You are not yet old enough to play with the older boys (or so your mother tells you that morning, a mirthful smile tugging at her lips).

“You are much too careless,” she reasons, “and I do not want my little angel to get hurt.”

You pout upon hearing her soft rejection – it is not the first time she’s disallowed you from stepping out of the quaint home you share in the countryside – and you resort to squaring her with that innocent look the village women seem to love cooing over as you beg for the hundredth time since the summer equinox began: “but eomma. I am already in my sixth year. I am a big boy now! I will be safe, I promise!”

Bae Jongok, although merely twenty-one years of age, is wise enough to not fall for her only son’s pleading (much to your growing displeasure). She rolls her bronze-colored eyes and steps away from the line of billowing laundry she has only just hung up to dry, kneeling before you in one graceful motion with an eyebrow raised.

“A big boy, you say,” she teases. “The last time I checked, you could not even relieve yourself in the right location.” She gestures towards your once soiled sleeping mat that she had spent the entire morning washing, and you can feel your face burn red at the very mention of it (you almost feel betrayed). “Now how am I supposed to believe that you can venture throughout the city on your own, hm?”

Ignoring your mother’s knowing smirk, you huff with a cross of your arms (your mother is positive that this stubbornness runs in your genes). “Shows what you know,” you grumble. “I will not be alone. Hyung will be with me the whole time.”

Jongok looks surprised at that, and she frowns as she slowly repeats, “your hyung?” After a moment, it clicks. “Do not tell me...are you referring to that Jung boy?”

Before you can answer her with a proud nod, her arms reach out for you. You nearly jump back in shock, but her sudden grip around your thin shoulders keeps you firmly in place. With narrowed eyes, she practically growls at you, “what did I say about that boy and his family? I told you stay away from them, Jaejoong-ah!”

She is angry. Absolutely livid. And tears well up in your eyes as she continues to scold you for even speaking of Jung Yunho in front of her. You never understood why she always warns you to never approach Yunho (your closest friend in the entire village) and the Jung family altogether, let alone why she and everyone else seem to despise them so much. As far as you are aware in your young and ignorant mind, Yunho is and has always been a normal child with a normal mother and an equally normal younger sister. To you, there is nothing out of the ordinary about them, and certainly nothing to warrant the amount of mass hatred they receive.

It is rare, but you have met them on a few occasions. Jung Yoomi, Yunho’s mother, always appeared to be thrilled whenever she saw you wander into her home looking for her son. She would hug you sometimes, thank you repeatedly for befriending Yunho like you have so willingly done, and even offer to cook you a meal (of which you would gratefully decline since your mother did not like when you ate food besides her own). Jihye, Yunho’s infant sister, was a delight to be around during the times she did not yank painfully at your short ebony locks, and she had even managed to garble a semblance of your name the last time you saw her.

They are nice people, you swear to yourself. They are nothing like the toxic whispers of the village men and women say they are. Nothing like the hisses of your mother as she shakes your body, snaps at you, and demands that you swear to never go around them ever again.

“B-but...hyung is waiting for me,” you whimper. Large tears are streaming down your cherub cheeks, leaving damp trails in their wake on your reddened skin. Jongok glares (not at you; never at you, because you are her beloved son who has simply made a mistake) but does not relent in her strong hold around you.

“They are trouble, Jaejoong-ah. Listen to me, alright? Those people are trouble,” she emphasizes. You have heard her say that same thing before, but you have never taken her words to heart. Honestly, your father calls you trouble quite often – you are a clumsy child, you admit, and you remember the few times you spilled ink over his documents or accidentally broke one of your mother’s expensive bowls – so the severity of her cautioning has never meant much to you. But she has never been this serious before. It is almost frightening. And you nod your head as she orders you once more to stay away.

Her shoulders drop in relief as you whisper, “I will.”

But of course, you know you won’t.

So perhaps the reason you are so drawn to the village outcast, Jung Yunho, is because you may or may not have a crush on him. He is the only one that bothers to play with you, after all, so it truthfully was not hard for your heart to submit itself to his unrelenting kindness and affection so easily. You’re young – incredibly so – but you know what the light fluttering in your chest means whenever you see him, and you feel no different today as you run (quite literally) into his towering frame.

You told your mother you were going to the farmer’s market around the corner (she knows you like to gawk at the animals there and it is close enough to home to keep her worries at bay). You remember how she looked at you with skepticism looming in her gaze, but upon seeing your forlorn expression (caused solely by her, she realized with guilt), she said you could go as long as you returned back home before your father did. That gave you until sundown. More than enough time to play with your precious hyung, you giddily revel.

Yunho is three years your senior. He is tall for his age, lanky too, and has the brightest eyes you have ever seen. You have known him for two years now and have loved being in his presence ever since that one fateful meeting so long ago. He doesn’t treat you as if you are a nuisance like the other village children do (you’re too small and...eccentric for their tastes) and he always gives you the widest smiles whenever you come around. He speaks with a gentle voice that always makes you feel warm inside. And he does not make fun of you when you burst into a fit of tears over minuscule things that seem like the world to you when they happen but embarrassing when you have finally gained some sense after settling down.

But that is okay, you think to yourself as Yunho pulls you into his arms – the typical greeting you share with one another – because hyung’s comforting hugs are irreplicable and you would readily suffer through hours of Post-Temper-Tantrum Humiliation if it meant Yunho would always be there to embrace you until you felt better.

“It has been too long, Jae-yah,” Yunho says with evident merriment. He lifts you into the air, and you cannot help but release a loud burst of laughter as you’re swung around. “Have you gotten taller? I think you’re almost my height now…”

As he places you back down to your feet (which you tend to always keep bare – your mother can only sigh whenever you refuse to wear the sandals she’s made), he ruffles your hair out of place. You laugh once more, peering up at him through wide and carefree eyes.

“No way, hyung,” you cry. “You are a giant! I will never be taller than you.”

Yunho smiles. “Well, who knows? You might meet a shaman one day who grants wishes. Then you can be as tall as a tree.”

He is joking. You think. And when he notices you staring at him in wonderment (because what if wish-granting shamans really do exist?), Yunho chuckles and nudges you a bit. “Come on, Jae-yah,” he says as he takes you by the hand, “let’s go back to my house. My eomma said it is going