A soft wailing cut through the silent atmosphere of the empty playground. Jaejoong looked up from the hole he was digging in the sandbox but saw no one else besides himself. The playground was always empty at this time of the day, even though the place was encompassed by four apartment buildings.

Whenever he whined to his mother that he was bored since there wasn’t anyone else his age to play with, she would say that it couldn’t be helped because the residents there were mostly either old people living alone or single working men and women. There weren’t any other children around besides Jaejoong while the only adult there was his mother, though she was dozing on a bench nearby.

So when the wailing died down to mere sobs, he climbed up from his kneeling position on the sand and decided to abandon his attempt to dig a hole big enough to bury an empty shoebox he found in his mother’s closet.

He brushed the sand off his knees and dusted his hands together so that they were as clean as possible. Pouting in curiosity, he padded off in a random direction, turning around to a different one whenever he thought that the sound was getting softer.

A minute later, he huffed. He couldn’t see anyone but he could hear someone. And relying on his sense of hearing was useless since there was always a chance that whenever he thought it was getting softer due to the growing distance from him and the source, it could also mean that the person was only making the sound softer—distance might not have anything to do with the loudness of the sound at all.

As he looked about the empty playground again, he noticed something red sticking out from underneath a bush.

“Is that a shoe?” he wondered out loud. Trotting over—smiling smugly when he could hear the sobbing sound grow louder—he squatted down before the bush and slowly parted the leaves. Pushing the final leaves away as to not hinder his sight, he saw a girl about his age, sitting on the ground with her small hands rubbing at her eyes.

Feeling mischievous, Jaejoong in a breath. “BOO!” he yelled, immediately scaring the other girl.

“Waaah!” The other girl scrambled away from him in fright, her palms flat on the ground to support her weight thus revealing to Jaejoong puffy red eyes and tear tracks that glimmer under the glaring sunlight. She stared at Jaejoong for a few seconds, still too shocked to react in any other way, but when she saw him grin, she realised that he had been pranked on.

A new wave of tears came forth, accompanied by choking sobs and sniffles.

All of a sudden, Jaejoong felt guilty as he watched the smaller girl cry her lungs out from the scare he gave her. He was just excited to see another kid in his age, that’s all; he didn’t mean to make her cry.

“Umm, I’m sorry. Hey, don’t cry,” he mumbled. He stepped through the bush and plopped in front of the crying girl, feeling lost as to what he should do to comfort her. He blew out an air, making the hair that framed her face flutter a little before falling back in place just as messy and unruly as before. Jaejoong shifted uncomfortable for a while, before suddenly leaning forward to close the gap between them and pressed his lips against one of the girl’s wet cheek.

The cries died immediately after and a pair of cat eyes blinked up at him. The girl sniffed once, then asked, “W-why’d you kiss m-me?”

“So that you’d stop crying,” Jaejoong answered with a tilt of his head. He brought a finger up to tap the other girl’s nose lightly but succeeding in making it look reprimanding. 

“B-but—but…I dropped m-my ice cream and—” The girl looked close to tears again so Jaejoong moved his hand and laid it to rest on top of soft black locks of hair above the girl’s head.

Jaejoong glanced to the side where he now noticed a small cone of  ice cream lay crushed on the ground, it pooling around it like paint. He looked back to the girl. “Did you fall down? And it got crushed?”

The girl nodded meekly, her head bowing low.

Jaejoong brought her face back up so that she could see the grin he was showing off. “Hey, you don’t need to cry over that. You’re not hurt, right? It’s okay, no need to cry.”

“But it’s my favourite ice cream and I’m not allowed to have any more until tomorrow…” the little girl protested in a mumble.

Jaejoong frowned; he knew what that felt like, having an enjoyment suddenly end without any warning and having nothing to do about it. It wasn’t fair; he knew it all to well. So now he sat, thinking: how to cheer this poor girl up?

He was suddenly struck by a great idea, or what his mind thought to be a good idea, anyway. He crawled halfway through the bush again then poked his head out through the other half. Seeing his target, he called out loudly, “Vick! Come here boy, come here, Vick!”

With a bright grin, he retreated and sat back opposite the girl. The other had a puzzled look on her face as well as confusion. “You’ll see in a second,” Jaejoong chirped.

Soft but fast patters of footsteps sounded, growing clearer and louder with each passing second. The bush beside them shook and rustled a signal that something— or someone— was pushing their way through the leaves and small branches, emitting low growling sounds every now and then. The smaller girl grew horrified when her imagination produced various images to accompany the sound and none of them were any comforting in the least.

She squeaked in surprised when suddenly a black blur of something hurtled itself from amidst the foliage and tackled her, nearly barrelling her down. She was speechless as she stared at the white puppy nuzzling her chest affectionately, but then broke into giggles when it began to slobber all over her face as if trying to all the visible skin there.

She was out of breath from laughing by the time Jaejoong called for the puppy. The cute furry puppy trotted over to him and his face as well before settling down on his master’s lap.

“Is…is he yours?” asked the smaller girl in a timid voice. Jaejoong could see now traces of the laugh that ended just seconds ago.

“Yup. His name is Vick,” grinned Jaejoong. “And my name is Jaejoong. What about you?”

The other girl fidgeted before answering with a small shy smile. “I’m Yeonhee. It’s nice to meet you, Jaejoong. Vick, too.”

“Mm! Nice to meet you too. Do you live here? I’ve never seen you around before. Where are your parents? Are they here? How old are you anyway? I’m eight but I’ll be nine in January!”

“Umm, I just moved here with my parents…so I’m not used to this place yet. Umma said that it’s alright for me to play alone here since there and guards and security cameras and all. And I’m six, and my birthday is in January too.”

“Oooh, so I guess I’m older than you, huh?” Jaejoong replied with a cheeky grin. “Call me oppa,” he chirped out the name—testing it—then deciding immediately that he liked it, “Wanna play with me in the sandbox? You can help me dig a huge hole so that we can hide stuff in it and no one would know!”

Yeonhee’s tentative grin grew more confident. She stumbled a little while trying to stand up, Jaejoong mimicking her actions—excluding the stumbling, of course. “Okay!”

Jaejoong pushed her way through the bush once more, Vick trotting at his side with a happy yap or two while Yeonhee trailed behind him. “I have this really cool box too. We can put small things inside before we hide it. That way the things won’t get dirty and messy and stuff.”

“Oppa, can I put something inside too?” The shorter of the two hurried to match her pace with the older boy.

The older grinning, liking the sound of the words that slipper from the little girl’s mouth.

“Sure. We’ll both put something we have in it so that after a long, long, really long time, we can have like an expedition to dig it back up again! Sounds pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah. It sounds so cool. I can’t wait!”

They laughed when Vick decided to give a few squeaky barks in order not to feel left out of the conversation.

“Vick, you can put your dog tag inside, okay? You have that new one back at home, so no one will get mad at you.”

A few minutes passed by in silence as the two kids concentrated hard in their work—digging up sand was pretty hard work, Jaejoong don must of the work, being the oldest and the boy, he trying to give Yeonhee a best impression. And once they were done, they gave each other a satisfied grin.

“Okay, so let’s decide what we’re gonna put as the buried treasure.”

That day, when the sun began to set and his mother had woken up from her nap, Jaejoong waved goodbye to his new friend. Yeonhee had to go back home too. But neither of them left with a frown or an upset face, because despite not having talked about meeting again at the playground, they both knew that they would see each other again the next day.

And the day after that as well the following day. Because if they had their way, they’d both make sure that they see each other every single day of their lives for the rest of their lives.

#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#