When somebody loved me, everything was beautiful.

-Age 5-

Leah was excited. She had been excited since the moment her grandmother suggested going to the park, in fact she had practically dragged the poor old woman there, and her little feet working to propel her at what she felt was faster than the speed of light. Leah, like most kids her age, loved the park and Pyeongchon Jungang Parkwas her favourite. She was looking forward to going on the swings, watching the fountains and maybe going tothe lake and watching the ducks play. Rhea chatted happily to her grandmother as they walked past Beomgye station, nearing their final destination.

“Grangran, will you push me on the swings?” she asked, her eyes already twinkling in anticipation of the obvious answer she would get from her grandmother.

“Of course I will”, the old lady smiled down at her granddaughter, who gripped her hand tighter in excitement.

“Will you push me high, really high? I want to go over the top”, Leah smiled at the thought, and she had always wanted to swing all the way over the top.

“Over the top? We can try of course”, she laughed at the simple yet outrageous desire of her granddaughter as they turned into the gate of the park and headed towards the playground.

The moment they entered through the wrought iron gates however, her excitement had been sapped and Leah had wanted to turn around and go home. She had looked around, her little eyes flitting across the scene in front of her, the park was full. In fact full was a bit of an understatement, the park was packed. There were people everywhere, not a surprising fact considering that it was a blazing hot summer’s day, but Leah had immediately snuck back into her shell. The same shell she had been hiding in since her parents had sent her to Korea, her first time in another country, to spend the summer with her grandparents. Not that Leah didn’t love her grandparents, quite the contrary actually, as the only grandchild she had been showered with their affections. They had smothered her with love from birth, and she in turn viewed her grandparents as the perfect combination of her parents and her best friends. It’s just that, at the age of 5, going to a foreign country and being away from your parent’s, is a terrifying experience. Even if it is to visit two of your favourite people in the whole wide world, and Leah had been terrified since her parents handed her over to the air hostess. In fact she had secretly spent the 9 hour flight from JFK to Seoul crying and jumping every time the plane bumped through turbulence and by the time she had been collected by her grandparents she was well and truly tired, had burrowed her head into the comfort of her grandmother’s arms and had since refused to leave it behind.

Now Leah was sat, snuggled once more in the familiar warmth of her grandmother’s arms, carefully avoiding the eyes of all the other kids who ran around her giggling and squealing to their heart’s content. Her grandmother looked down at her, “Don’t you want to play with the other kids?” The question was asked already half knowing the answer, but still she smiled down at her granddaughter with hope for another outcome. Leah looked up and shook her head furiously, clutching tighter to her grandmother as though she fear the woman would slip away.

“No Gran gran, I want to stay with you”, Leah nodded her head to cement this fact and, if even possible, burrowed herself further into the arms of her grandmother.

“Who comes to the park to sit with an old woman on a bench?” Leah’s grandmother wrinkled her nose at the statement, jokingly showing her disgust at the idea.

“Don’t you want to have a turn on the swings?” she saw her granddaughter look up then, her eyes wandering over to the swings with longing and then back to her grandmother’s face.

Leah watched her grandmother’s eyes crinkle into a smile, and wished she could give a different answer to keep the smile on her grandmother’s face.  Instead she closed her eyes tightly and shook her head so hard it hurt. “Aniyo…they’ll just make fun of me again,” the last part was said so softly. If her grandmother hadn’t been listening carefully she would have missed it entirely. That sentence was all it took for the elder woman to relent, wrap her arms around her granddaughter and kiss her forehead.

Leah looked out from her grandmother’s embrace and wished she was braver, but her first weeks in Anyang had taught her that kids were cruel, no matter where you were.

Flashback

“Gran gran, can’t I just stay inside with you?”Leah asked as her grandmother propelled her towards the door.

“Leah, what did I say about English?” the older woman tried to sound stern, but she always found it so difficult to scold her grandchild.

“Sometimes I forget”, Leah responded, flashing a smile at her grandmother who had crouched down in front of her.

“Leah, it’s important to make friends okay. So you go out there and show everyone how lovely you can be and maybe, when you come in I will have made some Hoddeok for you.”

Leah looked at her grandmother, eyes gleaming at the promised treat, with a nod she turned and walked out the opened door to the children who were playing in the complex playground.

It was about 20 minutes when Leah’s grandmother heard the door close and sound of feet running down the hall. At first she dismissed it as her granddaughter needing the toilet, but after a few minutes when she heard nothing she decided to investigate. When she first pushed opened the door to her granddaughter room she thought it was empty, barley noticing the tiny ball that was her granddaughter, curled up in the bed, pressed against the wall.

“Leah, what’s the matter? Did you hurt yourself?” the questions were asked as she deftly crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed and reach across to tap Leah on her back. She was surprised to find, once her hand had rested on Leah’s back that she was shaking.

“Leah” this time her voice was harsher, pushed by the worry she was starting to feel. “Look at me.” At first the wasn’t an answer, just the sound of tiny sniffle muffled by pillows, then Leah had turned to her grandmother, eyes raw red and asked the most heartbreaking question the woman had ever heard.

“Gran gran…am I ugly?”The look on Leah’s face was heartbreaking, so much so that her grandmother forgot to scold her for her English and instead shook her head.

Leah’s grandmother had been furious to say the least, when she had finally coaxed her granddaughter into telling her how the kids had taunted her, making fun of her American Korean, how they had made fun of her name. But perhaps the thing that had made her angriest, made her hold her granddaughter close practically smothering her in the process, was the fact that they had made fun of her looks, of her caramel skin tone which made her so different to them.

She had hushed her granddaughter and when her husband had arrived from work they had sat in front of the TV and watched old movies until Leah had fallen asleep, curled up like a cat on her grandfather’s lap. The man had carried her to bed and tucked her in, placing a light kiss on her forehead before closing the door and rejoining his wife.

Once the door had closed Leah had allowed her eyes to reopen, she had stared off into the darkness of her room and decided that kids were cruel and that all she needed was her Gran gran and Pop pop.

End Flashback

“Arasso. We’ll just sit and enjoy the warmth” whispered her grandmother as she felt her granddaughter look up at her watery smile.

They had been sitting for a while when the little boy appeared. Leah didn’t remember seeing him approach, simply once second he wasn’t there and the next he was. He was a very small boy, smaller than even Leah and she was tiny, as her grandfather loved to remind her. Through the gap in her grandmother’s hug Leah eyed the boy suspiciously. He was pale, very pale in fact, aside from the fact that his cheeks were flushed an almost unnatural red. Leah looked at him and guessed he had been running really hard for a really long time, and the sweat which secured his fringe to his forehead only served to secure her assumption. The boy bent forward for a second, clearly trying to catch his breath and for a second, if Leah had been able to recognise it, she felt jealous of this anonymous boy who was clearly having more fun that she was. Leah’s hazel eyes followed the boy as he sank onto the edge of the bench, his eyes flitting back and forth across the playground anxiously, as if searching for something. Leah briefly wondered what game he was playing, her head unconsciously poking a little higher over her grandmother’s arms looking in the direction the boy was looking, searching for whatever he was searching for. The boy then seemed to collapse for a second, inhaling and exhaling so deeply that Leah could almost fell his breath. After a while, when what he searched for failed to appear, the boy pulled his body upright and started swinging his legs around, his body seeming more relaxed than when he had first appeared, it was this motion which bought him eye to eye who Leah. Upon eye contact Leah immediately shrunk back into her grandmother’s arms and pulled her eyes away from the boy who she had been watching so intently.

He looked at the old woman beside him, trying to figure out if she was hiding a girl or a boy in her arms.

“Hello!” he smiled, when he had finally caught Leah’s eyes again, exposing his missing teeth. His voice was wispy, making him sound out of breath, but Leah noted that his face was no longer as pale as it had been when he first slid onto the bench. Despite the warm look on his face and the laughter in his voice, Leah shrunk further back from the boy who had shifted closer to her.

He seemed not to notice the reaction Leah had to him and instead slid closer down the bench, “I haven’t seen you before!”

“What’s your name?”

“Do you live nearby?”

“I do.”

“What school do you go to?”

“Is this your Umma?”

“How old are you?”

Each question saw the boy sliding closer and closer to Leah, his voice sounding stronger each time, until he was only a few centimetres away from her. Leah notices how his smile now seemed to have reached his eyes, which danced and sparkled in a way she had never seen before. Leah stared at him, the impact of his closeness and the speed of the Korean words confusing her for a second.

“Her name is Leah,” Leah felt her grandmother ease away from her slightly, exposing her fully to the excited little boy beside her.

“Riah? That’s a pretty name. My name is Yong Guk.” Leah look at him in surprise when he said that, all the other kids had found her name strange, just as they had found her appearance and had decided that she was too different and everyone knows that at that age, being different is a very bad thing.

“How old are you Riah?”, Yong Guk had jumped down off the bench and was now standing in front of Leah with the same gap toothed grin he had worn since he started speaking.

“My name isn’t Riah, it’s Leah,” Leah spoke softly, surprising both herself and her grandmother in the process.

Yong Guk’s smile seemed to get better, if that was even possible, “Rlia?” Leah shook her head no. “Riyah?” again Leah shook her head no. “Ri…Rl…Riah,” he tried again. Leah looked up at her grandmother who smiled as she too shook her.

Yong Guk pouted for a moment at the difficult name, his smile momentarily forgotten “Since we’re going to be best friends, can I just call you Riah” he asked, his smile returning to his face in earnest.

“How do you know we’re going to be best friends?” Without noticing Leah had pulled away from her grandmother and was now leaning towards Yong Guk, mirroring the smile plastered on his face.

“I can just tell, I like you face” he stated, his eyes shining again as he said it.

“Do you want to go on the swings?” Yong Guk’s smile faltered once more as he asked the question, doubt playing across his face so briefly that Leah didn’t even notice it. Instead she looked up at her grandmother who smiled down at her encouragingly.

“Okay” she responded, hesitantly sliding off the bench.

Yong Guk grabbed her hand and pulled her before she even had time to register her feet touching the ground. She turned back quickly to look at her grandmother, who simply said “I’ll wait here shall I”.

“You never said how old you are?” Yong Guk stated as he strode towards the swings, Leah following obediently as he continued to grasp her hand.

“I’m 5” Leah whispered, feeling a little shy again.

“Really? Yesterday was my birthday; we just came back from my grandparents in Daegu. I had a party…” Leah missed the rest of what was said as her Korean failed her, so instead she stared at Yong Guk.

“The means I’m 6. Older than you right?” Yong Guk turned to look at Leah as he questioned and she nodded in response.

“That means you can call me Oppa!”

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Author's Note

So I have edited and re edited this, I'm still not completely happy with it but it introduces the characters in a way that I'm happy with.

Please enjoy.

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