The Spring Who Missed Her Sunshine

I : Way Back Home

2006, Elementary School

I sat myself on the last row of the class. Being a third grader and befriended with new classmates wasn't as bad as I thought it'll be. I sat next to a shy boy named Lee Seokmin. I learned his name since he borrowed my ruler for math class and accidentally brought it home then apologized to me through a sticky note sticked to my ruler.

"I'm sorry, I forgot to return your ruler. Sorry. I'll ask my sister to buy me one later.
-Lee Seokmin"

I remember patting his shoulder and extend my hand.

"Nice to meet you, Seokmin-ah. I'm Kang Hanbyeol."

Who knows that borrowing things can be a good way to start sparks of friendship?

A year later, Seokmin and I joined a baseball extracurricular, so when the extracurricular time over, we all changed our baseball uniforms then put them inside our own bag.

But when I got home, I found Seokmin's baseball shirt instead of mine. I don't know exactly who did this, but I think, one of his lousy friends, Daekwang and Seojun (who often call us 'couple') purposedly switched mine with his somehow.

"Ugh, Mom. I hate them!"

My anger disappeared when suddenly I heard somebody's knocking at the door. Dad opened up the door and turned out it was Seokmin that showed up in front of my house with my uniform in his hand.

"Oh? How did you get here?"

"My mom... said your house's only a few numbers away from mine. I... I have to ran all the way here..."

"You don't have to run though...?"

"I thought you haven't figure out... Our uniform's swapped-"

"You're scared that it's dark, aren't you?" I teased him.

He cringed.

"We hate to give back dirty stuffs, so we have to wash it first. Is it okay for you if we return this tomorrow?"

He noded. "That's okay."

"Aw, look at you, polite boy. Here, take these tangerines and please tell your family that we would love to have you guys over for dinner."

Later after the uniform got returned to Seokmin, he began to call me 'Spring Girl' and even after I asked him for thousand times, he never told me why he called me that way.

We often played together at the park that located about 2 blocks away from our neighborhood, either we play around on the playground or discover something new and funny on the park. He's such a sensitive yet bright kid, he often got ridiculed by older neighborhood boys for being a 'wimp' and hangs out with a girl but I remember that he told me once,

"I don't mind they mock me for being myself. You showed me how to be brave too, so thanks to you, I'm all good."

The more time we spend together, the more I realized that he's the best person I never knew I needed.

2009, Middle School

Seokmin has always been fond of music from day 0 since his family is a huge fan of musicals, but I was the one who figured out my interest in music a bit later, Which was a year before we attend Middle School. It was all started when my uncle taught me how to play guitar at the family reunion.

I reminisce the moment I received my first guitar as a gift from my parents and Seokmin's parents gave me a guitar pick and a notebook with a letter on it (The letter's gone, but I remember that it says "We would love to hear your own song made from that guitar. We're rooting on you!" And that's the sweetest letter I've ever received in my entire life).