The smell of fresh air greeted his face as soon as he stepped down from the bus. He bowed lightly to the driver, and the driver nodded acknowledge, closing the door and make a u-turn. The bus could only send him to this path, as what the driver had told him before; he needed to walk by his own starting from this point. Hyukjae didn’t mind though.

With his bag on his left hand, Hyukjae walked slowly, admiring the green scenery the nature could offer for his sight-seeing. Hyukjae smiled in content, admitting that it was indeed a beautiful place, and peaceful too. 

Few elder who was at their own farm; cropping and planting whatever they have been doing for years, standing up from the bending position to see such a young man coming to that place. Hyukjae could hear some whispers, but he decided to ignore it and greets them politely.

‘Hello, my name is Lee Hyukjae.’ He said bowing politely. ‘I’m going to live in this town starting from now on.’ Hyukjae said again.

The elders just ignored his small introduction and resumed back at what they were working at. Hyukjae hold his back tighter, trying to convince himself that he did the right decision to come here. He resumed back his walking, referring to the map he had written before he came here. Hyukjae took the small paper from his wallet, trying to reconfirm if he was in the correct street.

‘Few more minutes to walks.’ Hyukjae said brightly, folding back the small paper and put it neatly inside his wallet back. After Siwon’s death, he had been checking the address with property agent. He was finally being lead to this place after several times trying to find who can provide him the direction to this small town. Hyukjae still didn’t know what this town had for him though, but he does believe Siwon won’t send him here for nothing. Following his heart, Hyukjae finally took his courage to face what Siwon had kept for him. And he promised to himself that he will come all clean to Kyuhyun after he know what Siwon wanted him to do here.

Hyukjae wiped away his sweats that producing from his long walks. He titled his head, there in front of him, stood one small building. But Hyukjae didn’t know what this building was for. Loud screams of joys from nowhere startled Hyukjae, making him peeked on his toes to see what inside the building. Hyukjae creepily walked inside, wanted to peek what inside the building through the windows, like a stalker.

There, stood a group of children who was crowding who Hyukjae assumed as their teacher, whining and chanting ‘more… more…’ Hyukjae heard the laugh from the teacher; he assumed it was a he since his laugh wasn’t girly.

‘Okay, okay. I will sing another song for you.’ The teacher said and Hyukjae gasped at the voice. It was very familiar to him. It was the voice he had been missing so much. It was Kyuhyun’s voice. He cupped his mouth with his hand when Kyuhyun sang a song for the kids, unknowing to him that he was crying. Hyukjae slumped on the floor, couldn’t contain his feeling listening to Kyuhyun’s sweet voice, one that once was a voice that making him fall in love deeper towards the man. Hyukjae hide his face between his knees. ‘So this is what Siwon wanted me to be at.’ He whispered weakly.

‘Excuse me.’ A woman voice asked and Hyukjae shoot his eyes up. She was a woman at her twenty something, Hyukjae guessed. The woman gasped and kneeled down to Hyukjae’s level. ‘Don’t cry, Hyukjae ssi.’ She said and Hyukjae cried more. This woman reminded him of someone, someone that Hyukjae had sinned so much. This woman reminded him of Lee Ahreum.

‘Welcome to my parents house.’ The woman had introduced herself as Haerin, and she took Hyukjae out from the small school and brought him here. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’ She said and handed Hyukjae a cup of tea. ‘The tea is freshly picked from my father tea garden this morning.’ She said chirpily. ‘It’s refreshing.’ She continued saying.

‘Thank you.’ Hyukjae said lowly, wiping his remaining tears with his thumb. ‘May I ask something, Haerin ssi?’ He asked politely.

‘Go on.’ She said, nodding.

‘How did you know my name?’ Hyukjae asked and the girl smiled. 

‘I was Ahreum best friend. Soul sisters people love to call us. We are inseparable.’ She said and paused for moments to laughs. ‘We never fought with each other. We can understand each other perfectly.’ She said and playing with her glass. ‘Ahreum lives when I alive. And when she died, I was practically died too.’ She said and Hyukjae hold her hand, giving her his support. Haerin nodded and smiled, ‘Its okay, I passed that phase already.’ She assured.

‘Ahreum told me about Kyuhyun ssi and you. She told me about that guy was her real father. I couldn’t believe her at first, but then when I saw how happy she was when she with Kyuhyun ssi, the thought of maybe he was her father slowly crossed to my mind.’ She said and smiled. ‘I have a trivia for you. Want to hear?’ She asked and Hyukjae nodded. ‘Before Ahreum get to know that he was her father, she was so in love with Kyuhyun ssi.’ She said and laughed. ‘It was funny, you know. To saw her all frustrated over the fact that his dream guy was her father.’

Hyukjae didn’t laugh as she was. Of course, the fact that someone else loved his ex-husband was not fancy to him. Moreover, the girl was Kyuhyun own daughter. Own daughter. The words linger more than everything Haerin was talking about inside his mind.

Haerin stopped talking once she realized how Hyukjae wasn’t listening to her anymore. She smiled and put her hand on top of Hyukjae’s, making him startled. ‘Don’t worry, Hyukjae ssi. I can assure you that the love that silly girl thought she was was not more than a love from a daughter towards her father. I admitted it quite hard to accept the fact that she has such a young father, and quite a catch too, but after week of revelation, she accepted it.’ Haerin said. ‘Well, she wasn’t that okay actually, I know sometimes she had this so greedy feeling to not accept Kyuhyun ssi as her own father, but she wanted him to be his boyfriend.’ She added and Hyukjae could felt the insecurity came to him back.

‘But then, Kyuhyun ssi always talk about you whenever he had time to.’ Haerin said and Hyukjae had this warm feeling inside his heart. ‘I guess she slowly fall out of love from him when she saw how loyal Kyuhyun ssi was to you.’ Haerin chuckled and that was successfully making Hyukjae smiled. ‘She likes adventurous guy more. You know kind of bad boy type.’ She added. ‘Ahreum told me everything, every single thing that had happened before she finally decided she was tired and she just wanted to have a good rest. It was sad when things happened that way, and she prayed hard every night for thing to fall back right to their place.’ There was a glint of tears b on her eyes, but Hyukjae didn’t want to stop her, so he keep his mouth shut. Haerin went on with telling Hyukjae more and more about Ahreum. Haerin keep on being cherry while telling Hyukjae every single details about Ahreum, like how she would always called Ahreum ‘stupid’, and she kept convincing Hyukjae that she wasn’t miss her so much since that girl wasn’t anything much but a kinda burden she had to protect. Haerin keep on with her mumbles and rumbling about how Ahreum practically ‘destroy’ her own life by sticking with her, but Hyukjae know better. Hyukjae know she had been missing her in a way too.

‘How did you end up coming back here?’ Hyukjae asked when she done letting out all her ‘frustration’ and ‘disgrace’ of Ahreum.

‘It was her dream.’ Haerin simply said. ‘She wanted to open one free school for rural area, aka my own town.’ She laughed. ‘I regret that I bought her here when she was still alive, and now, I was stuck here back, after all my effort of going out from here.’

Hyukjae smiled, slowly understand her pattern. She seem to be very hateful of Ahreum, she won’t say nice things about her, but maybe that the way she was. And he do believe Ahreum could saw the nice and kindness inside her, despite her spiteful words, or else she won’t end up being her best friend.

‘She makes me came back to this town that I hate so much.’ She moaned, shaking her head. ‘My parents were all happy though.’ She added, and laughed more. ‘Just to fulfill her wishes.’ She whispered slowly, but went notice by Hyukjae. There was hint of sadness on her voice, and Hyukjae believe it because she had been missing her. ‘Kyuhyun ssi come to my apartment, at Seoul, and offered me few months ago. He told me that he needed my help to make Ahreum’s dream comes true. He said it was the last thing I could do for her. I agreed though, since I found out that city life truly wasn’t for me.’ Hyukjae and Haerin shared stories after that, getting to know each other better.

‘This is the direction to Principal Cho’s house. It’s quite deep and hard to reach.’ Haerin said after handed Hyukjae’s her own drawing map to Kyuhyun’s house. ‘There’s no hotel here and I’m sure no one here would love to let you stay at their house. As you can see, elders here quite reserved to themselves only. I barely survived them.’ She said and Hyukjae nodded, remembering some elders he had met before. ‘Just tell me if he don’t want to give you shelter, and I will kick him tomorrow in the morning.’ She laughed.

Hyukjae laughed for a while before looking nervously at the map. ‘Do you think he will let me?’ He asked her.

Haerin smiled and just that moment Hyukjae could saw her eye smile. It’s quite pretty and amusing. ‘He will. Because he knows Ahreum lead you back to him.’ Haerin assured. ‘Go now. It’s going to be raining anytime soon.’ She warned and Hyukjae nodded, clenching to the map with determination.

By the times Hyukjae was half his way to Kyuhyun’s house, the rain poured hardly. He was wet drenched when he was in front of Kyuhyun’s house. It was a big old Korean house, quite long. ‘Hel-…’ Hyukjae was about to call when he heard a curse from his left.

‘Damn it. You got be kidding me!’ Hyukjae turned to see Kyuhyun was holding a zinc, probably trying to attached it to the holed wall. ‘Stuck it up or it would be a cold night for me tonight.’ He said and kicking the zinc to attached it. The strong wind wasn’t helping him either, sending his zinc fly away. ‘ you! I am not going to repair this anymore. Just let me sleep and die in cold tonight.’ He cursed to the wall and for a momentary, Hyukjae found it was cute. And he had forgotten that he was actually drenched wet while looking at the person he longed so much.

Kyuhyun turned when he heard some giggling, his eyes turned big when he saw it was Hyukjae in front of him right now. They were stunned to each other under the heavy rain until the loud thunder startled Kyuhyun and he pulled the other to get inside with him, together.             

Well, its nearing the ending, solets play soft and nice, kay? Its about time they untangled the tie and reunite again, right? 

Enjoy everyone.