(JIYONG'S POV)

Dara might not remember, but when we first met, I bit her cheek and later she wet the ground.

It was in the kindergarten, and till now she cant remember much before third grade.  Maybe it was because her earlier moments were painful.  Dara seems to forget anything that hurts, and embarassing moments as well.  Not me.  I remember everything.  And most of all, I remember the bad times.

Not that kindergarten was a bad time for me.  When I look at my kindergaten class picture, I am proud of me as I was then.  I am standing between Seungri and Youngbae, and I am taller than either one.  Seungri was smiling with his mouth open, too wide for a smile and not wide enough for a laugh, but wide enough to have a fly swarming in.  Youngbae is smiling a huge, deep smile.  He is proud to be standing next to the most popular kid in the class--which was me.

Dara doesn't remember any of this.  She wasn't in the picture because she didn't start kindergarten until around Halloween.  But I do.  I can remember everything about her and the day she first arrived in Mrs. Choi's morning class.  I was playing in the toy corner with Seunghyun and Dongwook.  The three of us were lying on the floor making believe we were dead babies when Mrs. Choi asked us to look up and meet a new classmate.  Nobody was suppossed to move because we were dead, and out of the corner of my eye I could see that Dongwook and Seunghyun were peeking.

"You're cheating!" I hollered at them.

"Jiyong!" Mrs. Choi said in her soft, little voice that turned up at the end.  I left of glaring at the two cheaters and looked at her.  Dara was holding on very tightly to her mother's hand and looking hard at me.  I guess she didn't liked what she saw because suddenly her lips began quivering and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. 

Everything about Dara was cute, if that was the right word to describe her.

She was wearing a pink-and-black checked dress with a white cat on one pocket.  From under the dress, her pale white, slim legs covered into white socks and pink shiny shoes.  I couldn't take my eyes off of her.  I had never seen anybody with a face like her.  Though she was slim, her face was a bit chubby.  It was pale white like a vampire, except for her cheeks.  Just looking at her cheeks made my mouth fill with saliva.  They were round and very red.  Like apples.  I loved apples in kindergarten.  I still love them now--especially those big, round and red apples.  And Dara's cheeks looked like two shiny red apples.

I stood up and moved closer, fascinated.  Mrs. Choi saw me coming and said encouragingly, "This is Kwon Jiyong, Sandara.  He is one of the friendliest boys in the class.  Maybe Jiyong can show you around."

Up closer, Dara's cheeks looked even more delectable than at a distance.  Under the tears that still glistened on them, Dara's cheeks shimmered like apples under water.  I came closer.

When I tell it, it sounds as if everything happened quickly, but as I remembered it, everything moved in slow motion.  Even the voices of the adults are slowed down in my mind.

Very slowly, the grown-ups spoke to each as Dara's eyes fastened themselves in terror on mine.  She stopped crying and stood hypnotized as I approached, my lips.  Dara's anguish was written all over her face.  I felt it, but I could not understand her terror.  All I could think of was the taste of apples.

"Now Ji, why don't you show Sandara where we put our shoes, coats, and....."

But I struck then.  My teeth fastened themselves on one of Dara's cheeks.  Next thing I knew, someone was screaming. 

Dara was screaming.

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I didn't scream and I didn't cry, but I was bitterly disappointed.  The cheek didn't taste anything like apples.  It didn't even taste good.

I was dragged away roughly and shaken by Mrs. Choi. "Why?"

I cant explain so I was told to sit down at one of the tables and lay my head down until I could behave.  I kept my head bowed down.  My disappointment was unbearable.

Eventhough I couldn't see anything, I could still hear.  Dara yelled for a while.  Her yells sounded like hiccups.  In between yells she said very clearly, "I want to go home! I want to go home!"  I was miserable because I now understood that she was right and I was wrong.  I felt humiliated and I hated Dara for that.  I put my hands over my ears to drown out the sound of her voice.

Later, Mrs. Choi came over to my table and sat down next to me.  I couldn't see her because I still had my head down on the table but I knew she was sitting there.

"Jiyong," she said.

I buried my head deeper in my hands and moved my body away.

"Alright Ji, you can sit up now."

I shook my head. No.

"Ji," came Mrs. Choi's voice, "It's no good biting.  If you are angry, you have to find some other way to show it.  If each of us went aroundbiting people who made us angry, we'd be all full of holes."

I felt the tears rising in my eyes.  How wrong she was!  How unfair!

I sat up.  "I wasn't angry!"  I yelled at her.  "I wasn't!"

"Then why did you bite Sandara?" she asked, looking at me, puzzled.

I couldn't tell her.  I couldn't tell anyone.  Now I realized how silly it was.

Here I was, a big boy of five years old as my mom always reminded me--mixing up salty cheeks and luscious apples.  How could I tell her?

She didn't press the point, and I was allowed to rejoin my classmates.  Dara was one of them, and I kept looking at her with hate.

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