Yoo Youngjae hadn’t done a lot of things.

He hadn’t played in the snow until his hands went numb during the winter, nor play outside til he caught a cold in the spring rain, nor sat out and had a picnic in the grass during the summer. Youngjae hadn’t bruised his elbows and knees from playing roughly with friends, and he hadn’t torn his slacks and stained his dress shirt from going places where he didn’t belong.

Instead, he watched quietly from his balcony, pretending to read as he stared at the children his age through the glass, laughing and fooling about in the streets without a single care. For hours a day he would sit there, thinking about what it was like; to play in the dirt and be mischievous without worrying about the consequences. One place in particular always captured Youngjae’s mind the most. Just beyond the road was the woods, big and daring and the thing his thoughts always trailed to in the end. Every once in awhile, when Youngjae was desperate to see beyond the same dull scenery he’d seen for years on end, he would drag a stool out onto the balcony and stand on it, and if he squinted hard enough he could make out a clearing, untouched and begging Youngjae to explore it.

Despite Youngjae’s people owning the entirety of the woods and a few acres surrounding, not a single foot had stepped on the land in decades. It seemed as if he was the only person who ever seemed to spare the woods a second thought.

I wonder if they’re as lonely as I am, Youngjae would think, watching the branches sway silently in the breeze. They looked lonely to him, at least.

But he was tired of just wondering and thinking and never actually knowing . He’d spent fifteen years wondering, thinking, plotting.

The next morning, on the first day of his sixteenth year, Youngjae was ready to start knowing.

Nothing seems interesting when it belongs to you,

only when it doesn’t.

-Tuck Everlasting

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