My name is Rosa Tanji.
The boy standing in front of me was the new kid in the neighborhood.
Small. Shy.
He looked like he might burst into tears at any moment.
I guessed he was seven or eight—two or three years younger than me.
I was ten.
His hair was light-colored, soft, falling over half of his face, hiding his eyes. Half of his body was hidden too—tucked behind his mother's leg. She looked like a foreign model, tall and elegant, talking endlessly with my mother in front of our house.
If I were the stone of the Lidia neighborhood,
then he was cotton.
Weak. Soft. Easily crushed.
Everyone in the neighborhood called me gloomy, cold, distant.
They always whispered the same thing:
"Mr. and Mrs. Rosa are so friendly… but why is their only daughter like that?"
"She's cute, but she lacks social skills."
"What a shame."
It wasn't like I cared about their comments.
What bothered me…
was him.
The little boy I thought was younger than me turned out to be my age.
And annoyingly, he clung to me.
He had siblings—one older sister, one older brother, and one younger brother.
So why me?
Why didn't he bother them instead?
They moved here when the holidays started.
By the end of the holidays, he had become attached to me like a shadow.
I was enjoying my free time—reading books, singing alone in my room.
That was the best kind of time.
But that boy—Kim Yohan—would always come to my house.
Every day.
He would ask me to play with him.
Every time, I rejected him coldly.
And every time…
he smiled.
Then he would quietly sit in the corner of my room and watch me.
I read.
I sang.
I ignored him.
And he stayed.
I thought he was foolish.
A boy who didn't understand that I wasn't like other kids.
I didn't play together.
I didn't laugh together.
My parents, however, were happy.
To them, his constant visits meant I had finally made a friend.
They didn't know.
I had been quiet since birth, yes—but when I turned three, something changed.
I became extremely cold toward everyone.
Other children cried just by standing near me.
I fought my peers without hesitation.
That was why my parents sent me to learn martial arts.
Not to hurt others—
but to control myself.
I started martial arts at five.
And it worked.
So when Kim Yohan came to our house again and again, my parents smiled with relief.
"She finally made a friend."
They were wrong.
I never thought of him as a friend.
To me,
he was nothing more than a neighborhood puppy—
one I constantly rejected,
and endlessly ignored.