Two Quiet Children
The girl was mixed-race.
Her father was Russian, her mother Korean—a child of two worlds.
Born in Korea to parents who worked in trade, she had been raised with Korean as her mother tongue. She grew up in an ordinary environment, living an ordinary life.
And yet something always followed her.
Gazes.
Wherever she went, eyes trailed after her. Stares drawn to her unusual appearance clung to her without end.
I'm sick of this.
By the time she entered kindergarten, the girl had no friends. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with her personality. She wasn't the type to approach others first, but she was even less the type to push away anyone who came near. It was simply that the other children never approached her.
They would call her pretty because of her striking looks, yet they had no intention of becoming friends. Kindergarteners, after all, found it hard to accept differences in others. Among a sea of black-haired children, she alone had silver hair. That alone was enough to make them recoil.
The girl didn't particularly mind. She had never even thought of herself as lonely. By nature she wasn't someone who paid much attention to others. Or rather, she was indifferent to almost everything. In her short seven years of life, she had never once approached anything with passion or will. That temperament protected her from being hurt by the situation, but it also kept her from escaping it.
It was the same in her final year of kindergarten.
Scritch—
Scratch—
The girl set her sketchbook on the floor and drew with her pencil. Drawing was her only hobby. Inside her pictures she could do and create whatever she wanted. The greatest advantage was that it was something she could do alone—and that was what drew her most. She never grew tired of drawing, no matter how much she did it. So she spent most of her time in kindergarten with a pencil in hand. When she drew, time passed quickly and she enjoyed it.
Today would have been no different.
Until a boy appeared.
"What's your name?"
His hair was untidy yet glossy. Obsidian-like pupils and sharp-looking eyes. His face had delicate lines, but for a kindergartener his frame was already well-built. With an expressionless yet somehow flushed face, the boy asked the girl.
"....?"
She tilted her head in confusion. In all her time at kindergarten, no one had ever approached her wearing that kind of expression. Having barely spoken to children her own age, she had no idea how to respond.
"....?"
"....?"
When the girl gave no answer, the boy also tilted his head and stared at her. Two expressionless children—boy and girl—simply gazed at each other in silence for a long while. Around the time the kindergarten teacher nearby began looking puzzled at the pair, the boy opened his mouth again as if realizing something.
"Ah, I should say my name first."
"...."
"My name is Baek Sihyun."
Baek Sihyun.
So that was his name. Baek Sihyun, Baek Sihyun, Baek Sihyun. For reasons she didn't understand, the name lodged itself firmly in the girl's head. She didn't know why...
And then silence returned once more.
"...Is this not it...?"
"...Ah."
When she still said nothing even after he gave his name, the boy looked at her in fresh confusion. And the girl realized she needed to say her name too. Looking back on it later, it was the first time she had ever thought of introducing herself to a peer. She spoke her name.
"Riya."
"Riya?"
"Abreliya Kairon."
Abreliya. Abreliya Kairon. That was the girl's name. At the sound of it, Sihyun smiled very faintly.
"It's pretty."
"...Pretty?"
"Your name. It's really pretty."
She had been told she was pretty. She had heard the word many times before... but this time the feeling was different. A strange, ticklish sensation stirred somewhere deep in her chest. How was she supposed to answer in a moment like this? After a brief hesitation, the girl—no, Riya—opened her mouth as well.
"You're cool too."
"...My name?"
"Yeah, your name. Sihyun... it's nice to say."
Riya liked Sihyun's name. Even now she didn't know why, but just like the first time she had picked up a pencil, it made her feel good.
Then Sihyun looked at the picture she had been drawing—a landscape sketched in pencil on white paper.
"You're good at drawing..."
His words weren't empty praise. Even to someone who could judge skill, Riya drew remarkably well. It was nowhere near kindergarten level. At the very least it looked like middle-school work. Yet while admiring her ability, Sihyun studied the scenery more closely. The landscape she had drawn was one he knew as well.
"Kindergarten."
"You drew the kindergarten?"
"Yeah."
The view of the kindergarten she was looking at. When drawing, it was the thing she saw most often—and therefore the easiest to capture. Though there were no people in the scene, the interior was rendered with striking care. Even if the lines were not yet fully clear, everything that belonged was exactly where it should be.
"I'm not... done drawing yet."
Riya moved her hand again, the one already stained with graphite from the smudged pencil. The dark smudges stood out sharply against her pure white skin, but she paid them no mind.
"...."
Sihyun watched her for a moment, then quietly sat down beside her. There were no words between them. Neither of them particularly liked talking, and neither found a quiet atmosphere hard to bear. Rather, they preferred this kind of silence—quietly being together. So Sihyun sat in silence at her side, and until kindergarten ended he simply watched her draw.
A few days slipped by.
For roughly three days the two exchanged very few words. Whenever Riya was drawing, Sihyun would simply come sit beside her and watch. The occasional conversations they shared never lasted more than four exchanges. At a glance it almost looked as if they had no interest in each other at all.
"What should we do...? If Sihyun ends up drifting away from Riya like that, it'll be a real problem..."
"I'm worried about Sihyun too. Neither of them can get along with the other kids..."
Both Riya and Sihyun were sources of quiet concern for the kindergarten teachers. Two children on the outskirts. Neither had friends, and neither showed any desire to make any. Even if it wasn't a crisis now, the gap in their social lives would only grow more obvious as they got older. Sihyun had begun approaching Riya a few days earlier, yet the two still hadn't managed a proper conversation. The teachers fretted, never knowing when he might grow bored and leave.
Of course Sihyun had no intention of leaving.
This is nice.
Rather, he liked this moderate distance. Just being quietly at Riya's side was enough to make him feel good. Simply sitting next to her—who shone so brilliantly—was enough. He still felt exactly the same way he had the first time he saw her. That was why he cleared the confusion from his heart and looked at her.
Moreover, even if she never said it aloud, Riya was clearly aware of him. She showed it more through actions than words.
"Here... eat this."
"Meat?"
"Yeah... don't you like it?"
"I like it."
"That's a relief..."
At lunch she deliberately sat next to him and even gave him the side dishes he liked.
Is this the right way to do it...?
It was Riya's own way of showing fondness. For a girl who had never properly expressed gratitude or goodwill to anyone before, it was an enormous gesture. She was putting real effort into showing kindness simply because she had glanced at him beside her.
In any case, the only time the two were apart during kindergarten was nap time. More precisely, Sihyun took naps and Riya did not.
This body... isn't efficient.
Maybe it was because he was using his head inside such a young body. The moment nap time arrived, drowsiness would rush in like a ghost and drag his eyelids down. So the nap was unavoidable.
Now that nap time was nearly upon them and sleep was already creeping in, Riya—who had been drawing for the first time in a while—suddenly spoke.
"Sihyun... are you going to take a nap..?"
"Yeah, I'm sleepy."
"Uuum..."
With that she stopped her drawing hand as if thinking something over. Not long after, nap time arrived.
Sihyun's spot was in the corner. Getting kicked around while mixed in with the other kids had never been a pleasant experience. With a slightly drowsy mind he slipped under the blanket and was about to sleep when—
"...?"
Someone squeezed into the blanket he was under. Lifting his heavy eyes, he saw the pure white silver hair and clear blue eyes he had been looking at for days.
"Riya...?"
Since she had never once taken a nap, the sight was quite puzzling. And unlike Sihyun, who looked ready to drop off any second, Riya's eyes were perfectly clear.
"Sleep together..."
"Together...?"
"Yeah, don't leave me...."
Saying so, she reached out and took hold of his arm. She clutched it tightly with both small hands as if she would never let go. The next moment her eyes turned anxious as she looked at him. Because her face was usually so expressionless, you wouldn't notice unless you watched carefully. She herself didn't know why she felt uneasy. She didn't even know that the feeling was anxiety. It was simply that Sihyun—who had now taken root as fondness in her heart—was no longer something she could remain indifferent to.
"Do you hate it...?"
She asked, gripping his arm even tighter. At that, Sihyun took hold of her arm in return and answered. Even half-asleep, the words came from his true feelings, so the meaning reached her unchanged.
"I don't hate it..."
"....Really..?"
"Yeah... I like it..."
With those words Sihyun closed his eyes and drifted off. Riya watched him for a long while, then wrapped both hands around his arm and closed her eyes as well.