Winter 1997

"Sung-min, mum got me new cars, let's go play!" Hyuk-jae yelled from his room. Sung-min was on his way home with Sung-jin, walking through Hyuk-jae's neighbourhood, when he had heard the latter one yell from his room.

It wasn't that Sung-min hated that Hyuk-jae watched over him like a hawk, but he was supposed to go home, not play with his best friend. 

He pretended he didn't hear Hyuk-jae's screams, and gripped Sung-jin's hand even tighter as they walked away and all he could hear was Hyuk-jae calling after him.

His heart ached.

"Are you deaf, or what?" Hyuk-jae asked as they walked to school together.

They had a short way to school, so even in winter, when the streets were covered in snow and it was freezing cold, they walked.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Sung-min lied. He knew fully well what Hyuk-jae was talking about, but he couldn't bring himself to tell the truth.

"You silly goose, I saw you with Sung-jin the other day, you were walking straight by my house!" Hyuk-jae exclaimed, "my mum had brought me a few more cars, so I thought we could play, but you didn't hear me when I yelled your name."

"What a shame." Sung-min replied.

The rest of the way to school, both boys remained silent. Sung-min thought Hyuk-jae perhaps knew that he actually only had pretended not to hear him, but then again - Hyuk-jae was dumb, there was no way he could tell when someone was feigning and not.

Summer 2001

The boys were sitting on the school's playground, both reading a different manga. Since they had holidays, nobody bothered going to the school, so they spent much of their time there, where they had all the space to themselves.

After hours had passed, and they had done nothing but reading, Hyuk-jae grew tired and put on some music.

"You know what I wanna do?"

Sung-min looked up at Hyuk-jae, not really knowing where he was heading with the conversation.

"I wanna be a dancer."

"That's stupid, you dance horribly."

Hyuk-jae pouted, "I can practice, and become Korea's best dancer, maybe even the world's best dancer! And when I get famous, I'll remember you in my thank you speech. Like, thank you for always being my left foot or something like that!"

"If that's the case then I'll remember sending you flowers when I become a singer." Sung-min said.

It wasn't really something he always had dreamt of being, but some said he had the talent, and at the moment he really didn't know what he was going to do with his life.

"Then let's prepare ourselves." Hyuk-jae said as he started moving with the music. As daft as he looked, it really wasn't that bad, Sung-min thought. It looked as if Hyuk-jae understood the music.

Fall 2001

"Oh c'mon!" Hyuk-jae whined, "I'm just asking you to play with my pokemon cards!"

"We're not kids anymore, I don't have time for childish games." Sung-min explained.

"It doesn't matter if you don't have any cards because I've got plenty, I'll share with you!"

"Are you even listening to me? I said no already!"

"Why have you been acting so lame lately? I hate that."

Sung-min sighed loudly, making it very clear how frustrated he was. 

Truthfully, he was tired of Hyuk-jae always wanting to play and fool around, all of their classmates made fun of the pair of them because of Hyuk-jae's childishness.

It got even worse when friends Sung-min had told him they really wanted to hang out with him but didn't want to be seen around Hyuk-jae, who had become the school's joke.

"Fine, if you don't wanna play with me, I'll just ask Sung-jin."

"That's very mature of you, really."

"Why are you always behaving like an adult? We're teens - we're supposed to play and have fun!"

"Not in these childish ways, Hyuk-jae! You just don't get it, do you? You need to grow up!"

After that, the boys didn't speak with each other for days. Sung-min followed his other friends around in school, but he always kept an eye on Hyuk-jae, who in return kept on staring at him.

Unlike himself, Hyuk-jae didn't have many friends. 

People chose to stay away from him as if he were the plague, and the stronger kids laughed at him and called him names when there were no teachers around. It had come to the point where neither of them protected Hyuk-jae from those stinging words.

The days passed by like that, in school they ignored each other and once they got home they spent the rest of the day doing chores, homework and missing one another.

One evening, Hyuk-jae's phone rang, and his father told him it was for him.

"Hello?" Hyuk-jae said, a bit excited because he normally never received phone calls.

"I'm sorry." 

It was Sung-min. As low and husky his voice sounded, Hyuk-jae would always recognise that voice.

He felt tears swell up in the corners of his eyes, he sobbed slightly as he said, "I love you."