“Everyone gather up!”

Jaehyun slowed to a stop, breathing hard from continuously kicking the ball up and down the field. He and the rest of his teammates jogged to their captain and gathered into a hot and sweaty team huddle.

Yuta began his speech as soon as everyone arrived. “Alright team. Good work today. Rest up tonight so we can have another good practice tomorrow. Our first game is in a couple weeks, so let’s do our best!” Yuta stuck his hand into the middle of the huddle and the rest followed suit. “1-2-3 TEAM!”

Everyone broke apart, and as the freshmen ran around to put away the equipment, Jaehyun plopped himself on the ground. Yuta sat next to him. “You know you’re not supposed to sit down or else you’re going to cramp up,” he teased his best friend.

Jaehyun rolled his eyes and laid down on his back, “You’re sitting too you know.”

After a second thought, Jaehyun sat back up and looked at Yuta. “I still can’t believe coach picked you as the captain. Actually, I just can’t believe it’s already our senior year in general.”

Yuta’s face lit up with a big toothy smile. “I’m just that good. Coach knows his stuff.” His smile faded a bit at the thought of their senior year. “Honestly I can’t believe it either. It feels like just yesterday we were freshmen.” Yuta slumped a bit. “I don’t want it to end. I love our team. I love playing soccer with you.”

Yuta was the reason Jaehyun started playing soccer in the first place. The Japanese boy came to Korea in middle school not knowing a of Korean. Jaehyun offered the foreigner his friendship and helped him with his language studies. In return, Yuta taught him what he knew best, soccer. Ever since then, the boys had been adamant about playing together in high school, and they did. Unfortunately though, their time playing together was coming to an end.

The boys continued to sit in silence, enjoying the warm spring breeze. School hadn’t even started a month ago and yet summer felt like it was just around the corner. Summer was Jaehyun’s favorite season; it meant playing soccer with Yuta. The two were inseparable from the day they met. Soccer wasn’t the only reason why the two stuck together. They just understood each other, despite growing up in two different countries.

Yuta had a distant look in his eye, definitely still mulling over their senior year. Jaehyun rested a hand on his shoulder, shaking his friend out of his thoughts. “Let’s do our best. But more importantly, let’s have the most fun we’ve ever had, whether we win or lose.”

Yuta was definitely the more emotionally unstable of the two. Jaehyun, on the other hand, was the one who stayed calm and strong for his friend to comfortably lean on. That was just who Jaehyun was. He was the one that listened, more than needing to be listened to.

Yuta’s trademark smile reappeared on his face, making Jaehyun smile as well. Jaehyun didn’t know a single soul that could resist his friend’s smile. It was the brightest and most sincere gesture he had ever seen.

Yuta bounced back on his feet to assess the freshman’s cleaning. “Hey, would you mind taking the cones to the equipment room? It looks like they forgot to take them in, and I need to speak to the coach about jerseys.”

Struggling to his feet, Jaehyun rasped out, “Yea, no problem. See you later.”

The two parted ways, and Jaehyun picked up the pile of cones with a grunt, making his way to the school.

The halls were dark since school was over, but Jaehyun easily knew the way. The equipment closet was in the gym, which was past the music room. Jaehyun had also spent a lot of time in that room. Before he met Yuta, he was very interested in pursuing music in the form of the piano and singing. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested anymore, it was just that Yuta and soccer were took more precedence these days.

Jaehyun was nearing the classroom when singing faintly reached his ears. The closer he got the better he could hear until his heart started doing weird things. Never had he heard such a sweet voice. Despite never having heard the song before, all the emotions the singer put into it, he felt in his soul. Jaehyun was moved to the point where his eyes were tearing up. Beautiful. So very beautiful. He needed more.

When he finally reached the door, he peered through the small rectangular glass window to see a boy about his age passionately singing in the room by himself. He had seen the singer before, but he wasn’t sure where. The boy was a pretty little thing with a small frame and short stature. His hair a dark chocolate brown, unlike Jaehyun’s charcoal black shaggy mane.

The song ended, to Jaehyun’s dismay. Not wanting to get caught staring, he treaded on to finish his earlier task, mind mulling over the mysterious boy.

Even after returning home an hour later, he still couldn’t forget how the singer’s voice had moved his heart so easily. He decided that night he would try to find out who he was tomorrow at school.

It was way easier than he thought. Jaehyun and Yuta always met up at Yuta’s locker before school starts because why not. The boy’s locker was right next to Yuta’s. Jaehyun watched as the small boy grabbed his books and left to go to class. The lockers were in alphabetical order, so of course Moon Taeil would be right next to Nakamoto Yuta. Moon Taeil. He had definitely heard that name before.

Yuta caught Jaehyun staring at Taeil as he walked down the hallway. “See something you like?” Yuta poked fun at him. Jaehyun wasn’t easy to shake up, sad to say for his friend who was the complete opposite.

Jaehyun shrugged, “I’m just curious. I heard him singing after practice yesterday, and he was really good. I just wonder who he is is all.”

“You’re no fun,” Yuta pouted at his unperturbed friend.

“Sorry I’m not like you with a stupid 3 year crush on someone that doesn’t even know you exist because you’re too shy to talk to him.” Jaehyun mocked.

Yuta huffed. “Excuse me, but at least I have interest in someone.”

Jaehyun was about to respond when his friend quickly hid behind him and squealed, “Oh my god there he is,” as his handsome frosty-haired crush waltzed down the hallway.

Jaehyun shook off the beat red Yuta. “I don’t even know what you see in that guy. I mean yeah he’s extremely handsome, but he seems so…” Jaehyun pondered for a moment before responding, “cold. Anyways, Taeyong is totally overrated. I mean captain of the basketball team, and look at all those girls following him. He’s got at least as many fangirls as you have fanboys.”

Jaehyun wasn’t kidding. Yuta was exceptionally pretty for a male. His thick mahogany locks framed his perfectly oval face and put emphasis on his attractively shaped eyes. Not that Jaehyun wasn’t good-looking. Jaehyun was extraordinarily handsome in a manlier way than Yuta was. He was tall and also looked older than his actual age. Yuta was actually a lot older, but Jaehyun was able to move up a grade due to his smarts.

But where Taeyong would blatantly ignore his followers, Yuta would relish in it. To call Yuta a playboy wasn’t exactly wrong. Sure, Yuta would mess around with some guys, but Taeyong was truly the only one in Yuta’s heart.

“God I just want to him.” Yuta suddenly announced, still behind Jaehyun.

Jaehyun bit back a laugh. “Wait. Just one second ago you were a puddle of goo behind me and now you’re proudly declaring that you would top him? Sorry but you’re such a bottom no offense.”

Yuta’s feathers were definitely ruffled now if they weren’t before. “Are you implying that I’ve never topped before?” He crossed his arms with a frown.

Not missing a beat, Jaehyun answered, “Um yeah.”

Turning a dark shade of red, the Japanese boy said no more as he stepped past Jaehyun to head to class.

“I mean come on. You want to be a girl in your next life like what are you trying to prove?” Jaehyun shouted after his retreating friend.

It was no wonder Jaehyun thought Taeil looked familiar. He shared all his morning classes with the boy. Jaehyun spent most of his class time observing the singer. It seemed that Taeil was fond of sitting in the back. For such an emotional singer, he had quite the blank look on his face, not even paying attention to his surroundings. Jaehyun could never tell what he was thinking. What struck Jaehyun the most was that he hadn’t heard him utter a single word in or out of class. No one talked to him, and he never went out of his way to talk to anyone. Jaehyun got goosebumps just from remembering the boy’s soft singing voice. He wanted to hear his voice again.

Jaehyun was happily slurping up his noodles in the cafeteria when a younger boy with a cute pudgy face took a seat across from him. Not wanting to be distracted from his favorite time of the day, Jaehyun chose to ignore him.

Not liking that he wasn’t getting any attention from his hyung, the kid eventually spoke up. “Hyung, I’m bored.”

Jaehyun sighed and finally looked up at him. “Why aren’t you sitting with your friends then?”

Completely ignoring the question, the boy looked around the cafeteria and asked, “Where’s Yuta hyung?”

He had known Donghyuck ever since they were little, having been neighbors for many years. Jaehyun would consider the sophomore like his little brother. It was just that Donghyuck liked to be a bit of a troublemaker sometimes. Whenever Yuta would come over to play soccer with Jaehyun, Donghyuck would often join them.

Speaking of Yuta, said person dropped in the seat next to Jaehyun’s.

“Yo, hyung where have you been?” the younger boy interrogated his fuming hyung.

Yuta turned to glare at Donghyuck. “You wanna know what’s wrong? Oh, I’ll tell you what’s wrong.” This got the still-eating Jaehyun interested, so he dropped his chopsticks to rotate his body to look at Yuta. It wasn’t often Yuta got this mad.

“Ok so you know Mr. Kim, the AP English teacher?” Jaehyun and Donghyuck nodded their heads. AP English was the only class Jaehyun didn’t share with Yuta. “Well for the first month of school I pretended to not know Korean very well, so when we had to write papers I only had to write half the amount everyone else did. It turns out he heard me talking to Jaehyun in the hallway yesterday. So now he’s given me detention for a week. A week! Isn’t that ridiculous? And because I have soccer practice, I have to come an hour earlier in the morning! You know how much I hate getting up early!” Yuta ended his spiel with a bang of his fist on the table.

“Hyung you’re so cool!” Donghyuck exclaimed with wide, admiring eyes.

Jaehyun facepalmed. “What am I supposed to do with the two of you. You’re such a bad influence on Donghyuck,” he scowled at Yuta.

“Oh, I know! How about you do detention after school and appoint me captain for the week!” Donghyuck blurted out.

“No.” Yuta and Jaehyun growled in unison.

Donghyuck pouted at the instant rejection. “Aw. You’re no fun.”

Movement behind Jaehyun caught his eye. Taeil had gotten up to throw his trash away. His eyes followed the small boy until he ended up sitting back down at an empty table. Taeil was alone again. Jaehyun’s curiosity finally got the best of him.

Without a word to the others, Jaehyun left his table and headed for Taeil’s. Soon Jaehyun was standing next to the sitting boy. Jaehyun looked over his shoulder to see him scrawling lyrics down in a notebook. When Taeil looked up, he finally took notice of the person standing next to him.

The two made eye contact, but Jaehyun was unsure of what to do next. Should he introduce himself? Maybe ask what he’s writing? Or just walk away? It was Taeil’s deep chocolately brown eyes that kept Jaehyun standing on the same spot.

Quickly clearing his throat before things turned even more awkward, Jaehyun broke the silence. “Do you always eat lunch by yourself?” Jaehyun wanted to pinch himself. That was probably too forward of a question.

Taeil rose an inquisitive eyebrow and quietly spoke, “Yes.”

There it was. That sweet soft spoken voice he had been pining to hear all day. More, he decided.

“Oh, I’m Jaehyun by the way. If you’d like, you could come eat lunch with my friends and I. There’s plenty of room at our table.” Jaehyun motioned his hand in Yuta and Donghyuck’s direction.

Without even looking to where Jaehyun pointed, Taeil’s emotionless face turned into a small frown. “No, thank you.” He bent back over his lyric book and continued to write.

Ok well that was weird. Jaehyun was never easily embarrassed, but he could feel a slight burn on the back of his neck. He hurriedly walked back to his table.

“Dude what was that all about? Did you just ask him out or something? Our Jaehyunie is actually red for once.” Yuta teased his still blushing friend.

“All I did was ask him if he wanted to sit with us.” Jaehyun scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. “And he instantly rejected my offer.”

Noticing the empty seat across from him, Jaehyun asked, “where’d hyuckie go?”

“Hmm.” Yuta simply shrugged. “He mentioned something about basketball and left in a hurry. Probably has something to do with Mark. You know how infatuated he is with that kid.”

The next couple days Jaehyun continued to try to talk to Taeil. He would always introduce himself and ask random questions. What lyrics are you writing? Why don’t you sit with anyone at lunch? When did you move to this school? All answers he would receive would be short and blunt to the point, but Jaehyun didn’t want to give up on the boy. He wanted to understand.

The next week Jaehyun decided to be more forward with the stubborn boy, so during lunch he took a seat in the chair opposite of the source of his frusteration. Taeil immediately stiffened and peaked up at Jaehyun from his notebook. “Who are you?” he nervously asked.

Who are you? Isn’t that a strange question for him to ask when Jaehyun had introduced himself to Taeil every day for a week?

“You really don’t remember my name?” Jaehyun studied Taeil’s face for any slight reaction.

“No.” the small boy mumbled as he fidgeted in his seat.

Ok well now Jaehyun was definitely confused. From what he could see Taeil wasn’t lying to him.

“I’ve introduced myself to you at least five times in the past week. I’m sure you would remember me by now.” Jaehyun continued to prod.

This time Taeil completely froze, eyes wide. “Y-You did?”

“Of course I did! Were you just ignoring me every single time?” At Jaehyun’s last question, Taeil sprang from his seat, slightly tripping over his chair, and scurried from where Jaehyun sat without another look back.

What the heck was that? Jaehyun was only trying to be friendly with him. He didn’t have to freak out.

Before going back to his own table, Jaehyun picked up Taeil’s notebook. Guess he would just have to give it back and apologize, but for what he didn’t know.

Taeil was nowhere to be found. He didn’t attend the rest of the day’s classes, he wasn’t in the music room, and the bathroom was empty. Soccer practice that afternoon was a drag, so when he was finally on his way home he was relieved.

Kicking a rock continuously on the sidewalk, Jaehyun was in deep thought. There was no way Taeil could just so easily forget that he had talked to him every day at school for the past week. Taeil never talks to anyone, so when he actually does shouldn’t it be very memorable? Jaehyun just didn’t get it.

A shriek snapped Jaehyun out of his thoughts. Not wasting any time, he darted to the source of the noise and ended up in a dark alleyway. Two bodies were scuffling in the darkness, one struggling more than the other.

“Such a pretty little boy. Let me have my way with you.” He heard a greasy voice grouse to the victim.

Jaehyun squinted his eyes to get a better view. His heart dropped when he noticed a familiar head of brown hair. It was Taeil. His capture had his arms around Taeil’s waist, attempting to unbuckle his pants. Every time he struggled, the man would tighten his hold on Taeil, causing him to let out little whimpers.

Oh my god. He was going to him. Jaehyun rushed forward and socked the man in the face, immediately letting go of Taeil.

“Taeil, run!” Jaehyun shouted at the boy that was feverishly shaking on the ground. He didn’t budge. He only moved to get into the fetus position and started rocking back and forth, sobs racking his chest.

The man was slowly getting up, wiping the blood from his nose. “You little . That’s my toy you’re stealing from me,” he sneared.

A fire was lit in Jaehyun. Never had he been so mad in his life. Taeil? A toy? Not on his watch.

The fight lasted only a minute longer. He called the police as he attempted to help Taeil up.

“Shh it’s ok he’s gone. You’re safe. You’re with me. Remember? I’m Jaehyun from school.” No matter what Jaehyun said, Taeil wouldn’t stop his rocking or crying. There was no way this was a normal reaction.

Jaehyun sat beside Taeil, a warm comforting hand on the small of his back, until the police came to pick up the criminal. After the police interviewed Jaehyun, they offered to drive the boys home. It was no problem for them to look up Taeil’s address. By this time, Taeil had fallen asleep, head in Jaehyun’s lap in the back seat of the police car. Jaehyun was softly running his fingers through the sleeping boy’s locks. Even though he was asleep, Jaehyun still felt the need to murmur tender words under his breath as if Taeil could hear him.

It ended up that Taeil and Jaehyun lived in the same neighborhood, so he bid the police a thankful goodbye. Jaehyun carried Taeil bride-style to his front door and rang the doorbell.

A petite middle-aged woman answered the door, mouth gaping when she landed sight of her son in Jaehyun’s arms.

“Oh my god, my baby! Is he ok?” His mother swiftly grabbed Jaehyun and brought him into the house to lay Taeil down on the couch. She first scans Taeil to make sure there isn’t any patching up to do and then turned to Jaehyun. Her face grew concerned as she took in the cuts and scrapes on Jaehyun’s hands and face.

“Would you mind telling me what happened as I patch you up?” Jaehyun graciously accepted her offer.

Jaehyun filled her in on what happened, wincing in pain as she dabbed his cuts clean. Once she was done, she took Jaehyun’s hands in hers. “Jaehyun. Thank you so much for everything you did for my child. He’s the only one I have left and I don’t know what I would do if anything else happened to him. I truly appreciate it. If there’s anything I can do for you just say the word.” Jaehyun noticed she had the same beautifully chocolate brown eyes as her son.

“I just happened to be there at the right time, Mrs. Lee.” Jaehyun smiled at her warmly.

“Although, can I ask you something, Jaehyun?” Jaehyun inclined his head in confirmation. She continued. “What exactly is your relationship with Taeil?”

Well that was a weird question if there ever was one. He wondered what her meaning behind asking was, so he answered very truthfully.

“Well lately I’ve been asking him to sit with my friends and I at lunch, but he always refuses and is very short and blunt whenever I try to talk to him.” Jaehyun shyly admitted.

Taeil’s mother sighed. “I was afraid of that.” Jaehyun gave her an inquisitive look.

“He’s going to hate me for telling you this, but I think you look like a pretty good guy and especially with what you went through for him today. My son has short term memory loss.” Jaehyun’s eyes widened in shock, looking to the sleeping boy on the couch.

“His memory resets every time he goes to sleep at night. The only person he ever remembers is me.” Tears started to well up in her eyes. Jaehyun didn’t know if he should try to comfort her or not. “He’s always been afraid of making friends. He’s terrified of forgetting people. He doesn’t want to put the burden on anyone, and he’s really a sweet child. Taeil just thinks it’s best for everyone that he stays alone.”

Everything made sense now. The reason why he didn’t remember Jaehyun. The reason why he never talked to anyone. He just didn’t want to get attached for other people’s sake.

Mrs. Lee dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. She then peeked back at Jaehyun. “I have one wish for him. I want him to be happy with others. I want him to be able to smile at someone other than me. Most of all, I just want him to have friends.”

Jaehyun’s heart felt like it was in physical pain, like it was being squeezed in the palm of someone’s hand. He couldn’t understand how anyone could go through something like this. He tried to think of his life without Yuta and immediately regretted the thought after a single tear fell from his eye.

Jaehyun squeezed his fists in determination. “Mrs. Lee, I will do my very best to ensure that your wish happens. For all our sakes. Most especially his.”

They both warmly gaze at the sleeping form on the couch, similar thoughts in their heads.

Jaehyun stood up from the ground where they had been sitting and announced that he should probably get going before his parents got worried.

Before Jaehyun left, Mrs. Lee hugged him and said, “You’re always welcome in my home.”

Jaehyun thanked her one last time before shutting the door behind him. Jaehyun realized too late he forgot to return Taeil’s notebook.