Chapter Text
The summer afternoon smelled like cut grass and sun-warmed dust, the kind of air that clung sticky-sweet to their skin and made every breath feel like swallowing sunlight. JL darted barefoot across the cracked pavement, sneakers slapping against his leg where he carried them by their laces. Each step stung a little — tiny pebbles pressing into his soles — but he didn’t care. Bare feet made him feel faster, like the whole street was a racetrack made just for him.
Behind him came the squeak of old bike wheels, rhythmic and stubborn, chasing him down.
“Wait up, slowpoke!” Woongki shouted, voice cracking a little in the heat as he pedaled furiously. His knees knocked the handlebars because the bike was getting too small for him, but he refused to admit it.
“What are you talking about! You’re the slowpoke!” JL turned, running backward just for the thrill of it, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. He stuck his tongue out, grinning wide.
“My legs are faster than your rusty old bike!”
“This isn’t rusty! It’s the best bike in the whole neighborhood!” Woongki swerved dangerously close, tires wobbling, nearly clipping JL’s side. JL yelped, flailed, and swerved into the grass, almost tripping over himself.
“Hey!” JL’s voice cracked with half fear, half laughter. “You’re trying to kill me!”
“Am not! You’re just jealous!” Woongki laughed so hard he nearly lost control himself, the front wheel shaking as he tried to steady it.
By the time they burst into the park, they were both panting, lungs heaving like they’d run a marathon. The playground spread before them like their own kingdom — the crooked swings, the chipped slide, the monkey bars rusting at the edges. To anyone else it looked tired, but to them it was everything: a castle, a battlefield, a place where no one told them to stop running.
“Race you to the slide!” Woongki yelled without warning, ditching his bike where it fell on the grass with a thud.
“Cheater!” JL shrieked, pumping his legs harder, chasing after him. His bare feet slapped against the hot metal steps as he scrambled up, palms slipping on the chipped paint.
Woongki pulled himself to the top first, hair sticking up in every direction like he’d been electrocuted. He raised his arms triumphantly. “I win! Ruler of the castle!”
JL hauled himself up beside him, breathless but stubborn. He crossed his arms and scowled. “Fine. Then I’m the knight. And knights are cooler than kings.”
“No way.” Woongki puffed his chest out like a rooster. “Knights just protect the rulers. So I’m still the boss.”
“A 9-year old boss?!”
JL narrowed his eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Then I’ll protect you. But if you get in trouble, don’t cry about it.”
“You’d cry first.”
“Would not!”
“Would too!”
They bickered until the words dissolved into laughter, echoing across the empty playground, bouncing off the slide and swings until it sounded like the world was laughing with them.
The metal of the slide burned hot under them, and after a while they had to hop off, feet smacking against the grass as they ran to the shade of the old tree at the field’s edge.
JL collapsed dramatically, arms spread wide like he’d fought a dragon.
“Dead,” he groaned. “This is where I die.”
“You’re such a baby.” Woongki flopped beside him, still grinning.
JL sat up and dug into his bag, pulling out two wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches his mom had made that morning. He waved them like treasure.
“This one’s egg. This one’s ham.” He shoved the egg sandwich at Woongki with all the dignity of a royal decree.
“I wanted ham!” Woongki pouted, lower lip jutting out.
“You had ham last time. Fair’s fair.” JL unwrapped his own sandwich with exaggerated slowness, like he was in an advertisement, and took a dramatic bite. “Mmm. So good.”
Woongki glared at him, then tore a blade of grass from the ground and flicked it at JL’s face. “You’re the worst.”
“You’re still eating it.”
Woongki took a huge, angry bite, cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk. “Shut up,” he mumbled through a mouthful.
JL laughed, nearly choking on his own sandwich. “You look like a hamster. No, wait… a squirrel. No, wait………an angry squirrel.”
Woongki kicked at him, but not very hard.
They sat cross-legged in the grass, chewing, their shoulders pressed together without thinking about it. Every so often, JL would glance sideways, like he wanted to say something else, then chicken out and take another bite instead.
“You think we’ll still be friends when we’re big?”
Woongki asked suddenly, voice quieter than before.
“Of course.” JL said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“I dunno. Grown-ups always look like they forget stuff. Like they’re too busy to remember fun things.”
“I won’t forget.” JL scowled fiercely, as if daring the universe to try him. “Not even if I get busy. Not even if I get super old.”
Woongki tilted his head. “How old?”
“Like forty.”
Woongki’s whole face scrunched up. “Ew. Don’t say forty.”
JL burst out laughing so hard he nearly dropped his sandwich, the sound tumbling across the field like music.
By mid-afternoon, the heat pressed heavy on their backs, and chalk drawings sprawled across the sidewalk in front of Woongki’s house. Dragons that looked like worms, lopsided stars, hopscotch grids that stretched too long. JL wiped his dusty palms on his shorts and squinted at the mess.
“Yours looks like a potato.”
“It’s a spaceship!” Woongki protested.
“No way. That’s a potato with wings.”
“You don’t even know what spaceships look like!”
“Neither do you!”
Woongki huffed, grabbed a piece of blue chalk, and scribbled furiously, adding more lines until his “spaceship” looked even worse. JL doubled over laughing until his stomach hurt.
Their laughter drew two of the neighborhood kids — Minjae and Doyeon — who wandered over with their own chalk and plopped down beside them.
“What are you guys even drawing?” Minjae squinted.
“Spaceship,” Woongki said defensively.
“Potato,” JL corrected.
Doyeon immediately sided with JL. “Yeah, that’s a potato. But like… maybe a magic potato.” She bent down and added sparkles around it with yellow chalk.
Woongki groaned. “You’re ruining it!”
“No,” Minjae said, smirking. “Now it’s a flying potato spaceship. Cooler.”
JL laughed so hard he rolled onto his back, clutching his stomach. Woongki threw his chalk at him, which only made him laugh harder.
They played hopscotch next, the four of them taking turns, rules half-forgotten and improvised mid-jump. Woongki tripped once and landed sprawled on the chalk grid, groaning dramatically while the others howled.
By the time the heat made their hands sticky, they abandoned the chalk, running instead to the convenience store with coins clinking in their pockets.
The bell above the shop door jingled as they pushed inside, cool air brushing against their sweaty faces. They pressed their foreheads to the glass freezer, debating.
“Strawberry popsicle.” JL pointed firmly.
“No. Melon bar.” Woongki folded his arms.
“Strawberry’s better!”
“Melon’s the king of popsicles.”
“Then we’ll get both. And you’ll see.” JL slapped his coins onto the counter triumphantly.
They emerged victorious, wrappers already ripped open. JL licked his strawberry popsicle with dramatic satisfaction while Woongki chewed on his melon bar.
“I win,” JL declared.
“No, you don’t.” Woongki licked his popsicle with just as much exaggeration. “Mine’s colder.”
“That’s not even how it works!”
They argued all the way back to the park, popsicles dripping down their wrists. Minjae and Doyeon trailed behind, giggling at their nonsense, before peeling off toward their own houses, leaving the two of them alone again.
As evening spread across the sky, they switched to hide-and-seek. Woongki counted loudly, face pressed against the rough bark of the tree. JL crouched behind the slide, holding his breath, trying not to laugh.
“Ready or not, here I come!”
Woongki stomped dramatically around the playground, pretending not to see him at first. JL’s legs cramped, but he refused to move.
“Where’s JL…~~?” Woongki sang, dragging out the words. “Did he disappear? Did aliens steal him?”
JL burst into laughter before he could stop himself. Woongki pounced, tackling him into the grass.
“Gotcha!”
“No fair! You cheated!”
“Did not! You laughed!”
“You cheated by being annoying!”
They rolled around, grass sticking to their hair and arms, both of them giggling so hard they couldn’t breathe.
When the sky turned pink and orange, they ended up lying on the grass, staring at the clouds drifting lazily above. Fireflies blinked faintly at the edges of the field.
“Hey, JL?” Woongki’s voice was softer now, the silly energy faded into something almost thoughtful.
“Mm?”
“When we grow up… let’s sing. Together. Like… in front of people.”
JL turned his head, surprised. “Sing? Like… in a concert?”
“Yeah.” Woongki nodded, eyes fixed on the sky. “We’re good, right? Remember when we sang in class and teacher said we were the loudest? That means we’d be the best.”
JL snorted. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll sing. And we’ll be awesome.” Woongki raised his fist like he was sealing a pact.
JL hesitated, then bumped his knuckles against Woongki’s. “Fine. We’ll sing. But only if you don’t forget me when you’re famous.”
Woongki turned his head and grinned, eyes bright in the fading light. “Never!! Not even when I’m more than forty”
JL rolled his eyes, but secretly, he believed him.
That night, they sat on the curb outside Woongki’s house, popsicle sticks sticky in their hands. The street was quiet except for the faint bark of a dog down the block.
“Promise you won’t go anywhere,” Woongki said suddenly, pinky already sticking out.
“Promise you won’t either.” JL linked his pinky with his.
It was nothing — just a silly vow made under a summer sky, fireflies drifting like sparks in the dark. But even then, it felt like the kind of promise that could last forever.
The pinky promise stayed wrapped around their little fingers long after they’d gone home that night. JL could still feel it tugging at him when he rolled over in bed, eyes wide open, listening to the crickets outside. It wasn’t just a silly gesture. To him, it was real—like a secret contract stamped under the stars. He thought about Woongki’s serious voice saying Promise you won’t go anywhere, and it burned into his chest so deeply he almost couldn’t fall asleep.
But the sun always comes too quickly in summer.
The next morning, JL woke to the sound of his mom calling from the kitchen, the smell of fried eggs, and his own restless excitement. He didn’t even finish his breakfast properly. With sticky rice still stuck in his teeth, he bolted out the door barefoot, clutching his sandals in one hand as if the world would disappear if he didn’t run fast enough.
And of course, Woongki was already there—waiting at the corner where their streets met. Always. His hair was messy, his shirt wrinkled, but he was grinning wide like he’d been standing there forever.
“You’re late,” Woongki said, arms crossed like an adult scolding a child.
JL puffed his cheeks. “I had to eat breakfast. My mom would kill me if I skipped.”
“She’s right. But no excuses!.”
“Shut up.”
They bumped shoulders, and then, just like that, the day stretched open before them—long, lazy, golden.
They filled it the way only kids could. They turned sidewalks into balance beams, cracks into lava rivers. They played endless rounds of “rock, paper, scissors” just to decide who got the bigger half of a melting popsicle. They dared each other to climb the half-broken fence by the empty lot, their shouts echoing across the weeds.
When the sun hit its harshest point, they retreated under the shade of a neighbor’s mango tree. JL pulled out a cassette player he’d stolen from his older cousin, the earphones too big for his head. He shoved one into Woongki’s ear and pressed play. The music crackled, warbled, but it was theirs. They sat there, sharing one set of earphones, chewing on candy, pretending they understood the lyrics in a language they barely knew.
“Someday,” JL said, voice soft, “we’ll have our own band.”
“You can’t even play guitar,” Woongki teased.
“I’ll learn! We’ll both be the singers. You can… play whatever too or something.”
Woongki tilted his head, pretending to think hard.
“No, I’ll be the boss. You’ll follow me.”
JL laughed so hard the earphone popped out.
“Never. You’d be the worst boss.”
“Fine, then we’ll both be bosses.”
“Doesn’t work like that!”
But in their world, it did. In their world, rules bent the way they wanted them to.
At night, when the heat finally faded, they sprawled out on the concrete curb, staring up at the sky. JL pointed at random stars and gave them stupid names.
“That one’s Pizza. That one’s… Super Poop.”
Woongki groaned. “You’re so dumb.”
“You laughed.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
The argument dissolved into laughter anyway. And in between all the giggles and mosquito bites, they whispered more promises—small ones, ridiculous ones, and a few that weren’t so silly.
“Don’t forget me when we’re grown-ups.”
“Duh, you’re annoying. You’ll probably follow me around forever.”
“Good.”
They didn’t know it then, but those words stuck like glue.
The days blurred together like watercolor. One afternoon, they made a fort out of cardboard boxes behind JL’s house, crawling inside and declaring themselves kings of a secret kingdom. Another, they spent hours tossing pebbles into the creek, seeing whose could skip further. Sometimes they fought—petty, childish fights. Who cheated in tag. Who stole the last candy. Who ran faster. The fights never lasted more than five minutes. They always ended with Woongki bumping JL’s shoulder and JL pretending not to smile.
Even the silence between them felt full. They could sit side by side, chewing on sweet ice pops, not saying a word, and it felt like the loudest joy in the world.
But summer doesn’t last forever.
By late August, their moms were already dragging them to shops for notebooks and sharpened pencils. The cicadas sang less. The days felt shorter. JL felt something he couldn’t name—like the summer itself was slipping through his fingers.
On the very last night before school, they sat in their usual spot, the curb under the mango tree, listening to the faint hum of a television from someone’s house down the street.
“Think school’s gonna be different?” JL asked.
Woongki shrugged. “It’s just school. We’ll still hang out.”
“But what if… what if we don’t sit together? Or get the same teacher?”
Woongki frowned, like the idea itself was insulting.
“Then I’ll switch. Or I’ll just follow you.”
JL grinned, but something in his chest tightened. He didn’t want to say it out loud, but he feared things would change. That promises made under fireflies and mango trees could get lost in classrooms and hallways.
So he stuck out his pinky again.
“Then promise me again. We’ll still be us. Even in school.”
Woongki rolled his eyes like it was silly—but he hooked his pinky without hesitation. “Fine. We’ll still be us.”
And just like that, school started.
The bell rang, kids swarmed, and uniforms itched against their skin. But when JL walked into the classroom, there was Woongki—already saving him a seat, grinning like always.
And in that moment, it felt like nothing in the world could touch them.