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CHAPTER ONE ( Childhood, Again )
YEON SI-EUN LIKES structure. He likes having everything perfectly aligned, plans made, and he doesn't like when something new barges in and wrecks his structure to the ground.
Perhaps that is why he doesn't like Cha Jaehwa. He never had a problem with her before — She was silent and so was he, and they had no need to converse on the days they accidentally ran into each other at the apartment complex — Until she arrives differently.
And Yeon Si-eun doesn't like different. He doesn't like the way she pretends they know each other.
"She's sick," His father tells Si-eun when they finish greeting the Cha family. His voice is too gentle, in a way that makes Si-eun feel as though he is a small child who cries for a love he is never good enough for. "Don't be rude to her."
And Yeon Si-eun thinks about it for a long time — He comes to the conclusion that Cha Jaehwa doesn't look sick, but he's not seven years old anymore, blindly believing what he's told — Like how his parents love each other as much as they love him, both lies that stick to Si-eun like a thick and heavy blanket in the summer heat. Perhaps Cha Jaehwa is sick, and when he acknowledges this possibility at last, he realizes that it had been obvious all along.
He begins to take notice of the way Cha Jaehwa stares blankly at him for a while before her eyes brighten in a dull way that Si-eun decides he doesn't like — They look glassed over and too, too empty — And she smiles and waves as though they've known each other for years.
Si-eun finds all the things Jaehwa wishes to keep hidden, like the bandages beneath her overly large sweater, or the plasticky bracelet that tangles against her wrist, looking thoroughly worn but unable to be removed. Or the most obvious hint of all, one that Jaehwa didn't put too much effort into concealing — The thick scar running from her neck to her lower cranium, and that thin patch of peach fuzz that is beginning to grow over her partially shaved head.
There is not enough fabric in her beanies to cover it, and it seems as though Jaehwa chooses to altogether ignore it.
Yeon Si-eun thinks as he looks at Cha Jaehwa, that they are both living in the wrong season, and for all the wrong reasons.
He chooses to ignore her, after that, because he can't stand the intimacy of being friends with someone that didn't — And would never — Mean anything to him. He couldn't stand the thought of Cha Jaehwa becoming anything more than a sick neighbor that Yeon Si-eun knows only in passing.
He's glad she cannot follow him into school — Seeing her smile twists something hideously reminiscent of guilt into the pit of his stomach, and he prefers to keep a clear mind when he learns — For the girl is not allowed anywhere near his school. Si-eun thanks Jaehwa's parents for their all-too-protective manner ever since their daughter arrived back home.
