Transition - Chapter One

Chapter One - Friends
Transition

❝ No man is an island.

Be patient, and you'll see that a friend will come to keep you company through thick and thin.❞

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★30th of May, 1999

The sounds of happy kids chattering around, shouting, playing with each other in the school's courtyard was an unmistakeable sound to the ears of the passer-bys. The 3rd graders of Seoul National University are spending their free time quite happily under the nice, cloudy sky while their older sunbaes are in their classrooms studying away.
On this particular day, Choi Sooyoung, age nine, decided to make a new friend.
It was the girl who was hiding behind the maple tree who was crying because of their bully classmates.
It was Im Yoona.

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Choi Sooyoung walked around the perimeter of the school's courtyard, bored. She forgot to bring her book with her today, she can't go to the music room to practice the viola, and she's not in the mood to play soccer with her team mates. So she resorted to the first thing she thought of: Walking.
Of course, when walking alone, one couldn't expect to be entertained, and this was the young Choi's current dillemma.
Kicking a piece of pebble on the road, she starts thinking of things she could do before starting to hear a sound.
Looking around her, she sees no one in the vicinity who are making those noises that sounds like....sobs?
She walks around, trying to find the source of the sobs when she came on the school's smallest maple tree.
'There's no one here... I still hear someone sobbing though. I wonder..' following her instincts, she went behind a tree and saw a girl hugging her legs as she leaned on the tree's trunk, her uniform dirtied.
Almost immediately, she crouched behind the girl and patted her softly to announce her presence.
"Hey." she said, and the girl lifted her head up to look at her, a startled look in her eyes. Not to mention the trail of tears cascading down her cheeks.
"Are-are you alright?" she asked, blinking at the girl. The girl widened her eyes but nodded, slowly inching away from her.
"Hey, who did this to you?" she saw a scrape on the girl's knee. "Omona! You have a wound! We should bring you to the clinic. Who did this to you?" The girl started crying again as Sooyoung tugged on her hand to make her stand up.
"Hey.. hey, don't cry. " Sooyoung tried to console her "Hey, was it those immature bullies?" She saw her react. "I knew it...... Those guys who can't pick on their own size! " the girl was wide-eyed at her statement. "What? It's the truth." She saw the girl relax a little bit and let herself get pulled up.
"Can you stand properly?" the girl nodded. "Okay, I'm taking you to the clinic, okay~?" she nodded again, and Sooyoung started leading her back into the building.
"Oh, and by the way, my name's Choi Sooyoung. From now on, I'll be your friend. You can't complain~! Don't worry~ I'll save you from those awful bullies!" She grinned at her, a sincere look in her eyes.
She could see the girl almost bursting into tears once more at her declaration.

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❝ I'm going to be your friend and you're going to be mine.

I'll hear out your problems, give you advice, and you do the same to me.

No matter what happens, there'll be you and I, us, and never just me.

Oh, and by the way, did I say that my name is Choi Sooyoung? c:❞