Years passed. A grand many years. I was already 17 years old but my heart seemed to have never left that magical and tragic time of youth. There wasn'a time in those 8 years since Kyuhyun's plunging into his so-called "sea of youth" that I never thought about that young life, whisked away before my very eyes brought about by a great sadness and emptiness from within.

Let me tell you, then, what happened after those events.

Kyuhyun's mother was alarmed that he had been lost and hadn't come home for days. I couldn't personally tell her what happened and besides, I don't think she would want to listen to a child like me then but she was worried sick. She started to feel guilty about her occupation which caused her and her sons so much shame, leading Kyuhyun to dive deep into depression. Eventually, authorities found Kyuhyun's body and retunred it to them. Oh how I saw his mother kneel before the cops and scream her heart out. Little brother was still too young to understand what was going on but I hope that someday someone would tell him about it and make him understand this scary yet inevitable part of life. Out of heartbrokenness and illness, his mother eventually died, leaving his younger brother in the care of relatives. Sad what happened to her. I couldn't blame her, though. When I was a kid I couldn't understand why she did what she did but having the mind that I have now, I realize that it was because her husband-their father-refused to sustain them with money for their needs that she had no other choice but to sell her dignity. It was shameful, yes but it was an act of love to keep her children alive. 

I never found a friend quite like Kyuhyun again. Friends came and went in my life but the kind of person I would make a pinky swear pact with, the kind of person I would kiss under the moonlight so innocently and unknowing as only children could, without all the malice in the world, I'm sure I'd never find one. It also dawned on me that at that age, I really did love Kyuhyun with a love so pure and childlike that not even the wraths of society could break or corrupt it. I now can say that I have had my first love and I can also say that I lost him in an instant. 

The acacia tree that got so big and tall was cut down. The treehouse was demolished. Our childhood memories. The laughs and cries and fears we shared through the years, the walls of that little wooden house, the barks and the leaves and the branches were witnesses to it all. As it was being done by my father, I just cried silent tears. They fell uncontrollably down my face as the falling of the tree seemed to mimic the falling of Kyuhyun into the Sea of Youth. 

Did I understand what the Sea of Youth was about? Yes, sure I have. As much as I would like to discuss it here, it would break my heart so to recall those painful times when childhood was ours and stolen.