Hanbin.

Summer 2011. 

It seems like he has no such care in the world inside of him as he walks the streets of a neighborhood next to his, heading towards home by foot since he still cannot really drive on his own well. Not now, at least, but he'll be able to do it someday. He tries to cheer himself up by thinking if he were to drive around the small city, he wouldn't be able to eat vanilla ice-cream like now. Although he's not really eating, he's more like finishing it up because he's already near the tip, ready to bite. 

In both of his ears, Bryan Adams is singing into it through his headphones. Not earphones, no, like real, big and solid headphones that he bought for himself when he was 14. Bryan Adams is singing through it, and his voice penetrates his eardrums, then slowly, his whole brain and skull. 

I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the five-and-dime
Played it 'til my fingers bled
It was the summer of '69

Without his brain's permission, his lips form a smile and before he knows it, as he passes the windows and glass doors of every store, he can see himself smiling really weirdly like the idiot he can sometimes be.

What's that boy Hanbin smiling for? He can see it in the eyes of the elders who're enjoying the summer day, just like how he is. But really, in his head, he answers their unspoken questions. He's just smiling because... in that moment, he's happy.

He's not just happy because the white chocolate oozes in his mouth, calming him and sending him to a euphorian state. He's not just happy because this song really makes him want to dance. He's not just happy because the weather is perfect for today. He's not just happy because he finally has time to himself.

He's just happy... about everything. About the idea of summer, to be specific. 

And now the times are changin'
Look at everything that's come and gone
Sometimes when I play that old six-string
I think about you, wonder what went wrong

"Hey, Hanbin." he sees these two words being mouthed by the two teenage boys he passes by, instead of hearing them being said, because Bryan Adams is still singing in his ears and through his head. He nods right back at them and decline their high-fives, as if he's too lazy and hazy to free both of his hands from the pockets of his jeans, which had made its way there after finishing up that ice cream cone. They continue walking, and he continues feeling a little light-headed and a lot happy. 

He rounds the corner, his earphones fall slightly forward so he pushes it back, letting it fit perfectly on his head.

The street is deserted, as in completely deserted with nobody walking up and down the sidewalks or some cars driving west and east to wherever they're going, and at first, Hanbin is confused because even though Gwangmyeong is a rather small city with a population under 5,000 people, the streets are never this empty and deserted. 

He had been too distracted, he told himself. What with the ice-cream and the music and the carefree feeling he's been harboring ever since the start of the afternoon, he's been too distracted. 

Oh yeah.
Back in the summer of 69', oh.
It was the summer of 69', oh, yeah.
Me and my baby in 69, oh. 
It was the summer, the summer, the summer of '69.
Yeah.

The music in his head stops, and Bryan Adams is no longer singing because he lets his headphone rest around his neck, and he pauses the next song that is threatening to play on his blue-backed iPod. 

He stops just as his song stops and looks to his left, where the street sign would be and he's not even the least bit surprised that indeed, it is Kwangmong Street and he happens to be walking along the sidewalks of where murder had happened, and someone's older brother and sister and cousin and relative and friend and whatever titled, had died. Right here, where he's walking, or perhaps maybe, standing. 

Just like that, the happy and care-free feeling he had inside of him vanished into the summer wind. 

He sighs. "God," he mutters, placing his headphones back on but deciding against to play a song. Instead of turning back, he walks forward like a few of other people who happened to be wandering around here from time to time, and Hanbin is now one of them. The street is silent, and as deserted as an abandoned town. All the doors are closed, and some windows are open but he can't really see anyone beyond them. 

This is the dead part of town. 

Nobody has announced it officially, but somehow he and his mom knows, heck even his little sister does. Nobody goes through here anymore, ever since what happened last year on November. 

He shakes his head and looks down just as he got his iPod out from his pocket because Hanbin doesn't to think about last year on November anymore. His thumb is going through the songs in a continuous circling motion until he stops on one particular song he hasn't been able to get bored of ever since it's release three months ago. 

Cut the music up, little louder.
Yeah.

The smile is back on his face as he hears the chords being strum in the background of the song. When it hits the first verse, he starts singing but not in the voice Lil Wayne is using, nope. He sings like how he normally does, with a little bit of effort and a lot of daydreaming.

He's singing this in front of a crowd, and a big one, and they're all singing along with him. He imagines himself waving his hand from side to side, singing to the crowd instead of singing to anyone in particular. This is for his fans, for his admirers, for all the people that believed in him. He's bobbing his head and stares up at the yellowing sky, imagining he was on stage. He was an artist. 

He rounds the corner, and is thrown into a new street, into a livelier part of town.

A door to a shop opens, and he stops singing right away.

He only stops walking when he sees who it is. 

See you had a lot of crooks tryna steal your heart
Never really had luck, couldn't ever figure out
How to love
How to love

He removes his headphones from his head, but he's still not looking away from her caramel eyes that are looking back at him with an equal balance of embarrassment and confusion. But when he blinks, that look from her eyes are gone because now, she's staring straight ahead, carrying a bunch of glass vases the size of his two hands together, and a book is tucked under her arm on top of that. 

He doesn't say anything, and neither does she, and it seems as if both don't have any plans on making short talk because he puts his headphones back on, and she crosses the street to her house. 

He only rolls his eyes, but he's supressing a smile. Typical of her, he thinks between Lil Wayne spurting out the second verse in his head. 

His hands are back in the front pockets of his jeans, and he's continuing his long walk back to his house. He doesn't stop, and he's almost at the end of the street, when he sees the car before he noticed she dropped her book in the middle of the wide two-lane road. 

The car, he saw first, Lee Hayi crouched down to pick up that book, he saw second. 

As quick as lightning, he pulls his headphones back. She's still there, unaware of the car somehow and still trying to pick up her book without dropping any of the glass vases. She's really, painfully slow with all that load in her arms.

The car gets closer, and it dawns on Hanbin who the driver is. The night hasn't even started, and the man who drinks his life away and treats alcohol like it's water is completely drunk, he can see it in the way he drives and maneuvers his car now. Why hadn't he noticed it earlier? Like a snake slithering, only rougher and somehow faster.

"Hayi, get out of the way, dear!" this does not come from his own mouth, obviously enough. But from an ahjumma he passes as Hanbin bolts towards her, the girl who crouches on the middle of the street, stone-paralyzed into a posture that tells him she is really, really, really at a loss for actions. 

"Yah!" He makes a sound with his throat. He just growled. "For 's sake, MOVE!" but he's still running towards her and a few people from the cafe nearby actually tell him to hurry. Like, what in the world? 

"Hey, you!" drunk, Mr. Jeong is totally drunk. He starts honking at her. "Get off the road, brat!" 

Hayi moves, but only two steps back, her eyes lock on his and she outsretches her hand.

He takes it and pulls her towards him, and together, they crash down on the concrete ground.

A sound of glass smashing is heard, but it's louder and grander, and somehow Hanbin knows it's not just the glass vases Hayi has that broke. 

> ; <

She is a girl who cannot express her feelings properly, and Hanin knows that already so he's not really surprised that when they get up with the help of some people, she doesn't even look at him, much more utter two words that would've made him be okay with the wound he's brandishing on his left knee. It hurts, but the two words she could've said in that moment could've made him feel better because it lets him know she does have feelings, despite what everyone thinks these days.

It was absurd, really, how they thought Lee Hayi was so cold and so emotionless. She hadn't always been like that, and why couldn't they remember those times?  

He knows she has feelings of course, she's human, but what he wants is that she'll show it. To him, at least. Like old times. 

However, she doesn't even flinch when she realizes more people helped him up than her, and Hanbin feels bad. 

Annoyed, no. Proud, kind of. Hurt, um yeah. Bad, totally. 

She had saved two vases out of the five she was carrying. Hanbin picks up the book she had dropped in the middle of the street despite the people around him who are asking questions. "I'm fine," he adresses to them whilst adjusting his headphones. It seems fine, too. He turns to her, but she's already walking away. 

She's walking, walking, walking, towards the wreck that is composed of one of the glass windows of their family flower shop and Mr. Jeon's ford car. Two men help him out of his car, and it doesn't seem as wrecked as the front of the flower shop. Her grandmother is there too, seemingly shocked at the mess. Hayi stops by her side, and her grandmother hugs her. Tightly. 

Hanbin limps a little over to her, she needs her book, that much he knows. Her books are like his songs; they're precious to her.

Although the wond on his knee is pratically a gash or a cut, it still stings and hurts way more than it should. Her grandmother is with the other elderly ladies of this street, and excluding Mrs. Lee, they're scolding the driver, pressing charges and are calling 911 all at the same time. 

Hanbin sighs and looks at Hayi, who's trying to pick up some of the debris of the damage but older people try to stop her. When she's pushed backward, telling her "you might hurt yourself, girl" with no such sincerity or concern behind those words, she turns around and he finds himself locking eyes with her for the third time in the past ten minutes. 

"You dropped this," he said, stuffing the book back to her hands. He looks away and scratches the back of his head. "Look, I..." but then he trails off, because for once, Kim Hanbin does not know what to say. All those years of imagining another conversation with her, disappear into the thin summer air, just like that. 

From the corner of his eyes, she blinks a few times at him, expectantly at that, but then she just turns around and pushes past people to get into the flower shop, with her book tucked under her arm. 

Hanbin frowns. He moves to the side a little, catching a two-second glimpse of the wreck. The right window, where half of it is covered by stands of flowers and pails of water, is perfectly fine and so is the glass door. The flower shop is like a greenhouse, or perhaps maybe it really is. It's a glass greenhouse, and the left side is wrecked and horrible compared to the right.

People back away when sirens could be heard. The sun sets and the sidewalk lamps come alive. Hanbin backs away as well, and decides to go now but then someone says "hey! don't push" and it catches his attention, so when he turns his head to the sound, he finds Hayi walking towards him with an indifferent, expressionless face. No book under her arm, but there is something in her hands. 

She shoves it and he's not really willing to look at her in the eye right then. "Go home," is what she says when she walks away from him again. For the third time, just like that. 

He turns around. Those weren't the two words he was hoping for. 

> ; <

She gave him a band-aid. Not just any band-aid, though, oh no. It was a band-aid with the alphabet on it in really tiny size 6 font. Hanbin rolled his eyes at this, and only placed it on after he washed his wound. His sister liked the band-aid, asked where did he get it from. He didn't want to say anything.

But he had to, especially since she wouldn't stop bugging him. 

"From -" a friend, he wanted to say. But was she a friend? No, he didn't think so. "Someone." he finished with instead.

Hanbyul raises an eyebrow at him but says nothing. "That's not going to cover it up," she states. "Can I have it instead?"

She was right, the band-aid was too small for the wound he had on his knee. He needed gauze and other things to clean this one up. But no, he wasn't going to give the band-aid to his sister. 

He opens his mouth, but the door to the bathroom widens and his mother appears from behind his little sister. She looks shocked, and she's looking right at him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Hanbin feels his heart stop. "Tell you... what?"

"About Lee Hayi, about the car." his mother says, her tone soft. Hanbyul looks from her to Hanbin. "One of the grannies called -"

"Oh great," he rolls his eyes at this. Gossip spreads like wildfire in this city, and the neighborhood ahjummas always have something to do with and about it. "Look, mom, I'm sorry but -"

"You don't have to be sorry," she shakes her head at him. Her eyes travel down to the wound, and she frowns. Hanbin sighs. "You should've told me about it. They wanted to ask if you were alright, and they thought it was really brave of you to save Hayi that way." in the midst of talking, she kneels down in front of Hanbin, on the cold tile floors of their bathroom, and inspects his wound. "So, are you and Hayi friends again? Did she -"

"No, mom." he says, tone heavy and head down. He doesn't want to talk about the past, not when it already happened and there's nothing he can do about it now. 

After getting his wound treated, his mom continued to make dinner and Hanbyul went to the kitchen to help. Hanbin stayed in the living room with Hayi's alphabet band-aid in his hand, unopened and unused.

He lifts it, sighs, then places it on the coffee table in front. 

Perhaps today was not the right day to rekindle an old friendship. 

> ; <

helloooo~ 
so, here's the first chapter! i'll be updating every weekend, more specifically either every Friday night or Saturday afternoon (GMT 8:00) so yeah, just one update each week I'm afraid because of school. Anyways, comment what you think! It'd mean a lot to me c: