* Seoul, Korea *

"Ugh! Who could be texting me this early?!?" Bom opened her eyes and grabbed her phone to check. It was still a few minutes before 6AM and she didn't have to wake up for work until 8.

Checking the unknown number who sent her the early morning SMS, she opened up her inbox to read it:

From: Unknown Number

Msg: Hi, my name's Choi Seung-hyun.  I'm friends w/ Teddy hyung. He gave me your number & told me a lot of nice things about you. Hope we can be friends... ^_^

"Hhmmm... Teddy oppa, what are you up to now?!?", was Bom's first thought after reading the SMS. "Oh well, no harm in making friends. Let's see..." as she started keying in her reply:

From: Park Bom

Msg: Hello Seung-hyun, nice to "meet" you! My name's Bom but I bet you already know that. Sure, I'd love to be friends. BTW, do you work with Teddy oppa? ^^~

And was the start of their "friendship". 

Bom found out that Seung-hyun works as an X-ray tech in San Francisco, California. Yes, that's a long way from South Korea, where she was. It takes more or less 12 hours to get there on a nonstop flight. Her older brother, Teddy oppa who is in-charge of their family business (managing a chain of Korean minimarts), is actually based in New York but travels a lot all over the USA & Asia. On the other hand, she works as a senior accountant in one of the publishing companies in Seoul.

Seung-hyun was born to a Korean mom and a Caucasian dad. He never knew who he was or what his dad looked like since he was solely raised by his single mom and she never mentioned anything about his dad. He also never asked. When he was 3 years old, his mom sent him to live with her older brother and his family in Busan. That was where he spent his childhood years, growing up with Dong-wook and his sisters. When he turned 13, he went back to live with his mom in Orlando, Florida. After he graduated college, he started working in San Francisco and is currently planning to save up so he could buy a house for him and his mom. He told Bom that's also the reason why he's working 2 shifts at the clinic and in the hospital.

The two started to comfortably exchange text messages as if they've been friends ever since. At first it was the usual getting-to-know-you questions: How old are you? Where do you work? What do you do on your free time? What are your favorites: food, music, books, etc. Stuff like that. They found out that they had a lot of things in common. Both like the same songs, food and TV shows...although Seung-hyun wasn't into books like Bom was.

Gradually, they fell into a pattern...and they chat almost all day, every day. Well, except when they had to go sleep or are busy at work. But, more often than not, they almost always made time to chat.

-*-*-

From: Choi Seung-hyun

Msg: Hey Bommie!  You busy? I'm on my lunchbreak right now... ^_^

Bom rubbed her eyes and double-checked the time on her phone...6:30AM Seoul Time, 1:30PM San Francisco Time. UGH! If it had been anyone else, she would've just ignored the SMS and go back down to sleep. But of course, Seung-hyun was the exception! Because of him, she'd become a "morning person"...well, sort of.

From: Park Bom

Msg: Good morning Seung-hyun! Just woke up... What are you having for lunch? o (^ ▽ ^) o