The sound of the camera shutter startled Sungwon. When the traveler had grabbed him, he was expecting a hug. It was what his adorableness deserved after all. However, he was instead faced with the unnecessarily loud sound of a camera and the blinding light from the flash. He didn't understand why the flash was necessary as it was a bright sunny day and the snow all around him made it appear even brighter than it already was, but he couldn't question it. After all, he was a penguin while the traveller was a human. Although he understood human language, he didn't possess the capacity to produce it from his own mouth.

After finally finding a glimpse of satisfaction on the face of the traveller, Sungwon prepared himself to leave. However, at that moment, the traveller's eyes glowed and he emotionally grabbed his face and screamed,

"Penguins are so cute!" Before giving Sungwon what he had been wanting all along. A big, fluffy hug. To Sungwon's satisfaction, the traveller had been wearing 3 poofy coats on top of one another which made the hug even more enjoyable. 

Unable to hide the happiness in his heart, Sungwon looked at the traveller in front of him, feeling his heart skip a beat. He didn't know what this emotion was but according to his friend, Sponge Jinsung, who had never dated anyone before either, it was love. Sungwon knew there was no way for his heart to ever skip a beat unless he was in love. But now that he was in love, he didn't know what to do next! He had to get advice from his wise sponge friend again.

After rethinking the situation a numerous amount of times and reassuring himself of the fact that his heart did indeed skip a beat, Sungwon dove into the water and swam to the pineapple under the sea as fast as he could. While knocking the door, he made sure to cover his eyes in case his friend decided to answer the door as he often did.

The door flung open with Sungwon's hand in midair, barely a second after he had knocked for the first time. Sungwon slowly and cautiously peeped through his fingers to check on Jinsung's clothing status. As expected, he was again. With an embarrassed blush forming on his face, Sungwon sighed,

"Hey Jinsung can't you wear clothes for once?"

Jinsung's wild laughter rang through the house, and Sungwon could see the hollow pineapple vibrating like a smartphone around him.

​​​​"I'm the iest sponge around! Isn't it unfair to keep my beauty to myself?" Jinsung grabbed a mirror and began admiring his toes. "Anyways why did you come here? Did you fall in love or something?"

Sungwon's face paled. "How did you know? That's so scary."

Jinsung nonchalantly grabbed his other body length mirror from the refrigerator door and held it in front of Sungwon as he spoke.

"Oh it was just a wild guess because I could smell that you were thinking about love. Anyways you don't have to worry about it too much. You may not be as beautiful and talented and fabulous and amazing and incredible as I am but you aren't too bad yourself. Just look in the mirror! I can already tell that you won't suffer from an unrequited love in your life. The whole penguin nation up on shore is dying to be your mate."

Sungwon's eyes glittered with hope. "Then it shouldn't be too difficult to make a human marry me either right? The person I fell in love with called me cute!"

"Hmmm that sounds a bit more tricky..." Jinsung thought for a moment as he stared at Sungwon's shiny expression "...but I'm sure it'll work out. Humans do a lot of weird things. Marrying penguins has probably been normalized for them by now anyways so don't worry about it."

Sungwon jumped around happily as Jinsung talked.

"How should I introduce myself?"

"Stalk him until he notices you and then waddle along next to him so he'll feel obliged to take you with him. You can figure out communication later it's not that big of a deal."

"Ok cool! Thanks."

"Oh yea by the way, since you're gonna be around humans, can you tell me whether humans love sponges? I'm sure they'll love me since there's nothing NOT to love about me but I can't help but wonder what they think of our species as a whole, y'kno?"

"Sure, I'll make sure to pay attention to that."

"Ok now leave so I can finish showering. Good luck on your love."

"Bye Jinsung!"

Confused by the fact that Jinsung had answered the door immediately despite being in the middle of a shower, and slightly disappointed that he would have to figure out the communication aspect of his journey on his own, Sungwon swam back to shore and slumped into his igloo to sleep. In the end, he spent the whole night crying over what Jinsung had said about how his chances at having his feelings returned would be lowered due to him not being a human.

The next day, with swollen eyes, he got out of his bed and left his little igloo. However, he immediately felt that something was wrong when a breeze hit and his whole body shivered. Why was he cold? He had never felt cold before, even in the harshest of winter days. A quick glance at his hands were telling enough though. All his feathers had been plucked off of him as he was crying in his igloo last night.

Sungwon ran to his colony in panic, wanting to ask why it was so cold and what had happened to his feathers. The other emperor penguins slowly turned to him as he came into their line of sight, but turned away in disinterest almost immediately afterwards. Saddened by the unexpected betrayal from his friends and family, Sungwon looked at his featherless hands again. They somehow appeared familiar, almost like the traveller's hands from yesterday...

That was when realization finally hit Sungwon. He had become human!