Today, I thought of you. Even after swallowing cold, sweet ice cream, the sugary lingering scent remains in my mouth, just as it remains in my head. Your voice rings like tinnitus and your image is vivid before my eyes, as beautiful as watching a film. If this emotion is called love, I cannot deny it, yet I could not bring myself to speak it before you, for I fear you might abandon me again. To think that my tower, which I precariously rebuilt after I was broken down to the floor that day, could be toppled by a single cold word from you—it makes my body tremble with fear. On this summer day where the cicadas buzz annoyingly in one's ears, I wish to remain with only you in the sunset-drenched classroom, exchanging trivial jokes and trying to smile. Will the day this wish comes true ever arrive? Actually, it is fine even if such a day does not come. I know well enough that it is too great a greed; rather, it is enough if I can simply remain by your side. I remember how I was almost faint with joy at a single message you sent on a cold winter day. And I vividly remember crying sorrowfully like a child at a single word you spat out three days later. My behavior that day was quite shameful, but I thought perhaps it was fine, as it reflected my heart that loved you so dearly. I could not throw away my broken heart, so I gathered the shards and stuck them back together somehow. Your behavior lately is strange; you smile when you see me and always approach me first. I hate yet love how you touch me playfully and whisper in my ear. You, who tramples me so miserably and then tries to raise me up again, seem so cruel that I hate you. My friends tell me that you also harbor feelings for me, but I cannot believe it. Since you were the one who first told me you liked me back then, how could I trust you again? It might just be a foolish delusion of my friends and myself, but I am not of a temperament to shake things away so easily. Even if it is ice cream that has completely melted, soaking the stick and dripping onto the floor with a sickeningly sweet smell, I am the one who will crouch beside it as if I will stay forever. Even if I am such a foolish person, if you would but smile, I will willingly choose to live foolishly. My heart circles back and is made of you; no matter which path I take, the destination is always in front of you. Where else could there be such a stupid cycle? Therefore, my eternity, my Hwayangyeonhwa. Please, do not leave me.

··· What is the reason you keep clinging to me so? If you have come to whine, then go back. It is quite bothersome, so there is no reason for me to keep indulging your tantrums, is there?

Even as I say this, I look so foolish as I slowly creep closer toward you.