The First Meeting of the Four

It was back in elementary school when I transferred to that school.

Moving suddenly from another region meant my school and my neighborhood all changed. A classroom I'd never seen, a teacher I'd never seen, kids I'd never seen.

Everything was unfamiliar.

Kids were already hanging out with their own close friends. They naturally gathered during breaks, and they already had people to eat lunch with.

I didn't know how to squeeze in between them.

So at first, I spent a lot of time alone.

I ate lunch quietly, and during breaks, I read books at my desk or stared blankly out the window. It would be a lie to say I wasn't lonely, but I didn't have the courage to approach anyone first.

That's when three boys caught my eye.

Lim Yuchan, Jung Kang-i, and Bae Seong-je.

The three of them were already very close.

They were always attached to each other, spent breaks together, and naturally moved as a group when school ended.

Their personalities were quite different.

Jung Kang-i was loud and active. He was a kid who stood out immediately no matter where he was in the classroom, and he talked to strangers without hesitation.

Seong-je was calmer. He tended to look out for others, so he'd notice first and help me if I was having trouble.

Yuchan was a bit different.

He wasn't very talkative, and he didn't show any special interest in me from the start. In fact, he seemed the most indifferent among the three.

Then one day, Jung Kang-i spoke to me first.

That was the beginning.

At first, it was really nothing special. We ate lunch together, and we played during breaks.

Seong-je taught me various things to help me adjust to school, and Kang-i kept dragging me around so I wouldn't have a moment to be alone. Yuchan watched silently but naturally accepted me into their circle.

At some point, being with the three of them became a given.

First, it was just one lunch break.

Then we were together during breaks, and soon we were together from the moment we arrived at school until we left. we played after school, and we started meeting outside of school too.

It was a strange thing. No one had ever asked me to be their friend.

I had never asked the three of them if we were friends now, either.

We just spent every day together, and at some point, that's just how it was.

I wasn't alone anymore.

I eventually got used to the new school.

The classroom that felt so alien now had a place for me to sit, and I had a place to naturally go during lunch.

And the three of them were always in that spot.

Kang-i was the friend who first reached out so I could fit in,

Seong-je was the friend who quietly looked after me whenever I was struggling,

And Yuchan, though not very expressive, was always by our side.

That's how we grew up together.

Elementary school ended, we went to middle school, and then we entered high school.

As time passed, we learned more about each other.

We knew each other's families, what we liked, and what we hated. We became close enough to sense who was in a bad mood or what someone was thinking without having to ask.

When we were young, I just thought of them as friends I played with every day.

But looking back now, I think the three of them had already become too deeply rooted in my daily life since then.

At some point, it felt weird if even one of the three was missing. It only felt natural when there were four of us, including me.

Looking back, it was a really trivial start.

One person approached a kid who had transferred alone to a strange school, and two others naturally settled by their side.

But I didn't know that small encounter would turn into such a long-standing relationship over the years.

I didn't know back then.

How long those three who approached me first would stay by my side.

And how much of a given we would become to each other.

Just that after that day,

I was no longer alone.

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ