There is once a young girl to whom every other child wished to please. Perhaps it is of her quiet charm, or the way the eyes had the sporadic flash of ebullience twinkling in them. No matter what the reason is behind it all, the fact remains that the other kindergarten classmates intended to make her smile, maybe even squeal in euphoric delight. They come up with all sorts of wacky acts, whimsical in nature, and the leaves that pattern the browning grass subsequently end up as a prop for the task. By and by, the smile on her face widens, albeit the sight of her teeth non-existent and a child’s silly face manages to force the small mouth wide open. Then the horrific screams, the numerous and uncountable screams that emanate when the only evidence of the aforementioned girl’s laugh remain a breezy escape through the windpipe in the whole playground.

 

She blinks in remembrance at that, the sounds reverberating. The patient tap induced on a chipped edge of the table across the cool room, however, commands her attention.

 

“Hey,” he quietly articulates, the sides of his mouth curving into a neat smile. The companion could not help but to reciprocate the said action, for the male is one who differed amongst the rest.

 

In the playground that day, when the pre-school kids screamed about her inability to speak, it wasn’t exactly a horrible treatment. It was merely odd, and the children were uninformed, unlike the teachers. At that point of childhood, it was break time, and so it would hardly be conceivable that severe mishaps were to eventuate. The feet that ran continued in a state of a messy blur when the girl had silently noticed the presence of another.

 

Here was a boy that did not leave. One that held a blinking expression of sincerity, with clumsy tied red converses that were smudged by traces of rugged mud. An arm that stretched awkwardly against his own small back; the steps that printed the soil.

 

“Ah…” he had begun with such deliberateness, the natural hesitation that surged when it came to the approach of something unfamiliar. “You… I mean, cannot, speak?” Flustered as a dolt, the colour of rubescent painted. With the imperceptible tilt of the head, she nods. A spark of excitement caused her hands to signal some items, but midway a thought had interrupted, and so it fell apart. Her sombre glance only fell at that point.

 

“You’d want us to introduce our names?” he mentioned aloud by accident, instinctively ducking his face into his hands afterwards. Having not learnt the written language just yet, hearing what he guessed incited a glimmer of fierce hope in her closed heart. In a house of crying silence, he had stumbled upon something probable. The ringing of the bell threw him off-guard, but the bashful smile never deteriorated.

 

A cordial hand stretched out, the expressive, “Hello, I’m Kim Himchan – it’s nice to meet you,” made the first day at this schooling institute a lot brighter than it would have been at the incipient moment. It is his hand she took, indeed.

 

“Caught in a dream?” muses the male, his raven head carelessly lolling against the wardrobe’s oak frame. The girl approaching the age of twenty-four negates the statement, using her hands to gesticulate the actual thought process that occurred. A hearty laugh fills the perimeter. Due to such an action, a parental figure looks in by the crack of the door’s opening. “Looks like you guys are relaxing fine enough,” the mother of the girl comments and the quick smile that decorates her countenance confirms it. She bids a general farewell before leaving the door shut altogether.

 

“I have no intent to hang on to past happenings, but I can’t help to smirk a little when we see how far we’ve come now,” he says almost impertinently. While there is a sharp look shot, the words proposed cannot be denied.

 

Her parents found out about her inherent condition a few months after the joyous birth. In their attempt to make the best out of things, they taught her how to signal with the use of hands and why, even facial expressions. Whenever they discussed matters together, they were verbal, but whenever she tagged along, instinct made them wordless. Soundless conversations usually filled the home, and it was in the fear and avoidance of making their child realize that she was voiceless that brewed the gaping hole within. Because it wasn’t like she never noticed the giggly chatters of other people around her, after all.

 

During the first few days at kindergarten, they advised her to make signals and just be a quiet, friendly person. There was no need to stand out and learning new skills would be more beneficial than the painful method of making friends albeit the rare setback. Ingrained with that particular teaching, it was then how she was meant to venture through the pre-school years peacefully – but the scene during break time was a definite collapse of everything.

 

What was unexpected, nonetheless, was the establishment of a friendship despite the perplexing condition that dominated her being. Young and gentle Himchan had decided to try, having enveloped himself in an air of curiousity. In his childish attempts to learn how to communicate well with the use of hands, the cheerful chatters that lifted his tongue were plentiful, too. When the parents dropped by to fetch her back home from kindergarten, they were shocked at the fact that the child spoke to their daughter continuously. In their eyes, it had looked like he was being oblivious and hurting her emotionally for being unable to voice out.

 

“I appreciate your friendship, but on no more occasions should you speak verbally to her,” expresses the father rather stiffly before his wife took their daughter away. The sudden jerk of the hand, the partially annoyed boy who waved in return. He didn’t like their policy no matter what they had kindly intended – it sounded most unfair.

 

And so it was the beginning of the many diverging opinions that pulled and pushed the girl in all directions. While her selectively mute parents wanted her to stay on the safe side, the charm of a voice that pressed on relentlessly was infinitely tempting.

 

“Do you remember what you told me on that day by the bench?” she then signals extemporaneously, to which the male grins. The nod that depicts a triumphant yes.

 

They sat on one of the many benches in their high school campus, to which a question was penned with much trepidation on paper. “Why do you keep on trying to talk to me in the spoken language, Himchan?” she had written. “Why do you do so when I can never do so for you in return? Because… I don’t think that you’re just someone who desires to get on my parents’ nerves, right?” It was passed to him, and Himchan’s subtle expression did not alter. Then she was looking him face to face, but there was nothing lingering in the air except for the daunting wait of a reply.

 

Minutes had ticked away and finally, she had snapped. The high school girl left the inarticulate friend but a strong, chaste grip caught the right wrist. She turned sullenly. “I speak to you because I don’t think that it’s really the right way to shut your ears out of the everyday things that talk,” he confessed softly. “You may not be able to speak, and I cannot ever say that I’d ever understand, but I wouldn’t have wanted to live in silence just because I wasn’t born with the ability to express coherently.” The slight breeze that picked up caused his serious expression to shine in the quietest yet most impactful way.

 

And now, the girl cannot refrain from smiling fondly at the friend who stuck through all the situations that have transpired within the years. His loosened shoulders leaning against the wardrobe frame, the feet that lengthens on the floor’s solid surface. “Hey, hey,” he mentions for perhaps the nth time of the day. “What are you thinking about this time with the half-spaced out look of yours?” This time, she doesn’t explain, and a light scowl mars his smooth, handsome face.

 

Because the notion that procrastinates is one that others would find most incredulous. Having no words ever formed at the tip of the tongue, she has never known the voice that would resound in the deepest parts of her mind, if ever. Yet lately there is one approaching, and though it is not hers, she does not feel afraid. So it is all that she can do to wear the biggest smile ever as a worthy gift of thanks to the boy who once tried, and won.

 

After all, it’s his voice that’s echoing her thoughts now.