Title      : Promise Ring

Pairing  : KangTeuk

Rating   : G

Sum     : In a warm night, the boys were gathering on the living room, talking about their first love.

“My first love was my childhood friend… When I was five.” Ryeowook barely said.

There were ‘ooooh’ sounds everywhere after that.

“Let me guess, let me guess! You were playing The House at that time!”

“No, I was playing The Wedding.”

Many laughter and Shindong exclaimed. “What??? You played The Wedding??? Ryeowookie-ah! Are you a man or not?”

“What’s so wrong with playing it? I did, too!” Eunhyuk retorted.

“Oh, shut up, Hyuk.” Eeteuk waved him off. “Now let’s hear our Yehsung’s first love.”

Soon, everyone’s eyes were on Yehsung, who cleared his throat nervously.

“You wanna know my first love?”

“Yeeees!” many of them answered.

“Really???”

“Yah Hyung, just say it already!” Sungmin whined impatiently.

“Okay, okay.” Yehsung cleared his throat again. “My first love…” he paused to add a dramatic effect to his words. Everyone was waiting.

“My first love…”

They were still waiting.

“My first love…”

They groaned.

“Say it again and I’ll throw you outside!” Kangin said menacingly.

“Okay!” Yehsung lifted his hands. “Now I’m serious. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you.” he took a deep breath. “My first love… is my mother.”

After seconds of a cold silence, everyone sweatdropped and Eeteuk shouted aloud. “Let’s just ignore him and his mother complex problem. Next! Who is your first love, Kangin-ah?”

“My first love?” Kangin reiterated. “It was a nuna.”

“A nuna???”

“Yes, a very pretty one.”

Again, the ‘ooooh’ sounds filled the room.

“Where did you meet her?”

“Who’s she?”

“What’s her name?”

“Aish, let him finish his story first!” Siwon cut the babbles. Silence fell when everyone looked at Kangin attentively as he opened his mouth and talked.

<<< 

A wintry evening. Streets and parks were all empty. No one was stupid enough to be outside while they could have a glass of hot chocolate or duck themselves under their comfortable blanket. However, there was a little boy on a park, swinging himself on a swing, blowing air to his palms, trying to make it warmer.

“I should’ve obeyed umma and stayed at home.” He murmured. “Now what I have to do? I don’t even know where I am.”

He swung himself harder. Cold air blew his body, made him shivered, but he didn’t care. If he swung harder, he would feel warmer when he finally stopped later. After minutes passed like that, he realized than he couldn’t stay any longer there. His hands started getting numb, he couldn’t feel his feet inside his boots anymore, and on the top of those, he felt very hungry. Bowing, he forced himself to slowly walk out from the park.

“You!” a voice called out. He lifted his head in surprise, but no one was there in front of him.

“Hey.” The voice called him again. He turned around this time, and saw a girl—two or three years older than him—wearing a pink sweater and long skirt standing before the park’s gate, watching him bewilderedly. “What are you doing here in such cold evening?”

He blinked. “I get lost.”

“Get lost?” the girl repeated. “How could?”

Feeling relieved of finding someone who could show him his way home, he told the girl what was happening, that he was spending his winter holiday on his grandmother’s home, that he had been warned not to go outside alone because he didn’t know this town well, that he had ignored his umma’s words and stubbornly went outside because he was bored at home…

“Could you tell me my way home???” he asked in the end of his story.

The girl looked uneasy. “Well… I…”

He waited hopefully.

The girl sighed. “I’m actually getting lost myself.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

*

“Hey, stop. Stop!”

He turned around, saw the girl humped and panted many steps behind him.

“Come on, we’ve to keep moving or we’d die freezing.”

“But I’ve bad feeling that we’re heading to the wrong way…” she said. “And… I don’t think I can do it anymore…” she toppled forward.

“Nuna!” He rushed to her. “Nuna, don’t sleep! Listen, I’ll carry you, all carry you… Hold on.”

And he carried her on his back, continued walking. His feet stepped on the snowy street steadily. After what seemed like forever, he saw a police officer, riding a bicycle, got closer to him.

“Sir!” he waved.

The police stopped in front of them. “Kids, what’re you doing outside?”

“We get lost.” He panted. “Please, help us.”

*

“We’re here.”

He stared at the house in front of him and grinned. He was finally home!

“Thank you, Sir.”

The police shook his head. “Go inside, Boy. You’re shivering.”

“Wait, Nuna.”

The girl lifted her head weakly from the back seat.

“Can we meet again?”

She smiled. “Maybe.”

He took away a bronze ring from his finger and handed it to her. “Here, take this.”

“A ring?” she asked.

“Promise Ring.” He nodded. “If you keep it well, then we will certainly meet again someday.”

The police cleared his throat. “We’re going now.”

Smiling, he watched the bicycle drove away and disappeared in a curve.

>>> 

“Yaaaah… It’s so romantic.” Sungmin said serenely as Kangin ended his story.

“But, Hyung, after that, did you meet her again?” asked Donghae, eyes rounded with curiosity.

“No.” Kangin shook his head. “I never meet her again until the end of the holiday, and then I went home.”

“And you don’t even know her name?” Ryeowook questioned.

Again, Kangin shook his head. “The story ended just that way.”

His companions looked unsatisfied.

“That’s a beautiful memory of my childhood.” Kangin stated, and then got up. “It’s almost midnight. I guess I’m going to sleep...”

Murmuring, everyone got up and headed to their bedroom.

“Youngwoon-ah.”

Kangin flipped.

“That nuna…” Eeteuk hesitated. “If you met her again, what’d you do?”

Kangin shrugged. “I don’t know. Who knows where she is and what she has become now, anyway?” and he left.

Hours later on his room, when everyone was completely asleep, Eeteuk opened his drawer and took a bronze ring to his hand.

Sighing, he made a mental note to complain over her sister for dressing him like a girl and having him buy things as a punishment just because she beat him on a ‘kkaebi-kkaebi’ game.

-fin-