Busan || jjk

I

A year later, Hana had settled well into her new home in Seoul. She hated it at first, the noise and the crowded streets always made her feel suffocated but now she found herself mixing straight in the crowd. She had indeed settled well; a well paying job, a handful of friends she met up with every weekend and the cutest dog running around in her apartment to keep her company when she felt lonely. She had food in her fridge and enough money to get her nails done every once in a while so overall she was happy.

Only downside to being in Seoul? It being the centre of activity surrounding the biggest boyband Bangtan Sonyeondan, better known as BTS.

Hana absolutely hated those days when she'd be walking to work and a bus would pass by with Jeongguk's face plastered on it. Not because she hated his face, she loves it really, but she hated the memories that came with. Most of the time she didn't pay attention to the billboards but the bigger ones were impossible to not look at.

Ironically though, the girl had a few pictures of the pair in her home. She didn't look at them often but there was one in the small hallway leading to her lounge, one on the kitchen fridge, one in her living room and a special one hidden away underneath the pile of clothes in her cupboard.

She didn't like to be reminded of him but needed his presence in one way or the other. It's hard to grow up without the single constant that had always been there. From the start.

September 2004, first day of school.

Min Hana's eyes watered as her knees stung from the pain. She had been walking with her new lunchbox, excited to eat from it because she had finally convinced her mother to buy it for her, until she felt a hard push on her back that made her fall forward in the half dirt, half grass. She had been quick enough to bring her hands forward to stop her face from fully planting in the hard soil but the same couldn't be said for the red lunchbox, the little clips attached to the top now broken and the food inside it sprawled out on the floor.

Tiny fists dug into the soil, knees red and brown, uniform dirty and a single streak of earth on her chin, she wobbled to a stand and turned around to come face to face with, now in her eyes, her bully.

But Jeon Jeongguk wasn't a bully. He was just clumsy. The seven year old had been running with his friend when his shoelaces tripped him making him shove the person in front of him. He didn't mean to of course, that's why he was ready to mutter a string of apologies to the girl with the two pigtails in her hair. But Jeongguk was also a panicky child, when he saw the tear streaked face, his own black eyes widened in fear. Poor kid didn't know how to stop a girl from crying her eyes out, especially a girl with the cutest nose and the poutiest lips.

When the first sob escaped her mouth he did the only thing your typical seven year old boy would do.

"You have mud on your face!" He laughed thinking the prospect of having mud on her face would make her laugh too because she looked a little funny and funny was the only thing that made anyone laugh and the opposite of crying was laughing and that's exactly what little Jeongguk thought and did.