The protector

Outpost Village (M)

Warning: except for the dates, italics means that a character is thinking

Also trigger warning: food (Ramadan karim!)

2027, end of June

In-ah was a sun, the pianist thought while observing the shapely body which, in front of him, was agilely clambering on the steep, metal ladder. Looking at the woman in backlight, it was as if the sunrays were irradiated directly from her. She was an exact, impeccable, image of the sun. No, he suddenly made up his mind: the sun was a pale copy of her. And her girlish multicolour swimsuit (1) was making her glow of summer, liveliness, spirit. Brio, the vocable of the music jargon sprang into his mind as she turned her head, addressing him an amused grin before throwing herself down on the water slide for what was probably the hundred times that day.

Whatever, he didn't mind. He would have done it hundred times more just to see that smile.

A few weeks before

Seated in front of the richly inlaid mahogany desk, Jeong Hyeok was going through a moment of sheer discomfort. It always happened when he found himself in need to do what he hated the most: asking for the help of his father.

To make matters worse, the usually unlikable feeling was this time enhanced by the circumstance that the old man, for some time, was harbouring a barefaced longing to make fun of his shy son.

"The Munsu (2), uhm" Cheong-ryeol thinkingly rubbed his chin, his eyes squeezed in a mock pensive expression "you've never been interested to the waterpark. I've heard the strangers does. Ani, ani!" He waved his hand preventing the son from replying "just saying. Wonder when you've become so thin-skinned," grumbled, picking up the handset of his old-fashioned phone as the index finger of the other hand dialled a two-number sequence.

Less than ten minutes later, the pianist was walking down the stairs of the grey building, headquarter of the Worker's Party (3), holding two passes for the whole season instead of the single ticket he had gone to ask for. His father pertaining to that singular kind of politics who abhorred the usage of their influence for such trivialities, the fact itself sounded like a roaring substantiation of the old man's opinion about "the stranger."

"Thank you" Jeong Hyeok had bowed, slightly taken aback.

"Wish her happy birthday."

Anticipating how In-ah would have reacted to the gift, it had been with a childish impatience that Jeong Hyeok had looked forward the moment when he would have presented her that surprise.

He had felt like a child during all the week which had preceded her birthday for many reasons, actually. Every day had been like a minus one to day zero. The year before, In-ah had celebrated abroad, so that it was the first time for him to see how much hype the entire thing stirred both in her and in all their friends. She had organized a party in the garden of their building and oh... the man never had realized the extent of her being – definition of her – a "party animal." The playlist had been meticulously chosen, and there were festoons, balloons, candles, and list of games. It seemed...

"In-ah, seems like if you're organizing a party for a child."

"What, are you saying that I'm old? I'm going to celebrate my 8 years."

"Excuse me?"

"It's my birthday, can I choose my age, or it's forbidden?"

He couldn't believe.