Every hour we spent together, lives within my heart.

-Age 10-

Somehow Yong Guk had turned out to be right; he and Leah were destined to be best friends. After their first meeting in the park, it had turned out that Yong Guk and his family live only a few houses away from Leah’s grandparent’s house. That first summer, they had quickly bonded, becoming near inseparable. Apart from each other only when they were sleeping or bathing. They had spent the last 2 weeks of the summer playing together and laughing harder than Leah had laughed for the entire 2 months before she had met him. That first summer had ended, as all summers did, and before she knew it she was on a plane back to Connecticut with Yong Guk’s smile playing in her dreams.

It had been 5 summers since then, and each summer Leah had returned to find that her friendship with Yong Guk had survived the harsh winter and was the same as the summer before. In those 5 years, Leah had forgotten already what it was like to not have Yong Guk around and, for his part, Yong Guk never thought of a time when Leah wouldn’t be around.

He had told her as much one hot summer’s day as they had sat lazily in his secret tree house. Now to be honest, the tree house wasn’t really a secret, since everyone knew where it was and could easily see the structure in the garden. It also wasn’t really a tree house since it wasn’t built in a tree, but instead was slightly elevated from the ground. Despite all this the best friends had referred to it as their secret tree house from the 3 summers ago when Yong Guk’s dad had finished building it. It was their secret tree house, not because it was a secret, but because it was where they housed all their secrets. All the secret of their friendship, all the stories they told only to each other. They had spent many hours within its confines, giggling uncontrollably at jokes that weren’t funny to anyone but them. It was in that tree house that they created their secret language, which they used to annoy Yong Guk’s older sister Ji Eun. It was in this tree house that Yong Guk had tripped and skinned his knew so badly that he had a scar which, even now 3 years later, seemed in no rush to leave. It was on that tree house that Leah had fallen and broken her arm, trying to follow Yong Guk and climb onto the roof, earning Leah a heavy cast to blight her summer and Yong Guk a scolding from his parents and the threat of having the tree house taken away.

It was also in that tree house that they revealed their deepest darkest secrets, as deep as the secret of any child can be. It was here that Leah told Yong Guk of her fear of spiders, of how much she hated moving all the time and how she was glad she met him because she found making friends so hard. It was here that she admitted that Korea felt more like home than the many anonymous homes she had lived in back in the states.
It was also in this secret hide out that Yong Guk told Leah about how the older boys bullied him, about his severed asthma, and how the doctors said he would always be smaller and weaker than other boys his age. And it was here that Yong Guk admitted that he didn’t know what he would do without Leah as his friend.
The tree house may not have been secret, but the memories it held was as precious to them as their friendship was. The tree house was a symbol of how they would always be there for each other.

The summers always flew by when Leah was in Seoul and this summer was no different. It had whizzed by in a blur of sleepovers at Yong Guk’s house, where Ji Eun had terrified them so badly with ghost stories that Yong Guk’s mom had to make them warm milk to lull them to sleep.  It had been days of convincing Leah’s grandmother to let them bake cupcakes, which had resulted in an “unholy mess” as Leah’s grandmother had phrased it. This all just meant that they could no longer set foot in Leah’s kitchen.

It had been days of begging Yong Guk’s dad to take them to the water park on his day off, of whining to Leah’s grandfather to take them to the beach. It had been weeks of lazing in Leah’s garden looking at the clouds and making up games which they promptly forgot, having impromptu picnics of ramyun and soda, and of following Ji Eun around miserably when she babysat them dragging them shopping so she could try on multiple outfits. An experience which had Leah forcing Yong Guk to promise to never let her get “girlie”, Yong Guk had laughed and promised as he watched her lay on the floor of the changing room while they waited for Ji Eun to be ready. It had been hot nights which found Yong Guk tapping on her downstairs bedroom window, crawling into bed with her and falling asleep. Followed by hotter mornings of Leah waking up the arms of her best friend wrapped around her and the eyes of her grandmother over them, no longer surprised to see the familiar sight. Before Leah felt she had even had time to breathe, it was already the beginning of her last day.

She was woken up by a tickle on her nose, and she opened her eyes to her best friend standing over her smiling the same smile he had worn on the first day they had met. It had been one of those rare nights that Yong Guk hadn’t slept over, and so she was surprised to wake up his smile shining down on her. “Get up Riah!” Yong Guk had long ago learnt how to pronounce Leah’s name correctly but, for reasons he never explained, he had insisted on sticking with the default nickname he had given her. “It your last day and we have to do something memorable, in case this is the last time we see each other.” Leah rolled her eyes as she rolled out of bed and stretch, ruffling her already tangled hair and stifling a yawn. Without fail, on her last day in Anyang, Yong Guk would say that to her. She never understood why, it was as if he expected her to leave one day and never return, and although she never voiced it, it bothered her when he said it. Something about the simple idea of not seeing him again made her heart still a little and always formed a lump in , making her want to hold on to him in case either of them were to ever slip away. But like always Leah pushed the idea away, she was always too emotional about simple things. Instead she looked at her best friend, who had grabbed her hand and was commencing what could only be described as an interpretive dance, showing his excitement while dragging her towards her bedroom door.

“Yah! Gukkie, I have to go wash up first.”

Yong Guk pouted a little before he grinned again. “

“Fine. Meet me in the kitchen…and hurry”.

Leah nodded in acknowledgment before rubbing her eyes, and grabbing her towel as she headed towards the bathroom.

Yong Guk stared at the table of food in front of him, his smile pushing his cheeks so far back that they began to hurt.

“Wow Gran gran. This looks yummy. All for Leah’s last day, right?”

Leah’s grandmother smiled down at him as she answered.

“Well of course it is, we can’t let her go away without her traditional goodbye breakfast, can we.”

“You’re right. This will make it the best last day ever!” Yong Guk exclaimed, his face lighting up in anticipation.

She looked down at the little boy who, over the years, had become a near permanent feature in her home. So much so that sometimes it was hard to tell where her granddaughter ended and Yong Guk began. The boy had even adopted her granddaughter’s nickname for her.

“Wow! Pancakes too” Yong Guk kept babbling to himself, unaware of the musings of the elder woman in front of him.

She smiled a little to herself as she watched Yong Guk exploring the laden table; she had often wondered what the two kids would do without each other.

She worried sometimes, because during the school year she saw how Yong Guk kept to himself. Detached from the other kids, he didn’t mingle with the boys in the neighbourhood who were his age. They too left him alone, finding him too weak and his asthma bothersome to their games.
She had often voiced her worries to her husband, about their reliance on each and that maybe they should play more with the other kids, but her husband always dismissed her points, stating that she simply worried too much.

“Wow!”

Leah’s voice caused her grandmother to halt her inner musings and look up to see her granddaughter being piggybacked into the room by her grandfather. It was a familiar sight, and she couldn’t help the smile that pulled her lips.

“Pop pop, doesn’t this look like the most delicious breakfast ever”

Leah was already on her feet, having descended her grandfather’s back at speed, and was now standing beside Yong Guk, both their faces practically buried in the food before them.

“Look Ria, there’s even pancakes…” Yong Guk exclaimed as he directed his best friend’s eyes towards the plate of her favourite breakfast.

Leah’s grandmother watched as the kids finally settled down into their seats around the table, already tucking into the spread, whilst continuing their exaltation of the food before them. She smiled again as she joined her family at the table and decided that her husband was probably right, she did worry too much. If they had no one else, at least they would always have each other.

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Author's Note

Hai Guise.
Sorry for the wait. I actually intended to upload this on Sunday but had to go out of town for work. So now I am back, I know it's a short chapter and its's still them as kids, but I want you to understand how much they need each other.

Comments are Loved but so are Silent readers. 
Hope you enjoy.

^-^