She gently pushed him away after recovering from her initial always-there anxiety and shock.  She never kissed him back.  Not once in all the times he had touched his lips to hers.  Not once.

With the tiny force she emitted against his chest with her small hands, he experienced the same disappointment he always did; this time was no different than the last time he had kissed her.  Or any before then.

She was like an icy mountain cliff in many ways.  Minwoo was the daring climber who aimed to conquer the peak that was Mindeulle.  It was miserable and lonely, his travel up the steep incline that made up her invisible defensive layer.  He feared the frostbite that was her forever silence, but dared to climb anyway.  A toe or two was worth it for the title.  The title of The Almighty Conqueror of Mount Mindeulle.  It was worth it a million times over.  It was worth it to have her.  But the journey was difficult and seemingly impossible at times.  Go too quickly in your eagerness and you risk the chance of slipping.  Go too quickly and you ultimately lose her.

Patience and pacing is the most valuable resource a mountaineer possessed.  When conquering a mount as great as Mindeulle, one must have the utmost patience.

Minwoo smiled half-heartedly at his longtime housemate--girlfriend in his eyes, housemate in hers.  She was beautiful by any standard--tiny nose and ears, very alike a mouse.  Small face, petite figure.  A bit on the too-skinny end of the stick, but she had steadily gained after Minwoo had taken her in.  Cut just above her waist, her black hair flowed like an onyx river, cascading down over her face unless pulled up.  Poured granite was her smooth skin, lips painted a pinky .  And those eyes;  Lord, those eyes: open, single-lidded eyes with light brown irises, shards of honey and milky rust hidden, buried, deep in the surface.

Her light eyes peaked out from the pane of convex plastic that separated her world from theirs.  It had been close to three days that she had been living within the enclosure of the playground, only venturing out in the day when the ghouls and goblins and unfriendly magical forest creatures couldn't take her and gobble her up.  She knew getting caught wasn't an option--but after she had heard two young mothers' conversation from the oak bench once while swinging innocently, she knew the situation was even more worrisome and it made her nervous:

"Chaeyoung-ah, wasn't that little girl here just yesterday?"

The woman named Chaeyoung--a curvy Korean woman with a round face and caring, motherly eyes--had stretched her neck, her dark eyes traveling to where her friend was pointing--straight at Mindeulle.  Mindeulle had met her eyes shyly, looking down the instant the glance was returned.

"Omo, I think she was.  But I've never seen her leave.  She's always here when I bring Eunjoong and she's still here when we leave for home."

"You don't think--omo...she couldn't have been abandoned, right?"

"You never know, Sunjae-yah," she sighed. "It's none of our business anyway."

"But Chae--!"

"...We should tell the authorities, shouldn't we?"

"Omo, but then...wouldn't she go into adoption?"

"Either that or foster care." Sunjae clicked her tongue. "And with such a pretty face like that," --she sighed-- "What a shame.  Really, it's just a shame."

Mindeulle had ducked her head to her chest where the adults couldn't see, her long hair creating a privacy curtain between the mothers and her, and cried silently.

The following day, people were showing up out of nowhere, calling to her.  She peaked out from a small gap in the plastic tunnel she had been using as shelter for the past four days, she saw a group of crowding around the perimeter of the playground.  There were people holding microphones to their mouths, talking to video cameras--news crews.  Their vans were parked in the small, cracked-asphalt, in-need-of-repair parking lot.  Suddenly, a red light funneled through the small hole in the tunnel, a blue flash following it.  A police car.

"Little girl!" the police called. "Little girl!  Come out!"

There was a split in the crowd immediately afterward, someone rushing through.  Excited and blinded by the thought that the incoming person may be her mother, Mindeulle quickly pushed herself up, daring to climb to a higher platform for a better view.  She looked through the plastic sheet, a roar immediately running through the crowd, a group of people rushing forward.  She was blinded by the white flashes of many cameras as they took photographs of her.

"Stop!" someone shouted. "Stop it!"

It was a high-pitched voice, that of a young boy.  It was the little boy Mindeulle had made friends with just a few short days ago: Dongchul.

He had his arms stretched out to their full length, blocking her from the flashes from the cameras on the other side of the clear plastic barrier.  More flashes had erupted as he spoke, almost as if he was a political figure delivering a passionate speech.

"Stop bothering her!" Dongchul shouted at the crowd. "Just leave her alone!"

"Little boy!  Do you know her?" questioned a woman in a two-piece black pinstripe suit, holding a microphone towards him.

"I said STOP IT!" Dongchul shouted, his eyes b with tears as his voice tore.  He turned to face the plastic pane that separated Mindeulle from him.  "Run." he mouthed to her.

She nodded, diving out of the tunnel as fast as a bullet.  Before any of the reporters could react, she had already made it to the perimeter of the playground and was quickly sprinting down the road.