she isn’t really sure if she can still be considered to still “love” him.

Why are you appearing in my dream again? She thought to herself. For some unknown reason, it felt like a premonition. She wrapped the bolster firmer towards herself, the only source of support she has at this time. She could not explain this emotion, but in the midst of missing him, there was a streak of fear inside her. What does she fear, she does not know either.

This, she would have never guessed, is a prelude of something more ahead.