“Hanbin’s here!” Soohyun announced upon opening the door. I could hear them both making their way to the kitchen, where my parents were, and then to the living room. “Hanbin’s here!” Soohyun said again when she opened the door.

“I know, Soohyun,” I murmured back. She gave me a playful smile as she sat on the carpeted floor beside the coffee table; she had her eyes glued on the TV already. I was reading a book called The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.  Earlier that day, I’d found it sitting on my bookshelf—untouched for a long while, and with nothing to do, I finally decided to give it a go.

I shot Hanbin a look. He was sitting next to the arm of the sofa and watching the TV.

“Is Chanhyuk home?”

I nodded my head, focusing on my book again. “He’s upstairs, talking to someone on the phone.”

“His girlfriend?”

“I think so.”

Hanbin scoffed. “By the way, have you heard from Jiwon?”

A little taken aback, I paused and looked at him. “W-why?”

“Oh, it’s just that his phone is turned off,” Hanbin turned to me. “I figured, you know, since you were the last person to see him last week, you might know where he went.”

“I see. I don’t know.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Nothing especially interesting,” I murmured.

“You stuttered.”

“N-no I didn’t!”

“Now you did,” he teased. “See? I always know when you’re hiding something from me.”

Taken off guard, I set my book aside and asked, “He told you, hasn’t he?”

“He has.”

“What do you think, then?”

“What do I think?” Hanbin scoffed. “Hayi, it has nothing to do with me.”

Just then mom shouted, “Dinner’s ready, hurry before it gets cold!”

. . .

The table was already set when we went to the kitchen. I sat next to Soohyun while Chanhyuk and Hanbin sat across us, me facing Hanbin, Soohyun facing Chanhyuk, and our parents facing each other from the ends of the rectangular table.

“Let’s eat,” mom began. “Eat lots, Hanbin-ah. I prepared especially for you since I know you like these dishes.”

Hanbin smiled, his lips stretching from side to side. “Thank you, Mrs Lee.”

“Oh please, don’t call me that anymore, it just feels so distant! I told you last week to call me Aunt!”

“Sorry, Aunt. I forgot,” he replied. Mom simply smiled back.

“Hey, Chanhyuk,” mom suddenly said, in a different tone from the one she used before with Hanbin. “Was that your girlfriend on the phone just then?”

“W-what? No.”

“Don’t lie to your mom,” dad commented.

“I’m not lying. W-why would I lie?!”

“I just wish you’d introduce her to us,” mom grumbled. “You’re such a stubborn boy. How about you, Hanbin? Do you have a girlfriend yet?”

“Mom,” I chimed in.

“Hayi! I’m just curious. Now that I think about it, Hanbin must be popular with girls, right?”

“Honey, I wouldn’t even doubt it. He’s a handsome fella for his age,” dad said. “Just like me when I was younger.”

“Dad!”

Everyone on the table were chuckling at that point. Even Hanbin. “No, aunt, I don’t have a girlfriend yet.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“That’s so strange,” mom replied. “Well, anytime you want to ask our Hayi out, I’ll support you.”

“Mom!” Soohyun and I cried.

Dad shook his head and put down his newspaper. “Not that easy, honey. He’ll have to get my permission first. Speaking of which, Hanbin, does my daughter have a boyfriend? Is she keeping anything from us? Any boy that I’ll have to look out for?”

“—But dad, she’s so quiet and all she cares about is reading her books. Surely no boy, with sanity, in the world would want to date someone like her,” Chanhyuk remarked.

“Shut up, you mongrel,” I snarled.

“It’s true, idiot,” he shot back.

“No fighting in front of food!” mom cried. “I can’t believe I have to tell two teenagers to not do that!”

We continued eating. With that, the conversation just kept flowing at the dinner table. We brought up whatever came to mind. We ate. And mainly we laughed. It wasn’t robotic as I’d made it out to be in my head. To be honest, I felt really happy. And I thought, maybe it was because Hanbin was there. Maybe it was because Hanbin was there that I actually talked during dinner, and I didn’t just let Soohyun do the talking. Maybe it was because Hanbin was there that it all felt natural to me. Maybe it was because Hanbin was there that the idea of having a family wasn’t as complicated and sad as I’d thought it would be.

I came to realise that families were something warm, something that took difficulties off your mind even if it were only for a short time.

I belonged to a family. And Hanbin didn’t.

That’s why deep inside I felt grateful to my parents. How they’d treated him with such warmth and made him feel like he belonged.

I selfishly hoped and hoped and hoped Hanbin had felt like he belonged so much that he wouldn’t leave for Seoul anymore.

. . .

“You don’t have to walk me all the way to the bus stop,” Hanbin said.

“Stop already, I know my neighbourhood much better than you do.”

“It’s not a dangerous neighbourhood, I know that much.”

“Still.”

“Your family,” he said as we kept on walking. Since it was summer, the sky was still bright even though it was already nine. “They’re something else, huh?”

“They go too far sometimes. Sorry.”

“It felt nice, though. That’s why I love having dinner at your house.”

“I see. Then, you should come every day starting from now.”

Hanbin’s face turned red. “I-I can’t possibly do that! That would be too much. Once a week is already too much.”

“My parents love having you around, so does Chanhyuk and Soohyun, it’s a win-win situation.”

“How about you? Do you like having me around?”

I scoffed. “What answer do you want to that?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes.”

“You mean it?”

“Yes.”

He laughed, and then shortly, we reached the bus stop. We were the only ones there, but there were kids across the road playing soccer. “You asked me what I thought about you and Jiwon. Should I give you my answer now?”

“You don’t have to. It has nothing to do with you, like you said back there—”

“You don’t like Jiwon,” Hanbin cut in. “You can’t see yourself being anything more than friends with him.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets, and glanced at him. Feeling nervous all of a sudden, I asked, “How can you be so sure of that?”

He looked back at me with an unwavering stare. “I just know you don’t. And I’d rather things not begin in the first place than have it end badly.”

“So you’re saying I should say no.”

“If you put it that way,” Hanbin answered. We stayed quiet for a while, and then he added, “Listen, Hayi. I’m not you. Ultimately, it’s your decision. I’m just telling you what I think. I think you and Jiwon won’t work.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why do you think that?”

“I’ll ask you one thing, then. Do you like Jiwon?”

I froze for several seconds too long, trying to find the answer that just wasn’t there, trying to chase that answer out of my thoughts and turning it into something verbal. But I couldn’t find it. So I didn’t reply. I couldn’t reply.

“That’s what I thought,” he said.

There was a brief pause. I cleared my throat, and focused my gaze on the sky, hoping to find a glimpse of the answer in there. But there was nothing. The sound of the children playing across the road filled in the gap of silence.

“The bus is here,” Hanbin announced. “Will you be okay heading back on your own?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t be late tomorrow, Hayi. I’ll meet you and Jiwon at this very spot.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you then. Goodbye.”

He threw me a two-finger salute as he got on the bus.

. . .

Walking through a forest in the middle of the night seemed really bizarre to me, and not once had it even crossed my mind before. But then there we were, following the trails inside the pine forest—eleven o’clock at night—with one torch between the three of us. It was a warm summer's night, dark, and moonless.

“This isn’t what teenagers do,” Jiwon muttered underneath his breath. “This isn’t what teenagers do.”

“You scared?” Hanbin teased.

“Of course I’m scared! Do you not watch horror films?”

“I doubt Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers would be here,” I remarked. “That would be interesting—if they were here.”

“Stop. That’s ing scary! God, this really .”

“You can head back on your own, then.”

“Hell no,” he scoffed. We followed Hanbin into the deeper part of the woods. We pushed the branches out of the way as we walked down a small knoll. You could tell no one had been there for a long, long time. “Where the hell are we going?!”

Hanbin shushed us, and then with a mere whisper, he said, “Close your eyes for thirty seconds.”

Jiwon shook his head. “No way, you’re just going to run off and—”

“Do it.” And so we did. Even if it looked ridiculous. We closed our eyes because Hanbin said so. We heard the flashlight flicker off. “...and now open them.”

Our eyes adjusted to the darkness, and with this, a flock of fireflies came into sight. They flickered restlessly. Some were so close to us that I could see they were sweltering green as they flew past, and some further away, seemed to be flashing white. In a town like ours, fireflies weren’t especially rare, I’d seen them plenty times before but I’d never seen as many as I had that night. “What do you think? This can be a special place for us, huh.”

“It’s amazing,” I blurted out, feeling like my heart was about to burst at that moment.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Fireflies flock here during the summer.”

“How did you even find this place?”

Hanbin chuckled quietly. “I was bored.”

“This could probably make the best tourist spot in our town,” Jiwon added.

“Oh no, Jiwon,” he said. “I wouldn’t want that.”

“Why not? You can make money for this if you—”

“I want it to be a special place for us. But I didn’t say that it’s our place. The fireflies live here, after all.”

“But they’re only bugs and—”

“There was a story that my brother told me when I was young,” Hanbin interjected, “something about how we’re similar to fireflies. Say, when it’s daylight, fireflies aren’t very special, are they? They look like any other bug out there. But in the darkness, the firefly become the most beautiful thing out there. It’s pretty on the outside and on top of that, it glows from the inside, too. They’re truly the best.”

Jiwon stood quiet, like he was pondering, and then he said, “I see. I’m… sorry.”

And just like that, we halted and the quietness grew louder. We could only stand there in awe as soft speck of lights started to illuminate around us. The fireflies sent an intense light into the summer darkness. And it was this striking image that had stayed with me all that time.

. . .

“Crap,” Jiwon uttered. “I told my dad I’d be home before twelve.”

“If you run, you can still catch the bus,” Hanbin said. “Do you have your bus card?”

Jiwon set his backpack on the pavement, ruffled through it and then he pulled out a brown wallet. “Yeah. Do you guys have yours?”

“I didn’t bring mine today. We planned to walk home together,” Hanbin said. “How about you, Hayi?”

“Yeah. Me neither.”

“Sorry for ditching. I’ll see you both sometime this week. Just text me!” We gave each other an amicable wave of goodbye when he reached the end of the street. “Yah! Hanbin, you better walk Hayi all the way to her house! If you leave a girl alone in the streets at midnight, you’re lower than a scum! I’ll kill you!”

“I know that already, idiot!” Hanbin shouted back. “I hope you miss the bus!”

“Screw off, Hanbin! Bye, Hayi!”

. . .

I heard the distant thunder.

As we were walking toward my street, it began to rain. And then it began to pour. I looked at Hanbin.

“I won't run if you don't,” he said.

“I won't run.” So we walked in the rain. And I slowed down in hopes that the world would stay like that for a while. That it would just keep raining and raining and raining until we got sick of it.

Something about the downpour of rain during that night sent chills down my spine. And as strange as it may sound, it was a pleasant feeling. That undisputable feeling of how not even a random cloudburst could have altered my mood that day.

“I changed my mind, let’s make a run for it,” he said, grinning.

And then Hanbin took my hand and held them. It was a warm gesture that stopped my heart for a moment. He squeezed them once and then we darted through the streets. We turned the corner, where more specks of raindrops started to hit us. Faster. We ran, and ran, and ran against the coldness of the shower of rain that stamped on the two of us like little bristles.

And I realized that his hand, that were holding mine, was the only warm thing I could feel.

. . .

cigarette daydreams // do do do do do do...