As Jiho grew older, he became more and more disillusioned with life. Things seemed a little more dull, a little more boring every time he looked at his familiar surroundings. So at age sixteen, he thought he knew knew everything. It's common amongst teenagers, so many rejecting their last years of their childhood, claiming that they are adults. From a mother's point of view its sad. Sad to see those innocent little kids that tumbled along the lawn grow into angst-ridden teens that think they know absolutely everything. Such is the case with so many teenagers, and Jiho was just like the rest. 

  

Jiho was completely unremarkable. He had average grades, normally cut dark brown hair, and wore what was trendy. He didn't have that many friends, but was absolutely, completely normal. He was a little more somber than the rest, but in all there was nothing special about him whatsoever. No reason for pride, or for dissatisfaction. He came from a wealthy family with a youthful mother and a cheerful father, but no siblings. They would always try and get their teenaged son to socialize a little more, to want to play and enjoy life some. Jiho would generally reject those attempts at socialization, rarely ever agreeing and doing what they said. And his parents didn't want to be mean, so they wouldn't force him to that much. They would let him enjoy his music often. 

      

 It all dawned on Jiho on the first night of summer break. Regrets, pouring in waves, jolting him out of his bed like an electric shock. There were just so many of them, all flowing together one after another, each of the memories as strong and as clear as if they just happened yesterday. Only a handful stood out the strongest, and Jiho decided to write these down to reflect over them. 

Back when Jiho was thirteen, a young boy, just only three months younger than Jiho, moved in across the street. The boy moved into the small pink house right across the street from Jiho's. His name was Jihoon, and he had a low voice that contradicted his sweet face. He was very kind, optimistic and friendly. On the second day of living in the small neighborhood, he and his mother visited Jiho's large house. The two brought some brownies and as his mother stayed downstairs to chat he skipped up the tall flight of stairs, light brown hair flopping up and down, straight up to Jiho's large bedroom. He had asked, and in his booming low voice that always surprised people, if he could play with Jiho. Jiho had shook his head instantly, rejecting his offer as he had "much better things to do than play like a small child". Jihoon frowned deeply and incredulously asked him why.

  

Jiho remembered  having responded that playing was for little kids and that he wasn't a kid anymore. Jihoon frowned even deeper and left with a sigh and a shake of his head, his short light brown hair flopping around. Jiho saw him playing with the boy down the street in a wheelchair the very next day. He never even talked to him again. If Jihoon still lived in his house he would never know, they didn't interact ever again. 

      

The boy in the wheelchair was named Minhyuk. He was terminally ill with some disease Jiho had long forgotten. He was kind, with pitch black hair that framed his deep brown eyes and had a serious face that didn't match his bright and sunny disposition. On one cold autumn weekend when Jiho was fourteen or so, he had wheeled all the way over to Jiho's house. He asked the same provoking question that Jihoon had asked.

 

"Do you want to play?" Minhyuk had asked in his laid-back voice  Jiho had of course said no, claiming that playing was for children, which he was most definitely not. Minhyuk responded as equally as cold as Jiho, the darkness in his voice evident. 

      

Maybe childhood or lack thereof is a serious matter for some. Or Jiho might have come off rudely. 

  

 "Childhood is a state of mind." Minhyuk had said, frowning sadly. And with that Minhyuk wheeled far away, away from Jiho's large house. Jiho thought his neighbor wouldn't return, but the very next weekend he showed up again.

      

 "Do you want to go for a walk around the neighborhood? I mean, I can't really walk but..." Minhyuk trailed off sadly, looking down at his useless legs. He had dreamed of being a dancer, but the useless appendages were just reminders that he would never be.

Jiho's mother said yes immediately, feeling very sorry for the ebony haired boy and Jiho was quickly shoved out the door and into the cool fall air.

        

The two teens went around a couple of blocks, not even looking at eachother and soon enough were back in their respective houses without a word said between them. The only soynds made between them were Minhyuk's increasingly ragged coughs. The next week Jiho heard of what happened to the boy. Minhyuk had died, and Jiho had never even got to know him. The last words he spoke to him were "Go away". 

        

 Possibly the thing Jiho regretted the most happened at the beginning of that school year. Jiho's best friend of six years, Jaehyo, had came out. Nobody had even expected it. Jaehyo was above the normal guy, popular and very good looking. Girls liked him, and people had thought he liked them too. It had never dawned on anyone that the reason that Jaehyo never dated any girls and displayed no interest in them wasn't because he was looking for the right girl or being mysterious, but because he wasn't attracted to them at all. 

        

Jaehyo had decided that on an early Tuesday morning that he was going to be able to be public with his uality. He had a boyfriend, this short kid that hung around the arts wing and wore beanies and hipster glasses a bunch. His name was Lee Taeil and he was anything but popular, he was quiet, reserved and completely ignored. Taeil wasn't like Jaehyo in any aspects, being rather antisocial and advoiding large crowds instead of being in the center of them. 

    

Jaehyo had walked into the school's lunch room a couple of minutes late. No other kids were walking in but he would've stood out anyway as he was popular, and was considered extremely attractive. Everyone's eyes were on him always, 24/7.

        

Jiho was just eating his lunch, not even looking up at the front of the cafeteria, until he heard a chorus of gasps sweep through the large room. His eyes shifted towards Jaehyo, who had his hand linked hand in hand with Lee Taeil, leaning slightly on the shorter teen. A girl, a lanky one with jet black hair, had the audacity to ask him why he was showing skinship with the most antisocial, silent boy in the entire school. Jaehyo had responded plainly, and quite shockingly. It was the least expected answer. 

      

 "This is my boyfriend. We've been dating for about a year now and we were tired of not being able to be seen in public together." Jaehyo's words were blunt and straightforward. He spoke as if everyone already knew and it was no big deal.

      

Jaehyo and Taeil sat down with Jiho and Yukwon. Yukwon had immediately opened up, happily talking to both boys. Yukwon was a happy brunette boy who always saw the best things in life. For him the glass was always half full. Taeil chatted more than expected and they all got along together just great, minus Jiho, who was sulking in the corner. Taeil wanted to be a tattoo artist and had a sketchbook full of designs. Jiho ignored the book, the conversation and most of all; Jaehyo. Eventually Jaehyo quickly pulled him aside. 

        

"What the hell is wrong Jiho? I know you can be quiet but this is completely ridiculous." Jaehyo whispered fiercely at the brunette.  

          

"I'm not interested in being friends with you anymore." Jiho hissed back, sounding just like a kindergartener for a split second. They stopped being friends, stopped hanging out together, ceased to talk to one another and text each other.   They drifted apart. And Jiho lost a good friend, his only and best friend.

      

Jiho sighed, looking over the list that was a good twenty or so days old. So many things he could have changed, and they all affected him in the long run. He could have been a completely different person if it weren't for those things. If only he had made better decisions, if he had thought it through. 

      

Wishing he wasn't so bitter and annoyed at life, he opened up his large window, pulling back the linen curtains and flopped on his slightly too squishy bed. Chucking a hello kitty plushie at his door he sighed, trying to clear his cluttered mind. Glancing at his calander and clock he realized it was midnight of the summer solstice, June twenty first. Maybe years later he would tell his grandchildren that a long, long time ago on June twenty first he had made a life-changing revelation. Or maybe he was just being weird again. 

      

All of a sudden soft guitar music flowed through Jiho's window, along with the crisp wind, making his curtains dance in the pale moonlight. Whoever was playing it wasn't all that great, an occasional mistake would be clearly heard, but the songs were nice and comforting. Jiho was sure that he had never heard them in his, yet they seemed so familiar, as if he had heard them a thousand times and they had ingrained themselves into his head. They reminded him of something, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It might have been past memories of when he was little and his mother would take him on 'adventures'. As Jiho grew older he became much less interested with these 'adventures' which in reality were small things, like climbing the tall oak tree that grew in his front yard, or going to the farmers market. Jiho found these things boring, simple and plain. Jiho would much prefer to listen to music in his room, or read. But not tonight. 

  

Tonight was different. Jiho was going to change. He wasn't going to regret this. He was going to live out one of those fantasy stories he read in novels. He would have an adventure like he used to when he was little. "Childhood is a state of mind." Jiho whisped as he clambered out of his open window. Thinking it would be easy to climb down the vines that clambered up his wall, he grabbed at a particularly thick vine. Sadly Jiho was quite out of shape and wasn't exactly anywhere near to being the skinniest kid. The thick vine detatched itself from the garden wall and the young man smashed into a gardenia bush. As he dusted himself off the pretty guitar music stopped completely and he heard loud laughter. Glancing up to the source, he saw a boy that looked his own age perched up in the ancient oak infront of his house. 

    

"Hahahaha. Oh my gosh! You were hilarious. Hilarious! I haven't seen anything that funny in a real long time. What's your name, kid?" The redheaded boy asked loudly. Jiho walked closer to examine the odd boy. He was lithe and thin, in a simple white T-shirt, jeans and a plad button up overshirt with an old, small tree necklace that hung close to his neck. Jiho thought the outfit looked completely unfashionable but somehow looked fantastic on the young teen. The mystery kid had orange-red hair that looked a tad too long and kept falling into his bright eyes. Jiho found the boy very attractive, but would never say that because he couldn't possibly actually mean it. Jiho liked girls, or at least he thought he did. He wasn't completely sure anymore....

  

"I'm Jiho. And I'm not a kid! I'm sixteen! You can't be anywhere near old enough to call me kid." Jiho said angrily. He shouldn't find this redhead attractive, and he shouldn't be called kid. He was sixteen, and he knew everything one needed to know. He was practically an adult and here was a boy his own age calling him kid. It was completely disgraceful, demeaning. 

  

"Hold your stinkin' horses. Calm down. I think sixteen is rather young, if you had to ask me. Then again I've lived a great deal longer than anyone else here. You don't need to be so uptight. How can you enjoy anything if you always need to be right? No manners on you people nowadays. It's always "me,me,me". You didn't even ask me my name! And since now you most surely will, It's Kyung." The redhead hopped from his high perch at the top of the tree so he could get a closer look at Jiho. There was something off about Kyung, he jumped and landed with effortless grace and seemed to almost glow ether-merely. And he did claim to be "a great deal older than anyone else here". 

    

"Well...uh...Why are you here? In my yard. What's the use in playing guitar here, especially if there is nobody to listen to?" Jiho asked, slightly flustered at the Kyung's strange presence. Kyung chuckled amusedly, which made Jiho angry. How could Kyung be so simply annoying with a common action?

    

"Why not? I like playing guitar. It makes me happy. And you're listening, though this isn't your lawn. I remember when it was just rolling woods..." Kyung trailed off, as if he could see back in time to when the land was covered in trees. There was definitely something very off about him. Jiho just couldn't place his finger on it. 

    

"How old are you?" Jiho asked, suddenly curious. 

    

"Older than you'd ever think. But not mentally. Or physically." Kyung chuckled and suddenly the cool summer night turned ice cold. Jiho shivered and sat down. Kyung plopped down next to him, but with much more grace then the heavier boy. 

"Why are you here?" Jiho asked the large eyed redhead. 

"This has been my home for a long time. Just because you think it's yours doesn't mean it really is." Kyung smiled, looking at the boy. "You humans sure have a lot to learn." Kyung tilted his head back, laughing, and Jiho could see the pointed tips of his ears.

 And before Jiho knew it the two were entirely engaged in talking. Kyung seemed mysterious but down to earth and approachable, with a hilarious since of humor. Jiho ended up laughing a whole lot more than he had in the past year altogether. He was happier than he had been in a long, long time and Jiho realized that he really didn't know everything, but Kyung didn't either. And finally he was okay with that.  

    

"Your life seems a ton more interesting than mine." Jiho said, running his hand through the soft grass, looking up at the deep purple sky. 

  

 "You just take everything for granted. Just have fun, be a kid. But, yeah, my life is pretty interesting. I just get to do whatever I want, and as long as I have something to eat I'm pretty happy." Kyung said, flicking grass at Jiho. 

"You know..." he trailed off "You could come with sometimes..." The offer hung plainly in the air. Jiho swallowed because his throat was unusually dry, not because he had a crush on Kyung or anything like that. He was straight, right? Jiho liked girls, he had to. Kyung must have been just messing with his head. 

  

 "Definitely." Jiho chirped. Kyung got up, grabbing Jiho's hand as the two walked away in the midnight blue darkness. And for once Jiho had no regrets. 

Author's Note

I edited/ revised this story so most grammar/spelling issues have been fixed. Also I added in a few more paragraphs and dialog bits heheheh. There is strongly implied one-sided zikyung in this (because one-sided zikyung where Jiho likes Kyung is awful rare) but how Kyung feels about Jiho is up to you.

 Moral of the story: you can be a kid for as long as you please, your life's quality depends on your outlook. 

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