Choi Minho and I met when I was
about 5 years old. My family moved to Incheon as my dad had some work to settle
there as a navy serving for our country. Our house was at a corner and his’ was
just in front of mine. Every morning after waking up at 6 am, Mom helped me to
get ready to go to his house as Minho’s mom was a babysitter. At that time he
was just a regular 7 years old boy. We played together a lot and he also made
me cry a lot too. We grew up together and went to school together. We
practically became close like siblings. At school, there would be two boys who
are always ready to taunt me every single day. Every time they did that, Minho
would stop them by saying “Stop messing with my sister!” and made a very
serious look on his face. Soon after, no one even dared to bother me ever
again. I couldn’t even communicate with anyone at school and it made me very
difficult to study in that kind of situation but the second reason I couldn’t
communicate also was because of my mother tongue. I couldn’t speak hangul
fluently. Every time the last bell rang, he would show up in front of my face
with that childish smile. To me it was very bothersome. Mom reminded me to let
him accompany me back home as I was just a little girl and to her it seems very
dangerous for me to walk home alone. At first I was okay with it but after an
incident happened, I didn’t even want to look at him anymore.
I had a crush with a boy in my
class. He was my love at first sight. He was such a gentleman. I fell for him
the first time our eyes met. I woke up late on the first day of high school. It
was already 7:30 am and the only reason I woke up was because of Minho’s
screaming and yelling my name in front of my house. If it wasn’t for him, I
would still be sleeping until evening. I was really sleepy and hurriedly rushed
to my class. Just as I was about to enter my class I tripped and fell face
first. Then, a hand appeared out of nowhere and a sweet voice came out, “Are you
okay?” as soon as I heard that voice, I immediately stare into his eyes and
fell at that very moment. Everyone looked at me with laughter. “Gomawo” is all
that I can say. After that humiliating stumble, I went back to my seat next to
the window and the teacher introduced to us a new student. Park Syaoran was his
name. He was a transfer student from Japan. His family moved here because his
father worked for a great company in Korea. Just by looking at his clothes and
school bag everyone knew how rich he was. The teacher asked if there were any
empty seats and suddenly I froze. I realized that there was an empty seat
behind me but I don’t know why I didn’t respond to the teacher. Sulli, my best
friend since 1st grade told the teacher about the empty seat behind
me. When Syaoran sat down, I let out a sigh because I froze earlier. Sulli
asked me to what happened earlier but I wanted to tell her about it later. When
it was recess, Syaoran asked me where the canteen was and Sulli quickly said to
follow us. When we walked out of class, I saw Minho standing by the door with a
Tupperware in his hand. “Come on, let’s eat at the school field” he said with
that childish smile on his face. “Um, Minho. Today Aiman, Syaoran and I wanted
to go to the canteen and eat together.” Sulli spoke and there was a bit of
silence. “Can I join?” that was a question which I’ve expected from him as he
was like my loving brother who’s always looking out for me. “Sure, the more the
merrier!” said Syaoran. I was about to walk with Sulli to the canteen when
suddenly she pushed me next to Syaoran and Minho with a flaming burn in his
eyes scotch between us and I felt really bad for Syaoran. As soon as we found a
table, he started acting up again. He didn’t approve Syaoran sitting next to me
but I guess Syaoran already knew the drill so he sat beside Sulli. He just smiles
like nothing was wrong even though Minho did something very wrong. After a
while since Syaoran came to our school, we started becoming close friends –
Syaoran, Sulli and I. We’d even walked home together and Minho would be tagging
along.
One day, Sulli told me that it was
the last day for Syaoran because he had to move to America with his family. As
soon as I found out about that, I was disappointed because he didn’t tell me at
all about it. This time, Sulli didn’t join us walking back home. She was a very
kind friend for letting me spend some time with him for the last time before he
had to leave. On our way home, we passed a playground and he asked me to stop
there for a while. We sat on the swing and suddenly things became intense after
that. He told me about his leave and I just pretended that I didn’t know
anything but somehow tears started rolling down my cheek. He stood up, walked
up to me and said “Please don’t be sad about it and hear out my thoughts
first.” At that moment, all I was thinking about is to stop crying and listen
attentively to every word that he was about to say. “I wanted to tell you
that…” Suddenly, I heard Minho calling out my name and it totally ruin the
moment. He approached us and saw my red soaky eyes and started accusing Syaoran
for such foolish things. “Are you okay? Why are you crying? What did he do to
you?” he asked a lot of questions. Even though I tried explaining to him, he
just wouldn’t listen to any of my words. “Could you let us talk for a while?”
Syaoran asked. “No! You already made her cry and I wouldn’t let that happen
again” he looked at me with a serious face. “Come on, I’ll walk you home” he
just pulled my arm and I tried stopping him from behaving that way. After we
left the playground, I managed to get my hand out of his grip. “Why are you
doing this? Why are you always getting in my way? You’re not even my boyfriend.
Why would you interfere in my life?” I started crying and yelling at him. I ran
as fast as I could and fortunately mom and dad weren’t home at the time and I
could cry all I want.
That night, mom dropped a
bombshell. She told us that we had to move back to Malaysia because dad had to
go overseas a lot. So, dad made a choice. The whole family stays in Malaysia as
it was our homeland and mom wanted us to be familiar to our hometown and the
people in Malaysia. At first I was very sad about it. That day, I had a lot of
things going in my mind. I didn’t even know what to do and decided to just
sleep early that night. The next morning, Minho waited in front of our house
and I gave mom an excuse that I wasn’t feeling well. I just couldn’t see him
again after what had happened yesterday. When I came back to school, all I
could think of is what Syaoran’s last words were. Every time I see the empty
desk behind me, I would feel really sad about it. A month passed on just like
that and for that whole month I didn’t talk to Minho for once and I knew that
he felt the same way. On the day of our last stay in that house, our family
made a gathering with some friends that we made in the neighborhood since our
first stay in Korea. During that whole event, I just stayed in my room.
Suddenly, mom calls me to come down and I saw Minho beside her. He had a bag in
his hand. Mom left us and went to entertain the other guests. Minho took me
back to the playground where I met with Syaoran for the last time. He explains
to me that he felt sorry for what he did to us when he interfere with our
conversation and asked for forgiveness from Syaoran. Since that day, they would
be exchanging e-mails. They became close, very close. Minho gave the bag in his
hand to me and said that it was from Syaoran. I was completely surprised. It
was a gray teddy bear. Suddenly I felt like crying. There was a letter inside.
“A friend told me that if you make your own teddy bear and give it to the
one you love, he or she won’t go away” after that I felt a tear falling of
my cheek and a smile started to show but when I looked into Minho’s eyes I
could tell that he was sad somehow. “Wah~ maybe I should say thanks to Syaoran,
because of him I could see you smile again” he said with a smile on his face, a
fake smile. I hugged him tightly. I wanted to make that fake smile turn into a
real smile as gratitude
No comments:
Post a Comment