She poured herself another glass of soju. This was her second bottle now. She sat alone in a small restaurant. She noticed a group of men were looking down her way. Or rather at her crossed legs where her thighs were very visible. She ignored them as if they were annoying flies.

She drank the soju right away. She felt slightly light-headed but not yet drunk. She slammed the glass down on the table and picked up the pair of chopsticks. She stirred the noodles in front of her and started eating. She felt so much bliss the moment the hot noodles touched her tongue. She chewed before gulping down.

A man came to her and sat right in front of her. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. He then made an order; he same with Junghee’s and another bottle of soju. “So, how was it? Isn’t it too early for the date to end?” Jinki asked her.

She rolled her eyes and kept eating her noodles. She chewed and swallowed everything before saying, “The guy’s a bastard.”

Jinki chuckled. “Why is that so?”

“You know what he said?” Jinki shook his head. “He said, ‘I know you didn’t want to be here, I am too. So goodbye.’ He f-king left just like and the food wasn’t even f-king served!” her voice got louder and louder each words. Other customers at the restaurant looked at her before going back to their meal and conversations.

Jinki laughed at her as he found it amusing for her to swear like that. She felt her face flushed when she realized she had just cursed in front of Jinki. But then, thinking back how angry she was.

“Then what did you do?”

“What else? I cancelled the order and left five minutes later.”

Jinki’s food arrived and he started to eat. “Then, it’s become a date between you and me, huh?” he said and she almost choked on her soju but she quick to hide.

She shrugged, trying to ac nonchalant. “Could be.”

He nodded and kept eating.

They had long finished their meal but they stayed there for a very long time. They had spent their time by talking about the past. Their childhood, their teenage life, their universities life.

“I will never forget how you always fell when you run,” Junghee told Jinki and he laughed. He told her how he thought that he had very weak legs, so that’s why he fell a lot. She giggled. “But the weirdest thing was that, whenever you fell and you were injured you got up back and continued playing like nothing happened.”

They laughed hard at that. “I don’t know why but I don’t really feel any pain at all. My parents were really worried that every Saturday they took me to see the doctor just to make sure I was okay,” he said with a laugh.

“Are you a human?” she teased and he said maybe he was an alien.

After their fifth bottle, they decided to stop drinking. The weird thing was that they were still sober. They went quiet after a good laugh. But they were still smiling. They were being surrounded by happy chatters around them. Jinki was watching intently at a table not too far from them. There were five men in their middle 40s drinking, still clad in their suits, seemingly just got home from work. Their briefcases scattered on the floor. Junghee was twirling her glass on the table, loss for word. But actually, in her mind, was racing like mad.

She was thinking on confessing to him. She had long realized that her feelings towards him weren’t just some teenage girl’s crush. She actually loved him. He had been there for her all year when she needed him the most. Though he was there just to talk and comfort she felt special when she was with him.

She took a deep breath and looked up to see him. She was to open before Jinki suddenly interjected.

“Do you still remember Gwiboon?” he asked out of the blue. And when she heard Gwiboon’s name, she felt her heart sunk.

“Uh… yes, of course I do. I see her on the TV every other day,” and she changed the channel every time she did. “Why?”

Jinki scratched his neck. “Well, she’s returning to Korea next week.” That was when she felt her world was crumbling.

“Oh yeah?” she tried to sound excited but she couldn’t. “It was on the news?”

He avoided from looking at her eyes. “I think so… but she called me.”

She bit he lower lip. “She… she did?”

He nodded and said, “She asked me to come and fetch her up at the airport.”

Junghee went still at that. So they were still in contact then. She continued twirling her glass. Jinki talking about Gwiboon did not make her day any better at all. She wished he shut up.

“Do you want to come?” he asked suddenly.

“Excuse me?” she raised her head to see him staring at her.

“Come to fetch her up?”

She scoffed. “No, thanks. She called you and not me. Besides, I don’t think she even remembers me. We met once.” Her face flushed at remembering their last encounter.

“Okay, then,” he said quietly.

Fifteen minutes later, she asked him to send her home. She felt sick all of sudden. She felt suffocating all of sudden. She wanted to go and take good shower and then go to sleep. Somehow, she didn’t want to see his face at all.

The moment he stopped in front of her parents’ house, she got off instantly without saying goodbye or looking back at him. She went straight inside of her house.

When she’s inside, her mother came bombarding her with questions. Like “Was that him?” “How was the date?” “Was he nice?” “Did he like you?” “Do you like him?”

“MOM, STOP!” she couldn’t help it. Her heart was hurting so much and she felt so tired. Her mother stared at her with wide eyes, shocked. Her father had gotten on his feet, shocked as well at his daughter for yelling at her own mother. “Junghee,” he said.

“CAN’T YOU JUST LEAVE ALONE?! I TOLD YOU I DON’T WANT TO GO AND WHY DID KEEP ON PRESSURING ME?” she thought of Jinki holding hands with Gwiboon. “I TOLD YOU I HATE THIS KIND OF THINGS! WHY YOU NEVER LISTEN?” she thought of him smiling down at Gwiboon sweetly. “YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPEN? HE LEFT ME WITHOUT EVEN WAIT FOR THE FOOD TO COME. HE LEFT ME NOT EVEN A MINUTE WE SAT THERE IN THE RESTAURANT!” she thought of how Jinki looked at Gwiboon. “HE LEFT ME AND MADE ME LOOK PATHETIC IN THAT RESTAURANT! I WAS SO EMBARASSED! EVERYONE LOOKED AT ME LIKE HOW PATHETIC I WAS!” she thought of how Jinki had his face on Gwiboon’s neck. “SO PLEASE I BEG YOU NOT TO ASK ME TO DO THIS AGAIN! I HATE IT!”

She furiously wiped her tears and ran up to her room. She locked the door and fell on her bed. She cried for the first time in a very long while. She cried for the time because of man. She cried for the first time because of her heart broken into pieces.

-*-

Junghee avoided her mother the next morning and didn’t stop to have breakfast with her. she just went out of the house without saying goodbye. True, she felt bad. But she was so angry whenever she thought of the humiliation the guy left to her and the news of Gwiboon returning. Couldn’t she just stay and rot in the U.S.?

Today was Saturday, she didn’t have to go to work. She went out in the early morning for her daily jog. She’d jog around her neighbourhood for an hour before returning to her house to change. But today, she jogged for almost two hours. Then she jogged to the city, took a bus and went to her sister’s. She thought she needed someone to talk and Sodam was her last choice.

But when her fiancé was the one who opened the door, she declined the idea right away and left.

She slumped down on a bench in a park. There were a lot of people here. The oldies doing their yogas. Kids running and playing kites. 

Junghee didn’t know what she should be doing now. She was too sad to function. Why can’t Jinki see her like she wanted him to do? Why Gwiboon? Why not her, Kim Junghee? Was she not pretty enough? Oh yeah, his taste was women very high. Models, actresses, athletes… she grimaced at the thought.

-*-

Junghee had been ignoring Jinki’s texts and calls. She was too angry to talk to him. Her relationship with her mother wasn’t even fixed yet. She spent most of her time during the weekend succumbed in the confines of her room. When her father called to eat, she told him she’d eat later. She ate very late at night, after her parents had gone to sleep. 

Jinki had stopped sending messages and stopped calling her after that. On Monday, Junghee did her best to act cold when she met Jinki. Whenever he asked why she treated him like that, she simply said that she was tired and stressed. Junghee had stopped going to the emergency exit stairs.

It went on until Thursday. Jinki had left Junghee alone by then. Their friendship slowly shattered and fell into pieces. Junghee didn’t Jinki that noon. She heard he went out somewhere. Junghee thought maybe he was going to fetch Gwiboon. He said she’s returning somedays in this week. That’s probably today.

Jinki left her alone and stopped bothering her for the next two weeks. In fact, she rarely saw him at the office. When asked, he went out and would return hours later. Junghee wanted to chew the man off for abandoning his work but there was nothing to critic at all as he did his work diligently. Besides, who was she to correct her superior?

Junghee sat with her colleague again in the pantry. They sat rounded around the small table. Mugs of coffee scattered everywhere. There were stains of lipsticks on the mugs. Junghee sat next to the window; she stared down from the high floor she was at. The people down there looked like ants, busy ants going on and about their routine. Junghee wondered where could be each of them heading.

“Do you know that Mr. Lee is dating again?” at the mentioned of Jinki’s name, perked her up. She turned her head slowly to them.

“Ohh… who?” asked one of them.

“The figure skating athlete!” Junghee thought that her world had stopped functioning. Her ears were ringing and blood rushing up to her brain.

“Kim Yuna?!”

“No, of course not! That’d shake the whole Korea. But the miniature of Kim Yuna, Kim Gwiboon!”

Junghee took a very deep shuddering breath. She then excuses herself from the group. When she left the pantry she heard them saying that Gwiboon had confirm it in an interview after being asked who the mysterious guy she had been seeing was.

Junghee sat in her office, looking thunderstruck. She was breathing deeply. She shook her head and picked her handbag. She left her room and stopped by to inform her colleague that she was going home because she’s not feeling very well.

She left the building as fast as she could. Her high heels were starting to her soles. She walked so fast that she bumped to everyone on the sidewalk. She was suffocating. She couldn’t breathe. She suppressed her tears back.

She found a secluded alley and approached it. Her hand found the wall, from stopping her to fall. Her other hand was clutching her hurting chest. She then cried as hard as she could.

-*-

She went home when the night fell. She walked with a numbing mind. She was like a robot having her functioning button to be turned off. She got to her house, went inside and went straight to her room, didn’t even chance a glance at her worried looking parents.

She changed her clothes to pyjamas, washed her face, brushed teeth and lied on her bed. She didn’t even feel any emotion inside her. It was as if someone had shut down her emotion machine, like that Inside Out movie.

She ignored the soft knocks on her door. She ignored the door being opened. And she ignored her father when he walked in and sat on the edge of her bed.

“Junghee,” he called out, but she kept staring at the wall as she was lying on her side. “Are you all right, my girl?”

She hummed softly. Was she all right? No, she was not. In fact, she felt terrible.

“Junghee, listen,” her father said softly. She hummed again. “I know you hate this kind of thing but…”

She closed her eyes. “Dad, please…”

“I know, I know. But it was not another blind date,” she opened her eyes but didn’t turn to look at him. “But rather, it was a proposal.” She turned her head so fast to her father she almost snapped it.

“What?”

Mr Kim took a deep breath. “The man who you went to see three weeks ago, the one that left early, he came to see us and asked our permission to marry you,” her father said softly. She sat up quickly. She saw her mother standing at the doorway, looking extremely cautious.

“What?!” it was as though he button had been pressed ‘On’ again. This was too shocking. Why the hell…?

“I know this is too shocking. Your mother and I were shocked too,” said her father.

“What did you say?”

“We told him that we’ll ask you first,” said her mother after a long time. And Junghee realized how long she hadn’t been listening to her mother’s voice.

Junghee’s father nodded. “We said we’ll let you know first. And he said you can take as long as you wanted, he’ll wait.”

“But why?” she asked. Why the hell that man suddenly asked to marry her? Didn’t he left her and made her feel so cheap?

“We have no idea, sweetheart. But take your time. It is fine of you rejected him,” her mother said, with so much careful as not to hurt Junghee once again.

Junghee sighed and lied back down. Her father took this as a cue to leave her daughter alone. He stood up and left the room with his wife. He closed the door behind him.

Junghee stared blankly at the ceiling in the dark.