It was the summer of 1920 when two strangers met in the most peculiar way.

Their meeting was almost usual in every way. A few, shy smiles were exchanged along with hesitant words and fugitive glances.

Sungjong had latched his tiny hands tightly around his mother's skirt, his knuckles turning white from the pressure exerted. "Come meet your noona, Sungjong-i," his mother's soft voice whispered as she usher the shy 7-year old boy towards the 13-year old girl.

"Annyeonghaseyo," he greeted, looking anywhere but the girl- no, his noona's eyes. "I'm Lee Sungjong,"

A hand reached out, patting the boy's unusual golden locks. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sungjong-ah. I'm Sandara, your noona,"

Sungjong looked up slightly, only to see the most breathtaking smile he had ever seen. The way her eyes crinkle up into cresents made blood rush to his ears. For a brief moment, he could not hear anything but the sound of his own chest drumming loudly against his ribcage.

"Are you alright, son?" a smooth, velvety voice snapped him back to reality. He avoided his father's ("He is your father, now, Sungjong. Remember that, dear," his mother's voice replayed inside his head) gaze, adverting his attention towards the shiny floor once again. "Yes, father," he meekly replied.

After a few minutes of conversing with the floor, he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Bid your father and your sister goodbye, Park Sungjong,"

He inwardly cringed at the new surname but obeyed nonetheless. "Goodbye, Father. Goodbye, sister. It's a pleasure to meet you," he recited lifelessly, offering the most polite smile he could muster.

"I hope we can see each other again, Sungjong-ah," were the last words he heard from his sister. They were escorted out of the large villa and into her mother's autmobile.

Little did he know is that there was no next meeting. Like the ashes and smoke from the burning villa, his new family was gone with the wind. And just like the flames of the burning house, the flames of his heart was also estinguished.

"There had been a terrible fire down the county, Soon Ok," his mother's friend, Lady Jung, whispered during a family dinner.

"So I've heard. It was a tragic, indeed. Poor souls,"

Little Sungjong could only imagine the black smoke rising from the ground where his Father and Noona were, just like the countless times where he had witnessed almost the same thing.