Howon feels like the most fortunate person on the Earth after he survived from a dreadful car crash with a 25-ton truck. It is as if he prolonged his life and achieved a perfect success in escaping his death. The driver, who sat on the front seat passed away the second the two vehicles collide, but Howon only lost his consciousness and came back to his sense when the rescuing team helped him to got out of the car. He fractured his ankle, broke his wrist, and got a fifteen centimeters laceration, but the chance he got from God to live a life again is something he should appreciate more. However, the lesions he got need some appropriate treatment so here he is now, lying on the hospital bed with the hospital pajamas and bandages covering the injured areas, with the typical hospital scent that he hates so much and plain hospital foods that make his taste buds suffer.

They make him stay on his bed for several days until finally allowing him to take a walk around the hospital, with the wheelchair of course. Howon lights up and bounces happily as he takes his guitar and gets on the wheelchair with some help from the nurses. His mom offers him a help to push the wheels but his wrist heals the fastest so he is okay with all those business now.

The hallways of the hospital have that kind of eerie aura and Howon is not happy with that so he advances his speed and decides to head to the park behind the main building. The park is showered with the sun rays and carpeted with green grass, making it conversely many times brighter and rosier than the hallways. A water fountain is carefully placed on the center of the park and benches are nicely placed on every sides. He paces to the shaded area and takes his guitar, adjusting it to a comfortable position before giving its strings the first strum. His fingers are stiff due to not playing for a quite long time but the tune is as mellifluous as always, well, maybe not as it was weeks ago but it still pleased to hear.

Howon shuts his eyes, allowing himself to drown in the flow of the melody when he senses someone’s presence on his side. He ignores it for a great ten seconds but that someone is now making some weird noises he can’t quite figure out so he cracks open his eyes.

He swears that he is very grateful to God for saving him from falling off the wheelchair and breaks his back when his eyes meets a dumb grin and twinkling eyes he doesn’t recognize. The hair on his nape stands instantly and he stops playing.

“You can play the guitar? Amazing!”  That Someone chirps, straightens his posture as his fingers grazes the body of the guitar. He’s wearing the same pajamas as Howon, only there’s a needle that pierces through the back of his hand that connects him with the infusion tube hanging on the short pole beside him. “Would you like to teach me?”

Howon wants to scream and call the nurse because This Someone who’s acting strangely as though they are close friend that have known each other for years is creeping the hell out of him and these things may get him a serious complication he probably end up in the operation table for the second time in a week. Well, maybe he’s overthinking.

“How can you play with that hand?” Howon settles the guitar down and points to That Someone’s right hand, where the needle is painfully piercing through.

That Someone glances to his hand then back to Howon, smiling an assuring smile. “Oh, no need to worry because I'm lefthanded!”

A deafening silence is filling the air that Howon can actually hear the sound of their breathing. He’s contemplating whether to take the offer to teach that someone or not because giving tutorial is never been his forte, but when he remembers that he is currently trapped behind the gate of the hospital—which means that he can’t go skateboarding or skipping classes to sneak to the internet cafes or whatsoever—he begins to think that it might be a resolution to lessen the boredom he feels.

“Okay, so let’s meet here tomorrow, umm...,”

“Dongwoo. Jang Dongwoo.” That Someone—no, Dongwoo—reaches out his hand and offers Howon a handshake.

Dongwoo seats on the bench near the water fountain, crossing his legs anxiously and lacing his fingers together. His gaze flicking around the surrounding cautiously, until Howon shows up, complete with his wheelchair and guitar. Dongwoo slides closer to the edge of the bench, towards Howon’s wheelchair and places his chin on the arm rest.

“I’ll start with teaching you the basic chords.” Howon adjusts the guitar’s position and places his fingers on the strings.

Dongwoo responses with an eager nod. “Uhn.”

“Ah, and I’d like to tell you that learning to play guitar requires patience and ability to handle frustration as in the initial days and weeks you might see yourself going nowhere.”

“Okay.”

“And you might get painful hands that let you touch nothing for days, or even weeks.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“And also I’m not accepting impatient learner so I will leave the moment you utter your first complaining words.”

“I got it. Now can we start the lesson already?”

Howon chokes on the droughty air as he adjust the guitar’s position for the second time. “O... kay.”

“First thing first is becoming familiar with the strings on the guitar and how they relate to your fingers. To make this easier, we're going to number them both.” Howon’s fingers osculates the strings, caressing it. “Vertically, the strings are numbered one through six; from the highest pitch to the lowest. And horizontally, the numbering is based on the fret positions.”

“Wait a second, let me note that down!” Dongwoo reaches to his pocket and pulls out a scrap of paper and a blunt pencil. “Explain slowly.”

“Al... right.” Howon responses as he rolls his eyes. Dongwoo may sounds like he is ordering him at first, but as his lips quirk into a slow and dumb grin, Howon continues explaining, without forgetting to do it slower this time.

“When I say ‘put your first finger on the third fret’, that means you actually place your finger between the second and third fret. It's the string itself that needs to be in contact with the third fret.”

Howon lifts his gaze and watches Dongwoo jolting down whatever he said on his paper. The pencil he’s holding is already at that size that you would have a difficulty using. The needle on his other hand and the infusion tube only enhances the rues he has to endure. And as Dongwoo finishes the last line of the sentences, he raises his face and meets Howon’s round, brown orbs. They stare into each other’s eyes for a good five seconds before returning to their foregoing activities. Awkward atmosphere filling the air.

But in that short five seconds, Howon somehow managed himself to notice some clandestine aura ghosting Dongwoo’s pupils. He’s smiling, but his eyes aren’t. There are some dreary and dim clouds smothering it.

Sweeping away the thought from his head, Howon lets out a breath he’s not aware had been holding. “You’ve got all those theories in your head, right? Well, if not yet, at least you’ve got all on the paper, am I right? Now let us move to the praxis.”

Howon’s heart squeaks when God gives his eyes a nifty sight of Dongwoo pouting his lips and pummeling his chest, as he exhales a gush of air. His plump lips is mouthing a small you can do it and Howon mentally punches himself, telling that other part of him to go back to the right state.

“Relax, no need to be nervous because I ain’t going to devour you unless you complain. Now lend me your fingers.”

Dongwoo’s fingers is so delicate. That’s what passes Howon’s mind the moment their fingers brushes. But at the same moment, it feels damnably fragile Howon afraid he might break those.

“This is the C.” He leads Dongwoo fingers to the strings. It doesn’t feel stiff like it did seconds ago so he let go of it and permits Dongwoo to give his first strum, and Dongwoo glances up, throwing him a pleased smile.

“C is way too easy! Give me somthing more challenging!” He exclaims after mastering the C chord. Howon wants to burst out laughing because that statement sounds somehow so cocky for someone who needed ten minutes to fully master the C chord, when it only took about two minutes for himself to do so.

“Alright, let’s learn something more challenging.” He says, adding an emphasis to the word “challenging”.

Six days pass and Howon is quite surprised by Dongwoo’s progress. He learns faster and his fingers are less stiffer than it were the first time Howon touched it. And sometimes, he would occasionally misplaced his fingers on the string so Howon would reach up and help him. When their fingers brush, he would giggle and Howon would punch him playfully on the shoulder while mouthing what the hell.

Today, Dongwoo says that he is not in a mood to learn, so he asks Howon to put down his guitar and just sits with him, indulging the view in front of their eyes of the beautiful water fountain and listening to the flow of the water.

“Have you ever throw a coin to the water as you wish for something?” Dongwoo asks, gaze flicking form the water fountain to Howon’s countenance.

“Nope, I don't really think my wish would really come true, because—yeah, we have to work hard first to be able to get our wish. That is just a ridiculous myth some people believe.” Howon returns the gaze, feeling guilty immediately after noticing the sparkles on Dongwoo’s eyes dissapear. “Well, maybe not really ridiculous, because some people really got their wishes after doing so.”

And the sparkles come back.

“So let’s do this together then!” Dongwoo rummages through his pajama pants pocket and fishes out two pieces of coins, giving one to Howon.

“What? I don’t—fi... ne.” Howon doesn’t bother himself to argue, because that look on Dongwoo’s eyes is like pulling and forcing his hand to take the coin.

Dongwoo rises from his seat, then helps Howon with the wheelchair. They face the water fountain and throw the coins in after Dongwoo counts from one to three. He is grinning so excitedly after and Howon can’t help but to rekindle that grin with a small, harldy audible giggle.

“My mom’s calling me, I should go in already.” Howon says as he points to the entrance door of the main building, where his mom is waving her hand towards him.

“Ah! Wait!” Dongwoo searches for something in his pocket then pulls out a paper and Howon thinks that maybe that pocket is Doraemon’s magic pocket because Dongwoo can pulls whatever the hell he desire from that pocket, since the first time they met.

“I wanna give you a challenge. Here, solve the question on this paper. Don’t dare to meet me before you can find the answer!” Dongwoo shoves the paper into Howon’s palm and turns on his heels, dissapearing into the main building.

“What the hell.” Howon whispers as he takes a glimpse to the paper.

9x - 7i > 3 (3x - 7u) = 9x - 7i > 9x - 21u = -7i > -21u = 7i < 21u =??

Howon cracks open his eyes and reaches for his cellphone. The date displayed on the homescreen reads November, 22 2011. The time beneath it reads 01.04 p.m. and Howon gets up in annoyance. These means his mom had left for Busan along with his father to handle something he doesn’t even care about. He hasn’t find the answer for the crazy math question Dongwoo gave days before, which also means he can’t meet the other boy today.

The nurse enters the room and brings him a tray with foods, then places it on the table beside the bed.

“You’re not going to the park?” She intrigues as he paces closer to Howon’s bed. “Need some help to get on the wheelchair?”

“Um, no. Actually, I’m not going outside because Dongwoo didn’t allow me to meet him before i could find an answer for the wacky math question he gave me several days before, so what’s the point.” Howon puts his cellphone and lifts the cover of the foods to see the usual plain and tasteless porridge. He closes it again immediately.

“Dongwoo? Do you mean Jang Dongwoo?” The nurse’s pupils turn twice bigger than its size, and Howon wants to back off because it is creeping him out.

“Yes. That boy with the dumb grin. He gave me this paper days before.” Howon pulls out the paper from his pants pocket and gives it to the nurse.

“Dongwoo... was the most cheerful and humble patient I’ve ever meet.” She takes the paper and examines the handwriting.

“Was?” Howon furrows his brows.

“But unfortunately, he passed away one year ago, this day is exactly the date. He suffered from severe leukemia and difficulty of breathing,” The nurse pauses and takes a glance to the paper once more. “I know the answer to this question. Want me to show you?”

Howon is already in the worst mental breakdown he ever experienced in his life when he agrees and lets the nurse helps him to get on the wheelchair. She then assists him to the room beside his. When the door swings open, an unoccupied bed comes to his view and the nurse pushes the wheelchair closer to the treasure chest.

9x - 7i > 3 (3x - 7u) = 9x - 7i > 9x - 21u = -7i > -21u = 7i < 21u = i <3 u

Howon froze. Cold sweat is running down his back and the hair on his nape stands.

Did a ghost that had passed away a year ago fall in love with him or was it him who fall in love with a ghost that had passed away a year ago, Howon thinks he would never find the answer for this question also.

The thought of how stupid he is for not being able to find an answer of a question again after failing to find one for Dongwoo’s riddle is hurting his head, because it is not him who found the answer for the riddle, the nurse did, no it's actually Dongwoo himself did—which means he would not be able to meet Dongwoo again, to hang out with him again, or to teach him guitar again, for the rest of his life.