[CONTENTID1] asphyxia [/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2] drop 1: floating mid-air [/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3] 

Ever since I was born, I had been blessed with the affinity to love a little more, and more and more than anyone ever did around me. It is in my blood to surround the people around me with the feeling that they are cared for, and never be left alone. This had been a long time blessing my parents let me realize by the time I had understood the human language, and it continued to be reminded by my mother every time I fell asleep.

"Sooyoung, you have the capability to love even the smallest and worthless creature in this whole world. You have something that people rarely can have. Please, be careful, my dear. I don't want you to suffer from this trait of yours." Occasionally, my mom would cry while saying this, and I hold her without a thought, trying to get out anything from her. Many times after that, I've come to comfort her in silence and an embrace. There was an inexplicable amount of warmth in her tears that hushed my worry into silence.

If anything, this trait had been the fruit of my father whose love run deep for our family of four, with the addition of my older brother, Hwi Taek, whose warmth was another source of love that led me to be the truth that my mother had spoken about. It is in my nature that I was to love everyone around me more, as I had been receiving an abundance of it, growing up.

Growing up, I was also granted by the presence of the two boys whose existence had become a necessity in my daily lives, Junghan and Eunwoo. There are no ranks between the two of them as I chose a long time ago to not have favourites as they have always been sensitive about my confirmation of their identities. I often call Junghan the first time just because he is older than Eunwoo.

By the age of eight, two years after I met them, in one autumn when we were kicking the leaves and chase the kites in our sandals and loose clothes, I saw their feet leaving my pace. I watched as their little but stronger bones and body carried their weight effortlessly across the field of grass, their eyes occasionally glancing back at me to make sure that I wasn't left behind. But eventually, the colourful and prettily shaped kites had swept their attention away from me and I held into my own kite, forlornly stuck being blown in the same spot, flapping away from my grasp while wanting to chase the wind away as my feet became rooted to the ground.

There, I watched them exist without me. At such a young age, I fell into a trance while realizing that there would come a time where they would have left me like this, like the kite that was struggling to be freed off my grasp.

In that moment, I realized how fragile the relationship between humans were, and how the slightest discord could drive an ending between the three of us. I remember how without realizing, tears were already sliding off my cheeks while I clutched tightly into the string.

Eunwoo was the first to realize of my absence at that moment, as I could see his blurry figure running down to me, followed by Junghan, his left hand still holding on to the string. My blurred eyes drifted to the blue coloured butterfly kite of Eunwoo's, being swept to the sky with no care in the world. It felt like watching an underwater world from the outside.

I kept on crying without knowing the reason and I couldn't hear what the two of them were saying to me. I just remember being so deep inside of my head while Eunwoo put his arms around me, whilst Junghan held tightly unto my hand, half-sobbing.

I didn't realize how beautiful the world was that they had tried to create for me. Looking back, I was covered in love, more than I ever realized.

"What should I do, brother, when people leave?" When my brother got home from school that day, as I sat waiting inside my room, with "The Little Prince" between both of my hands, I had dropped my book on the table, hurriedly dashing into his room as I listened to his disappearing footsteps.

Sitting by the edge of his bed, still inside his middle school uniform, he gently held on to my small palms, looking earnestly at me. He looked tired that day, more than all the days I approached him like this. "Who is leaving, hm?"

My brother was older by 6 years then. I sat in 3rd grade while he sat in the end of his 9th grade. He was no far than an adult inside of my head as he had also learnt to take care of me when I was in my earliest day of childhood. There was a whiff of sweat coming off of him, and it was probably caused by the soccer practices that was held after school every Monday and Friday.

"Nobody. I'm just wondering," I replied, and I could feel him search something inside my eyes or my face. This was what my brother often did to me whenever I would tell a white lie, everytime I was asked where did my crayons, earrings, and dolls gone to.

There were times when my mother couldn't get the answer out of me because I didn't want her to know that I was bullied in elementary school, that somehow Park Sooyoung couldn't fit in. Despite of the, my brother became someone I could tell everything to.

Perhaps, because I didn't love him as much as I love her, or perhaps because I knew that we both were children who are capable of loving a little more, and that no matter what happens, nothing will change our mind once we set our mind to care for someone. I felt a little guilty having this this kind of mindset, but it was the only thing I could think of to justify this action of mine.

Looking at my brother, he was without a doubt handsome that it could move you to tears. I couldn't quite describe it back then, but now that I am old enough to understand, it is easy to know the reason behind this (perhaps, it is also because he was one of the people whom I look up to, and whenever he was around, I could not help but to marvel at him in silence). There was the way that his round, yet seemingly tired eyes would smile at you in such an endearing way that it would make you lose heart and there was the way his eyes gently casted upon the people he loved. There was also loneliness in his kindness and early maturity that mother had spoken accidentally in front of me, something that I had witnessed myself. It was when he gave his toy to the neighboring child on his age who wept away wanting of his own.

No complaints and no naggings, Hwi Taek handed it off so casually while I cried, barely knowing of how to spell the alphabet.

Strangely, I could also notice this when he brought his girlfriend when he was in 8th grade while they played with me. Her name was Kang Seulgi and I remember how her hug felt like the summer breeze and I wept so hard when she was about to leave, clinging unto her by the leg. We were playing house and my brother occasionally joined us. There were moments when it was obvious that he was only gazing at her. That was the kind of stare my mother often warned him about, the kind that made the girls lose heart. But in those, I sensed loneliness in his gaze, as if he knew that he had loved her more than he should and that he was damned to be so infatuated for someone who wouldn't stay for long. This was only a deduction at that moment, but I got a gist of it as she was the first and last girl he ever brought home.

"When will Seulgi come here again, brother?" In my innocence and longing for an older sister, this question of mine would have been harmless as I wasn't aware of what was happening at the moment. We were watching television in the living room and his face darkened at the mention of this.

"She moved away," a brush on the head and a weak smile was what he gave before he went into his own room. For the rest of the day, my brother did not come out of his room. I felt so guilty that day, but I knew better than to walk into the scenery of my brother sobbing quietly into his pillow, as I listened from the keyhole.

It took a few minutes for him to answer, and it made me quite uncomfortable that I had questioned something my brother could not answer. "You move on, Sooyoung," it ended with a little sigh, and I noticed a crestfallen look on his face. "Don't grow up so fast. I don't want you to learn of the world this soon," my brother proceeded to wrap his arms around me while ruffling my hair by one hand. Right then, my brother's love for me seemed so alike to my parents whenever they noticed that I began to take responsibilities upon myself. Still, it was something I couldn't understand as I felt that I knew too little of a world as vast as this. I wanted to grow up and stop asking people questions that I could learn by myse