A child anticipated for the coming of his friend under a grand maple tree. He kicked the dirt impatiently, occasionally looking at the park’s entrance to check if his friend came running. But to his disappointment, his eyes shifted towards the ground in frustration.

‘Maybe he forgot about me’. 

He looked up again in hope that he was wrong, but he found disappointment again and again.

The little boy sat on one of the protruding roots, and decided to carefully cradle his legs together into his arms. His lips pouted out for a moment and stared at the playground with narrow eyes.

‘Yeah, he forgot me’.

 Then bit his bottom lip in annoyance. He opened up from his fetal pose, and laid his back against the tree. His eyes stared up through the tree branches, and noticed every fleck of sunlight that had filtered through. He raised his hands up towards the branches to stare at his bandaged hands. He fought several boys the other day in order to protect a defenseless chubby boy who was crying a mess. He decided to help this chubby boy by standing up to the bullies, but alas, he got into trouble as well and ended up fighting them off until a teacher broke them up. The cuts still stung his fingers, but it didn’t matter to him. He gained a friend, a single friend, and that’s all that mattered to him. A smile snuck across his face, but it slowly faded as he noticed that he was still alone. Tears began to well up into his eyes as he thought about how his efforts were wasted in protecting that chubbier boy.

“Well, I shouldn’t have helped him. He’s stupid anyways.” But the tears brimmed over, and began to trail across his rose-tinted cheeks.

He heard someone rushing with a fatigued breath, but before he could look over a brown paper bag slapped against his wet cheek.

“Ah! Sorry! I didn’t mean to do that! Forgive me!” a voice exclaimed.

The lazed boy sat up frantically with the brown paper bag in hand.

In a fit of anger, he snapped “What’s wrong with you. You must be dumb to hit someone in the face with this stupid bag. Stupid, idiot.” He quickly rubbed off the tears on his face.

But as he looked up, the angered boy’s heart softened. It was him. He saw the chubby boy before his eyes, but couldn’t believe it. He walked up to the exhausted boy and pinched his plush cheek in disbelief.

 “That hurts Luhan! Mama does that all the time to me,” the tired boy mumbled.

 “Ah, sorry. Sorry, Xiumin.” he apologized.

Luhan backed away in embarrassment and realized that he was still holding the bag. He opened up the bag and realized that two white buns nestled at the bottom. He picked one up and felt the warmth of one of the buns encase his hands. It was warm. It was plush.

“I thought you’d like one. I got one for both of us. It’s not easy trying to buy food alone. Also, Mama and Papa are strict and…”

Luhan bit directly into the bun and gulped it down in a few seconds.  He grabbed other one and scarfed that one down quickly as well. He looked at Xiumin with satisfaction and gave him a bold squeeze. Xiumin took this as a sincere hug, and then held Luhan tightly as well, but avoided hurting him because he knew that Luhan had a few scratches the other day.

Luhan broke the hug and held Xiumin back with his small hands around Xiumin’s shoulders.

“Xiumin! Be my friend!”

Xiumin looked at him confused.  

“But, I thought that hug meant we’re best friends? We’re just friends?” Xiumin’s lips puffed out and his cheek’s blushed.

“No! We can be best friends! Best of best friends!” confirmed Luhan.

He had a childish innocence but the gaze reflected a man’s promise that he knew he would defend. Xiumin grinned and Luhan grabbed both of his cheeks at once.

“Ahh! Luhan! I told you stop it! This hurts my cheeks! This is embarrassing! Luhan!”

Luhan held onto his cheeks and his stare. He then relaxed his gaze and a smile appeared with his cheeks aglow.

“Xiumin you feel like the Baozi! From now on, since we’re friends, you are my Baozi! My Baozi friend!” Luhan grinned.

Xiumin gave a face that asked ‘I’m confused’ but Luhan gave such confidence to his exclamation that he allowed Luhan to have his way. Xiumin smiled at his newly found nickname, and giggled. He didn’t mind such a strange name because he knew it was an endearing, a name that would remind him of his newly found friendship.

“Luhan, you’re the only one that can call me Baozi, okay?”

“Deal. As long as we’re friends forever! Promise?”

Xiumin held out a pinky in front of Luhan. Luhan grinned and snatched Xiumin’s pinky with his own. Luhan took this as another sign of their friendship.

“Promise.” Xiumin smiled and the two could only gloat in what was now the start of a beautiful friendship.