The first time we met, he had knocked me out with a soccer ball. Literally.

As a healthy five-year-old girl, I had been playing outside on the front porch with my stuffed animals when it happened. I was too busy minding my own business to notice the frantic, "Watch out!" that preceded the black-and-white ball which conked me on the side of the head.

I passed out on the spot. So I guess that didn't count as meeting him, but it was the first time we came into contact with each other.

I woke up the next day in my house with an ugly wrapping around my head. It itched and was extremely annoying, but I wasn't allowed to take it off. My mother told me I barely avoided getting a concussion and that she was going to sue the neighbors if I turned out dumb.

"I always knew that boy would cause trouble!" she mumbled to herself while bringing me my dinner in bed. I was perfectly silent as she threw her fit. "Look at what he's done to my daughter. How's she going to be Miss Korea now?"

(Why she wanted me to be Miss Korea? I didn't know, and I still don't know today. She'd be disappointed anyway.

I wouldn't be tall enough.)

A few days after I regained consciousness was when I met face-to-face with the boy that had sent me to my sickbed. I was still resting when I heard something from my window. Assuming it was a bird or a squirrel, I quickly climbed out of bed to look at the creature-

-only to see the face of a human being.

Maybe Mom was on the right track, thinking that I could turn out dumb, because I didn't scream or anything. All I did was stare.

It was a boy's face, and he was clinging to the tree branch that led straight to my window. He knocked his fist against the glass again, and made a hand motion that told me to open up.

For some reason, I did as told - not suspecting anything for a second.

Since I was only five, it turned out a challenge to open the window. But I somehow managed it, and in clambered the guest. Very ungracefully, too. He tumbled inside, nearly knocking over some stuffed animals that sat on top of my wardrobe.

"That tree is too hard to climb," he started complaining. He got to his feet, loosening his limbs and stretching. "You need to get a ladder installed or something."

"Who are you?" I asked.

He held up a fist high into the air, as if triumphant about something. "I'm Jang Wooyoung! I hit you the other day with a soccer ball and I'm sorry!"

...How was I supposed to respond to that?

He didn't wait for me to answer, though, and pointed a finger at me. "How old are you?" he asked.

"Five and a half," was my answer, because as all little kids know, the "half" is the most important part.

"That makes you five years younger than me," he said. "Which means that you have to respect me!"

"Even though you hit me with a soccer ball?"

It seemed that that was the moment he finally came to his senses and realized that my head was still wrapped with an uncomfortable bandage. "Did...did it hurt?" he asked hesitantly.

I shook my head - that hurt. "I didn't feel anything."

He looked at me curiously for a moment before holding out his hand. I glanced at it to see that in his fingers he was holding one of those small cartons of milk. It was pink.

"I wanted to say sorry, so I took this from home," he told me. Then he raised a finger to his lips. "Shh. Don't tell Mom."

"I don't really drink milk," I told him blandly.

He seemed genuinely surprised. "Why?" he asked indignantly. "Milk is good! It tastes good and is good for you!"

I shook my head. I actually didn't like milk. At all. "It tastes funny."

"Maybe you drank a bad kind of milk," he told me. "But this one's really good. And it's strawberry, too!"

He grabbed my hand, putting the carton in it. "You have to drink it!" he said. "Otherwise you won't get better!"

The boy named Jang Wooyoung left the way he came. I watched as he crossed the yard, leaping over the fence separating our houses. When he disappeared out of sight, I looked back at the carton of milk in my hand.

My mother would never know why I suddenly began to drink milk.

--

Ever since then, milk became a staple in my life. Not necessarily as a drink. But as a gift.

Mysteriously, Wooyoung would know whenever something was wrong. Whether I had a fight with my friend, did badly on a test, had my mother yell at me...he would somehow always know.

And he would then climb up the tree and through my window, a carton of strawberry milk in his jacket pocket.

"How do you always know when to come?" I asked once.

He just winked and said, "Instinct."

Every single time he visited me when I was down, I felt my heart speed up just a little more whenever he was around. This is bad, I would then think, but why should I do anything to stop it? I was happy. That was all I wanted, and all I needed.

Of course I didn't like being sad, but if that was what brought him to my side, there were good points to being in a bad mood. It was so normal for him to come to my house whenever I needed him, that I could have never imagined that he wouldn't. It had never occurred to me that I was taking advantage of his presence.

But then...it happened.

As if the world was trying to forewarn me about what was going on, it was raining hard. The sky was dark, and so was my mood. Maybe it was because of the weather. Maybe it was because of a teacher that had just insisted on setting me as a bad example in front of the whole class. Whatever the reason, I was not skipping happily down the road back home. But my day was about to get a whole lot worse.

I returned home, went up to my room and sat on my bed, staring at the carpet. I didn't have an umbrella when I walked home, so I was completely drenched. Absentmindedly, I grabbed a towel to dry my hair as I waited. I knew what I was waiting for, but I tried not to make it obvious to myself by staring at the window.

He never came.

I waited. For hours. Listening to the sound of the rain pounding on the roof and against the glass of the window. But it never opened.

I panicked. Was he sick? Did he get hurt? What happened to him? He had never missed a delivery before, so clearly something had happened. I fumbled for the phone, dialing his house number. As it rang for the longest wait in my life, I stared out the window over to his house.

"Hello?"

My heart dropped. Relief? Disappointment? It was Wooyoung's voice, and he sounded perfectly fine. I was happy that he was okay...but if that was the case, why hadn't he visited me yet?

"H-hi," I said. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't might as well just ask him why he hadn't climbed up to my window...

"Ah, it's Jieun!" he said happily and excitedly. "Perfect timing. I just had something to tell you!"

"Wh-what?" I asked.

Something wanted me to hang up. I didn't know what. It was probably an instinct that I should have ignored. But another something kept the phone glued to my ear as he said,

"I got a girlfriend!"

The muscles in my hand went slack, and the phone dropped to the floor. A...girlfriend.

That was why I hadn't gotten a carton of milk that day. He might have been so up in the clouds about it that he had just completely not known the fact that I was in the dumps.

Or, maybe it was because he had a girlfriend that he purposely didn't visit me.

Girlfriend.

Girlfriend.

My world...my lovely world, containing all of my bottled-up feelings for the boy that cheered me up...

Everything had just fallen apart.