The first time I saw him was on the playground when he was 10 and I was 12. The memory seemed so far away but it was one that I treasured, because it was where it all began.

Jinki had always been a clumsy kid, people even claimed he had a ‘condition’.  And that was how we first met. It was early summer and the playground was generally packed with screaming children running around and throwing the ball in every direction. It was always a noisy place. And amongst all of them was a boy, a special boy that would one day become the most important person to me in the whole world.

It was summer break and a huge group of children gathered to play a game of doge ball every evening, I was one amongst them. And there was also a boy in a crimson red shirt.

I didn’t pay much attention to him aside from the fact that he got hit a lot by the ball and that was when he wasn’t tripping on his own feet. But each time he fell down, he stood up and smiled. It was a sweet and innocent smile, naive and gullible. None the less, it was a beautiful smile. And I soon became addicted to it, but when the game was over, he disappeared.

After that day I caught myself sticking around the grounds in hope of finding that boy in the crimson red shirt, but he was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it was fate or just good timing when I bumped into him walking on the street one day, the bright red was recognizable anywhere.

I was walking down the street, my mind wrapped around the thought of the boy in the red shirt with the beautiful smile, so much so that I didn’t see him come my way. He and I smacked into each other head on, where as I gained my balance, he failed at hand-leg coordination. It was the crimson red that caught my eye fist and then the smile that followed when he stood up. He apologised a number of times while I stood there dumbfounded. Coz I had found the boy, but now what?

He had been a steady obsession of mine, one that was starting to worry me. I asked around, but no one knew him. I tried to remember every detail about him but my memory failed me with each passing day. I roomed the grounds but he never showed. And after all that, after all the time I spend thinking of him, something I would never admit aloud. Here he was. And should I have considered it destiny that he wore the same shirt that day...

My lack of response was turning the situation into an awkward encounter. So, against my fears I opened my mouth to utter my first words to him.

After some debating I stuck out my hand for a formal handshake and a polite introduction. “I’m sorry for that..I’m Lee Joon by the way. It’s nice to meet you.” The boy smiled again, but this time it was a fully fledged grin. His plump boyish cheeks rose, causing his eyes to curve into tiny crescent moons as his lips parted to unravel bunny type teeth in the front. “And I’m Lee Jinki. I don’t think you remember but we played once together.” It was then that a surge of strange happiness overcame me. Because this boy remembered me and the thought excited me.

That was our first proper encounter, the past when I was still unaware of my already growing feelings.

Jinki had told me that he didn’t live in this part of the neighbourhood and that he came here from time to time to play with kids his own age. I soon found out that he was lonely. His parents had left him in his aunt’s care which meant they were never a