Kim Jong In, nick named Kai, liked to pick on Chan Yeol just because Chan Yeol likes to smile at everything. Crazy right? Every time they would meet, Kai would call him “smile freak” and try to trip him. Most of the time, it was a success. And of course, the person whose task was to protect me, came crying to me for protection instead. Seriously, I felt like a mother with this kid. In resolving the problem with Kai and Chan Yeol, I had help from Kai’s friends: Kim JoonMyeon (nick name: Suho) and Do Kyung Soo (nick name: D.O.) I felt like we were parents settling an argument between our kids, I swear. So we came to an agreement: because Kai doesn’t have a good enough reason to bully Chan Yeol, he has to stop bullying him and has to apologize. And even if he did find a decent reason, it still isn’t good to bully people. For Chan Yeol on the other hand, we told him to stop smiling too much because it was really creepy seeing it every day.

But of course, those two kids didn’t change a thing. Chan Yeol went on to be a smiling maniac while Kai went on to constantly tripping him. And so Suho, D.O. and I never stopped settling the dispute between these two children.

Chan Yeol also had two friends at that time aside from me: Byun Baek Hyun and Oh Se Hun. Whenever I saw these three together, I just felt like laughing. They looked like aliens to me: a bunch people who didn’t have a clue about this world. Chan Yeol smiled too much, Baek Hyun was practically a baby and Se Hun almost never talked—he usually just nodded or any other form of body language. So on the rare occasions when he actually utters a word, we would put our hands together and give him a round of applause—we felt like proud siblings on times like those.

So these were our relationships with each other throughout our elementary years. I was stuck with Chan Yeol, whom I started to consider a puppy dog, and all of the crazy company he brought me. Yep—it totally the normality out of my life. But I guess it was interesting too. It’s funny that even though I openly pushed him away, he still stood by me. You see, I’m quite frank and simple with everyone; more so with someone I’m close to. So every time I find Chan Yeol annoying or just don’t feel like responding to him, I really do those mean things. After all, as usual, he would just laugh at me and tell me “That’s what you always say Jiyeon ^_^ But I know you’re only like this because you actually care about me.” And then I hit him on the head… but it’s true… this little pup really did have a place in my heart. He was a very valuable friend to whom I could be myself with.

Then we entered middle school…

(the picture is Chan Yeol before he made his debut ^_^ maybe around middle school?)