There he was, standing proud and satisfied, his smile was as big as he could stretch, and from afar his sweat mixed with his continuous stream of tears somehow looked magnificent and glorious. He was standing on a stage of two metres high, in a line with his other six group mates, or his brothers, as he called them. Jang Dongwoo, the rapper, the dancer and the resident dinosaur of Infinite had just finished their second anniversary concert in Seoul, and he couldn’t be any happier than that.

“Thank you Inspirits! And I love you!”

- - - - -

It was suffocating to be trapped in a mass of people, screaming and hyperventilating while at it, just because one small mistake of a turn. She was heading to the ladies with her numerous amounts of shopping bags when all of a sudden, she was dragged to the center of the shopping mall, where the kpop group Infinite was having a fanmeeting. How did her bags got entangled with the strap of the bag of a crazy fan, she had no idea, but she better find the way out as fast as she could as she was starting to feel too overwhelmed with the crowd, and her bladder couldn’t hold it anymore.

She pushed through as hard as she could, loosing count on how many times she slipped and almost stumbled to the ground, but she made it out alive in no time thanks to her agility, and of course the urgency to have a relieve.

“Damn you Infinite.”

Much to her dismay, she could only curse in whispers. She surely didn’t want to be caught badmouthing the super popular idols in front of their fans, and she, Han Sara, as vicious as she was known for it, didn’t have the heart to jinx the career of her bestest friend back there, the best in the whole world and sky combined.

- - - - -

Yes, you guessed it right. Despite the distance and the twelve years of time they were separated from each other, the two best friends wonderfully survived the test on their bond. They kept their promises to constantly mail and talk to each other, and the Han’s biyearly visit to their hometown surely helped a lot. Sara and her parents eventually moved back in Korea and she went to college there, and even after Dongwoo became a member of Infinite and Sara was too busy filling her time by diligently and painstakingly making an effort in college (she was struggling, to say the least, as she had not received any formal education in Korea) to pursue her dream as a fashion designer, their friendship remained as strong as ever.

“What are we doing here, again?”

It was a Sunday evening, almost the time for dinner, and they were at their former kindergarten, standing side by side in front of apparently an old tree, an old mango tree to be exact.

“They are going to cut the tree down. It doesn’t bear any fruit anymore, and they said they are going to set up a court of some sort here.”

“That’s my point, Dongwoo. What are we doing here? And how did you get the time to be here in between the heap of your glamorously busy life? Are you – oh God I hope you’re not – trying to save the tree?”

Dongwoo could only give his shorter, sarcastic friend a are-you-kidding-me look.

“What?”

“How could you ask that?”

“One asked because one needed an answer, Dongwoo.”

Now it was Sara’s turn to give her taller, gullible friend a now-give-me-an-answer look.

“This is a special tree, Sara.”

“O... kay, how special?”

He breathed out a sigh.

“Don’t you remember?”

“What?”

“You ask what a lot, don’t you?”

“Well, if you could just tell me what the heck are we doing standing in front of an old fruitless tree, then I don’t have to ask those many whats, Mr. Obvious.”

Dongwoo just smiled his million dollar smile at her retort, and he took her hand, dragging her closer to the nostalgic tree.

“I used to come here to cry.” He started, looking upward to the highest twigs he could see. “Every time I felt like I needed a time off, I would come here.”

Sara’s forehead contorted in confusion.

“So you trespassed a kindergarten, to cry?”

“It’s our kindergarten, Sara.”

“I know that much, Dongwoo. It’s not that I have lost my memories here.”

“But you couldn’t remember this tree?”

Sara shifted her gaze from her best friend to the said tree, and just by looking at it intently, something inside her clicked, bursting the urge for her to touch the tree. Slowly, she moved, trudging uncertainly towards the tree. Dongwoo stayed behind, looking at her with pride and expectancy. Her right hand reached out, and sure enough, the moment she laid her hand on its trunk, her heart bloomed in recognition. She faced Dongwoo with a pleasing smile.

“We used to hang out under here a lot, didn’t we, Dongwoo?”

“Yepp.” He nodded along. “Now you remember, don’t you?”

Still smiling, she nodded vaguely.

“By heart, I guess. I mean, we never talked about this, and you never mentioned about this tree in your stories. O yeah, what were you saying about crying just now? You never told me that!”

Dongwoo came closer, chortling at the sudden change of attitude his friend had.

“Let’s sit, shall we? Like old times.”

She followed him suit.

“This is a good place to clear one’s mind,” he started, “and a good place to think.”

He stole a glance at his concentrating friend, before he continued.

“You know that I cried easily, so I never thought that I should tell you each and every time I cried, Sara. It would be the only topic we’d talk about.”

She smirked at that, she couldn’t agree more.

“It’s a tough journey to get to where I am right now, you know that right?”

“Yeah, I know, Dongwoo. But you went through it all fantastically, and I’m so proud of you for that.”

He couldn’t help but to crack a huge smile at her.

“I guess, this ol’ tree helped a lot.”

“Really? This tree? How?”

That look in his eyes at that moment told her that this guy sitting beside her had a lot of stories to tell, as if he hadn’t tell enough.