The year was 2004. Little Park Sera was barely nine years old as she skipped through the long grassed field. White fabric flowed down her body in the form of a dress that her mother had dressed her in that morning before she left for work, kissing her daughter lightly on the forehead beforehand. Her brother usually went out with his friends after his mother had exited, taking Sera along with him as she loved to run through the field around half an hour bike ride from their house. He would allow her an hour or two to play in the plants and smell the beautiful flowers before he’d pick her up again and take her back where she was safe.

Her feet stopped running when a shout echoed around the field. Though she was only nine, she knew that it was the sound of someone in trouble, and immediately began to investigate. The shouts came again and again,becoming louder as Sera took more steps forward until she was running to the pained voice. Her eyes flickered around the area she was at, scanning it for the source of the voice, to no avail. Shouting continued as a tall tree caught her eye, and an idea sprung to mind. She’d climb the tree and look across the plain of grass, and search. There was no stopping now, after she’d searched for so long, and she was beginning to wonder where the voice actually was coming from. Her small feet carried her frame towards to tree, until when she got there, she realised, she didn’t need the tree at all. The voice was sat right in front of her. Literally.

She had gotten only three feet from the tree when she noticed him sitting against it, crying out in pain and grasping onto his leg, his head looking up to the sky.

Gently kneeling in front of him, her hands moved to his and removed them from his leg before replacing them with her own.

“What are-!”

“Sh. I’m trying to look at it,” she interrupted.

Her finger unexpectedly pressed onto a painful part around his ankle and an immeasurably loud shout escaped from the boy’s lips. “That hurts!” He yelled.

“Oh, I-I’m sorry,” she said sadly, removing her hand.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry for shouting,” he said glumly.

“Don’t worry, I shouldn’t have touched it. How did you do it?” She inquired.

“I-I fell out of the tree.” He pointed upwards.

“Oh. Do you want me to help you get back to the street?”

“You’d help me? You barely know me.”

“So?” She asked.

“So- So, nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

“Okay let’s go.” Her arm wrapped around his torso as she, with the help of his one foot, lifted him up to stand, when his arm laid over her shoulder for support.

Sera guided the way back through the field, taking the route from the tree that she had been doing for over three years, and, ten minutes later, they were stood at the edge of it, overlooking the empty road.

She helped the boy sit himself down, his leg stretched out in front of him as he looked at it. “My mum’s going to kill me, I wasn’t supposed to be climbing trees when I was watching- Benji! Oh my god!” His eyes widened.

“Benji?” Sera questioned.

“M-My dog. He ran off when I was climbing, that’s why I fell out when I was climbing down to find him.”

“I’ll find him, you wait here,” Sera ordered, already beginning to run back into the long reeds.

“Wait! Stop!” The boy called, already feeling indebted to the girl without the retrieving of his dog, but he was too late, she was already out of hearing distance.

“Benji!!” She called around, searching through thoroughly, with no luck. In the fifteen minutes she’d been looking, she must’ve checked over half the field, with not so much as a bark to be heard. Her legs were beginning to become tired as she finally slowed down, her voice becoming weary, the name she was calling slowly fading into whispers.

Then she heard it.

Definitely, a dog’s bark, coming from her left. Energy returned to her legs and voice as she called the name over and over again as the barking became louder and louder with every step she took.

She finally came to a row of sky scraping trees, beyond which was unknown, due to the darkness that faded into pitch black as it went deeper. Her breathing stopped as the bark came again, in the direction of the forest. Benji’s in there? She thought to herself. She was terrified. But she promised. She told the boy she’d save his dog, and she always did what she said she would. A deep breath escaped her lips and nose as she took a step forwards, a step closer to the forest, and another until she was on the barrier that looked like heaven in the field separated from hell in the forest.

Her foot was above the ground of the first yard or so into the forest, already shadowed from the darkness of the trees blocking the sun. She in and exhaled once, closing and reopening her eyes before she was prepared.

But it turned out she didn’t need to be.

Benji came out by himself, appearing from behind one of the trees in a ball of golden fur. He dashed towards Sera and jumped up, causing her to fall over in a fit of giggles as he tried to her face while she ruffled his ears. “Do you know how worried your owner was? Do you know his name? He still hasn’t told me his name, but then again I haven’t told him mine either,” she told him, the monotoned border collie looking at her directly in the eyes. They reminded her of the boy’s eyes, which she hadn’t realised she’d noticed so considerably.

“Shall we take you back to him? He’s hurt his foot, you know, trying to get down for you. But I’m sure he’ll forgive you. You’re just too cute, aren’t you?” She rambled, acting cutely with pet she wished she had.

After a few more cutesy gestures and rambling one sided conversation, she could finally stand up. Benji didn’t go anywhere. he just sat by her side while she stood, stretching her legs a little. A lead was still attached to the collar around his neck, and she reached to pick it up, not wanting Benji to run off again, though he’d seemed to have taken a liking to her anyway.

The walk back was a lot quicker than the time taken to get there, but Sera just guessed that was to do with her checking every spot on the entire piece of land, and this time she was simply walking straight back. Soon enough, she saw the back of the little boy’s head, a very dark brown but not black, like hers.

Benji immediately began pulling on his lead to get to his owner, asking to go to him, and she quickly obliged. Around a foot away from him, she let go of the rope and let the dog be reunited with the boy, who reacted as if his whole world had come back to him, and Sera wondered if that was what it was like.

He hugged the dog tightly and didn’t let go, the collie nuzzling his nose into the boy’s neck.

“Thank you, thank you,” he repeated to Sera. “You didn’t have to go into the forest, but you were willing to-”

“How- How did you know I went into the forest?”

“I-I may have hopped and followed you,” he answered honestly.

“Why would you do that?”

“To make sure you don’t steal my dog,” he chuckled and bit his lip.

“I would’ve done if he wasn’t yours,” she giggled. “He’s so cute!”

“Well, I am his owner,” the boy said smugly.

She instantly knew what he meant by his statement and she promptly hit him on the arm for it, despite hardly knowing him.

“Yah, you want to break my arm too?” He questioned.

“Your leg isn’t broken,” she pointed out.

“It could be.”

“You’d be crying on the floor and screaming aloud. I don’t think it’s broken.”

“Whatever,” he scoffed. “But, how are we going to get home?”

“My brother is on a park with his friends not far from here. My mum’s at work, so we’ll have to hop to the park.” Sera spoke very straight forward when she was a child, she didn’t believe in trying to be cute when you were younger, because people just thought you were cute anyway. She’d save all her energy of aegyo and such for growing up.

“Okay,” the boy agreed.

They set off, the boy’s arm around her shoulders while she held him up as best she could, her other hand tightly held onto Benji’s lead, making sure not to let go of the runaway dog.

After only five minutes of walking, the familiar grass green of the park finally came into view; but it was huge. Chanyeol and his friends usually hung around at the very edge of the other side of it, which would be at least another ten minute walk. Though, when he knew she’d be finished after around two hours, he would walk up to wait for her where the park began. Seeing as she was so early, she didn’t blame him for not being there.

Their walk ended up being in complete silence. Not a word was spoken between the boy and girl as he hopped and she struggled to help him. That was, until she remembered that she didn’t even know his name, and he didn’t know hers.

“I’m Sera, by the way,” she brought up.

“I’m not telling you my name until you prove you’re not taking me to be killed,” he said stubbornly.

“I’m nine. What can I do? Has anyone ever told you, you’re really stubborn and annoying to say that I just saved you?” She answered breathlessly, tired from all the half carrying of the boy.

“A lot of people say I’m stubborn, actually. And you’ve only just met me, imagine what it must be like to be my friend,” he emphasised the word.

“Pfft, I could handle you.”

“Yeah. Okay,” he answered, obviously not believing her.

After a few more minutes of silence, the figure of her brother surrounded by other recognisable ones came into view, and Sera hurried the boy more, his leg quickly becoming a lot more tired than before.

“Oppa!” She called. “Oppa!”

Chanyeol immediately turned to her direction and began running towards both her and the boy.

“Sera! Are you okay? Who’s this? Dude, are you okay?” Chanyeol turned to the person beside her.

“I guess I’m fine, I just hurt my ankle and I need to get home.”

“Okay, you can come on my bike. Byunghyun! Get over here, I need you to take Sera home!” Chanyeol called to one of his friends, who quickly responded to her brother by following him down to the three.

“Wait, I’m coming with you,” she answered to Chanyeol’s request of his friend.

“There’s not enough room-” Chanyeol began.

“I’ll follow Chanyeol on his bike, so then you can see him home,” Byunghyun compromised, pointing to the boy.

“Okay, that’s all good then. Well, we’d better get you home,” Chanyeol once again turned to the boy. who nodded and allowed Chanyeol to help him, taking the weight off of Sera.

“Wait! What about my dog?” The boy suddenly realised.

“Hang on, Jaeseok can bring him, he doesn’t have his bike today.” Chanyeol called to the male he mentioned, who quickly obliged and once with the four of them, held the dog's leash. “Jaeseok runs really fast, so he shouldn’t have a problem following.”

The younger boy once again nodded as the five of them exited the park and Chanyeol helped the boy onto his bike while Byunghyun helped Sera onto his.

Everyone took off, with Chanyeol up front leading the way while Byunghyun, Sera and Jaeseok followed, with Benji not having a problem with keeping up with any of them.

“So, is he your boyfriend?” Byunghyun teased. Out of all Chanyeol’s friends, she felt the most comfortable with Byunghyun, the most probable reason being he was round their house a lot because he was Chanyeol’s closest and best friend.

She scoffed. “Of course not. I met him half an hour ago when he fell out of a tree,” she said as a matter-of-factly.

“Ah, okay. But why do you want to go with him to his house?”

She shrugged. “I want to make sure Benji gets in okay.”

Byunghyun laughed as the bike ride continued for another twenty five minutes, and Sera was awed at how both Jaeseok and Benji kept up with them, though by the time they’d gotten to the correct house, both man and dog were well and truly exhausted.

“Thanks for helping me,” the boy said as he began walking up his porch, Sera just behind him while the older boys stayed where they were.

“It’s okay. So, can I know your name now?” She folded her arms.

He smiled a little, showing a dimple that she hadn’t noticed before but found very cute. He held out his hand. “I’m Kim Myungsoo. Let’s be friends?”

She eyed his hand suspiciously for a moment. “What? I thought you said you could handle me?” Myungsoo challenged.

A smile escaped onto her lips as she unfolded her arms and took his hand, shaking it. “Of course I can handle you. Let’s be friends,” she agreed.