Summer; 1
Four Seasons Of Love; Collection
City Boy & Small Town Girl; Chapter 1
He met her three summers ago, when his parent forced him to go vacation to his grandmother’s house.
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Udo-myeon, he utters the name’s place under his breath as he wonders why it feels strange for him. Maybe it’s because he has to leave Seoul - his Seoul - for a month and he's trapped at his grandmother’s house for doing nothing.
His grandmother lives with her three cats while her maid comes every morning and leaves at night each days, and she says she’s okay there. He asks himself why she is happy when in the fact she is lonely, but he asks the same question for himself too and keeps quiet.
"Hello, Myungsoo!"
She greets him and hugs her first grandson. Myungsoo is way taller than her but she doesn’t matter about the fact. She purses her lips up and shows him her teeth, her smile tells him she’s happy but he doesn’t understand why.
The last time he stepped his feet into this house was five years ago, so now he doesn’t remember well about this house exactly.
It’s okay is his grandmother’s answer when he tells her what he’s thinking right now and she smiles. She takes him to the second floor and shows him his room - in the right corner one.
"It will be always your room."
He nods and she leaves him with his luggage.
He tiptoes and stops his steps in front of the window. The city and sea views are beautiful and bright and shining but he doesn't get the attractive things from those.
He sighs, thinking there's more than twenty nine days to go until he can run from this place.
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Twenty eight days and seven hours more, he counts as he opens his eyes.
His grandmother wakes him up at eight and tells him to go to the town to buy her cats some foods, he finds out it’s ridiculous but he doesn’t say it. He just says he doesn’t know how to go there.
"I ask our neighbor to accompany you."
"Then why don’t you just ask him to buy it for you and don’t have to bother me?"
"Because she’s working at town and she won’t go home until the sun goes down and Hana - this beautiful cat - is already hungry now."
"She?"
"Yes, our neighbor."
"But, grandma - "
"Please, Myungsoo, before Hana will get angry at you." She takes one of her fat cats and it purrs and it annoys him to death.
"It can eat fish, right?"
"Hana doesn’t too like fish, Myungsoo."
What an arrogant cat. He rolls his eyes but finally nods.
Then they hear some knock voices from the door and his grandmother opens it. She greets Hello for the petite girl who stands in front of her and she replies with cheerful smile.
"I hope you still remember him and I hope you still remember her." His grandmother mutters at both of them but they shake their heads, signaling that they don’t know each other.
"Then shall we introduce ourselves? Hello, and good morning! I’m Jieun, Lee Jieun!" She says out loud and he thinks she screams at him, so he finds out it’s annoying too - more annoying than Hana and it friends.
"Kim Myungsoo," he mumbles his name.
"So you two have to go down the town and show him how to buy cat food there, Sweetheart." His grandmother tells her and she nods immediately.
"Let’s go!" She screams again and pulls his wrist when he even doesn’t finish his words But I haven’t breakfast yet - and drags him out of house.
She shows him her white bike proudly, with basket in front of it which full of flowers - daisies, sunflowers and lilies - and it have too many love and flower patterns, he wants to laugh.
He cracks in the end, but she doesn’t mind and he’s a little bit confused about it.
She just asks, "Who will ride?" and stares at him with shining and bright eyes.
He thinks for a moments before sits and answers, Real man is the gentle one and it’s her turn to laugh out loud.
She sits behind him and tells him the ways to go to town while sometime he catches her little hands hold his shirt tightly.
"So you’re Seoul boy?"
He simply nods because he doesn’t want to make conversation with her, or in the fact, he doesn’t want her to be his friend. She seems want to be cute too hard and somehow he doesn’t like her.
"How long will you stay here?"
"A month, I think."
"Wow, it’s a long time."
"Yeah, I know." He says before she commands him to turn left through an empty streets.
She asks him how old are you and where is your school and some normal questions that he has to answer.
She talks a lot, actually. She has too many lines and he finds her too talkative. She tells him about her school - it’s a girl school and she joins music club there - and her life and her family - it surprises him about the fact that she has seven siblings - and her flowers and her hometown and her dog named Marie. She laughs absentmindedly and sometimes she pats his back to join her to laugh but unfortunately he doesn’t.
She says that she has her first job at flower shop near the market, helping her sister who owns it every Monday up to Wednesday. And on weekend, she has to take care of some dogs and walks them to the park. She enjoys it, she says while he thinks she has too much works to do.
"Why are you doing those all?" is the first thing he asks to her, and she doesn’t get his question. "I mean, you’re still a high school student and this is holiday, you know. You don’t have to force yourself to work even harder just because you don't go to school."
But she just smiles. "City boy will always be city boy," then she laughs and pokes his back playfully like they already know each other so long. He doesn’t protest though, he is just curious about her.
She asks him if he minds to join her with her younger sister and brothers for fishing tomorrow and he rejects, but she's good at nag so he can't help himself but says yes.
He doesn't know it'll be the start of a new great friendship but he doesn't mind.
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But he still wants to go home as fast as he can, actually.
He misses Seoul, he misses his guitar, he misses his room and his best friends and his family and his neighbors but he can't tell it to anybody here because he knows they'll be sad if they know he is still not comfortable there. He is rude but he knows how to socialize well with people, especially for older people.
He acts rude just in front of Jieun, though he doesn't know why. Because if he does act mean, she just hits his back playfully and plays with his hair - though she's way shorter than him - and laughs like nothing happens. And he's more and more curious about her everyday.
He has eighteen days and twenty hours until her parents approve him leaving this little island around Jeju.
That night he takes a walk near the beach with Jieun and her fat dog. Her parents invite his grandmother and him having a dinner with them and his grandmother is too glad about it, until she wears some make-up that he finds it disgusting - but well, he doesn't understand the purpose of wearing make-up, by the way.
They have finished their dinner and suddenly she pulls him to accompany her takes Marie for a while. Then she laughs when they reach the beach - it's actually behind her house - and he asks why.
"Because I don't want to wash dishes with them. I have four sisters, anyway, I think they can do it without me."
He doesn't find something funny there so he doesn't join her to laugh, but she used to his flat responses so she doesn't matter at all.
Their feet trade water and he barely catches her splashing salty water at him so when it happens he replies back.
She laughs after that, because it's her trademark and it shows people she is happy and he likes to hear her bright voice, too - the last reason is secret, she'll never know.
Then she lets Marie runs and plays with other dogs from someone's beach house around them, resting her back and her head on the sand. She doesn't expect he will follow her to lie beside her, but she's happy when he does.
They get a silence situation but at least there's nothing to be awkward of. She just keeps her back rubs the sands as he listening to the sea waves and watching the black skies. Few minutes next, she whispers him some hits song and he follows her again.
Then she stops and asks him, "Do you like sea?"
He has no idea to say. He has some issues about sea because sometimes he likes it and sometimes he doesn't. So thing that he does after that is asks her back, "Do you like sea?"
She nods as fast as she can and he can hear her light giggles ring in the air. "I always love sea."
But always is such a long time, he thinks. But rather than asking that, he asks another thing. "Are you always happy? You seem so fake at first... Nothing, forget it."
She mutes. He doesn't hear her laughs again for a moment until she breaths, "Can I ask you some, uh, no, many things?"
He doesn't answer but she finds it means she can.
"How about you? Have you ever happy here? Are you always sad? Or do you always look sad? Why are you so mean when it comes the time between you and me? Why do I never hear you laugh? Do you - "
"Stop!" is the first word he says after that, and she really stops. He clenches his fists and moans but he tries so hard to hide it so that she can't notice. "You talk too much."
"I'm sorry, Myungsoo."
He says nothing and she doesn't know what to do anymore.
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