As Kyuhyun entered the press club’s activity room, he passed by a shorter boy who was on his way out of the room. They did not stop to acknowledge one another. Kyuhyun however had a quick glimpse of the boy who had a pleasant and boyish mien though his cheeks were a little on the chubby side due probably to baby fat.

Kyuhyun then approached one of the desks where another student was seated at. “Junsu-hyung, who was that guy earlier?”

“The one who just left?” the guy who was named Junsu looked up from the sheet of papers on the desk.

“Ne. I don’t remember seeing him around here,” Kyuhyun remarked.

“He’s from the photographic society. Vice president. He’s a third year. So that makes him your senior,” Junsu informed.

“So what was he doing here?” Kyuhyun asked.

“Just having a meeting with me and passing me some photos,” Junsu stated.

“Here, these were some of the photos he had taken during the sports day,” Junsu said as he tossed some photos over to Kyuhyun.

Kyuhyun picked up the photographs to study. They were well taken. The angle was well chosen and the focus was sharp. It captured the mood of the sports meet well – the excited faces of the cheering spectators, the victorious faces of the winners, the final push through the finishing line of the race competitors, and the gracefulness of the high jump.

Kyuhyun was drawn into the pictures. He felt that he was living the sports meet all over again. When he was done, he set the photos on Junsu’s desk.

“He’s good, isn’t he?” Junsu asked.

Kyuhyun nodded.

“I should probably introduce the both of you to one another. But since he’s a third year like me, I guess you wouldn’t see much of him soon as he has to prepare for the national examinations after all,” Junsu said. Then an idea came to Junsu and he suggested, “Perhaps you could sit in on our next meeting.”

……

Kyuhyun placed his chopsticks down on the table. So he knew Lee Sungmin from years earlier. Both of them had grown up since – there were some physical changes to them – no wonder they could not recognise one another.

Lee Sungmin wouldn’t have been able to recognise Cho Kyuhyun. Firstly, Kyuhyun was no longer the nerdy looking and scrawny high school teenager with those awful looking pair of black plastic frame spectacles and straight bangs. Kyuhyun was now a well-groomed, stylish and fashionable male adult. 

And even though they had sat down during an editorial meeting together and had met each other a few times briefly at the press club, Kyuhyun remained mostly silent as he kept much to himself or as he buried himself in his writing. During meetings, he would scribble notes, only offering his opinion once in a while. Furthermore, he was paired with another photographer that was his age, so he never did work much with Sungmin.

Sungmin wouldn’t have even noticed or care much about Kyuhyun – after all Kyuhyun was this insignificant wallflower. He wasn’t even holding a top post in the press club. He was still a junior writer/reporter.

Yet the 16 years old Kyuhyun admired Sungmin. He found the older male rather attractive although he was shorter than Kyuhyun. Sungmin was polite, prim and proper and always neatly attired. He was fair and he still had a bit of baby fat on his cheeks which made him look rather squishy.

But what left a deep impression on Kyuhyun were Sungmin’s photos. The images that Sungmin captured were vivid and told a compelling story about the scene and situation. Kyuhyun was struck by the talent Sungmin possessed.

Even though a few months had passed, Sungmin and Kyuhyun never had that much contact or interaction with one another  until a few weeks before Sungmin was to leave the photographic club.

The road outside the high school was a traffic accident prone area. There had been several near misses involving the school’s students in the past resulting in minor injuries. The road was mostly quiet and had not much traffic, so some drivers would take the opportunity to speed along the road. The school had petitioned the authorities for more safety measures which had continued falling on deaf ears.

It was school dismissal time and students were leaving the premises. Sungmin and Kyuhyun were leaving school about the same time but they missed seeing each other. 

The pedestrian lights had just turned green and two female students just stepped onto the road. It was then a speeding car came charging at them. Despite the driver’s honking at the girls and his best efforts to attempt to slow down, they stood rooted to the spot in shock, resulting in the car ploughing straight into them, hurling them into the air before causing them to crash unto to the ground. Both Kyuhyun and Sungmin were nearby and could see the accident coming. Sungmin immediately took out his camera and took a photo of the accident when the car hit the girls at the traffic lights.

The car stopped for a while before speeding off without helping the injured girls. Sungmin quickly took a photo of the car’s license plate. Most of the students who witnessed the accident were shocked and some had burst into tears at the terrifying incident. None of the students were calm or composed enough to come forward to offer their assistance to their fallen fellow students.

Kyuhyun whipped out his notepad and started to take notes from what he had just witnessed as he squeezed his way past the onlookers to get to the injured students whilst shouting for someone to call for an ambulance.

The two girls lay on the ground bleeding. They were unconscious. He studied the scene and its surroundings and jotted down notes. He checked on the victims’ nametags and scribbled down their names. Soon, another person joined him and when he looked up from his notepad, he realised that it was Sungmin with his camera hanging around his neck.

“Are you going to take a photo?” Kyuhyun quizzed.

“What are you doing?” Sungmin exclaimed as he genuflected and checked on the girl’s pulse. “This isn’t the time to worry about a story.”

Kyuhyun just stared bewildered at Sungmin unsure of what to do.

As Sungmin went to check on the other girl’s pulse, he asked, “You don’t know any first aid or life saving skills?”

Kyuhyun shook his head.

“We’re losing them,” Sungmin cried out.

“So what can we do?” Kyuhyun asked.

“Talk to them. Encourage them to hang on in there. Tell them that help will come soon,” Sungmin advised as he took one of the victims’ hands and tried to reassure her.

Kyuhyun decided to emulate Sungmin as Kyuhyun crouched by the side of the other victim, took one of the victims’ hands to reassure her and pleading her not to give up.

He leaned in to try to listen to the victim’s breathing. It was getting faint. And Kyuhyun started to panic inside.

“Hani-ssi, don’t die. Please don’t die. Help is coming soon. Just hang in there for a while more. Don’t give up just yet,” he begged.

He tried to listen to the victim’s breathing again but by now, the breath was almost non-existent.

“We’re losing her,” Kyuhyun shouted.

Sungmin rushed over to Kyuhyun’s side and felt the pulse of the injured girl.

“Will she die?” Kyuhyun asked feeling horrified. Although Kyuhyun had flirted with death’s door since young, this was the first time he had witnessed someone being hurt in an accident and bleeding all over. It was not that Kyuhyun was frightened of death – he nearly died himself a few times. Those times when he took his last gasps thinking those would be his last moments; those times when his heart stopped. Furthermore, he had seen other teenagers and children around his age, but seeing death stake its claim over a life in a tragic way was chilling for him.

Sungmin shook his head and sighed. “We’re losing her. There’s nothing much we can do at the moment. We could only comfort her.”

Sungmin took the victim whose name was Hani by her hand and gripped it. “It’s okay. Don’t be frightened. I know you worry about your parents. They’ll be fine. Go now. You don’t have to struggle anymore. You’ll be in a better place. Go in peace.”

Kyuhyun could see tears b in Hani’s eyes. He felt his own eyes become wet as he studied Sungmin doing his best to comfort the dying girl and Kyuhyun was in awe and respect of Sungmin who seemed calm and collected in this situation.

……

Kyuhyun did not write a report about the accident. Instead he wrote an opinion editorial piece on the need for better road safety in school areas. He described his own experience helping out in the accident to illustrate the severity of the incident. He also wrote in a separate piece about the dilemma on working on his instinct as a journalist to collect the information for the story or to tend to the injured first. His articles earned praises from the students, the school principal and the teaching staff.

The driver was also caught thanks to the photographic evidence submitted by Sungmin.

It was a day after the paper had been distributed to the school. It was a few days left before Sungmin would be stepping down from the photography club. He decided to pay a visit to the press club to say his goodbyes. Kyuhyun happened to be in that afternoon.

“Hello,” Sungmin greeted Kyuhyun who was at his work desk and working on a story.

Kyuhyun looked up and his gaze settled on the smiling visage of the older boy for a while before he realised that he was doing something rather awkward and quickly shifted his eyes back to the papers on the desk.

“Anyway, I’ve come to say goodbye,” Sungmin said.

Kyuhyun looked up at Sungmin again. His gaze wavered and his lips quivered. “Are you leaving the photography club?”

Sungmin nodded. “I have to start preparing for the national examinations.”

“Oh,” Kyuhyun remarked.

“Anyway, I’ve read your commentary about the need for better safety measures. It was really well written. The description was vivid. And the arguments were strong and compelling. You should send a copy of your editorial to the authorities,” Sungmin praised. “Maybe it would shake them up a little and get them to go into action.”

“Thank you,” Kyuhyun said.

“You did your best that day Kyuhyun. I mean, you did your best in trying to comfort the dying students. You looked scared. But you did well,” Sungmin added.

“Thank you, once again.”

“Kyuhyun, I’m sure you’ll become a good journalist and writer. Continue with the good work. It’s a pity I didn’t get to work much with you here in school. Maybe we might work together again someday if both of us enter the media industry,” Sungmin remarked.

That was the last time Kyuhyun ever spoke to Sungmin as their paths did not cross one another in school.

Yet before the accident, Kyuhyun was already intrigued by Sungmin’s photos, causing him to develop an interest and infatuation for the older boy. As such, Kyuhyun did a bit of research on the older boy. He found out that Sungmin also participated in the martial arts society. He was a friendly and nice guy and got along with a lot of people in school including some of the mischievous students. However his grades were nothing spectacular and probably just average. But he was well-behaved, did his work, and was a student who showed initiative, and so the teachers liked him. He was however famous because a lot of students knew that he was the school’s photographer for many school activities.

After Sungmin’s farewell, Kyuhyun would find himself walking past the photography society’s activity room and trying to steal glances into the room hoping for a brief glimpse of Sungmin or by some luck, Sungmin would be in the activity room and Kyuhyun would then perhaps be able to go in and say a hello. But unfortunately, Sungmin was never around. Kyuhyun thought of walking by Sungmin’s classroom hoping to see him, but he decided against it.

And so time passed by fast. Sungmin eventually graduated and left high school. The person and the memory of Sungmin slowly disappeared from Kyuhyun’s thoughts as life went on with schoolwork and activities. The infatuation also wore off. Years passed by. The memory of high school and the people they had met also faded with the passage of time as both of them embarked on separate journeys never to cross paths with one another for more than a decade until that working trip in Jeju.

……

Kyuhyun set his chopsticks down on the table as the memories of the past came flooding back to him. For a while back then, Kyuhyun questioned his uality – whether he was gay – due to his fondness and interest in Sungmin, but since it waned off, he did not bother with it.

He quickly brushed those thoughts off. He was going to get engaged to Victoria, Kyuhyun reassured himself. He probably just looked up to Sungmin as a role model. That’s right – a role model; hero worship. Anyway he was definitely not gay.

But Kyuhyun could not ignore those times when his heart pounded wildly. And recalling all those times, he realised that there was a common denominator and occurrence – it was due to Sungmin’s presence.

Is this a signal or something? How could that long gone interest in Sungmin be awakened?

Does he like Sungmin? Is he in love in Sungmin?

But he never felt this way for Sungmin when he was in high school. So why now?

Kyuhyun shook his head in horror.

Think! He has to focus. That’s right. He needs to focus on his upcoming engagement and wedding to Victoria. 

And Kyuhyun thought about Sungmin’s parting words to him to work hard and do well in the media industry and that they might be able to work with one another someday.

Those words certainly came true.

I wonder if he remembers those words he said. I wonder if he even remembers me and that accident when he worked together, Kyuhyun thought as he sighed. 

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So Kyuhyun and Sungmin did interact with one another during high school, but not much. Maybe some fleeting glances, greetings and that's about that. They don't really remember one another that well...

So sorry that I took quite a while to update. Thank you all for your patience.

Thanks for all the comments and subscriptions. Do keep them coming. Thanks.  

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