This was inspired from Gone with the wind by KayeAllen12

“Did you hear?” Your friend, Deahye who was sitting next you, nudged you.

You shook your head before putting your headphones on. She scowled as she pulled the headphones out of my ears.

“We are going to have new kid and guess what?”

You rolled your eyes, knowing that she was going to start with her fangirling, “What?”

“I heard he’s super cute.” She continued fangirling and you rolled your eyes again. Daehye had always thought that every boy that exist on this earth was cute.

“Whatever.” You murmured, and she slapped her hand on your disk, making you jump slightly. “What?”

“I’m not joking this time, he’s awfully cute.”

“She’s right.” Your other friend, Kisum, said as she sat in the chair in front of you. “I saw him.”

You shook your head in disbelieve. Your friends were being too much obvious about the new guy and you didn’t know why. You didn’t see him yet, but he couldn’t be any better than those who were in your class. Messy, smelly and rude. Boys!

“I don’t care. Now leave me both of you.” You said, putting back your headphones on. Daehye and kisum looked at each other and shook their head.

You wondered what was so good about cute boys. They had that innocent and friendly looks, but they would leave you alone anyway. You knew that well.

When class started, you didn’t give so much attention over it when the teacher walked in. You shifted your eyes that were staring at the morning sunlight inside the classroom again when your teacher started to talk.

“We are going to have another kid with us.” She smiled as she gestured to the class’s door. “Come in and introduce yourself.”

All you could see was light spots that blinded you after staring too much outside in the strong light. When your eyes adjusted to the normal light again, you gasped when you saw him in front of you.

You could remember the last time you saw him. This boy, you could never forget about him. Whatsoever he’s unforgettable.

Watching him bowing, he looked all over the class and smiled when his eyes met yours. He didn’t seem to forget about you either.

“Hi. My name is Xiumin. Please take care of me.”

Xiumin… A name that you weren’t familiar with. A face that you couldn’t forget, even after all these years. He grew up to be taller and more handsome, but his face was the same. You could recognize him even after ten years again from now.

Ten years ago

In kindergarten

There were places you hated the most; school and parks.

In school, kids would ignore you and make fun of you because you were mixed. You were half British and half Korean. They called you ‘mixed bread’. So you preferred most of the time to be alone. Eating alone, sitting alone and study alone. You tried as hard as you could to get away from them.

Your mother would ask you about your new school and friends, you would lie to her and tell her that everything was cool and you made so many friends. You had transferred enough in just a year because of the kids bullying so you had decided to keep your mouth shut this time. You could see that your mother was the one who got hurt the most, so lying was the only solution.

Staring at the sandy ground beneath your little foot, you kept pushing your legs slightly to the ground, making the swing that you were sitting on move forward and backward in a dizzy way. But it somehow eased you, feeling the summer breeze caressing your face slightly.

Your lie drove you to be here. Since your mother believed that you had many friends she asked you why didn’t you go and play with them at the park. You gulped hard before smiling and telling her that you already made plans to meet them there. But the truth was no one was coming, no one would play with you.

You looked up, watching the other kids playing together with a smile over their faces. No one even tried to invite you to play with them. You returned your gaze downward again, to your legs when another pair of shoes appeared in front of you.

“If you kept looking down, you will get dizzy.” You looked up, to find a boy with square smile, almost look like a hamster who didn’t seem to be much taller than you. You tilted your head to a side confused, it was the first time you saw him.

“It is okay.” You murmured, ignoring him and kept on pushing your swing, with your head downward. With the corner of your eyes, you watched him taking the swing next to you and started to push it, doing it in sync with your movement.

“Are you new here?” He asked and you looked at him, meeting your eyes. “It’s the first time seeing you here.”

“We just moved.” You said in a calm voice and he chuckled. Not understanding the reason of his chuckle who looked at him with a blank expression.

“Are you normally this calm?”

“Are you normally this talkative?” you returned his question with another one, making his eyes wide. Slowly they started to darken as he answered you, “Not really.”

“Same here.”  You sighed as you looked at the other kids that were playing happily. Why couldn’t you be like them? Full Korean. Then maybe they wouldn’t ignore you like this.

“Why…” You looked at the boy sitting next to your swing. “Aren’t you playing with them?”

Ignoring his question, not even bothering to reply you returned back his question. “What about you?”

The boy smiled and something in your stomach tightened. This boy looked so pretty when smiling. He wasn’t afraid to talk to you and a brief of happiness cracked inside of you, someone wasn’t ignoring you. “I asked you first.”

“I’m just… Different!” you shrugged, playing with your fingers and then looked up at him, the smile was no longer there.

“Same here.” It was almost like a whisper, but you heard him. You were confused. How was he different? He looked normal to you.

“You aren’t different!” You protested, looking up and down at him.

His head sank that his chin touched his chest, a smile over his face. He looked up again at you, and your breath caught in your throat. “Do you want to play with me?”

You smiled and nodded.

A figure touched his lips as he said, “But the game we are going to play, it’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone about it!”

“W-why?” you asked, confused and he grinned. “It won’t be fun if the other knew about it.”

The place that the boy took you to, was so dark that you couldn’t see anything. Before entering you glanced at him, your legs froze in its place. It was an old garage that no one was using. “Hey, that place is creepy.”

“It’s my play yard.”

“You play here?” you found it strange. Even for a kid, it would be strange but you liked the idea. “Your secret play yard?”

He smiled and nodded at you. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. I promise.” You said and he closed the door behind you, making you jump slightly. Now the room was completely dark that you couldn’t even see your own hands.

A hand touched yours and you tensed from the sudden contact but relaxed when you heard him talking. “It’s me.”

“A-ah uh” You took a deep breath, feeling your heart jump into your chest. “How are we going to play in the darkness?”

“Wait a minute.” He said, before letting go of your hands. “Close your eyes and open it when I tell you.”

You nodded, despite not being able to see anything, you closed your eyes.

“Now open them.”

You gasped when you saw white and light blue glow swim around you. “Wow.”

“Do you like it?” He asked with a grin and you nodded. “Now watch this!”

The boy moved his hand in the air and some white pieces started to fall down in front of you like snow. You walked in and reached your hands out. A snowflake fall over your hand, cold and soft.

“This is amazing.” You breathed and turned to look at the boy. “How did you do this?”

He shrugged, a hand still hanged in front of him. “It’s a secret!”

You frowned, warping your arms around your chest. It was always a secret. “Can you teach me your secret?”

His hand fall to his side and the brightness of the glow went off and the darkness took over again.

“Hey, Snow boy?!” you called him, but he didn’t respond. “Yah! It’s not funny.” You clenched your hands together, holding the other tightly. The place started to get cold little by little and then the glow started again, revealing an icy wall.

Your mouth hung open when you saw it. Your mother told you a lot about magic, but you hadn't seen one before and didn't believe in them. You thought your mother was lying to you. But! This was magical.  

The boy appeared again from behind it, and he was no longer smiling. “My secret is dangerous. You can’t learn it”

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter