Kim Dahyun was a transfer student two years my junior. Despite our , it didn't take me long to notice her out of the hundreds of students in our school. She stood out from the crowd in more ways than one.

She was loud. Not in the obnoxious or rude kind of way. She seemed to always have a joke to crack or laugh about and no matter how many times I passed her from the shoe lockers at the front of the school into the halls of classrooms, I would always find myself drawn to the familiar sound of her hearty laugh and the bright nature of her voice.

She had a legion of friends that seemed to hoard around her as she talked in the mornings. I have never seen so many junior high school students gather around one person before. She must have been so popular. The crowd always caught my gaze as I walked past her into the halls, and it would always be that smiling, laughing girl in the thick of them all.

Her body language was so expressive. You could almost guess what emotion she was feeling in every word she spoke. Hand gestures and expressions were the centre of her talk, everything she said becoming just that little bit more interesting as she expressed it. Sometimes I thought that most of the fun from her stories would come out of her dramatic expressions and frantic movements.

And then there was her hair. She'd only transferred a year ago, but it seemed like she had been here for longer because I couldn't count the amount of times, she had dyed her hair on one hand. It was almost as if her hair was just as expressive as the rest of her body. Every new colour brought a slightly new feel to the aura around her. She'd gone from blonde to green to bright pink, to sea blue and among a crowd of dark hair, she stood out. She was like a walking rainbow.

In conclusion, it was impossible not to notice Kim Dahyun even when I never saw her in class.

Watching her every morning and afternoon became a habit in the first year of her transfer that my best friend Sana began to call creepy.

"Wouldn't you be weirded out if someone you didn't know just stared at you every day?" She would say and then drag me off to class. Every day it was the same. I would look for the little walking rainbow and be disappointed as Sana dragged me away and her laughs faded into the drone of conversation.

It was her hair that made me finally pluck up the courage to go up to her.

It was simply a normal day. I placed my shoes in my locker, pulled on my slippers and stood, looking around the room as I usually did in search of Kim Dahyun. But no matter where I looked, I couldn't see her. In fact, the entire day consisted of me searching for the girl. She was nowhere to be found.

When I had finally given up and Sana had stopped bugging me about being a creepy stalker, it was the end of the day and time to leave.

I actually didn't see Dahyun for the rest of the week. It was only when my walking rainbow had disappeared that I was able to see Dahyun again.

The next week, she returned to school. I knew she had returned because the crowds had returned. The laughter was here again, but I couldn't for the life of me pick her out from the crowds. Had she recoloured her hair again and I just couldn't recognise her?

All of a sudden, I found myself walking toward the crowd at the lockers. I heard Sana calling me, but I didn't listen. When I had walked most of the way there, I spotted her. I was right. She had recoloured her hair... or she had gotten rid of the colours all together. She was her same happy, smiley bubbly self, but her hair was its natural dark brown hue.

I was kind of shell shocked and stared at her, probably with my mouth wide open like an idiot. She made eye contact with me just as she was about to make her way to her class. I don't think I ever saw her eyes properly before. They were dark, like her natural hair colour, but in a different way. They seemed to be full of emotions she wasn't ready for anybody to see. In that brief moment when our eyes met, I knew that I wanted to be the person she would open up to.

"HEY MOMO WE'RE GONNA BE LATE!" Sana yelled from behind me. Dahyun's face moved into a grin so that her eyes almost disappeared, and a giggle escaped her lips. I knew she was laughing at me, but I couldn't look away or find it in me to be embarrassed. I could only think one thing. Kim Dahyun was looking at me.

I felt a pair of hands land firmly on my shoulders.

"Sorry Kim Dahyun-ssi." Sana said and she squeezed my shoulders a little too hard which pulled me out of my trance. I looked at the floor in embarrassment. "Momo's not usually like this."

"No, no." Dahyun laughed. My ears rang with the sound of it. It was, from that moment onwards, my favourite noise. "I thought it was funny." I looked up to see her bow, ready to leave.

"My name's Minatozaki Sana by the way." Sana said as she began to drag me away. "Maybe we'll talk again someday."

Sana was right. We did talk again.

I don't really know how it happened, but Dahyun began to hang out with Sana and I during lunchtimes. I thought it was a little strange. We were hanging out with a person two years our junior we hadn't ever talked to previously. Dahyun gained strange glances every now and then from her classmates, but she integrated into our weird duo seamlessly.

We were joking around like we had been best buddies forever in less than a year.

Though Sana and I had been friends since before we moved to Korea together ten years ago, Dahyun just seemed to click.

Everything I had assumed about Kim Dahyun while looking at her from afar had been proven true as I slowly became her friend.

She was so kind and loving, often going out of her way to make kimbap for Sana and I which always left us both ecstatic and our stomachs full and happy. She was really good at making it and was quick to figure out that my favourites were the ones full of pork.

On those days that she decided to make it, she would always hold it behind her back, then ask us both: "Guess what I have today?" Sana would always laugh in that bubbly way of hers and reply: "I have no idea Dahyunie. What is it?"

She would dramatically reveal a cloth bag from behind her full of the goodies and smile charmingly.

"KIMBAP!" The way she said it always made us laugh.

I could always feel my stomach growling and my mouth watering in the moments before she would hand me a piece.

"Here's some for piggie Momo." She always said.

She was also a great listener as I heard from Sana. I didn't like to talk about my problems to others, so I didn't get to experience it first hand, but Sana was sure to tell me of the times when she poured out her heart to the younger girl.

"She didn't say a thing out of place! It was like a miracle!" Sana exclaimed. "She's like the perfect friend." I agreed.

She was so perfect, that I began to worry when it would all stop. Nobody can be this amazing. Everyone had their weaknesses.

I only started to see them when Sana began to date her.

At first it all seemed too good to be true. I had an amazing best friend and Sana had the most loving girlfriend she could ask for. I never felt like a third wheel when I hung out with them and they seemed to get along really well and loved each other so much.

Then Sana asked her out to the dance for our graduation.

"Please come with me Dahyunie! It'll be fun!" She said, grasping Dahyun's hands gently in her own and looking at her lovingly. The dance was in about half a year's time and Sana was desperate to prepare for it so it would be the best night of her life. She'd told me so many times in the past.

Dahyun, of course, didn't hesitate for a second to say yes, but I saw something like panic in her eyes as she did so. Barely a glimpse, but I saw it none the less. There was something wrong.

I was right when I thought something was wrong because Dahyun pulled me aside the next day.

"Can I talk to you?" She asked at the shoe lockers before school. Her face was pale, and she looked like she felt sick. "I just gotta tell you something without Sana interrupting." I obliged but was still wondering why she couldn't tell her girlfriend what was bothering her.

She took my hand and lead me down the halls and into the girl's bathroom near her classroom. Once she had checked that nobody was there, she let go of me and turned around to look into my eyes. She swallowed before speaking.

"I'm sick." She told me. "I really didn't want to say anything originally, but you have the right to know." My chest was tight. "I have cancer and I'm going to die." She said with a grimace, then after observing my expression she glared. "Please don'