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The dawn of the new day brings vigor and joy for Sunghoon. He steps out of his home with a small bouquet of white roses. There is a smile plastered on his face- a smile his mother labels as the “fool’s smile”. But Sunghoon thinks otherwise. He thinks it’s love. And love does not belong to fools.
He sees the boy in his usual spot.
The park bench Sunoo occupies is painted a light yellow. Sunghoon thinks it complements him perfectly. With his beige colored dungaree worn over a white shirt, Sunoo looks like an angel as he reads a book Sunghoon cannot decipher the name of. Yet.
“S-Sunoo-ssi…” he calls out in a soft voice as he comes to stand in front of the other boy. “Hi,” he adds shyly.
“Oh!” Sunoo’s face brightens up. His forehead- previously creased in concentration - relaxes. “Sunghoon-ssi! How are you?”
“Good,” Sunghoon replies, even more shyly as he adjusts his glasses. “Can I sit here?”
“Of course!” And Kim Sunoo is, as usual, a ball of sunshine.
“I got this for you.” Sunghoon offers the flowers- and with them, his heart- to the younger boy.
Sunoo’s face brightens up even more. His eyes sparkle and he gives the most devastatingly heartwarming smile to Sunghoon. “White roses! These are beautiful!”
Sunghoon watches, completely enraptured by Sunoo’s movements. He has never seen someone more beautiful than him.
“What are you reading?” Sunghoon asks with a nod towards the book. The words on the page seem jumbled to him, a mess of black and white he does not want to concentrate on.
“Oh this?” Sunoo raises the book to show the cover to Sunghoon. “It’s a book about love.”
“Love,” Sunghoon repeats the word.
“Love, yes! You know, that emotion where you keep chasing after someone even when you know the chase is fruitless. But you believe! You hope! That’s the beauty of it.”
Sunghoon looks at a beaming Sunoo. Yes, he knows what love is. He feels it deep in his heart.
“Sunghoon-ssi,” Sunoo says with a tilt of his head. His pink hair blanket over his forehead in soft curls. “Have you ever fallen in love with someone?”
“Yes,” Sunghoon answers immediately. “I am in love right now.”
“With whom?” Sunoo is closer. Sunghoon feels a warm hand over his own.
“With-”
It ends again. Sunghoon is alone in the park. A lone late afternoon sparrow chirps in the branch of a tree somewhere in the distance. Sunghoon isn’t sure what is real and what is not. The bouquet of white roses falls from his hands and ends up on the grass.
Sunghoon picks up the book lying beside the fallen flowers. The last page has dates and locations noted down in them, just as he had expected. Nearly half of them are crossed out, some with frustrated scribbles, and some with neat lines.
He holds back his tears as he crosses out “Park bench. 3:55 PM. Third meeting.”
What had his mother said before? A fool’s smile?
Well. Maybe Sunghoon is a fool.
He’ll just chase after Sunoo again. And again. And again. Until the day he reunites with his lost lover.