“Dae Hyun, why are you here?” I asked him as he started to swing again.

He swung higher and higher as if he tried to swing to the sky. “I followed you,” he said between his swings.

“Why?” I stopped swinging and just looking at him swing higher and higher.

“I don’t know. When you stopped in the middle of the way and turned into another direction I just felt like I should follow you,” he shrugged. That was so Dae Hyun. Doing things spontaneously.

He went higher and the swing’s bar started to shook. “Dae Hyun… Don’t swing too high. You might hurt yourself.”

He laughed. “Aren’t you always the same careful Moon Jeong Ae,” he chuckled and he turned to me with wide grin.

“I’m serious. Slow down. Please. I don’t want you to get hurt,” I begged as he swung high, almost flying out the swing.

He slowed down, “Okay.” He swung slower, but he kept his eyes on mine while he kept swinging forward and backward.

There was something in the way he looked at me. I didn’t know what that was but it made something inside me fluttered. He swung slower and slower until it stopped right beside me and he still looked at me with that gaze.

“Jeong Ae-yah…,” he called out my name softly.

“What?” I answered back with low voice.

“I…,” he gulped down. “I think I….”

“Kyaaaah!” loud voices of kids made me tore my gaze from Dae Hyun’s. There were a bunch of toddlers with their mothers coming to the park. They jumped up and down and went to play in the sand box while their mothers went to one of the benches.

I looked back to Dae Hyun and he was leaning his forehead to the other side of the swing’s holder while muttering things I couldn’t hear. “What were you going to say to me?”

“Oh,” he looked back to me. “I… I think we should go somewhere instead of staying here,” he nodded as if he just thought of the idea and agreed with it.

“We? Both of us?” I pointed at him and myself. The idea sound quite alien to my ear, since we haven't really spent time together for the pas couple of years.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Is it fine, just me and you?” The idea did sound strannge, but spending time with Dae Hyun might easing my heart a little. So why not? I nodded back and gave him a wide smile. “Let’s go,” he reached out to me, waiting for me to take his hand.

I reached back and he smiled wider. He gripped to my hand and squeezed it gently. He pulled me and led me out the park. I didn’t know where he was going as I followed his steps and squeezed back his hand.

His hand was different from the last time we held hands. His hand was bigger. It almost covered my hand completely. I looked at his feature as he led me along the street. He got way taller than me. Taller than the last time I stood beside him. He was a head taller now. He got leaner and more muscular. He was handsome.

Oh my God. Why was I thinking this way? Dae Hyun was my best friend. A best friend shouldn’t think of her best friend that way. But I couldn’t help myself as Dae hyun slipped his fingers between mine, my heart raced. Why was I feeling this way around Dae Hyun? It was Dae Hyun…

He turned his head and smiled to me brightly.

That was it. That smile did it. It made my heart stopped.

I might never have date anyone before. But I was no fool. I read a lot of books and watched a lot of TV shows to know what that was. I knew what that was.

I think I liked Jung Dae Hyun.

***

“Your face’s red,” Dae Hyun said as he put on his newly bought cap.

“It… it’s hot,” I fanned myself with my hands.

“Really? Huh, I feel fine,” he shrugged as he put his blazer into his bag pack then smoothed his new Lotte World T-shirt. I did the same.

We had to buy new clothes so it wouldn’t be so obvious that we came to this amusement park by skipping school. It won’t be funny if you were playing games and suddenly authorities catch you and told your parents that you skipped school.

Dae Hyun and I bought a couple of Lotte World cheap T-shirts, a cap for him and a head band that he was choosing for me. His eyes were dancing between a rabbit ear, devil horns, and cat ears headband. I couldn’t care less. He tugged me closer to put a headband on my head and I could feel my face flaming. God, he was so close.

“There. Hah! Now it officially feels like we’re in amusement park.”

I touched the headband. It was the cat ears shaped one. “Why cat?”

“Because we’re sneaking out school like cats now,” he grinned. I shook my head at the childish answer. “Come on!” He slipped his hand to mine again and I could feel my heart hummed at the touch.

He took me around to all kind of ride and games. He held my hand and only let go when he needed to use both of his hands. And I liked it. Though after all the games, his hand was sweaty and his touch was damp, I loved the warmth of his hand on mine. I wish we could hold hands forever.

Forever…

I stopped. For a moment there I forgot. I forgot the disease that threatened to destroy my youth. To destroy my life. There would be no forever for me.

I stopped in track when I realized that. I let go of Dae Hyun’s hand when I stopped and he also stopped.

I looked at him when he turned around and raised his brows. “What is it? Why are we stopping? I thought you wanted to do some ice skating.”

I liked Jung Dae Hyun. I just realized it today. And I have a cancer. I just knew it yesterday. I was a mess. Seventeen years and I finally liked someone who happened to be my best friend and bam, you have cancer. Ever heard the ‘life is not fair’? Well, my life ed up.

“J… Jeong Ae-yah… Jeong Ae-yah? Jeong Ae-yah…, why are you crying?” I cried in the middle of Lotte World while Dae Hyun looked utterly confused and shock. My miserable, miserable life. “Did I do something wrong? Jeong Ae-yah? Please say something? I’m sorry…. I’m sorry. Please stop crying.”

He soothed me and hugged me in the middle of the amusement park while whispering he was sorry. What was he sorry for? For me to have a cancer? Or for not talking to me for those freaking two years?

I clutched to him and cried harder. He hugged me tighter and kept whispering those silly apologies.

“I’m sorry…. I’m sorry… I’m sorry… please stop crying, Jeong Ae-yah…. I’m sorry.”