They say that love is blind. Of course, those who say that never mean it literally. They never think of people like Do Kyungsoo; no one ever thinks of Do Kyungsoo. He’s the blind kid with no friends – the one that sits in the corner all alone, keeping a tight hold on his cane in attempt to stop the other kids from taking it from him again. Sometimes they do manage to take it, and then even though he can find his way around the school quite well, it still takes Do Kyungsoo hours to find it. He’s always assumed that the teacher never sees anyone take his cane, but he can never be sure. It wouldn’t be so bad for him if he had a guide dog, but he’s not allowed to take one to school and besides, he doesn’t have the money for it or the ability to look after it properly. He’s always wanted a friend, but no one’s ever seemed to want him as a friend – that it, until Kim Jongin.

It’s always worse in the winter. It’s always too cold and he slips over an infinite number of times on the ice every year. Not to mention the accident. It happened years ago, when Kyungsoo was only seven – he’s sixteen now. It happened in the winter. He was outside with his mother, playing. She came up behind him and tickled him suddenly, starling him. He didn’t know what was going on. He was scared. He pushed her back in defence. She ended up in the middle of a frozen lake. There was a loud crack. He heard her screaming. There was a splash. More screaming. Then: nothing. He’d killed his mother. He ran away in a random direction, unable to sense his way home. He hid in the snow in an unknown place. He would have frozen to death if the police hadn’t found him. His father never forgave him for that, and refused to help him with anything. So Kyungsoo had to cook his own food – blind – clean the house – blind – and study and do homework – blind. He had to buy food and clothes without the aid of sight. He had to do everything like that. It wasn’t fair, but he never once got angry or upset about it. Was that because he was used to not seeing, or because – deep down – he felt he deserved it for what he did nine years ago?

This is the story of how Do Kyungsoo – our blind hero – taught Kim Jongin – who never believed in love – the true meaning of happiness. It begins with their meeting, and so that is where I shall start. Our story starts on a winter afternoon – New Year’s Eve, to be precise. Kyungsoo was walking home with a heavy bag of shopping in one hand and his cane in the other. Merely to set the scene I will tell you that the sky was dark and full of clouds, and that fresh snow covered the ground and the roofs of buildings – but Do Kyungsoo couldn’t see that, of course. It was getting too cold for him to cope, and he’d already slipped over at least fifteen times, so he was trying to get home to his warm house as quickly as possible, yet without slipping over for a sixteenth time. He must have been moving too quickly – either that or Kim Jongin was not looking where he was going – because his face was suddenly pressed up against something. He took a few steps backwards and asked “Hello? Is anybody there?” He felt for a person with his cane until he hit something on the ground shaped like a foot. He knew someone was there, so he was confused when no answer came to him. “Hello? I know you’re there. I may be blind but I’m not stupid.”

Kim Jongin has never heard the sound of laughter, just as Do Kyungsoo has never seen a smile. He’s never heard birds cheeping merrily, or heard a beautiful melody. Kim Jongin is deaf – always has been, always will be. Unlike Kyungsoo, he has a wonderful family – two loving parents – a magnificent home, and friends that would do anything for him; the one thing he doesn’t have (at least at this point in the story) is happiness.

Now, Jongin had been standing there staring at Kyungsoo. He was the person Kyungsoo had walked into, and – not being able to hear what he was saying – watched him talk while trying (and failing) to read his lips. He could understand sign language, so he attempted to sign “Hello.” But the person in front of him didn’t seem to notice. When Jongin saw the cane that Kyungsoo was waving around, however, he finally understood. This stranger was blind. This stranger was blind, and shivering. Jongin was wrapped up in a warm scarf and coat, and a pair of gloves. He hated people, even his friends and family, but when he caught sight of the stranger’s pale skin and blue lips, the heavy bag in his hand, his heart may have softened a tiny bit. He couldn’t communicate with the blind stranger, so it was pointless trying. Instead, he first took off his scarf and wrapped it around the stranger’s neck. He then took off his gloves, took Kyungsoo’s cane and bag, and pushed his gloves into Kyungsoo’s hands as he waved them around, feeling for his cane and bag. Upon feeling the material in his hands and recognising them as gloves, Kyungsoo put them on. Once he’d done that, Jongin gave back the cane and bag, and took off without another word. Kyungsoo was left behind – something he was too familiar with – asking the person that was no longer there “Who are you? What are you doing?” He waved the cane around a bit more, but it only collided with empty space instead of a solid living and breathing person.

Kyungsoo didn’t know what to think of the stranger he’d met just a few hours earlier. He tried to build an image of the stranger in his mind, but it was too difficult. There simply wasn’t enough information. He hadn’t spoken, so he didn’t know what his voice was like. He hadn’t felt his face, so he didn’t know what his face was like. He didn’t even know that it was definitely a boy! But of course, we know who it was. We also know why he didn’t speak. Kyungsoo wasn’t even sure whether the stranger was nice or not, since he’d disappeared without notice but on the other hand, he’d given him a scarf and gloves. He thought of the stranger until he fell asleep in his warm bed, very late at night.

♥♥♥

It was still freezing when Kyungsoo awoke the next morning, and now even his previously warm bed felt cold. He felt around the bed for his cane, and sure enough it was exactly where he’d expected it to be – directly next to him with handle on the pillow. Remembering the stranger who’d given him gloves and a scarf to keep him warm, he felt for those too. He knew he’d put them next to his cane so that he wouldn’t forget them, but they weren’t there. Thinking that they probably just fell from the bed during the night he searched the floor for them with his hands, but he still couldn’t find them. Choosing to ignore the missing items for the time being and concentrate on his non-existent hunger, he made his way downstairs with the aid of his cane (although he didn’t really need it while in the house – it was more of a comfort blanket than a necessity).

Setting the missing items aside, the first part of Kyungsoo’s morning went in entirely the way he anticipated. It wasn’t difficult to get himself a bowl of cereal – he knew where everything in the kitchen was kept since he was the only person that ever seemed to go in there, and he was never surprised by what type of cereal he ate as he had all the boxes lined up in a specific order that he never forgot – and it wasn’t especially difficult for him to get himself dressed (he had been blind for his whole life after all). As he’d predicted, his father wasn’t awake by the time he left for school at 7:30.

People were always surprised that he never seemed to get confused about the time. He can’t tell the time like people who can see do, of course, and in fact he has no use for a clock at all. Over the years, he managed to develop his own extremely accurate sense of time, so that now he doesn’t need to ask anyone about it.

It didn’t particularly bother him that he had to go to school on New Year’s Day. He was actually quite glad that at least he had something to do. He was worried about the cold, though. On the other hand, his father wasn’t exactly best pleased when he receive a letter from the school telling him that his son had to attend school in the Christmas holidays due to his grades. It wasn’t Kyungsoo’s fault entirely though. He always tried extremely hard in his lessons; it’s just that the other students were trying to steal his cane so much that he always kept a tight grasp on it, and they would often steal his worksheets and rip them up so that he had to do all of the work all over again, otherwise the teacher would think he hadn’t done it.

When he arrived at school on New Year’s Day, nearly late and after slipping on the ice over ten times again, he remarked that the building was particularly quiet. Usually the halls were full of bustling students laughing and sometimes even screaming, but today it was silent – the only noises he heard were his own footsteps and the sound of the door closing as he came through it. He decided he preferred it like that. He felt along the walls with his hands for the right classroom, and once he found it – room number 216 – he pushed open the door and stepped through it.

He didn’t need to be able to see to know that the classroom was full of students staring at him – he could feel their eyes burning questions in the back of his head as he walked to his seat – second row from the front, on the far right (from the teacher’s perspective) next to the window he couldn’t look out of. Usually there was only one person – the teacher – at the front of the room, and she was always behind her desk, so when he missed an object with his cane, Kyungsoo’s foot collided with it, tripping him over. Laughter erupted from the room, but he just ignored it and stood up while trying to figure out what the strange object was. He came to the conclusion that it was a foot, which must have belonged to somebody. It wasn’t the teacher, because it wasn’t a woman’s foot, so whose was it? He thought about the possibilities as he made his way to his seat, but came to know definite conclusions.

 “This, everyone, is Kim Jongin.” Kyungsoo knew that was the teacher’s voice, so he deduced that the foot must have belonged to Kim Jongin. “Jongin is deaf, so remember he won’t be able to hear you when you speak to him.” Everyone thought Kyungsoo was just imaginative, but he was actually incredibly intelligent, so the fact that Jongin was deaf got him thinking about the stranger he’d met the previous evening. He supposed that, if he’d been born deaf, he probably wouldn’t have learnt to talk, meaning that he wouldn’t have been able to answer Kyungsoo when he’d spoken, or even known what he’d said. With that in mind, he suspected that Kim Jongin may be the stranger.

Once Jongin had taken his seat, which happened to be directly in front of Kyungsoo’s, Mrs Shin – the class teacher – instructed the class to take out their maths books; at the same time she walked over to where Jongin and Kyungsoo were seated and handed Jongin a sheet with written instructions for the lesson so that he could understand, and gave Kyungsoo a worksheet written entirely in braille. For once, no one attempted to rip up Kyungsoo’s worksheets that day, as they were too busy fussing over the new kid, Kim Jongin – Kyungsoo’s stranger.

Kyungsoo spent almost the entire morning thinking about his stranger. He longed to talk to him, but he knew that was no use, since he was deaf. He wanted to be able to communicate with him… He supposed he could write a note to him, but he wouldn’t have been able to comprehend Jongin’s response, if he gave one. His head ached so much from thinking about it that when the bell finally rang he almost leapt out of his seat in a rush to get home.

Then he remembered it was just break.

Kyungsoo always spent break-time in the library, and this day was no different. It was always quiet there, mainly due to the fact that no one else ever went there. On this day, however, someone else was there. Just as Kyungsoo sat down in his favourite chair in the library with a braille copy of Great Expectations (the only braille book in the entire library) Kim Jongin entered. He didn’t know who it was though, since he wasn’t able to see him – he just heard the door click open and the sound of footsteps that didn’t belong to him.

For a while he didn’t care who the other person in the library was, and so ignored his presence. He flicked through the remaining pages of the book and, sensing that he would soon finish it for the eighth time in the past two years, decided to go and ask the librarian to order more braille books (yet again – she always seemed to ignore his requests). “Excuse me, but could you please order more-” A sharp jab in the side cut him off. “What was that for?” No answer came to him. Little did he know, Jongin was the person who’d interrupted his request. He had done it in attempt to tell him that the librarian wasn’t actually there, but obviously Kyungsoo didn’t know that. In fact, they weren’t supposed to be in the library at all! Kyungsoo didn’t know that either – as the only way of knowing was reading the sign on the door – and Jongin had gone inside the library to try to tell him he wasn’t supposed to be there. “Is anyone there? Who is it?” Kyungsoo continued to speak, but Jongin couldn’t hear him. He reached out and touched his arm (more gently this time) to let him know he was there; then he pulled Kyungsoo out of the library, watched the door close, and – glancing at the clock on the wall and noting that he still had fifteen minutes of break-time left – he walked out of the building.

Hearing his footsteps, Kyungsoo followed him outside, only realising where he was when the cold harsh wind hit his face. He began to shiver violently, but chose to ignore it. As he followed the crunch of Jongin’s footsteps in the snow, he wondered what it would be like to never have heard the sound. “Jongin? Is it you?” He shouted to the emptiness. The lack of reply confirmed his suspicions. He followed the footsteps to the art block, where Jongin went inside; Kyungsoo went in after him, a moment before the door banged shut. Jongin wanted to ask him why he was following him, but thought it was best not to even attempt communicating with him. He wished he’d just leave him alone. He stopped walking and turned around to face Kyungsoo, planning to take him back outside and leave him there, so that he could be alone in the art block. That plan failed immediately. He didn’t expect Kyungsoo to start moving towards him, using his cane as a guide. Once the cane collided with Jongin, Kyungsoo used his own hand to feel for Jongin’s. When he found it, he produced a pen from his pocket and used it to write a two words on Jongin’s hand in his shaky, barely legible handwriting: `Thank you`. He left without a second later of his own accord, deciding to wait for a response from Jongin before attempting to communicate with him further.