The sharing of lunches and climbing across monkey bars continued on for the rest of that year and throughout Sehun’s year in first grade too. The summer in between the end of Sehun’s first grade year and the start of his second grade year was now ending. He and Minseok had passed the days by playing the latter’s new video games and soccer or helping their mothers bake chocolate chip cookies and then racing each other to the park while their mothers slowly trailed behind.

The four-year between the two did nothing to hinder their friendship that seemed to grow a little tighter each and every day. They had learned a lot about each other. For instance, Sehun learned that Minseok liked to play soccer and listened to Super Junior and Minseok learned that Sehun liked to drink bubble tea and listened to BoA. Their friendship seemed unbreakable. That is, until the end of the school year came, and Sehun found out that Minseok wouldn’t be attending the same school as him next year.

“Hyung, what do you mean you’ll miss the monkey bars?” Sehun innocently asked.

The two were sitting on the raised platform by the monkey bars and munched on the cookies that they had made a couple days ago with M&Ms in them. These were Sehun’s new favorite because he said he wanted to dye his hair all the colors of the rainbow when he was a big boy.

“I’m gonna be in seventh grade next year,” Minseok answered, as if Sehun would be able to understand the difference between sixth and seventh grade without an explanation.

“So what?”

“So I have to go to a different school. It’s the bigger kid school. The one right by the park,” Minseok stated.

“Why don’t they have monkey bars too?” Sehun asked, pouting his lip out and furrowing his eyebrows, thinking hard.

“They don’t have recess, silly! There’s not enough time for recess! And there’s gonna be more than one teacher!” Minseok started exclaiming.

“But I like having one teacher. I don’t want to leave the monkey bars either,” Sehun pouted even more and proceeded to look lovingly at the monkey bars. Minseok ruffled his head.

“Well lucky for you, you don’t have to leave them for another three years. I’m jealous,” Minseok sighed.

“Wait so I’m not going with you to the bigger kid school?” Sehun asked in confusion.

“No, of course not! You’re only going to be in third grade so you have to stay here.”

“So hyung, you’re leaving me?!” Sehun exclaimed loudly as he whipped his head to the left to face Minseok.

“Yeah but it’s not forever,” Minseok enunciated. “And not until after summer either. So I’m here for a little longer.”

“How much longer? Hyung, I don’t want you to leave me.” Sehun asked with tears welling up in his eyes.

“Long enough to call you a baby!” Minseok teased. “You always say you’re a mature big boy but you’re gonna cry again!”

Sehun’s tears disappeared almost instantly. “Hyung stop! I am a matshur big boy!”

“Sehunnie, it’s MATURE.”

“I said that!” Sehun whined and stood up and began to cross the monkey bars again. He wanted to impress his hyung and show him that he was a mature big boy by getting across the monkey bars quickly. He hadn’t completely willed his tears away yet so he couldn’t see clearly. Halfway through, he missed one of the bars by a fraction of an inch and fell down to the ground. The tears that were in his eyes less than a minute ago had returned. This time they left his eyes and quickly trailed down his face. Pained whimpers quickly escaped from his mouth as he sat up and clutched his left arm. Just as before, Minseok raced from his place on the raised platform and ran over to Sehun.

“Are you okay?!” He asked the latter. “You really shouldn’t be allowed to play on the monkey bars anymore. You hurt yourself way too often and you get too many blisters. Be more careful!”

Sehun just continued to clutch his arm and silently cry.

“Come on Hunnie, get up. If you don’t finish the cookies, I will and you’re gonna get mad at me again,” he urged. With that, Sehun stood up and the two trudged back over to the platform where they sat. While wiping Sehun’s tears, Minseok started to talk again.

“You have to be more careful because I won’t be able to do this anymore when I’m at the bigger kid school. Stop crying and be a mature big boy so that you can grow up faster and we can go to school together again at the biggest kid school!”

Sehun’s tears slowed and eventually came to a stop because he decided he was going to be a mature big boy for real and grow up fast to be at the biggest kid school with his hyung.

That summer, Sehun spent as much time as he could with his hyung and did his best to make sure that his hyung wouldn’t forget about him when he went to what he later found out was called middle school. The effort was all wasted though, because on the first day back to school, Sehun asked his mom to take him over to his hyung’s house and when he got there, he found his hyung playing with new friends.

“Hyung! Hyung! Hyung! Hyung!” Sehun yelled as he raced up the stairs of the Kim household, “Hyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuung!” He burst through the door with a bright smile on his face, but it quickly disappeared and he flushed in embarrassment when he noticed that his hyung wasn’t alone.

“Sehunnie! How was the first day of third grade? Was Mr. Nam nice?” Minseok asked.

Suddenly shy because of the strangers in his hyung’s room, Sehun just looked down at his sock clad feet and mumbled out “good” as an answer.

“The big kids were nice to you right?” Minseok asked another question.

“Yeah,” he mumbled again.

“Good. Anyways, Sehun, this is Jongdae and Luhan,” Minseok introduced with excitement, “Luhan’s all the way from China but listen to how good his Korean is!”

“Hello,” Sehun said with a bow, “I’m Sehun.”

“I’m Jongdae.”

“And I’m Luhan. It’s nice to meet you!” He said and reached over to pinch Sehun’s cheek, but the latter shied away.

“Sorry about that. He can be really shy with new people he’s just met,” Minseok explained.

“It’s all good. Anyways, can you believe we got homework on the first day of class?!” Luhan exclaimed.

“I know right!”

The older boys decided that they would do their homework later so they continued to talk to each other about how their day was and who they thought was cute in their class. Disappointedly, Sehun shuffled himself to the small corner between the edge of his hyung’s bed and the wall and sat down with a small huff. He didn’t want to call his mom to come pick him up since she just dropped him off, but he also didn’t want to bother the big boys. He pulled his backpack off and ped it before pulling out his binder and starting on his math homework. He was working diligently on his history homework and moved onto his math, which he mostly finished with ease, until he reached a problem that stumped him. He tried to help himself by reviewing his notes, but he still could not understand it so he spoke up.

“Minseok hyung,” he called out into the room. The three boys looked up and over at him.

“Oh! Sehunnie, there you are! You’re being so quiet today. What’s up?” Minseok responded.

“Can you help me with this math problem? I don’t get it.”

“Actually, I have a lot of homework today and I have to help Luhan and Jongdae with it right now so I can’t help you. Look at the notes you took and you should be able to do it okay?” With that, Minseok turned back around to his desk and ped his backpack, the other two boys following suit.

Then, a knock sounded from the closed room door and Minseok’s mom’s head popped in afterwards.

“Sehun, your mom’s here. It’s time for you to go home,” she said with a small smile that prompted Sehun to quickly pack up his stuff. He stood up and slipped his backpack back on.

“Bye hyungs,” he said to Luhan and Jongdae with a bow. “Minseok hyung, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay!” Minseok said, without turning away from his homework.

Sehun followed Mrs. Kim down out of the room and out of the stairs dejectedly. He slowly slipped his shoes on and walked out of the door.

For every single day throughout the rest of the week, Sehun went over to Minseok’s house to try to hang out with his hyung, but he seemed to always have new friends over so he didn’t have a chance to bake cookies or go to the park with his hyung. Every one of those days, he left feeling worse and worse because his Minseok hyung was ignoring him more and more.

By the time Monday rolled around, Sehun was mad at Minseok so he didn’t bother to go over to his house and waited all night for the house phone to ring to see if it was Minseok calling him to ask why he didn’t come over. Minseok never called, and Sehun was determined to never talk to him again.

Author's Note: Here is chapter two! I hope you guys enjoy and the next chapter/update should be posted soon~