Taekwoon is a lion.

Nearly everyone, from his parents to his sisters to his doctor tries to tell him, "Taekwoon, you're a little boy. Not a lion." But he refuses to believe it, to accept it. He covers his ears with his tiny hands, roaring and screaming like a terrifying beast at everyone that tries to change him. He refuses to wear anything but his lion onesie, and it's not uncommon to see him leaping around on all fours instead of two.

He's not a boy. He's a lion.

Taekwoon starts kindergarten at five years old. Everyone is so worried about him, and how he'll do in school. He throws a fit as his parents walk him in on the first day; kicking and crying and screaming. He doesn't want to go to school, he wants to stay at home, in his room, his "den", as he calls it. As soon as his parents' sit him down in the classroom he darts off, going under the nearest desk he can find, hiding. He stops screaming once he's there, peeking up towards his parents, who's talking to a teacher. He only catches a few words, such as "problems", "special", "trouble". He hears those words a lot.

"Bye, Taekwoonie," his mother says, bending down to take a look at him. "Be good, okay?"

Taekwoon growls. At first, he was sad at the idea of being away from his mother all day but at this moment he feels angry. Angry at her for putting him in school, for making him come, for yelling at him when he ripped the button off of his new school shirt this morning. Angry at her for even buying it when she knows he wears his lion onesie only, nothing else.

His parents leave, and he's left alone underneath the desk for a while. He counts the flecks of black in the white floor tile until the teacher fetches him- or tries to. She fails at first, Taekwoon growling and biting at her. Taekwoon despises people, especially strangers.

She eventually lures him out with a pack of cookies, and not to mention he was getting quite sore laying on the floor. He nibbles on one as she shows him his desk, and introduces him to a lady named Jinmi. Jinmi is going to be his "helper", they tell him, and will be with Taekwoon all throughout the school day.

School officially starts when all the students have arrived and settled into their seats. Their first official assignment will be standing up and telling everyone your name, and what you like to do, their teacher tells them.

This is easy. His name is Jung Taekwoon and he likes being a lion. He knows, but when it's his turn he just sits there, staring up at the ceiling. It's hard for him to do words, and everyone is staring at him, intensifying the problem. Jinmi speaks for him instead, but she only says his name, and nothing about being a lion. He wants to bite her.

They do a lot of little, easy things that day. Coloring and counting. Taekwoon is good at counting, and he loves numbers. He can count all the way to 100 in his head. It frustrates him that everyone else thinks he can only go to 10. It's just that he always runs out of fingers.

They go to the cafeteria, and eat lunch. Taekwoon is only able to get through three chicken nuggets before losing it at the sounds of pans clattering in the kitchen, children talking all around him, the noise getting to be too much. He screams, and darts away, not knowing where to go exactly, but he needs to get away from the noise. Jinmi catches him soon enough, and takes a crying Taekwoon back to his class' table.

After that, he's sick of school. Back in the classroom, he rips the new coloring sheet his teacher passes out in half, climbing underneath his desk, ignoring Jinmi. He knows several pairs of his classmates' eyes are on him, and he growls at them, showing off his sharp lion teeth.

One of the kids go, "He's scary!", and he feels so satisfied that someone has finally noticed how ferocious he is. He roars loudly in response, making the kid jump.

Jinmi pulls Taekwoon from underneath the desk, offering him another cookie. He takes it, never one to turn down any type of food, especially sweets.

It's the end of his very first day of school now. He has to ride the bus to his grandparents' house with Jinmi, because his parents are still at work. The bus he rides on is shorter than the rest, and it annoys him. Why couldn't he ride on a big bus, too? He whines a bit, trying to pull Jinmi over to the big buses, but she insists on the short one.

He wants to bite her again.

It's been a month since kindergarten started. Taekwoon is still a lion. He eats lunch with Jinmi in the classroom now, just the two of them, after trying to bolt out of the cafeteria nearly everyday for two weeks. He likes Jinmi a lot more now, and never wants to bite her.

They get someone new in their class. His name is Hakyeon. Taekwoon doesn't know any of his other classmates' names, but he remembers Hakyeon's because it sounds pretty and he likes the way it feels on his tongue. He says it, over and over, each day, "Hakyeon, Hakyeon, Hakyeon." His parents are excited that he's learned a new word.

But Taekwoon's still shy, and is not a people person. He hides underneath his desk during play time, smashing his two Hot Wheels cars together head first, repeatedly. It's one of his favorite games to play.

No one bothers him until Hakyeon does one day, bending down to see what's going on underneath the desk. "Hi!"

Taekwoon, surprised, growls at him instinctively, making sure to show his teeth. He's been drinking more milk lately in order to make them strong.

Hakyeon looks taken aback, but doesn't budge. "I'm Hakyeon!" he says, smiling at Taekwoon. "Do you want to play with my Legos?"

Taekwoon, while still growling, thinks about Hakyeon's offer for a moment. He likes Legos, and has a set of them at home. He doesn't exactly like to build with them though, but sort them by size and color. But one of his older sisters' once told him he didn't play with them right, and he hasn't really touched the set since then.

"Are you a lion?" Hakyeon asks, interrupting his thoughts. "I'm a..." He pulls out a giraffe headband he had been holding behind his back, something Taekwoon had been completely unaware of. "Giraffe!" Hakyeon finishes, giggling.

This triggers something inside of Taekwoon. He remembers ages ago, watching a lion documentary on the Animal Planet channel. He remembers one scene where the lion jumped onto the back of a giraffe, biting a huge chunk of flesh right off.

Taekwoon's a lion. Hakyeon's a giraffe.

He roars, bringing himself on all fours. Hakyeon is still smiling at him, completely oblivious to his oncoming attack.

And Taekwoon pounces, knocking Hakyeon onto the ground, making the boy gasp in surprise. He pins him down by his arms, growling and roaring into his face. Hakyeon looks scared now, and his eyes are a bit watery with fear.

Taekwoon hasn't even gotten to the best part of his attack yet, and he gets his teeth ready, about to bite right into his classmate's neck when he feels a pair of hands grab him, peeling him away.

It's Jinmi. "Taekwoonie! This isn't nice," she scolds him. He growls at her, angry. You never interrupt a lion's attack, ever.

Their teacher is there too, helping Hakyeon off the ground, as well. "Hakyeon, are you okay?" she asks. "Did he hurt you?"

Hakyeon shakes his head. "No."

"You shouldn't do that to people," his teacher says, turning her attention to Taekwoon. "I'm sorry, but I think I'm gonna have to give you time out during the rest of play time."

Taekwoon hates time out. He can't sit still, and more than once they've taped his hands to the arms of the time out chair, making it impossible for him to move. He immediately starts to whine, tugging on Jinmi's hand and pointing at the door, wanting to leave.

"You've been a bad boy, Taekwoon," she tells him gently.

Taekwoon is nearly in tears. "Noooo, no, no," he tells her.

Hakyeon, who is still there, watching, speaks up again. "But it was an accident. We were playing safari."

The teacher and Jinmi both looks so surprised, exchanging glances. Taekwoon is still whining, hopping up and down now, a signal of distress.

"Okay," the teacher starts hesitantly. "If it was an accident..."

Hakyeon nods. Taekwoon squeals.

"Then I guess no time out," she finishes. "But you need to be careful next time, Taekwoonie."

Taekwoon darts back underneath the desk, happy he doesn't have time out anymore. The teacher goes back to what she was doing, but Jinmi stays behind to make sure he doesn't cause anymore trouble.

Hakyeon leaves, as well, and Taekwoon watches as he plays with his Legos across the room. He kind of wishes he had accepted his offer.

Somehow, slowly but surely, Taekwoon and Hakyeon becomes friends. It starts when Taekwoon goes over to Hakyeon, who is playing with a kitchen set, and yelling, "NOODLES!" Hakyeon then happily "cooks" him noodles, and it goes from there. Sometimes playing cooking, other times with Legos, and sometimes with Taekwoon's Hot Wheels.

Hakyeon soon asks if he can stay in the classroom to eat lunch with Taekwoon and Jinmi, and the teacher agrees, touched by Hakyeon's generosity. Everyday, without fail, he brings a big chocolate chip cookie in his lunch box, giving half to Taekwoon. Taekwoon shows his gratitude by giving Hakyeon the sticker off his apple.

It's also Hakyeon who asks his parents if Taekwoon can go over to his house. They contact Taekwoon's parents, who is ecstatic that their little boy has a friend at school. They arrange to meet at Hakyeon's house, Taekwoon's very first play date. It goes better than expected, and they decide to let the boys continue to see each other.

And it goes from there.

They're in fifth grade now. Taekwoon still likes to think of himself as a lion, but he doesn't wear the onesie anymore after he grew out of it three years ago. He doesn't growl a lot now, either. Only when he's angry.

Overall, he's really mellowed out since kindergarten.

Hakyeon is still the same. All smiles and talk. They're best friends, and are inseperable. He's became Taekwoon's "assistant", kinda, following him around and helping him. In fact, in fifth grade, they have two desks pushed together to make a table for them. Taekwoon does a lot better now, but still needs an occasional hand, so they chose Hakyeon to be his helper, because they're close and Hakyeon is responsible for his age.

"Taekwoonie, you okay?" Hakyeon whispers every once and a while throughout the day and Taekwoon nods each time (or, on bad days, shakes his head).

They eat lunch together, alone, inside the classroom because the cafeteria noises are still too much. Hakyeon still brings the same chocolate chip cookie, everyday, and Taekwoon wonders if he has an unlimited supply at his house or something.

During lunchtime, Hakyeon likes to go to the board, marker in hand, pretending to be a teacher. Or sometimes, he draws animals and other things for Taekwoon. Or he reads his library book out loud, knowing how much Taekwoon loves for people to read to him. Taekwoon really enjoys lunchtime.

Their class has a new project to do. They have to pull a random country written on a piece of paper from a hat to do a poster on, giving them random teams of three or four. Hakyeon pulls Mexico, automatically giving Taekwoon Mexico as well. He's so glad their teacher understands, and always let's him and Hakyeon work together.

But it's teams of three or four, not two, which means another boy and a girl also pulls Mexico.

Taekwoon isn't too happy about this, seeing that he's not particularly fond of either of them. He still isn't a people person, and others doesn't seem to like him back. He wishes it was just him and Hakyeon.

Hakyeon greets their project buddies with a smile, of course. Taekwoon wonders if his cheeks ever hurts from smiling all of the time.

He lets his friend do the talking. These days, Taekwoon can actually talk better than before, but it's still hard for him to make the words come out. His doctor said he was "selectively mute". Hakyeon said he was just a little shy.

They arrange to meet at Hakyeon's house on Saturday to work on the poster, so Taekwoon stays the night on Friday. He spends most of the time on Hakyeon's parents' laptop, doing his part of the poster, reading about Mexico and writing down facts. He nearly has the entire Wikipedia article copied. Hakyeon gently tells him to just pick around five or six facts when he sees Taekwoon's paper, which is hard to do when you find everything interesting.

Their project buddies, Hakyeon tells him their names are Ha In and Daejun, arrive a little early, throwing Taekwoon off a bit. He hates when people are early or late, preferring they show up at their assigned time. He stays behind in Hakyeon's room while Hakyeon goes to answer the front door. He lays on his friend's bed, staring up at the ceiling and counting the tiles.

Taekwoon's at 14 when Hakyeon returns, this time with their project buddies. He sits up on the bed, staring.

"And Taekwoonie wrote down our facts we need," Hakyeon's saying, holding up Taekwoon's sheet of paper. Ha In takes it, examining it, and Daejun scoffs.

"That's too many," he says. "We only need five."

Hakyeon glances over at Taekwoon, who's still staring, no signs of any reaction. "It's okay," he says. "We can just shorten it."

They get to work on the poster then. Ha In bought poster board and glitter, Daejun crayons and markers. Hakyeon himself printed pictures, and Taekwoon did the facts.

He sits on the bed, watching for a few minutes as they work out how they're going to arrange the poster. Hakyeon hands him his fact sheet back, asking him again to please choose five facts.

Taekwoon looks through it. He feels very... lazy. His eyes skim through the paper quickly, not really seeing anything he has wrote down. The letters look foreign and the words run together. He holds it back out to Hakyeon.

Hakyeon takes it. "Okay, I will then," he says and Taekwoon nods.

"He's supposed to do something!" Daejun protests. "It's his project too."

"He wrote down facts." Hakyeon waves the paper in the air.

"And didn't even do it right."

"Shut up, Daejun," Ha In interrupts. "Leave him alone. Let's not let him mess anything else up."

"He's not messing anything up," Hakyeon argues.

Well, it is true, Taekwoon thinks. He didn't do the fact rights, so he's pretty sure he can't do anything else right. He wonders why he can't just choose five facts, why it's so hard for him, yet so easy for Hakyeon, who's writing down his chosen facts on the poster. Ha In is glueing pictures, something else Taekwoon can't do because he always uses too much glue and makes a mess. Daejun is drawing the national flower, another thing Taekwoon can't do because his grips on crayons are too strong and he ends up breaking them. He really can't do anything right, can he?

Overwhelmed, he cries out, running as fast as he can from the room.

He finds himself on the living room couch, laying underneath the cushions. He knows Hakyeon's parents doesn't mind when he does this, having to many times before. He lays still, taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself down. It's quiet down here, and he loves it.

The family dog, Wong, lays next to the couch asleep, and Taekwoon lowers his hand, letting it go through the fluffy fur gently. It feels good between his fingers.

Taekwoon doesn't know how long he lays there, but it must be a while because he hears footsteps coming down the stairs, voices talking about snacks. He looks, and it's Hakyeon and the other two.

Taekwoon has a flashback then, of a few years ago when he was having a bad day, and the frustration got to be too much for him. He ended up pushing Hakyeon down those stairs, not really realizing what he was doing. He didn't break anything, thankfully, but his mouth did bleed a lot. Hakyeon's parents were understanding (well, as understanding as parents could be to a kid that just nearly killed their son), but his parents were embarrassed, and ashamed, and yelled at him, telling him he was gonna lose his only friend for being mean to him. It had really scared Taekwoon, because he didn't want to lose Hakyeon.

He hates that memory.

In eighth grade, Taekwoon joins the soccer team.

It happens accidentally, really. Hakyeon's dad is the new middle school soccer coach, and when Taekwoon goes over to their house one day, him and Hakyeon are in the backyard practicing. Taekwoon joined in for fun, and apparently he's pretty good at it. Hakyeon's dad nearly begs him to join the team, telling him he'll make sure to accomodate to Taekwoon's needs and such.

Taekwoon was really hesitant to join. He never thought of himself as a sports guy. He doesn't do well with teams, preferring to either work alone or with Hakyeon only. And sports events are usually sensory hell, with all the people and heat and noises.

But he said yes. One reason being Hakyeon, a soccer player on the team, wanted him to join, and talked and talked about how fun they would have together, and how he'd make sure to help Taekwoon when needed.

Another reason was his parents, who have been pestering him for a while now to do something other than stay at home, or at Hakyeon's house, doing nothing. They tell him he needs to go out, do things, get other friends. He wishes they'd realize he's content with doing nothing.

Taekwoon is nervous about his first game. Hakyeon helps, soothing Taekwoon with words of encouragement. It also helps that Hakyeon's father is the coach, and knows not too pressure or yell at Taekwoon like he does to the other players.

When he goes onto the field at first, a thousand worries run through his mind. What if he forgets which net is his, and accidentally scores for the other team? What if he trips flat on his face in front of everyone, and end up getting trampled by the players? What if, what if, what if.

He worries for nothing.

At first, he runs around aimlessly, forgetting everything Hakyeon's dad has taught him. He avoids the ball and other players like a plague. He meets Hakyeon's eyes a few times, and he reads the words flowing through them. Play right, Taekwoonie. You can do it. I know you can.

So he slowly starts to actually participate, and before he knows it he's made the first goal of the game.

Taekwoon's in shock, not sure what to do after scoring. A few of his teammates hollers, clapping him on the back. Hakyeon gives him a quick hug, whispering, "Great job!"

After that, he's pumped up. Adrenaline running through his veins and he feels invincible, untouchable, strong. No one can top him and nothing can stop him. He ends up scoring two more goals within five minutes.

On the second goal, he screams, jumping and down, pointing his finger at the opposing team players, relishing the looks on their faces as they realize what they're up against. He feels like the lion he was in kindergarten, ferocious and unstoppable.

His team wins, Taekwoon making nearly every goal. They all gather around him, cheering and giving him high fives. Normally, Taekwoon would find all the attention overwhelming but he's loving it tonight. He jumps around enthusiastically, the adrenaline still there. Hakyeon wraps his arms around him from behind to calm him down, laughing.

"See! I told you you'd do great!" Hakyeon says.

Taekwoon squeals happily in response.

Taekwoon's parents are overjoyed at his great playing, taking him and Hakyeon out to dinner. Taekwoon feels accomplished, so glad to have finally made his parents proud. Hakyeon recounts the entire game in detail, Taekwoon nodding at his favorite parts. His parents are beaming, and it feels so different, but extremely nice.

Taekwoon thought school would get a bit better after joining the soccer team. People usually worships athletes. But his treatment stays the same, everyone only loving him when he was on the field, scoring goals. He might even say it's been getting worse. His teammates, besides Hakyeon, of course, ignores him in the hallways. He gets paper balls thrown at his head in class. Someone writes insults on his locker with a Sharpie.

And apparently, a few people are angry at Taekwoon for being able to make the soccer team when they weren't.

He overhears someone telli