At age 11, they celebrate their first anniversary.


“I’m here! I’m here!” she shouts as she races towards him, gasping for air.

“Pabo-ya. No need to run. You were going to lose anyway.” he pats her back and then adds with a wicked grin, “I’ll tell you your punishment later.”

“Nooooo!” she dramatically plops down on the ground 

It’s been almost a year since their first meeting and the happy discovery that they were neighbours – his family having moved to Incheon from Ilsan that very day. Since then, the two had become best friends – inseparable. 

Every morning they meet at the bus stop in front of their street to go to school together and every evening they meet at the back gates to return home together. 

As they start walking she suddenly asks, “Hey, do you know what an anniversary is?”

“Annaannnii... what?” he blinks in confusion.

She throws back her head and laughs, “An an-ni-ver-sa-ry, silly! My umma told me that it is the day when appa and umma got married. Like.. umm. Ah! I know, it’s like their wedding’s birthday.”

“Cool,” he says.

She stops walking. Her eyes are twinkling having cooked up an idea, “We should celebrate our anniversary too!”

“What! You want to get married?” the young boy asks looking alarmed.

“You are such a slowpoke. I don’t want to marry you! I mean, we should celebrate every year on the day we first met like our friendship’s birthday!”

“Can we have strawberry cheesecake?” 

“Yes.”

“Ok. Then let’s celebrate our anniversy.”

“Anniversa-ry,” she blows at her bangs in frustration but can’t stay annoyed for long when he flashes his wide gum revealing smile at her.



A week later they sit on the same curb and celebrate their first anniversary on October 15th with strawberry cheesecake, cider and ring pops. He gives her an assortment of hair accessories that his mom helped him pick out. She is always complaining about her hair getting in her face while dancing and threatening to cut it all off. He hopes this convinces her otherwise; he thinks her long brown hair is really quite nice.


She gives him the two things he loves most in the world, a box of strawberry milk and H.O.T’s signed CD. Seeing the huge smile on his face makes her think that getting scolded by her mother for the entire four hours they waited in line was worth it.

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A/N The first 10 chapters are pretty short so I might update 1-2 at a time but trust me, they get a whole lot longer as the story goes on!