Junghee’s senior year wasn’t that great but it wasn’t that bad either. In conclusion, she had a nice year; everything had its own ups and downs. She was confident of herself that her university entrance exam result would turn well. She had studied all day and all night long. She didn’t know what she’d do if she wasn’t accepted in any university she applied.

In her very last few days in high school, all of sudden boys took interest in her. They came to see her in the hallways, cafeteria, class and the school ground, asking for her phone number. She didn’t know where this coming from was but she refused as she told them, ‘My mother keep hold of my cellphone at night.’ They knew she was lying but they left her alone because they knew how Junghee’s mother was.

In the long break before the result from any universities come, she decided to work. She found a vacancy at a mall and worked as a promoter in the fragrance section. She was clad in a black uniform, a scarf tied on her neck, her hair was tied in a small buns. She looked very beautiful.

She was amongst the beautiful employees at the mall. More than often, the male workers came to ask her out but she rejected them saying she was still a minor compared to them who were mostly above 25. Afraid of being report to, they left her alone.

She had stop thinking about Jinki by then. Maybe it was because she hadn’t see him around that she forgotten about him altogether. The last time she heard anything about him that was he had been accepted to one of the prestige universities and was studying business. She thought he was going to do medicine because he looked like someone who’d do medicine. It was such big news in her neighbourhood because they were from the same place. The old ladies were very proud of him.

And now they were eyeing Junghee and waited if Junghee might follow Jinki’s footsteps or not.

-*-

A letter from a university arrived four months later and she was accepted into an all-female university. She was more than happy. Her parents were even more proud of her. They celebrated for her all week.

Three weeks later, she was all but prepared to go to her university and start a new life there as a university student and as an adult. On her last day at home, her mother had tears in her eyes because she was sad on separating with her second daughter. Sodam had long gone to live away at a rented house with a few friends of hers because much closer to their university. She was in her third year now.

“Mom, I told you I’ll be staying at the dorm for only a year. Then I promise I come back here,” she said to assure her mother. But Mrs Kim wasn’t having any of it. She had to let Sodam go a long time ago and now she had to let Junghee go. How could accept this? Even a year felt so long.

Junghee hugged her mother. “Mom, it’s not like I’m going out of country. We can still visit each other. The distance from the university and the house isn’t that far.” She kissed her mother’s cheek.

“I know, but you’re my baby and I cannot let you go,” sobbed her mother. Junghee was so touched that she started to cry too. Her father watched in amusement at the touching scene between a mother and daughter.

-*-

Junghee loved her new life in the university so much. People here were so nice and the seniors welcome the new students with so much warmth. Junghee thought it was the fact that they were all females and they were nice to each other. But that didn’t mean there won’t be any negative attitude. She shuddered at the thought the females getting mad at her for no reason and started to attack her. She hoped they were not like that.

Needless to say, the first few months went well for her. There were nobody to press her and made her stressed. They went along so well.

-*-

The university would hold a festival every year to raise fund for charity and for the benefits of the clubs and societies in the universty. At the event, the students could sell anything they wanted such as clothes, arts and food. Anything but themselves – as what to their favourite Mr. Park had teased, this received a loud ‘boo’ from the girls for his lame joke.

Junghee was in the student council and it had been decided that they’d be selling pastries because the majority of the girls in the society liked baking. Junghee, being bad in cooking, agreed to handle their booth. She’d be selling the pastries with a few others.

At the festival, it was held grandly and outsiders were invited to come. Junghee had invited her parents and sister and told them to bring their friends along, if her mother can, bring the whole neighbourhood along.

Among her friends, they were mostly excited because this festival meant that boys will come too. Junghee thought how weird of them to get this excited as if they hadn’t met boys forever. Didn’t they have Mr. Park, the old philosophy professor?

On the day of the festival, the pastries received good feedbacks as they were sold out instantly. Junghee had bought a pie and it was so delicious she thought of buying the whole tray.

Her duty wasn’t as the cashier but making sure the pastries didn’t run out. So, most of the time, she had to run from the cooking classroom to retrieve new stock and ran back to the booth. It was tiring but still satisfying. At least she got to run no matter how stinks she might smell afterwards.

She was just stacking boxes at the back when she heard her friend welcoming a new customer. 

“Hello, sir, would you like some pie or bread?” she sounded a bit nervous, Junghee thought while taking out the pies and buns.

Junghee took the new tray of pies and arranged them on the counter without looking at the customer and her friend.

“Junghee?” the customer said. She stopped her hand. “Kim Junghee, is that you?” she looked up and saw Jinki was standing right before her. He beamed at her. “Oh, it is you!” 

She gaped at him before bowing and said, “Senior Jinki… I… I didn’t expect… to see you here…”

He smiled at her kindly.

Jinki ended up helping her getting the pastries stock. “My friends had gone to hit on some girls so I broke off from the group,” he said while putting down the tray on the table. She felt her face flushed and hot because her seniors and friends were teasing her about having her boyfriend helping her out.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” she told them off but they all laughed at him, even Jinki.

“Ah… you should join them. There are a lot of beautiful girls here,” said Junghee sarcastically. “Or were you afraid Gwiboon might find out?” she teased. She still remembered his girlfriend. A rising star in the figure skating, Kim Gwiboon.

Junghee noticed Jinki’s face turned crestfallen. She bit her lips. “I’m sorry… I…”

Jinki smiled. “It’s okay. It wasn’t that serious anyway, our relationship. Just some teenagers love?”

Junghee nodded. She didn’t know what she should be feeling about this. “How is she anyway?”

“She went to the U.S. apparently she got a better coach there,” Jinki said with a shrug. Then he changed the subject.

About fifteen minutes later, some boys were calling out for Jinki at a distance. Jinki turned and he waved at them. He turned back to Junghee. “Junghee, can I have your phone number? So we could keep in contact,” said Jinki, handing out his phone. Junghee felt like hiding herself in a hole because at the corner of her eyes she saw her friends supressing a squeal.

She took it and put her number. She dialled it and cut the line after her phone rang, she then hand the phone back to its owner. Jinki said thanks, he said he’d text her first and he left. The soon he was gone from the booth, her friend came attacking her with questions, excited.

-*-

That night, Junghee waited with anticipation for Jinki’s message. But because she was so tired, she fell asleep instantly.

The next morning, the first thing she did after she opened her eyes was to check her phone to see any messages she missed. There was a few from her mother, sister and her old best friends but none of them were from Jinki. She pouted. Did he somehow have forgotten about her again like he did years ago?

But then… he said he still remembered the incident. Didn’t he have told about it to his girlfriend back then?

She scowled at her phone, shut the flip and went to shower.

-*-

It had been exactly a month since she met Jinki and it was confirmed that he had forgotten about her because he still hadn’t text her. She was so angry at herself for waiting for his text. Like who was he? She thought of deleting his number from her phone but her guts told her not to. She groaned dramatically and changed his name from ‘Senior Jinki’ to ‘who the hell is this? Don’t reply’.

On her semester holiday, Junghee went back to her parents’ house as her mother told her she missed Junghee so much. And Sodam would be there too, Junghee missed her sister so much.

The night she returned home, she received a call from her old friend from high school and she told Junghee that the girls wanted to meet because it had been so long since they last met. She told Junghee she missed her and the other girls so much. Junghee agreed to meet them.

 Junghee wore a peach shirt and put on a cardigan over the shirt, the shirt, she tucked in her pleated skirt. Her mother was marvelling on how beautiful her daughter was and she should get married now. Junghee rolled her eyes and bid her mother goodbye before she started on how Sodam should get married too.

She walked down the hill, she was almost going to skip but thinking of the heels she was wearing, she declined the intention. She was to turn left at the same corner she bumped with Jinki and she walked in on to him with his girlfriend but stopped abruptly as she almost bumped into someone. She made mental note to remember not to walk closer to the high stone wall along the road and instead walked further than it.

Junghee’s eyes went wide when she saw Jinki was standing in front of her, mirroring her expression. Then he chuckled. “This is the second time we bumped to each other here,” he said, amused.

Junghee, who was thinking of hating him, got flushed and nodded sheepishly. “Yeah… weird…” she looked down at his hands and saw plastic bags. He seemed to be coming back from the shop.

“You’re going somewhere?” he asked her. She looked up to his eyes. His eyes crinkled into two crescents. 

She nodded. “Yeah… I’m meeting my friends from high school,” she said curtly. She wanted to leave quickly. She felt very awkward with him.

They went quiet before Junghee cut the silence off. “I think I should go now. bye.” Before he could say anything, Junghee dashed off as quickly as her heels could take her.

She thought – while in the bus – that she should’ve chewed him off for making her wait for his text and stop making her like a cheap woman. She was disappointed and angry when she saw how he acted as though nothing happened like every time he bled and fell.

“B-stard,” she muttered. The old woman on her right gave her a look.

-*-

On her second year, she went back to live with her parents and her mother was happy to have her back but it didn’t last long until she started to bother her again. She asked Junghee to do this and that and asked her questions every time she came home late. Junghee would think on moving out and live with her sister but after her father talked to her mother, she left Junghee alone. She didn’t meet Jinki since the last time she saw him before she went out with her friends.

Junghee graduated her studies two years later. She graduated with another good result and she was again confident any company should accept her. She was a qualified architect now. She was proud of herself.

-**-

She was 23 years old when she was accepted to work at an architectural company. It was a very well-known company by the way. She was so happy and proud that she passed the internship program where the competition was so tight.

On her first year of working, she didn’t do much but doing documents and forms. It was on her second year that she was finally able to participate in important projects. Her seniors admired her abilities and talents that they left her a big project on designing a mall.

Her life started there and it went better. She was seeing bright light guiding her path and she was sure she wouldn’t trip and fall. She was confident nothing could ever bring her down. She was a very successful woman now.

But little did she know, when there’s happiness there would also be sadness, light and dark.

She started to date when she was 25 years old. The man was from another company she met once while they were on a working trip in Jeju Island. He was a nice man. He treated Junghee like a princess. Junghee thought he was the love of her life now. He had even met her parents and got their blessings. She had forgotten about Jinki altogether again as she hadn’t meet him for years.

A year after of them being together, he had the guts to ask her to live with him. It was such a big decision but she agreed. Her mother opposed to it so much and told them that they should get married instead. But Junghee told her mother she wasn’t ready for that yet. She was still young.

The two of them lived together for two years before she moved again after she learned that he was seeing someone else behind her back. The woman was from his work and from what Junghee saw – she saw them eating merrily and disgustingly lovey-dovey at a fancy restaurant he never took her at – the woman was a few years younger than Junghee. 

When he was not home one day, she packed her things and sent them back to her parents’ house. Before she left the apartment she had lived with man and devoted all herself to, she wrecked it as she was releasing her anger to it. She broke the vase, the coffee table, the mirror, the cupboards, ruined the sofas and everything. It was lucky she refrained herself from burning the apartment down.

“I always knew he wasn’t for you the moment you told me he asked you to live with him,” said her mother while hugging her daughter on Junghee’s bed. She was wrapped tightly in her blanket. Surprisingly, Junghee didn’t cry or anything like every person did after they broke up. She was not sad, she was angry.

--

AN: sorry if it isn't good ;-;