There were many children in the park that day. The little girl milled around, avoiding the others to get to her destination faster. She was new so there she didn't have a lot of friends, but none of that mattered. She'd always have time to make friends. Right now, she needed to relax. Slipping into the seat of a swing, she began to make a steady rhythm of kicking her legs, the momentum building and causing her to move higher and higher into the air.

They were arguing....the last thing she had heard before she snuck out of the backyard was the sound of plates breaking and her father calling her mother a bad word. She hated when they fought. Why couldn't they just be nice to each other and agree all the time? Why didn't her father tell his mother he was sorry for the way his friends acted? Why didn't her mother blame his friends and not him? All those grown up topics gave them headaches but it was all so simple to her.

Just be friends.

Couldn't they do that? Not even for her?

This was the second time her mother talked about leaving the house. She wondered if she would have to go too. But where would they go? Her father had all the money, from what she knew—her mother always had to go and ask him for money before she went to the store unless she got some from him at an earlier time. Would they have to live on the street? She didn't want to live on the street.

Before she knew it, there were tears running down her face. Should she even go home? What would they do when they found out she was gone? Would they fight her, too? Suddenly she became scared, her legs pausing and aching from how hard she had been kicking them. Even so, the swing kept moving as she lowered her eyes to at least attempt to hide her tears.

That's when she noticed that there was someone sitting in the swing beside her. As her body swayed to and fro, she caught snippets of his appearance. His mid cut dark bangs peeked from beneath his white beanie, framing equally dark eyes that were surveying her carefully. She wiped at her eyes frantically with one hand before looking up to take in him in again only to find that he was gone.

He looked older than her. Just when she was about to give it up as a hallucination and go home after all, she felt a pair of hands at her back, pushing her back up into the air. Once high enough, she turned and saw the boy behind her, keeping her moving. He wore a small smile and stepped back as she came back up to push her higher. The little girl couldn't help it; she began to smile, too. The older boy in the white and brown seemed to be so kind, pushing her until she was a hazard to even his own health, forcing him to step out of the way and watch from a safe distance. She was so happy in that moment. It didn't matter what her parents were doing at home anymore. She felt like she was flying.

Her eyes met the ground and she took a chance, leaping from here perch. The boy was startled, seeing her launch her body from such a height and raced forward, catching in his arms and swinging slightly around to do away with the extra momentum. The little girl laughed loudly, hugging the boy's neck.

“You could've gotten hurt,” he scolded. “You have to be more careful.”

“But you're here,” she replied. “You weren't going to let me fall, right?” Her parents never did, no matter how high she jumped from.

Her answer made the boy smile as he set her on the ground. “No. No, I wouldn't have let you fall.”

His hand rested on her hair and he pet her for a while, fingers threading through the ends of her hair. She smiled under his attention, staring up into his friendly face.

“Elyssa? Oh my goodness, Elyssa!” Her mother came running toward her, crouching to hug her tightly. “Don't you ever run off again!”

The little girl frowned, but hugged her mother in return. “But mommy, I got to make a new friend.”

The boy smiled and introduced himself, but for some reason the little girl couldn't hear him well. She couldn't hear anything at all. Not the birds chirping. Not her mother's answer. She blinked, horrified and shut her eyes, wiggling her fingers furiously in her ears in an attempt to clear them out.

When she opened her eyes, it was late afternoon; the sun was setting and she was standing at the ladder that led up to the top of the slide. She had to go up. She had escaped her babysitter to come here unseen. She was supposed to meet him here...

The little girl pulled herself up on the rungs of the metal ladder carefully. The older boy was there. If she thought about it, she could place that he was 3 years older than her mere 6 years. He lifted his eyes and motioned that she should come over to stand beside him near the mouth of the wide plastic tube. She moved, unquestioningly; this was why she was here, right? To see him? This time dressed in all black, his eyes seemed to gleam dangerously in the orange light of the setting sun. When he took her hand, she didn't so much as flinch. He had done this before. Many times. But he never pressed his lips to the back of her knuckles as he did this time. Something churned in the pit of her belly, but she said nothing, blushing and looking away from his smirk.

“Elly.” His voice was soft and hard at the same time, as he was trying to say so much with just her name.

She didn't look, but felt his lips on her face before she registered how close to her he had moved. Her eyes widened in shock when he hugged her close to his body.

“I like you,” he murmured into her ear. “I like you a lot and I know you like me, too.”

Her nausea got worse. “Wait. Move then talk.”

She began to push at him but he didn't budge an inch in his relaxed hold on her. He just kept touching her, smothering her. His mouth was on her face again, earnestly searching for her own but she squirmed even when his arms pulled her body against his.

She panicked then and shook him off wildly before shoving him with all her strength. She heard a hard thump and then the sound of him crying out before there was another thump on the ground.

She had made him lose his balance; his head hit the first rung of the monkey bars before he hit the hard-packed dirt beneath them, laying motionlessly as a bit of red stained his black locks.

But he was alive. She couldn't see him when he missed school to stay in the hospital for observation. She lied about what happened when he refused to speak. They didn't see each other again until she went over to his house to play a full 3 weeks later.

“I'm sorry,” he had said with tears in his eyes. “I shouldn't have...I mean, I didn't mean to scare you or anything, its just my parents do that to show how much they like each other. I shouldn't have to done that without asking you though.”

She shook her head frantically causing her hair to flop around. “No. It was my fault. I shouldn't have pushed you.”

“Do you forgive me?”

Looking up into his glassy eyes, she nodded with just as much fervor. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

His answering smile was breathtakingly white, dazzling her to return his pleasure. Having homework to catch up on, he left to get his work done. So who was it that grabbed her from behind?

She kicked and screamed hoping that his older brother would hear and come help her. His brother was always so sweet to her. He was their babysitter so he had to be close. The girl fought in confusion as she was dragged into the laundry room. The boy held her in a steel grip, not saying a word, and shoved her into the washer, locking the door after she was inside. It was an uncomfortable fit, but the girl was still small enough to fit in the extra large sized washer. She looked at the boy who stood there, staring blankly at her. Soon the machine began to fill with water and that churning in her belly was back. She hit on the glass barrier with all the strength she could muster as the cold water of the rinse cycle ran over her back, soaking into her jeans. She kept up her demonstration until she was fully submerged....

...but then the rinse cycle began.

Around and around she went, the machine treating her like a piece of cloth. She was dizzy, she was freezing; her chest was beginning to burn from having held her breath for so long. She had long since screwed her eyes shut, trying her best to hold on for long as she could. It was inevitable that she would inhale a bit of water, exchanging it for a rush of air bubbles. It was then that the door was yanked open and her body was retrieved from the machine like a precious blanket. She immediately brought the water up over the shoulder of her rescuer and onto the floor of the room, shaking like a leaf. She heard the shouting of an older person but warm arms hugged her close, a soft pair of lips pressing to her forehead.

“...now I forgive you, too, Elly.”

  With a start, she sat up in her seat, the traces of a scream still on her trembling lips. The man seated beside her on the plane eyed her with ill hidden contempt. It had been a long time since she had had that dream and an even longer time since she had seen that boy so clearly in her mind. Her gaze slide out the window to her left, admiring the beautiful lights of the city as the aircraft neared its destination. She had come back to Seoul to make peace with her past like her therapist had advised, but was there any peace left here for her to find?