You are nine years old, and Chanyeol is ten. The two of you still live in the same drab, Seoul neighborhood. His parents are away on a business meeting for the day and they have dropped their son off at your house. At first, you jumped up and down in excitement over having Chanyeol at your house for nearly a whole day. You still think that he is a lovely boy and you still love him, as much and in any way that a nine-year-old little girl can love a ten-year-old little boy.

When you get ready to receive your guest, you think about how to do your hair. After some thinking, you decide to plait it because your appa said you looked pretty when your hair was in braids. You wanted Chanyeol to think you were pretty, too. Chanyeol looks smug when he arrives at your house, like he is nervous and scared to be there. You smile happily at him, hoping that your smile can make him feel more welcome. Instead, he just glowers at you again.

Sojung, the baby-sitter, tells Chanyeol to make himself feel at home and assures his mother that she will take good care of him. For the next few hours, you try what you can to get Chanyeol to play with you. You bring out your little Barbie dolls and give them to him to see if he will play, but then you remember that he is a boy, and boys don’t like to play with dollies. So you bring out your Connect-Four game and present it to him. He scoffs at it. So next, you bring out a few jump ropes, but he doesn’t want to play that either. You show him your pet guinea pig, but he calls it ugly and doesn’t want to play with that either.

You begin to rack your brain thinking of a game he might want to play. You already showed him nearly every toy you had in your house, but he still didn’t want to play with you. Feeling a little sneaky, you slowly walk up to him and he stares at you as you get closer.

“What?” he says. You smile mischievously as you suddenly reach out and poke his arm. “Ow!” he yelps but you are already running down the hall.

“Tag! You’re it!” You turn back to see if he is chasing you, and surprisingly, he is. You let out a playful high pitched scream as he closes in on you. You turn a corner of your house and run into the kitchen and he chases after you. You are impressed at how fast he can run. Chanyeol is so admirable, you think.

You turn another corner and run into your room and you close the door. But your hair is too long and one of your plaits gets stuck as the door closes. “Ouch!” you yelp and you frantically start trying to get your braid out. But Chanyeol has caught up to you, caught up to the closed door. On the other side, he sees half of your braid. He grabs it and starts pulling on it.

“I got you!” he yells like a bully. He pulls on your braid on his side of the door. “You’re it! You lost! You’re a loser! Come out now!” he continues to taunt you, but on your side, your head hits the door whenever he pulls on your braid. And it hurts. It hurts a lot.

Salty tears start to cloud your eyes when the pain on your head gets to be too much. You try to wrestle your hair back, but Chanyeol’s grip on it is too strong. “Chanyeol, stop!” you start to yell. You’re not sure if he is ignoring you or if he can’t hear. But he continues to pull your plaits and you are crying now because it hurts so much.

“Chanyeol!” you continue yelling out. “Stop! Please! Chanyeol, stop pulling! It hurts!” But instead, he pulls even harder and you start crying even harder, until Sojung the babysitter, sees what is going on. Initially, she is horrified at what’s going on. She tells Chanyeol to stop pulling your hair, and slaps his hands the way his mom did. Then, she opens the door and fixes your hair and comforts you and forces Chanyeol to apologize, which he does. Chanyeol says he is sorry through gritted teeth. In his eyes, you see that he is beginning to cry, too, though he is too proud to show it.

Sojung tells the two of you to stop running and playing tag. She takes both your hands and leads the two of you to the dining room table where she has laid out crayons and paper and tells the two of you to draw or color while she prepares lunch.

Chanyeol picks up a black crayon and just starts drawing an eagle or some kind of big bird. Seeing him draw makes you want to draw, too. So you pick up a yellow crayon and begin drawing flowers, lots of them. When your art piece is finally finished, you decide that you want to give it to Chanyeol, as a peace offering.

“Chanyeol-ah!” you say cheerfully as you hand it to him. “This is for you!”

Chanyeol stares at it as though it is infested with some kind of disease. And then he knocks it right out of your hand. “I don’t want your ugly drawing,” he says.