The Fallen Angel of Hanbit Playground

Yoon Dae-eon’s face began to sour rapidly. There was no way he could forget. Hanbit Playground, the Truth Ring, and a marriage proposal. They were all pieces of a memory tucked away in a dusty corner of his mind.

It was, after all, exactly fifteen years ago.

———————————

‘Mom! I’m going to the playground!’

‘Dae-eon, wear your mittens!’

‘Noooo! Then I won’t be able to see my ring!’

He was so young back then that the memory was hazy. On a biting winter day with snow falling, a young Dae-eon had bolted to the apartment playground right after lunch. Usually, the place was crawling with kids his age and even older kids, so his mother often let him go alone.

‘Come back early! We have to clean your room when Dad gets home!’

‘I’ll be back!’

Back then, neighbors were close. Dae-eon, who was missing his front teeth because they had fallen out earlier than his peers’, arrived at the playground with a toothless grin. But for some reason, his usual friends were nowhere to be found.

The heavy snowfall from the previous night must have kept them inside. The grin on Dae-eon’s face curled into a pout. He had been so excited to play in the snow.

‘What the heck? No one’s here. Hey! Park Jung-woo! Lee Min-jun! Kim Min-suuuu!’

‘…….’

No matter how loudly he called, only the whistling wind answered. Feeling a sudden pang of loneliness, tears began to well up in his eyes. That’s when he saw it.

‘Oh? A friend!’

There was a girl sitting on a swing in the middle of the empty playground. To a five-year-old Dae-eon, anyone met at a playground was a friend. His face lit up instantly as he dashed toward her.

‘Hi!’

‘…….’

She was incredibly quiet. Her hair was neatly braided, and she was very pretty, but she just sat there. She didn’t pump her legs to fly through the air; she just remained still. Dae-eon, undeterred, kept talking.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘…….’

‘How old are you? Sniff. Is this your first time at Hanbit Playground?’

‘…….’

Despite the barrage of questions, she kept her mouth shut, her pale face staring back at him. Dae-eon eventually stuck out his lip. He didn’t want to play with someone boring who wouldn’t talk.

Just then, she opened her mouth.

‘……Came here…….’

‘Huh? You just talked! You said something! What was it?’

Dae-eon’s face brightened again. His frozen lips moved rapidly in excitement. He was so happy the quiet child had finally spoken.

‘……Um, I came here…….’

‘Whaaat? I can’t hear youuuu!’

Thinking she was quiet because she couldn’t hear him, Dae-eon cupped his tiny hands around his mouth like a megaphone and shouted. But her voice remained a whisper.

‘……First time…….’

‘First time? First time at Hanbit Playground? Yeah, it’s my first time seeing you, too!’

Dae-eon scratched his head with a giggle. Having no siblings, he spent every day at the playground and knew almost every kid’s face.

But this was a girl he had never seen before.

‘…….’

‘Want me to push you on the swing?’

‘…….’

‘No? Why? Are you scared of swings?’

The girl shook her head instead of answering, but Dae-eon just kept laughing.

‘They’re not scary at all! I’ll show you!’

With an ‘Oof!’, Dae-eon climbed onto the empty swing next to her. Pumping a swing wasn’t hard for a five-year-old—though he didn’t get to do it often since the older kids usually hogged them.

‘Like thiiiiiis!’

He kicked his short legs furiously, trying to get the heavy swing moving. Since the recommended age for the swings was seven or eight, his tiny backside didn’t quite have the leverage.

Naturally, he fell.

Thud. Dae-eon face-planted into the snow. It was that slushy kind of snow mixed with dirt, so it wasn’t even soft. The girl watched him in breathless silence.

Suddenly, Dae-eon sprang up. He threw his arms into the air in a ‘V’ for victory.

‘I’m okay!’

‘…….’

‘I’m okay!’

His face was a mess of dirt and redness, but he shouted the phrase three times without a care. It was the magic spell his mother had taught him for whenever he fell.

‘……Pffft.’

‘Huh?’

Dae-eon whipped his head around at the sound of the small giggle. And there he saw it. The smile of an angel.

Yoon Dae-eon wasn’t religious—he only went to temples for the free food on Buddha’s Birthday and ate eggs on Easter—but in that moment, he believed in angels.

It was a beautiful, truly beautiful smile.

‘Whoa! You’re really pretty! I think I fell in love at first sight!’

‘…….’

‘Will you marry me?!’

And just like that, he proposed. He even pulled off the Truth Ring he had been wearing—a trinket an elementary schooler had given him a few days prior after a “breakup.”

Dae-eon shoved the ring onto her thin, white finger.

‘Whoa! It’s purple!’

‘……Waaah…….’

‘Ji-hoon said purple means love! Whoa, I guess I love you!’

He had been wearing that Truth Ring for days, but it had never turned purple, even though he loved his mom and dad more than anything. He hadn’t actually believed in its power.

But in that moment, it turned purple. From that day on, Dae-eon firmly believed he loved his angel.

In his memories, that child was always an angel, and as he grew older, she became a beautiful girl. Eventually, the memory faded.

That’s why he never knew. He never knew how long that angel had kept wearing that Truth Ring. He didn’t know she wore it while bathing, while sleeping, or how she sobbed in the ER when her hand swelled up from a metal allergy because she refused to take it off.

He didn’t know that his “angel” had grown up with a pathological obsession with keeping things.

Dae-eon, the one who gave the ring, was the only one who didn’t know. Because that day, he had gone home and moved away shortly after, completely forgetting the face of the angel he had proposed to.

————-(Back to the present.)———-

“I said… I loved you. I definitely said that.”

“A-Ah, Senior. Who remembers a confession from when they were five? That’s a total cringe memory. I bet she kicks her blankets every time she thinks about it.”

Actually, he had kicked them quite often. After witnessing the angel, five-year-old Dae-eon had become the kindergarten playboy, telling every pretty girl he saw that he loved them. He acted so devoted to every pretty girl that his teacher had even called his mother about it.

“……Why? I fell in love… at first sight……”

“Honestly, how many couples actually get married after falling in love at first sight? They say first loves never come true……”

Dae-eon’s voice trailed off. Seon Ji-ha’s face had darkened, looking as if a storm cloud had settled over him. He had to change the subject, fast.

“But I believe in them! First loves!”

“……Who was Dae-eon’s first love?”

“Me? I……”

Dae-eon didn’t notice, but Seon Ji-ha’s gaze turned bone-chillingly cold. First loves were incredibly important to Seon Ji-ha. His long-standing dream was for his partner to also have him as their first love.

‘Hmm.’

Meanwhile, Dae-eon rubbed his chin in thought. First love. First love. Who was it?

Was it the Omega model in the magazine from his first dream in middle school? Or the math tutor who first made him actually want to study? Or maybe…

“I don’t think I have one.”

“You… don’t have a first love?”

“Yeah. Not yet? I haven’t met someone I want to love.”

A first love. Or someone he wanted to love. If there was one, it was definitely…

“Someone you want to love……?”

“I have a very firm ‘ideal type,’ you see.”

“……And what is it?……”

At this, Seon Ji-ha’s face filled with curiosity. His shoulders lifted slightly with a faint sense of expectation. If he heard the ideal type, he was more than willing to mold himself into it.

Seeing this, the corners of Dae-eon’s mouth quirked up. A mischievous glint appeared in his eyes—the kind his school friends usually recognized right before he said something unhinged.

“A Beta.”

The lunatic was talking nonsense again.