A habit that Lee Hayi unknowingly had picked up from hanging out with Kim Hanbin a little too much was the ability to remember things to the smallest of details. She didn’t notice it when it first started to leave a mark. Instead, she only acknowledged it when she looked back at how things used to be, and realised that it was the absentminded gestures he did—like playing with her fingers while he was absorbed in something else—was one of many things that she remembered the most about him. She also remembered him as someone who had refreshing outlooks on life too. While she was hopeless, it was him who proved to her that the world wasn’t all bad, that there must be something in life that was worth living for. Hayi learned that for Hanbin, the fact that he didn’t know how his life would turn to be in the next five to ten years was his reason for him to keep going. She thought it was fearless of him; how he made uncertainty as his reason for living. He made her promise then—she wasn’t allowed to give up life until she was able to find the reason of her own. He said he would wait for that reason.

“What if I take forever to find one?” Hayi couldn’t help but ask.

“Then I’ll wait forever.”

Hayi then also learned that forever is the most beautiful lie that humankind has ever come up with. She hated it, how she was able to learn a lot from a person—or Kim Hanbin, specifically—because that either meant that the person was to stay or to leave. In her case, it was the latter.

“I heard a rumour,” Hanbin began as he sat on the bleachers next to Hayi. They were having PE class that time, and it was just one of the things that Hayi only started to notice after he came into her life; they had always had PE class together. It was another group of students’ turn to be at field, and their turn for a short break. It was quite a sunny day, though the temperature was still quite low. The wind that occasionally blew helped them to cool down. Hayi had her brow raised when he decided to continue. “People are saying that you, Lee Hayi, is using me, Kim Hanbin, to forget Jung Jaewon.”

A short silence followed. Her face remained blank as she tried to fully comprehend what he just told her, but she failed. Terribly. She couldn’t see the relation between her befriending Hanbin and having the mentioned boy to fill in Jaewon’s absence. She reached out for her water bottle, and gulped down while a confused expression still lingered on her face. When she was done, she turned to look at him briefly and unlike her who was perplexed with the whole thing, he seemed to be quite amused, which in turn, caused her to be even more confused. Logically, if he had sanity, he should be bothered by what everyone was saying.

“Why are you smiling?” Hayi asked. “You should be bothered. People are saying I’m using you for my own benefits.”

“Are you, though?”

“I’m not,” she defenced herself, and it was the very truth. Never in her mind and heart intended to use him just so she could move on from the deceased boy. It was a baseless accusation, and she failed to understand why people would say that, or how they even had the idea to begin with. She looked at Hanbin intensely, as if she was trying to dump the fact on his face that she, truly and really, wasn’t using him, for whatever purposes. He was a great friend, and of course, he miraculously appeared when she was at her lowest, but that didn’t make whatever they were saying was right. In fact, it was him who offered her his hand. She only accepted it. Nevertheless, using someone to forget someone was never something that occurred in her mind, what more to use Hanbin in this case. “I really am not using you,” she repeated.

“Hence why I’m not bothered,” he easily concluded.

Hayi didn’t really understand how the world worked. Sure, she knew the ugly stuffs all tad too well. However, when it came to strange people like Hanbin (not that she knew a lot anyway), she really didn’t understand. Kim Hanbin, whose words had calming effects like flowing river; touch was as warm as the summer breeze. She thought that perhaps she had finally become lucky in life, but he was too kind, and above all, he was kind of accepting, too, with whatever and however she was. Maybe that was how the rumour started, and she couldn’t help asking what if what they said were actually true? Maybe his appearance in her life had become too convenient that she finally started to take him for granted and she failed to realise that.

“Hanbin,” she called out. “What if what they said were true? What if I really am using you?”

“Honestly,” he tilted his head towards her, and then an unnecessary blinding smile, “honestly speaking, I don’t really mind.”

Hayi groaned when her phone rang in the middle of the night. Her eyes immediately darted to the analogue clock she had on the bedside table, and another groan escaped her lips. 2:07 a.m. She reached for the phone that never stopped ringing, and across the screen, hanbin was written. If she was confused over the question of why he called her at that hour, on school day, it was well concealed with her sleepiness and grogginess. She answered anyway, after her fifth attempt on sliding the green button.

“Hanbin?” she managed to voice out. She didn’t know how awful she sounded but she was too sleepy to care. “What’s wrong?”

“Are you sleeping?” he asked.

“It’s 2 a.m.,” she flatly replied.

“I know, but you know, who knows, right?” he laughed rather anxiously, which was so unlike him, because for all she remembered, his laugh was always beautiful—sometimes endearing, too—but now when she looks at it, all his laughs were actually beautiful. “Say, Hayi, have you ever felt like running away?”

“From what?”

“From… whatever it is that’s too heavy for you to carry.”

“Hmm, I have,” she truthfully answered. “But, I haven’t felt that for quite some times, though. Or days, specifically.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re with me.”

A short silence followed right after. She didn’t notice it due to her heavy sleepiness, but what she said caused him to jolt awake, though he was never asleep since he went to bed hours ago. Her brutally honest words (or so he assumed) seeped warmly into his heart, and though he knew she said it out of her conscious mind, he knew she meant well. She was never good in expressing her gratitude, Hanbin acknowledged that, so for her to actually reveal that ever so easily meant that she wasn’t really thinking straight, or she wasn’t thinking at all. Nevertheless, it made him feel a whole lot better, and it hadn’t even been 5 minutes into their conversation. Perhaps it was her rare honesty. Perhaps it was her 2:00 a.m. voice that was peculiarly soothing and comforting as if it was some sort of lullaby. If he knew, he would’ve called her hours earlier. That would definitely save him from counting the sheep just so he could sleep. The thought made him feel as if he was selfish. But, aren’t we all? He was and is, after all, just a human. He breathed in the dark and silence, his breath was just as soft as Hayi’s.

“I felt like running away earlier,” he told though he wasn’t sure if she heard him, if she was still awake on the other line. “Mom and dad got into a fight again. The fourth time this week alone. Dad finally left, and he hasn’t returned yet. I wonder if he would return this time. It was bad—the fight. It was so bad that I thought staying away is a lot easier. Hence why my dad left the house,” his eyes lingered on the faint glow in the dark stars he had on the ceilings. “My sister—Hanbyul—she cried a lot. I feel sorry for her. It must’ve been terrifying to see something she thought was so solid suddenly crumbled down.”

“Why do you say so?” Hayi groggily asked, and there was something about the fact that she was trying to stay awake that appeared to be so endearing to the boy.

“My family… we’re not like any other normal families out there, Hayi. We’ve stopped functioning like a family since a while ago. My sister and I—perhaps we were too afraid to face the fact as it is, so we looked at how things used to be instead—when we know all along that we were just house of cards waiting for the storm to