"Why are you looking at me like that?"

You lift your head up to look into the dark eyes of the girl in front of you.

"I'm not", you say, cause, let's face it, you would never admit to anything like this.

"Yes, you are." You didn't expect the demanding tone. You didn't expect her to look at you like that.

Really, you expected her to go away.

"Well, what is 'like that'?" You ask with a sigh. You feel redness creeping up on your cheeks, as the childishness in your voice embarrasses you. You're starting to get defensive, and you're not sure why.

She's standing beside your table, and as you reluctantly look up at her, her height makes her seem threatening and your gaze flickers between her face and a switched off lamp on the wall beside her.

"You know" she says, "as if I've done something wrong to you." Her demanding tone takes a turn of offense but also fleeting apology. You repress another sigh. What did you do to this girl?

"Uh" you half stutter, "I don't know what you're talking about, really." You lean back in your chair, finally letting your eyes take in the shape of her face.

She pulls out the chair opposite you, and looks at you with questioning eyes. May I? You nod.

As she sits down with you, she looks into your eyes, gaze sharp and alarmed, ready and defensive.

"Did I?" she asks, and your head jerks a bit in surprise. You're not really sure why.

"Did you what?"

"Do something." She says it with confidence that seems forced, and you can tell she has been summoning energy to talk to you for a long time. A few moments tick by, and she adds "...to you."

A woman suddenly walks by your table, and she gives you a look of suspicion. You dimly recognize that she's the owner of the café, and you look around quickly to see if you've violated any of the rules.

"Hello?" The girl who keeps bothering you waves a hand in front of your face, asking for attention. "Are you still here?"

You scoff and stare out the window to your left, into the snow. "I guess so", you say in a tone that tells a little too much about how you feel.

"Then can you please answer my question?" The girl reaches out for a tiny, turkoise bowl of toothpicks and hugs it in her hands. You watch absently as her long, slim fingers encircle it and squeeze it tightly, matching the anxiety in her eyes as you look up at her face.

"You didn't do anything to me" you say calmly. "How could you, anyway? I don't even know you."

A group of people enter the café, and they're noisy. They laugh and talk and are happy, and you want to tell them to stop it, cause really, what kind of people are happy nowadays? Still, it's a tuesday afternoon and people can be however happy they want. In their world.

Life would be easier if they just lived in yours, you think.

You turn your gaze back to the strange girl in front of you. She tilts her head and observes you closer than anyone has for what feels like years. God, you wish you would have chosen a more private table. Then you would never have seen her. She's way too... nosy, too nervous and too strong.

"I don't know" she says with a nervous release of breath, "but you kept giving me all these... scandalized looks." The corners of pull upwards, maybe it'll be a smile soon, you think.

You show off a joyless smirk. "That's probably because you were there."

The girl frowns. "What do you mean?" she asks and tilts her head yet again, her short hair tickling the sides of her jaw.

You let your gloved hands lean against the table, resting beside your cup of coldened coffee. You grab it in an attempt to look busy and buy yourself time to think about what to really answer.

"I just, I just don't like people" you finally say. And oh, you could have said anything - but the truth? Really? Why, exactly?

"Oh" the girl says, nodding slightly and looking down on her lap. "Then I'm sorry for bothering you."

You breathe a quiet sigh of relief and brace yourself for the moment the other girl will walk off, and you even start wondering how you're gonna avoid looking at her when she has gone back to her own table.

But she doesn't leave.

You stare at her with questioning eyes, not sure what to say that could be a good reply to her last line. It should be something a bit more classy than okay then go away, and why? You're not really sure.

It's okay doesn't seem like an appropriate response to you cause, really, it's not, so you just settle for a bewildered "okay?".

As the other girl turns her head a bit, her ear ring catches a piece of sun which reflects towards your eyes. You flinch, and a headache comes chasing after you.

"Are you lonely?" the girl asks after a silent 30 seconds.

"What?"

"Are you lonely?"

You lean back in your chair. What kind of a question is that? You don't like when people ask about you, or try to be a part of your life in any way, and you really do want to feel annoyed with the girl. You really do, and you really try.

However, when she doesn't catch your disapproval (or, if she does, she ignores it) and doesn't apologize, you start to think about the answer to her question.

"A little bit, I guess" you say, finally. But you don't look at her.

"What does that mean?" she asks back, switching the bowl of toothpicks between her hands. You follow it with your eyes.

"It means yes" you say, annoyed. Really, this girl should practice her social skills. Learn to pick up on sarcasm or, to mind her own business. Maybe. "Are you?" you ask back and it's an attempt at being irritating, but you watch that idea burn to the ground as the girl smiles and hurries to reply.

"No, not at all." Her tone is happy, and it's somewhere between beautiful and really ing frustrating.

"Then why are you sitting here with me?" you ask with a confused laugh. The girl's smile falters little by little, for you it's like watching the sun go down, and her eyes turn sad. Did you somehow offend this new, very strange girl?

"But... that's how I'm not alone."

You squeeze your cup of coffee a little too hard in your hands and you note how she mirrors your actions with her bowl.

"Oh..." you mumble. It's sweet to you, but you can't see how this girl would consider your company to reduce her loneliness. Really, you can't be of any more joy to her than a stick-bug.

Silence falls for a little while as you avoid eye contact and she tries on a smile again.

"Are you gonna be here long? Cause I haven't even bought anything yet and I was wondering if I could keep you company..." she says slowly, all the time with an innocent half smile on her face, watching your every reaction carefully through big, curious eyes.

"Oh" you say again and look down into your almost empty cup. "No, I'm all done. I was gonna leave soon." She nods and you suddenly feel so, so sorry for her, like you want to give her a gift or knit her a scarf.

"Okay" she says softly and looks down. She seems to suddenly realize she's holding on to a bowl of toothpicks, so she hastily lets go and puts it back in its original spot. She looks up at you and breaks into an embarrassed smile as she sees you looking at her. "Actually" she mumbles, "I'm going to take off." She seems to mentally collect herself before standing up.

You can't hide your suprise as you look up at her tall figure. "Oh" you mumble a third time. You can't really think of anything else to say.

"Yeah, so, it was nice meeting you." She holds out her hand to you and you shake it, noticing she's not wearing gloves. Are you worrying she will be cold? Seriously?

"Yeah, you too." You say it even though you can't really see the meaning in it. It was a very weird meeting, no doubt, but was it nice? Well...

Too busy thinking about it, you almost don't notice it when she walks away. Suddenly she's over by the door, waving goodbye, and you put your hand up just as she turns and exits. You look around you as you lower it, feeling stupid and ripped off.


Suddenly you feel puzzled as to where you're going. Are you going home? To another café? A restaurant, a shop? Why do you feel so uncomfortable and why are you trying so hard not to think of the mysterious girl who showed up at your table to rob you of your last remaining sanity?

You really should have guarded that better.

You stare down into your lump of coffee at the bottom of your cup, trying to think of a place to go, but it seems like something in your head has gone to sleep.

You're just about to get up from your chair when you hear a voice from the door.

"Hey!"

The girl is leaning in, her nose already red from the cold. You hesitantly get up but stay where you are, at loss for what to do. And frankly a bit scared.

"I was gonna wait for you outside, but it's too cold and apparently you're never going home, so I'm just gonna tell you..." She repositions herself a bit to stop from falling. You look around and notice how all the (albeit few) costumers in the café are all staring at the girl.

"...tell you that... I'm Sooyoung, and I don't want you to be lonely."

One of your eyebrows shoots up and an instant smile breaks on your face. Only because of the weirdness of the girl, of course. Of course.

"So, here..." she raises her arm and before you realize it, a paper plane is flying at you and you instinctively jump out of the way, only to feel even more stupid than before when the plane ends up under your table.

"That's my phone number" Sooyoung explains. You stare from the plane to Sooyoung and wonder if she's actually expecting you to climb under the table and get it. "If you do not contact me in some way, I will stalk you. And I'm not gonna pretend I don't already know your name is Hyoyeon" Sooyoung hurries on, but you cut her off.

"It seems like you already have been stalking me" you say with a small laugh. Some parts of you tell you that you should be really freaked out, but you've never had a stalker before. It's sort of nifty.

"I take what I can get" Sooyoung nods along, face serious. Her eyes are drawn to her own plane under your table, and you think she probably wonders if you're gonna get it or not. Still, you don't wanna look more stupid than you already have, so you remain where you stand, pretending like you're not gonna dive under the table as if the plane is water in a desert as soon as Sooyoung leaves the café.

She gives you a challenging look.

"It's your choice" she says with a shake of her hair. "Give me a call or get stalked." She gives a childish smile. "Bye!"

You hold up your hand without saying anything and as soon as Sooyoung is out the door, you ignore the looks from the other people in the room and crouch down to crawl in under the table on the dirty floor. You feel like you almost dislocate a shoulder when you reach for the paper just beside the wall, but you smile when you pull back and get up.

Still smiling, you look up and almost scream with shock, cause outside the window is Sooyoung, looking at you with a big smile.

So much for not feeling stupid, you think, but then she blows you a kiss and skips off as the snow starts to fall, and feelings of stupid are no more.

You sit down in your chair again, your cold coffee now long forgotten, and you unfold the paper. There is indeed a telephone number, and Sooyoung's name signed underneath. You giggle - yeah, you giggle, and how the hell did that happen? - when you notice that the zeroes in the number are turned into little hearts.

Your last remaining sanity? Oh, who needs it.

A/N:
Well, this as I see it is the beginning of Hyoyoung's long and extremely loving relationship (which they will send us their wedding video from any day now OTL). Into the new world for me is the end of a long time of sadness, and the start of something beautiful. Hopefully that message could come across even though it was made in a stalkerish creepy kinda way (not that I would mind Hyo creeping at me like that but still Dx)
Love to you, readers~