Fast forward to when you are nine years old and the Jo Twins have become your closest friends- or at least one of them has; the other just hung around you because of his brother. Right now you and the Jo family, with permission from your parents, are at the beach on a short trip.

While Kwangmin is wading in the water, jumping every time a wave comes, you and Youngmin are by the shore building sandcastles. The grainy earth covers your feet in speckles and threatens to seep into your shorts. Apart from the seagulls, that’s what you hate most about the beach- getting sand in your .

For thirty minutes this is all you do: build sandcastles. You and Youngmin both agreed to go into the water after fifteen minutes, but somehow building the castles seemed more fun than swimming in the ocean. When you finish building your fifth castle, you stop and take a moment to dmire your work. You think it looks like the best castle you’ve ever seen until you look at Youngmin’s. Compared to his, your’s is just a stump of sand falling on top of each other.  

“Here, do it like this,” Youngmin says when he sees you looking at his castle. He takes some water from the ocean and adds sand to it. He then demonstrates to you how to make a perfectly shaped castle. “Make sure you add enough water,” He adds.

So you follow his advice and begin dousing the bucket of sand with water. “Not too much!” Youngmin says, suddenly grabbing your hand to prevent you from adding more water. For the longest time you just stare at his hand on yours and wonder, “Why do I feel so warm inside?”

Of course, you quickly shake that thought out of your head. After all you’re only nine years old and you don’t have the capacity to remain interested for long.  “Oh, okay,” You simply say and retract your hand from his grip. He then helps you flip the bucket upside down in a way that doesn’t cause all of the contents to spill out.

A minute passes by before you and Youngmin remove the bucket. “Wow!” You say, amazed at how perfectly solid your caslte looked. For minutes you don’t do anything but admire it and gush to Youngmin about how you’ve never seen anything look so perfect before. But soon the astonished look on your face turns into a horrified expression as you witness Kwangmin stomp his foot on the newly formed castle.

“Kwangmin!” An ear piercing shriek escapes your mouth.

Youngmin joins in to scold his brother, “Idiot, why did you do that?”

Kwangmin retracts his arms back to make them look smaller, then lifts them to his chest so that they look like t-rex arms. “Because I’m godzilla, Rawr!”

Suddenly a wave of sand hits him, staining his damp shirt and wet hair with tan earth. He steps back and grunts, “Why’d you do that for?”

You’re standing up now and you’re looking directly into his eyes. Your cheeks are stained red and it looks like you want to strangle him. “Why do you always have to ruin everything?” You shout at him. “Why can’t you be nice to me for once?”

The question seemed to have stunned him because Kwangmin didn’t answer and was looking down at his feet. Without saying anything, he turns around and goes back into the water. For the rest of the day, he doesn’t say anything to you.
 

It was in the fifth grade that you first met No Minwoo. He had just moved here from...you forget where, you just know that he was the new kid in town and that he was mousy looking and was shorter than the other boys. You and the other students take his appearance in, and begin to point out some of his quirks. The clothes he’s wearing, he practically drowns in them. His hair was a disheveled mess and his ears were a little big, but somehow neither of those things mattered. He was beaming the whole time that he was standing at the front, as if he loved getting all the attention.

The teacher, Mrs. Park, steps to the side to let him introduce himself to the class. He gladly takes center stage and an even bigger smile appears on his face. “Hello. No Minwoo, your class’s new Romeo!”

As if declaring yourself to be the counterpart to a romantic literature figure wasn’t bold enough, he looks around the room and his eyes meet yours. Then, horrors of horrors, he winks at you. The class is silent at first, but then a kid in the back corner of the room starts to laugh and before you know it, the whole room is in an uproar.

Mrs. Park quickly shushes the kids and sends Minwoo to sit in front of the room, diagonally across from you. You look at him and you’re still burning with embarrassment.

< >

During lunch, Minwoo approaches your table. You're sittingw with Youngmin, Kwangmin, and some of their other friends that you sometimes talk to. When you see him hovering next to you, you put your head down and will for him to go away. But he doesn't budge and you're forced to talk to him. "What?" You say. 

"Nothing," He answers you with a shrug. "I just want to sit next to my girlfriend."

Girlfriend? What was he talking about. Except for Youngmin and Kwangmin, the others are too busy talking about the latest episode of some show they're obsessed with to hear what's going on. "Who, me?"

He nods, then takes a seat across from you, next to Kwangmin. Kwangmin scowls at him, but this does not intimidate the mousy looking boy. In fact, he seemed to encourage it. Naturally, this earns Kwangmin's respect and he nods at him- meaning: okay. you can be my friend. Meanwhile Youngmin just shrugs and goes: if you're Kwangmin's friend, then you're my friend too.

Your reaction to him was more severe, in fact you scrunched your face at him to show your distaste of the idea of being his girlfriend, or anyone's girlfriend. "I'd rather bathe in goat poop than be your girlfriend."

Minwoo laughs and so do the Jo twins. "And that's why you're my girlfriend." At this, you begin to feel the need to yank your hair out. After all, what could be worse than a boy who liked you?

Months later and much to your chagrin, he ended up becoming your friend. How this friendship was forged, you have no clue but you were happy to be around him- even though he still sometimes believed that you were his girlfriend.

And although the past you always told him that you would bathe in goat feces first before you would date him, the future you wonders if that was actually the case. After all, aside from the fact that bathing in feces was unhygenic, the boy does something to your heart.

Authors Note:  Thank you to my subscribers, I really hope that you like this update!