A breeze wafts across the town, carrying with it the scent of apples and wet soil from the night’s rainfall. The chill of the wind drags the leaves down, dispersing them haphazardly onto the ground- tell tale signs of the fall. At the very edge of the town, located in a field ofseeds, two boys strip out of their baggy clothes and run down a pathway lined with flowers and small pebbles. At the end of the path is a natural treasure- a wide strip of dark blue, littered with fallen leaves and tree bark debris.

     Situated on top of a hill, a few paces away from the lake’s shore, a ginger haired girl stretches herself out onto a blanket, eyes slowly closing shut. Her name is Lee Haneul, a girl who dreams of living in a place that isn’t Crescent Falls- a town lined up with greasy fast food chains and air polluting factories.  At eighteen years old, she was well on her way to achieving that dream. However, it was places like this- quiet and seemingly untouched by the pollution of the town- that almost made her want to stay. Almost.

    With her eyes shut and her expression peaceful, she takes in the quiet and revels in it. She knows that it was only a matter of time before her friends arrive and ruin the moment. Half a dozen seconds later, her ears pick up on the sound of two boys scuffling down the path. Her eyes flutter open and she waits for them to make an appearance.

    Arriving first in the clearing was Jinyoung, a lanky boy with a thin oval face. He was wearing typical Calvin Klein boxers and was hopping on one leg to remove his sock from his right foot. After him, a tall boy with a clumsy appearance came into view. His name was Gongchan and unlike Jinyoung, who sported normal underwear, he opted  for a pair of The Incredible Hulk boxers. Given his skeletal frame and invisible muscles, Haneul couldn’t help but laugh to herself.

    “Not swimming again?” Jinyoung asked, balancing in place. He tore his sock off from his foot and threw it beside Her. She cringed and pretended that it stunk.

    “I’d have to be crazy like you two to go swimming in forty degree weather,” She replied casually.

    Jinyoung rolled his eyes at her. “It’s just like taking a cold shower. Watch, Gongchan will demonstrate for you.”

As he said this, Gongchan sprinted forward and propelled himself into the lake. After submerging his entire body in dark, icy cold water, he resurfaced to spit out a fountain of clear liquid from his mouth. His hair was matted against his forehead and his teeth chattered uncontrollably. Despite this, he was smiling- or at least trying to.

    “I-It’s not so bad,” He said in a shaky voice. His arms gripped his sides, attempting to warm himself up.

    Haneul rolled her eyes at him. “Is that why you’re shivering right now?”

    “No,” He said with a pause, not bothering to expand on his answer. “E-even if I am shivering, at least I’m having fun. Of course, y-you wouldn’t know a thing about that since you’re k-kind of a...” With a trembling hand, he motioned for Jinyoung to in.

    “joy kill, a fun wrecker, a grandma,” Jinyoung added collectively.

     “At least I won’t get sick the next day.” Haneul argued, narrowing her eyes at the two as if it would somehow make them take her seriously.

    “Whatever you say, baby.” Gongchan replied, diving back into the water. By “Baby”, he did not mean it in the way that guys sometimes called their girlfriends or when guys saw a cute girl. He meant it in the way that people sometimes called others “Chicken” in order to get them to do what they wanted. Of course, these days, a more fowl word was used to replace the words “Baby” and “Chicken”.


    Rolling her eyes at his poor attempt to pressure her into swimming with them, Haneul merely shook her head and muttered, “Idiot.”

    “I’m sorry, did you hear something?” Gongchan, who had resurfaced in time to hear her insult, asked Jinyoung.

    He shrugged his sharp shoulders. “Nope.”

    Haneul knew from experience that there childlike teasing wouldn’t stop until the got what they wanted. She in a gulp of air and blew it out slowly before peeling her clothes off. Unlike her two friends who had left their clothes scattered all over the path with reckless abandon, Haneul took  time to fold her clothes and lay them neatly onto the blanket. She then kicked off her flats and marched past Jinyoung, who smirked at her- but not because she was half in front of him, like she initially thought the first time he smiled like that when the three of them went swimming together at the lake. She ended up slapping him in the face and calling him a ert. In response, Jinyoung called her conceited.

    She stopped right where the lake met the land. A sliver of icy cold water lapped her toes, small pebbles shifted under her feet, and small particle of debris floated towards her. Before moving any further, she turned to look at Gongchan and then spun around on her heel to look at Jinyoung. With an index finger pointing up at the sky and her thin lips parted, she gave the two boys an I-Am-Dead-Serious look. “Just one quick dip, and I’m out.”


 
    An hour later, both Jinyoung and Haneul retreated to land and were cuddled up in a blue blanket.  Looking up at the sky- cloudy except for a few cracks of blue peeking out, Haneul smiled to herself. It was times like this, when she was with her friends and doing stupid things (like diving into freezing cold water in the middle of the fall), that she really believed that life was good. But like all good things, they had an expiration date.
 
    Next to her, she could hear Jinyoung panting from exhaustion due to the race the three of them had earlier. He had placed second to Gongchan, who he was beginning to believe was actually part human and part dolphin.

    “I swear, he has to be part dolphin,” Jinyoung said, amazed that his friend was still in the water. What made him resemble a dolphin even more was that he began performing tricks in front of them, such as cartwheels in the water and back flips off of a small diving rock.

    Haneul giggled at that. Then, after collecting herself, “You know, I’m really going to miss you guys when I leave.”

    The day before school ended Haneul had told both Gongchan and Jinyoung that she would be moving to a place far away from Crescent Falls- New York City to be exact. Ever since she had seen a picture of New York on a poster at the Airport, Haneul knew that that was where she wanted to be. That was seven years ago. And out of all the things she said she wanted, or wanted to do, wanting to move to New York was the one thing that stayed the same. Now, after receiving an acceptance letter from NYU and purchasing a plane ticket, she was this close to reaching her dreams.

    Slowly and almost uncertainly, Jinyoung propped himself up on his shoulders and stared out into the distance. “You don’t really have to leave. You could be happy here.”

    She wished that that were possible, but it simply wasn’t. Not for her. She couldn’t stand thinking of spending another twenty years, let alone another year, in a town where a man catching a seven pound fish made headlines in the local newspaper.
    
    “Maybe I don’t have to, but, I want to.”

    Silence followed. Nothing but the sound of Gongchan dipping in and out of the water, oblivious of the serious conversation the two were having, could be heard. Then finally, “When are you leaving?”

    “In three more days.”

    Haneul looked up at Jinyoung and waited for him to look at her which, for some reason, made her heart beat faster than normal. She gulped.

    He turned to face her, all serious now. “By the time you’re about to leave on that plane, I’ll probably be too sad to even do this. So, I guess I’ll just do it now.”

    Before Haneul could say anything, she felt him lean in close to her and kiss her on the lips. It came as a surprise to her, but it wasn’t an unpleasant one. When he finally pulled back she saw that his face had turned to a light shade of pink. She laughed, “You almost got away with looking cool before you started blushing!”

    Jinyoung was about to laugh when he heard wet footsteps slipping on small pebbles. Both he and Haneul turned to see Gongchan with a  solemn expression on his face. “Gongchan, when did you get out?” Haneul asked, surprised and at the same time embarrassed at the fact that he could have seen them kissing.

    He stayed where he was, stone faced. And then, he grinned widely at them. “Long enough to see you guys swapping saliva,” He answered, replacing his grim expression with his usual playful grin.

    “The way you say it makes kissing sound disgusting,” Jinyoung chuckled.



    The sun had already disappeared and the night air settled in. With nothing but the stars to aide them in finding their missing clothes, both Jinyoung and Gongchan shivered in the dark. Several paces behind them, just out of ear shot, Haneul was also helping them find their clothing articles. Although they couldn’t hear her, they both knew that she was muttering insults at them.

    After picking up the last of their clothes and slipping them on, the three started up the path and down the gravel road. Not completely dry yet, Haneul hugged the blanket tighter against her body. Both Gongchan and Jinyoung were slightly ahead of her. The two were having a contest of who was cold and who wasn’t which apparently, to them, translated to who was manlier.

    In front of her and to the right, was Gongchan.  He was laughing while confidently stating that he could sleep outside without any blankets on. She couldn’t help but smile. The first time she met him, which was in the fourth grade, he looked cold and unapproachable. It wasn’t until the third day of school that she mustered up the courage to actually go talk to him. She remembered not being able to get a smile out of him until she accidentally walked straight into a wall. That, according to Gongchan, was the start of a beautiful friendship.

    Haneul shifted her gaze to Jinyoung who, in response to Gongchan’s statement, claimed that he could sleep outside without any clothes on. She was about to smile when she remembered the kiss from earlier on. Since the day she met him, when they were in second grade and he announced to the whole class during recess that he was the Monkey King of the jungle gym and that she was his Monkey Queen, she harbored a secret crush on him. Of course,  with time the simple crush she had on him bubbled into something deeper. What that feeling was, she didn’t dare to say. After all, she hardly knew how he felt about her at all.

    She pressed a finger to her lips, remembering how they tingled after he kissed them. Despite herself, she wondered how Jinyoung felt about kissing her. Did he really want to kiss her? Or was it just because she was leaving soon? Either way, he didn’t seem to be too concerned about it. At the moment, he was too busy bluffing his way into winning the contest.
  
  

i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. i apologize if it ! read and review?