Forever wasn’t long at all.

After the third grade, your family moved to a different town and you were forced to go to another school, meet unfamiliar people, and worst of all, leave Junho behind. You couldn’t think of life without Junho. He was your first friend, your best friend, and honestly, your only friend. But life had to go on. No matter how many times you cried or begged your parents, eventually, you had to let go.

“I’m going to miss you ______.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

“Promise to come to my birthday party?”

“Of course”

“Don’t miss me too much, and promise me that even after all your new friends, you’ll still remember me!” he smiled.

You nodded.

But you never had a way to contact him and that was the last time the two of you ever saw each other.

You were now in the seventh grade and, as nonromantic as it sounds, you were doing perfectly fine without Junho. Of course you remembered him, you still hugged teddy every night in your sleep, you still whispered the words forever and always to yourself everyday, you still wished that you could see him, you still missed him. Okay, maybe you weren’t doing perfectly fine without him.

But you handled it, as best as you could. You made new friends, remembering your promise. How were you to come back to him and tell him that he was important enough to be remembered despite all your friends if you had none. And that’s how you met Chansung.

“Yah..you’re not thinking about him again are you?”

“Huh, oh no, I’m just uhh..thinking about what to eat today afterschool!”

He poked you in the cheek and huffed, “liar.”

Then lighting up again, “Oh, but now that we’re on the topic of food, what do you want to eat today, I’ll treat! And then we can go to the arcade to get your mind off of him!”

“Hwang Chansung and ______, would you like to share your conversation with the class?”

“Sorry!” the two of you said as you sheepishly grinned at each other.

“I’ll have two cokes, one large pepperoni pizza, some buffalo wings and, oh ___ you want them extra spicy right? Extra spicy please! And do you have cheese sticks here? You do? Okay, I’ll take an order of those too! Oh and an icecream sundae! That’s it!”

After stuffing yourself to the point where it felt like you possibly might barf, you and Chansung made your way to the arcade.

“Yah! You cheated, hey stop taking my kills!”

“Channie you’re such a loser!” you giggled.

For a moment, you didn’t think about Junho at all. The two of you walked back home to your adjacent houses, you were neighbors of course. Chansung decided to stay at your house for a while, knowing that without him or your other friends around, you’d probably sink into the usual ‘I miss Junho’ mood. Well, you’d sink into that mood either way, but Chansung always thought it’d be better if he were around for you whenever it happened. 

“You know, I really want to see him, even if it’s only for one day and thank him for everything,” you said “I want to thank him for showing me how nice it is to have a friend, for showing me that friends are there for you when you need them, for teaching me how to open myself up, I owe my friendship with you and everyone else to him Channie..”

He simply smiled warmly at you and gave you a tight hug.

“Maybe you’ll see him when we go to highschool, or maybe past that. I can’t promise that you two will see each other again, but just know that even if in the end he isn’t here for you, I will be.”

All you could do was smile. Maybe this was what reality was all about. What Chansung said reminded you of what Junho said to you as a child, yet it was so different. There was no always, and no forever; those were too idealistic. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to let go. 

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Here's the other chapter to make up for the super short one earlier!

Amazingly, this age jump and moving is not the big transition..

Anyways, hope you enjoy !!