“Mommy, why does the ground shake whenever thunder and lightning hits the Earth? Mama, why is it even thundering in the first place?” The age of the 4 also means the age of curiosity, Yeji and Jisoo realizes that when their kid, Chaejin, started asking them random things when she turned four and her first baby tooth fell out.

Now with her monkey designed blankets draped over her small body, the lightning glinting against the window, her parents sitting on both of her side, Chaejin cannot help but wonder about the thunder and lightning. She never understood why lightning comes and why thunder follows after it whenever it rains. She never understood why thunders and lightnings were made in the first place. Although her Mama Yeji told her that she was too young to know why, Chaejin still finds the thunder annoying.

She finds it annoying because whenever she’s playing with her friends, and the thunder comes, Heehyun always scampers away and runs to her house - with Wonjoo tailing behind her since they’re neighbors - leaving her all alone in the playground. The thunder scares away her friends. The thunder doesn’t want her to be happy. 

She finds the thunder annoying because when it thunders, she knows that the dark scary clouds would follow soon. The dark clouds that loom all over the sky like those scary monsters she sees in the TV, also mean that the large beads of water would start falling soon, and she hates the rain. Rain being present means not being able to do anything outside, rain means being too cold for her liking, rains mean being cooped up inside the house.

And lastly, Chaejin finds the thunder annoying because it’s too loud. She hates it more when it comes at nights. She hates it when she hears that soft crying coming from the room next to her. She hates it when she hears her parents’ footsteps rushing over to the room. She hates it when the thunder bothers her little sister and her parents. She hates it.

Jisoo sighs when she sees that Chaejin wouldn’t sleep without any of her questions answered so she gives her wife one glance before reaching out and caressing the kid’s plump cheeks. “Jin-ah. Do you want to hear a story?”

“No mommy, I don’t want to hear a story. I want to know why thunders are made so I can fight it and make it disappear so it won’t scare my friends and Yuna.” Chaejin crosses her arms on her chest, putting on her upset face.

“Okay then buttercup, I’ll tell you how thunders and lightnings were made and why it flies through the sky above the Earth.”

“Once upon a time, there was this girl that lived all alone. Her name, was Chaeryeong.”

Chaeryeong pushes herself up from her bed, stretching her arms up as the light from the sun peaks through the flying curtains on her slightly opened window, the wind passing through the small gap. Chaeryeong stares at this for a while before shrugging it off and crawling towards the end of her bed. 

She slips on her slippers and walks towards her vanity, grabs her brush and starts brushing her hair, puts it in a high ponytail afterwards. She walks down the stairs into her living room, pets Chaeryu and then enters her kitchen to make her food.

She has been living her life like this for the past 12 years. 

Her house stands at the top of a hill, below her lies the town she had wished to see when she was a kid.

From the balcony on her second floor, Chaeryeong can see how the townspeople went with their lives, and for her personal entertainment, she had named them herself.

She had seen how short haired Eunbi always visits the bakery at the break of dawn, and leaves by midday with her hands on her cheeks. She had seen how brown haired Bora follows grey haired Yoohyeon around, holding a bouquet of flowers at her back, but throws it away whenever she sees Yoohyeon approaching that purple haired girl she had named Minji. She had seen how love blossomed between Yena and Yuri, the girls who always waited for each other by the library house near the bakery. She had seen how blue haired Siyeon, who she thinks is Bora’s cousin, caused chaos at the plaza by scaring the kids, and how she only stopped when the granddaughter of the library house, Gahyeon, stopped her. At first Chaeryeong only thought there would be nothing brewing between the two, but she never knew that that town was full of secrets, secrets that people take to their graves.

Out of all the love stories that she witnessed and was witnessing, Chaeryeong never loved anything more than the love story between Bora and Yoohyeon.

She always wondered until when Bora would keep chasing after the girl who’s too oblivious of her feelings for her. 

She wanted to be one of them, walking amongst the other people in the streets wearing pretty dresses, flowers that she picked from a kind neighbor’s garden decorating her hair, looking around the town like she belonged.

But that was before. Before the townspeople staked her parents right in front of her.

Before the blood of her parents splattered across their own land.

Before she was left all alone at the top of the hill.

She never understood why the townspeople hated her parents. Hated their bloodline. Her parents never explained to her why they were living so far away from the other people, why they live in that hill she once considered hell whenever she would get jealous seeing the other kids playing, why she was so…kept away from all the history her parents and her ancestors had with other people.

And looking at them now with disinterest in her eyes, watching them from the place she’s ever known as home, Chaeryeong tattoos in her mind that she won’t ever know.

She sips her tea as she watches small Bora follow Yoohyeon around, the nervousness evident on her steps as she keeps her distance away from the gray haired girl, it was funny how Chaeryeong was able to pick see it even if she was looking at her balcony.

“God, I hope she finally tells her.” Years of being alone and just watching people from her balcony taught Chaeryeong how to read body language. All the subtle moves, the ones they think most people won’t be able, she sees them and she understands them. That’s why she knows what Bora’s feelings. She doesn’t understand them, she doesn’t feel them, but she knows.

“She has been wanting to tell her everything.” Chaeryeong lets out a smile that gets hidden as she raises her teacup, praising Bora in her head after the short girl tried raising her hand at her back, trying to let Yoohyeon see the flowers she was holding.

The gesture seemed so small, but for Chaeryeong, who’s been watching Bora this whole time, it was something big.

It was something brave. It was something meaningful.

“You can do it Bora.” She whispers.

And like she heard it, Bora did the impossible.

“Chaeryeong-ah!” Though she was someone isolated from the town, Chaeryeong was never alone.

She had her pet dog, and she had Ryujin.

Ryujin.

Chaeryeong looks down and the smile on her face earlier only widens more.

There, standing below her, is Ryujin.

The woodcutter’s daughter.

Her only friend besides Chaeryu.

“Have you eaten?” Chaeryeong nods as an answer, and Ryujin smiles when she sees that the girl isn’t lying.

“Do you want to come down? Let’s talk.” Mo