It starts with a vibrant yellow. 

They’re playing hide-and-seek in a sunflower field. Seungwan is hiding, but Seulgi can feel her reassuring presence all around, and her grin stretches ear to ear, all innocence and milk teeth.

At seven-years-old, Seulgi doesn’t really understand why her best friend loves sunflowers so much. All her simple mind knows is that she could eat a hundred of those sunflower seed snacks her eomma packs in her lunchbox because they’re delicious. 

But because they’re Seungwan’s favourite, Seulgi decides they’re her favourite, too. 

Like most kids their age, Seulgi’s world is a snow-globe of Pororo plushies, scented erasers and rainbow-coloured margins. They were born only ten days apart, but Seungwan already pictures the future. Like the blue sky, there is no end to the expanse of her wonderment. She’s filled with adventure and curiosity so much more adult than Seulgi, who still believes in fairytales and tries to catch Santa Claus in action every Christmas morning.

To Seulgi, Seungwan is worthy of every single school award there is, and even more. Her friend is a pure genius for their age. While she is obsessed with colouring-book dragons and crayons, all Seungwan wants to do is hold mature conversations and read books far ahead of her age. Seulgi remembers when Seungwan first read her a sonnet out loud. The girl is the size of a peanut, but Seulgi finds herself looking up at her when she speaks, lost in the abstract chaos of the world she paints with her big words and complicated metaphors.

She just wants to pick her up and tuck her into her pocket for later.