The girl’s name was Yeo-reum (meaning summer). Without a mother, she was left to the hands of her aunt. She always set on the corner of the courtyard, doing nothing, without anyone taking care of her. Seven year old Yeo-reum turned on and off like a flicker. Without a reason she cried, laughed, stayed silent, and talked. Because she did not have a mother, people saw her as if she is a broken traffic light. Then, like a sudden blow, a young woman and Yeo-reum’s father reappear in her life. “She is very shy.” Yeo-reum tries to object to her father’s words, but stops. She herself is the most efficient weapon, her father’s only weak point. As if she doesn’t need his pity, Yeo-reum stops reacting, acting as if nothing bothered her. “Call me mom.” The young woman says. According to her aunt, the woman is not even a bit sophisticated. That was how it all started. Summer with step mom and dad.

“Shall we walk home together?” is the first words that come out when you decide to be true friends. Ruby was officially the first friend Yeo-reum met at school. Ruby asked and Yeo-reum said yes. From then on, the two girls became inseparable. It’s hard to remember, but how strong is the bond between “first friends”! Ruby dominates Yeo-reum, and Yeo-reum infiltrates Ruby. Yeo-reum wrote a lot of things on paper and Ruby spent a lot of time reading the paper. They sat together on the floor, always reading, writing, talking, and hearing things. About the firsts the world presented to them, or the firsts the world hid from them. Sadness, death, memory, past, bad things, vulgar things, good things, faith, betrayal, strangers, love…all the things like that.

Time also passes for children. At ten, they are kids but not kids at all, and their imaginations outspread and flutter. At eleven, they crawl out of their dusty blanket with a sneeze, and at twelve, she
loses Ruby. Not due to anxiety or jealousy. Not because of Ruby’s strongly built lies. Yeo-reum had a lot of friends, but Ruby had only Yeo-reum. Maybe it was because Yeo-reum turned a blind eye to the secret loneliness and melancholy that long existed for Ruby. In the end, Ruby leaves. Yeo-reum belatedly realizes that this was her “first” love, and that Ruby has also taught her a “first” good-bye.
Was it the same for Ruby?

Park Yeon-jun
won JoongAng New Writer Award in 2004 with poetry “Give me ice” and made her literary debut. She published numerous poetry collections such as The Scream that Eyelashes Let Out, Night, Rain, Snake, and essay Disturbance, Certain Month Certain Day, Life Takes a Strange Flow
and many more. Summer, Ruby is her first novel.