It was a humid night and Youra, for the life of her, could not understand how her friend wasn’t pulling up his sleeves and fanning himself with his hands like she was. He was wearing a long sleeved hoodie for God’s sake.

They were lying on the grass nearby, propped up by their hands, looking at the moon in all its glory. It was a full moon and it looked particularly big that night.

“Have you ever compared people to the moon?” Namjoon asked as he plucked a dandelion and handed it to Youra.

She blew away the little florets and watched as they were carried away by the humid breeze around them. “So many times. The moon has so many sides and sometimes we can only see parts of it.” She paused in thought. “You know, it sometimes scares me as to how I might just not know everything there is to know about someone I care about.” She turned to Namjoon. “You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, there’s actually a word for it.” He pushed up his glasses up the bridge of his nose, making Youra chuckle. He looked like a professor ready to answer a student’s question. “It’s an emotion to be more precise, called Sonder. It’s the realisation that you can never completely know a person, you can only get to know about a person as much as they allow you to.

“But according to another source, Sonder is the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.”

“Do you feel that way about people?”

“Yeah, I feel that way about a lot of people, even you.”

“Me? And when did you realise you felt that way about me?”

Namjoon looked at her and smiled. “The moment I met you.”

“Pray elaborate, my dear fellow.” Youra said with a goofy smile on her face. One of her favourite words to use in a sentence was ‘pray’. She had first seen it in a Sherlock Holmes book and immediately wanted to start using it more often, which she did. She had been using this word for years now.

“I shall.” Namjoon mock bowed, making Youra laugh, and he continued. “I’ve never met someone so excited to see a swing set. Neither have I met someone who’s snuck out of their house at midnight just because they realised they’ve never done it before.” He paused for a while before continuing. “I’ve also never met someone that’s made me think both ‘I have no idea what she’s thinking.’ and ‘I know exactly what she’s thinking.’”

“I don’t know if your intentions were to say something nice or not, but that was the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Is that weird?” She placed a finger on her chin in thought. “No, it’s not weird. Thanks, Joon.”

“Not that being weird is a bad thing, of course.”

“Right, right. Of course.”

They sat down in silence for a while before Namjoon whipped a box of Uno cards from his pocket. “Wanna play a game?”

“I have a feeling this isn’t gonna be a regular game of Uno from the way you speak.”

He chuckled. “You’re right. It’s my version of a game called Colour Smash. Ever heard of it?”

“Not until now, no. So how do you play?”

“My, my, aren’t we eager? So basically what you do is you have to collect cards based on colour. How you do that is players place down cards as quick as they can and if they notice that the card they’ve placed is of the same colour as the one below it, they can snatch the cards but only if the player next to you is unable to block you.”

“And what happens if you block me?”

“Then the game continues until either one of us is able to steal the cards. Whoever runs out of cards as the game progresses loses.”

“Sounds simple enough, shall we start?”

Namjoon looked at her, determined to win. “Sure.”

-

“It’s sad to think that after looking so determined to win you lost in the end.” Youra said cheekily.

Namjoon sighed and pretended to look upset but ended up laughing. “Yeah, but you only won that one because of beginner’s luck.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, loser.” Youra stuck her tongue at him as she managed to grab the cards once again, winning as she did so.

He sighed again but extended his hand. “GG, moonchild, GG.”

She took his hand and gave it a firm shake, something she had learnt from her father.

Never let anyone look down on you by giving them a soft handshake.

“Thank you, thank you.”

Youra looked at the time on her phone, it was almost 8. She looked up and was about to say something when Namjoon interrupted her.

“It’s late, shouldn’t you be heading home now?”

“Late?” She scoffed, trying to sound like this was nothing even though it was, considering she had long stopped sneaking out and staying out late. “This is nothing.”

Namjoon got up and rolled his eyes. “It used to be nothing. I know for a fact you haven’t stayed out late like this since I left for Ilsan. You want me to drop you home?”

Youra got up and stood in front of him. “You know me too well, Joon but no thanks, I’ll be fine. I think I might visit Jackson. You remind me too much of him.”

He smiled. “Tell him I said hi.”

Youra moved forward and gave him a hug, resting her cheek on his shoulder. She could feel him vibrate as he chuckled. He hugged her back tight. It’s not every time he got to see such a dear friend.

He was gonna miss her.

She pulled apart but held his arms. “Come to Seoul more often please. I don’t think I realised just how much I’ve missed you over the years. I could use someone like you around here.”

He knitted his brows, worried, as he squeezed her arms. “What do you mean?”

She patted his arms and smiled, making him let go. “Stick around and you’ll find out.”

And with that, she walked off but not before turning around and walking backward for a while. “Don’t forget to call him!” She gave him a mock salute before turning around and walking off.

Namjoon stood there and watched her walk away as she became smaller and smaller, feeling a bit uneased.

What had she meant?

And, would she be alright without him?

-

Youra walked down the mud path as she had multiple times before but she felt a sense of nostalgia come over her as she walked away from Namjoon. She had spent many nights walking down this path, sitting by Namjoon, talking, playing colour smash, blurting out random thoughts without thinking twice.

She missed doing that, she missed high school.

It seemed like her life was perfect back then. She had friends, she was doing well in school, her sister was still alive, her parents weren’t fighting and most important of all, it seemed like life would always be good.

But then high school ended and it was like God had had enough of her laughing and joking around. She applied to universities and only barely managed to get into the university she wanted, all of this while her friends and her were debating on whether they wanted to be together or not.

Initially, the mere thought of not going to university with Mark and Jackson was bizarre. These were her best friends. They had gone to the same middle school and high school, spent almost every day with each other, didn’t it make sense that they spend their university days together as well?

But when Mark had told her that he wanted to try applying to Yonsei instead of Seoul National like they had initially planned, she felt somewhat betrayed.

And then there was Jackson, who wanted to go back to Hong Kong for his studies. When she had heard that, it was like her whole life was falling apart.

What was gonna happen to their dreams of spending their university years together? What was gonna happen to their dream of moving into an apartment together for university?

There were so many things that scared Youra and the idea that her friends wouldn’t be there to help her along the way frightened her even more.

What was worse were the fights that ensued because the three were all so scared. They worried about their decisions, would they be okay if they were separated? And they couldn’t help but blame each other for all this, what could they do? They were only high school students about to step into the real world.

They were scared out of their minds.

And they didn’t even have each other to comfort or console one another.

They were alone.

Eventually after fighting and staying away from each other for a while, they realised that their friendship was too important for them to let go of. They also realised that as friends, they should be supportive of one another’s dreams even if it meant they might get separated.

So in the end, after one big breakdown, they all decided that they would support each other no matter where they went and reconciled.