It is quite obvious that what was going to happen is that the two protagonists of our story would meet.

 

How they met was quite the conventional method of couples nowadays.

 

Their first meeting was at a government organized matchmaking session for singles that promised the meeting of true love and paid-leave for the day.

 

So they met, went on the suggested number of dates, felt like they should marry each other since they had nothing better to do. And thus drew up a contract of marriage, stipulating the essentially important matters such as who would do the diapers when they had their first baby.

 

And so they were married within the next month. Then they had their first baby within the next year. They fought, they argued. Then they divorced and had custody battles over their son.

 

Both died sad and lonely with their ungrateful son leaving both in the same retirement home.

 

The End.

 

…

 

Sorry, I’m kidding.

 

Here’s how they really met.

 

They met in a rainstorm, both running into the same telephone booth for shelter.

 

Stuck inside such a small enclosed space with a member of the opposite without even striking up a conversation would have not been humanly possible.

 

So they talked.

 

And talked.

 

And talked.

 

And while they talked, they found that they were both similar to each other.

 

And the more they found out they were both similar to each other, the more they liked each other.

 

And the more they liked each other, the more they started to have immoral thoughts about the other’s *ahem* parts.

 

And they fell deathly in love with each other.

 

At that same moment, the rain stopped, and they stopped fantasizing about each other, stepped out of the phone booth and then politely said goodbye to each other.

 

Then as the two of them were walking away, both were gripped with a sudden convulsion and turned back to run to each other, and in hot passion, kissed each other full on the lips – the absolute scene of romance.

 

But at that same moment, a freak bolt of lighting struck down at the exact same spot they were kissing on. It zapped them both off to the netherworld still swallowing each others’ lips.

 

It was a tragically funny death…

 

The End.

 

…

 

Haha. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

 

Now, the truth.

 

~*~

 

It started, as usual, with Soeun waiting at the bus stop for her bus.

 

Now, the waiting was perfectly innocent (except for the fact that her bus had passed that stop at least 3 times since she was waiting for the peak hour bus where the likelihood of her foot getting stepped on was 95.6%) but it was what she was doing while she was waiting that sparked off the interesting chain of events.

 

“Hey, baby, what are you doing tonight?” she called sweetly to a particularly hot guy walking past. “Call me?”

 

The guy stared at her, shuddered as if someone had walked his grave and gave the crazy girl a wide berth.

 

A thrill ran down Soeun’s spine. Eunkyung was right! Hot but busy looking guys WERE the ones most likely to 1. brush her off, thinking she was tish; 2. give her weird looks, thinking she was crazy or 3. say she was the most disgusting girl they had ever met and then shoot her in the leg.

 

Maybe she would be lucky and get number 3 today!

 

She was so deep in her thoughts that she nearly missed the next guy which met her criteria. Luckily, he didn’t pass right by her, instead settled down at the same bus stop that she was at.

 

And… mmm… he looked particularly yummy.

 

Concentrating on his phone like that, he looked absolutely y with his neatly styled brown hair, sparkling onyx eyes and lush-looking lips.

 

And then, Soeun nearly hyperventilated when he smiled, presumably at something in his message.

 

One word… heavenly…

 

Perhaps this would be the guy that would give her number three today!

 

She frowned. But what should she say that would be suitably shocking and crazy?

 

Inspiration hit her like a bullet train at full speed crashing against a brick wall.

 

“Excuse me, sir?”

 

The dreamy guy looked up with a bemused but slightly irritated smile. “Yes?”

 

“F*** me.”

 

“…”

 

It should be coming any minute now…

 

“Was that literal or figurative?”

 

Okay… not exactly the response she was thinking of.

 

‘Never mind, let’s try again.’ “Literal.”

 

“Oh.”

 

‘Yes, that should trigger a number 3. And, that bulge in his pocket looked promisingly like a gun.’

 

But the guy didn’t shoot her in the leg.

 

He didn’t even call her crazy.

 

Instead, he smiled.

 

But that was just as well, since his smile made her heart beat in her chest so hard that it felt like it was going to crack her ribs.

 

She didn’t know if it would be as nice as getting shot in her leg, but she reckoned it was close enough.

 

She smiled back.

 

~*~

 

The bar was called the Nightingale Lodge.

 

The reason it was called that was unknown, since it neither had nightingales nor did it have lodges.

 

But it did have a lot of people – people dancing, people drinking to get drunk, people who WERE drunk…

 

There was actually quite a scary amount of the last…

 

Anyway, it was this bar that Kim Soeun was supposed to be meeting her two best friends at.

 

There was also one other person that should have been familiar to her besides them, but she was too busy trying to bump into as many bodies as hard as she could before she reached the table where her best friend was sitting.

 

Her best friend’s name was Lee Haneul, 21, and Kim Soeun’s official best friend since they were two and running around in each other’s front lawns.

 

Lee Haneul liked fresh vegetables, adoring boys who were older than her yet also cuter and the colour purple.

 

Lee Haneul disliked smokers, people who didn’t keep their promises and her best friend Soeun’s masochistic ways.

 

“Yah! Trying to get yourself bruised all over again?” she whacked Soeun on the back the minute she arrived. “Why can’t you stop? At least in front of me – you know I hate it when you act all masochistic.”

 

Soeun chuckled. “You’re not exactly helping. Whenever I do so, you smack me. And as far as I know, your smacks are the most painful in the world.”

 

Another smack. Then a cry of frustration at Soeun’s chuckle.

 

But both were distracted as a very loud distraction entered the bar.

 

“Outta my way! I have rabies! I’ll bite you if you don’t move! MOVE IT!”

 

The two chuckled as the new arrival settled herself down at the table. “Aish, space-hoggers. Can’t stand them.”

 

The new arrival was Moon Eunkyung – Soeun’s other best friend.

 

But unlike Soeun and Haneul’s, their relationship was only two years old and purely work-related.

 

Eunkyung thought of complicated and tragic love-relationships as part of her job of a television script-writer. Soeun got her ideas from her and in return, Eunkyung got proof on whether the plot idea was viable in real life.

 

Anyway, Moon Eunkyung liked strawberries, black and entirely dramatic situations.

 

She disliked cliché plots, being delayed and shaving her armpits.

 

“So, so. How was my plan? It hurt a lot more if the relationship lasted longer right?” Eunkyung immediately interrogated Soeun the minute she had her seated.

 

“Oh, shut up, Eunkyung-unni.” Haneul smacked Eunkyung hard on the shoulder. The latter winced. “At least until we get our drinks.”

 

“Anyway, that’s not important.” Soeun chirped in happily. “Wait till you hear about this new guy I met just now.”

 

All girls liked gossip.

 

And Haneul and Eunkyung were definitely girls.

 

“We’re all ears,” the two leaned forward. Soeun laughed.

 

“I met him at the bus stop. Here’s what happened…”

 

***

 

“So, about my request?”

 

“Sure, but not now.” The guy’s smile was so innocent despite the entirely sleazy line he just spouted. “It’s inconvenient to do stuff like that at a bus stop. Not to mention uncomfortable and awkward.”

 

“Ah, where then?”

 

“How about my house? 11 pm. Here’s my number.”

 

“Huh, isn’t it illegal for a girl to go into a stranger’s house so late at night. Especially when the stranger is a guy.”

 

“Well… it’s not illegal. Just very, very naughty.”

 

“But I’m a nice girl. I’ll spoil my image.”

 

“So says the girl who just asked me to… do something very impropriate at a bus stop, of all places.”

 

“How about 10 am at the zoo tomorrow instead?”

 

“Oh, playing good girl are we?”

 

“Your bus is coming. Give me your number before it’s too late.”

 

“Oh. How did you know it was my bus.”

 

“Dunno, lucky guess. Number?”

 

“Here you go. My card.”

 

***

 

“And so you gave your card to a weird girl like that?!”

 

Kim Bum laughed at the stunned look on his friend’s face. “Oh, please, Leeteuk-hyung. I’ve met weirder.”

 

Park Jungsu, or Leeteuk as he preferred to be called, was a certified psychiatrist – one of the most brilliant, especially after you considered his age (26).

 

He liked acting cute, being in the know and wearing white.

 

He disliked not being in the main spotlight, the fact that he was six years older than Kim Bum and not wearing white.

 

Leeteuk wasn’t exactly Kim Bum’s friend. He was, first and foremost, Kim Bum’s psychiatrist.

 

Kim Bum’s filthy rich parents had hired him two years ago, when he first became a qualified psychiatrist. They had wanted to him to try to cure their son’s sadistic ways.

 

At first, Leeteuk had tried his best with the boy, talking to him, scolding him and finally shouting at him when the boy refused to change.

 

That last tirade had ended with Kim Bum stating, very calmly, that his parent’s frankly didn’t give a damn whether he was sadistic or not.

 

Getting him a psychiatrist was just building up the image they wanted for their smart, handsome, shrewd but ruthlessly mad heir.

 

After that, Leeteuk didn’t really bother anymore. Except when Kim Bum started to turn his sadistic side on HIM…

 

He really didn’t want to talk about that.

 

Luckily, the one success he had managed was to convince Kim Bum that emotional torture was actually a lot more painful than physical torture.

 

That at least meant that Leeteuk wouldn’t awaken one night to see Kim Bum standing over him with a chain-saw…

 

Never mind.

 

Kim Bum and Leeteuk were also at (surprise, surprise) the Nightingale Lodge. Actually, it was no surprise since it was their nightly watering hole.

 

“So, my dear psychiatrist. We’re going to the zoo tomorrow. What do you suggest I do?”

 

“Er…”

 

“Pretend that I’m a gay by suddenly meeting an old male lover which will obviously be you, or should I pretend to be a really nice guy that loves animals, then by total accident show her my true colours of an animal-torturing bastard?”

 

“Er…”

 

“Or maybe we should just forget the whole emotional torture thing and keep it simple with the physical kind. I could always push her…”

 

~*~

 

“… into the lion arena!” Soeun chirped happily. “That’d be really fun! And painful!”

 

“Soeun!” Haneul exclaimed in horror. “That’s not masochistic! That’s suicidal!”

 

“No, suicidal is when I want to kill myself! Getting someone ELSE to push me into the lion arena is not suicidal at all!”

 

Haneul was about to being to argue otherwise (which would have ended up in vain), when Eunkyung suddenly interrupted her as she came back from her bathroom trip. “Did you really ask him to ‘f*** you’?”

 

Haneul lost track of her original scolding, there being a new one to scold on. “Oh, yes. When did you become so vulgar?! Did Eunkyung-unni teach you this?”

 

Eunkyung snorted at the same time Soeun said, “No! It just popped out of my mind. And it’s quite hard to escape being influenced by vulgar words nowadays anyway.”

 

“Still, you should try, right, Eunkyung-unni?” Haneul turned to the geeky scriptwriter. “That was your intention right? To scold her for being so silly and vulgar.”

 

“Huh?” Eunkyung blinked. “Oh, no. No… I was just thinking what a great line this would be in this plot I was thinking about… It’s really VERY original that a girl would just go up to a guy and say–”

 

“Tsk. Talk about hopeless cases.” Haneul pushed Eunkyung so hard she nearly fell off her seat.

 

“Anyway, isn’t it great! He really seems like the type of guy who would cheat on me, or maybe sleep with my best friend in my own house…”

 

~*~

 

“… or even both!” Kim Bum was happily brain-storming away.

 

“Firstly.” Leeteuk finally got a word in edge-wise. Kim Bum had even been talking to himself when Leeteuk blatantly went to visit the Men’s room. “Sleeping with her best friend is considered as cheating anyway.”

 

“Ah… but–”

 

“And secondly,” Leeteuk put up his index finger. “I have a better idea.”

 

“Oh? Tell me.”

 

Leeteuk waved him forward so that he could whisper into Kim Bum’s ear.

 

“It’s like this…”

 

~*~

 

“…”

 

“What do you think?”

 

“Are you sure it’ll work, Eunkyung-unni?”

 

“Sure? When have my plans haven’t worked?”

 

“Well… there was that time with the water sprinkler…”

 

“Other than that.”

 

“Other than that, no.”

 

“See? Now, will you do as planned?”

 

“Sure, Eunkyung-unni!”

 

~*~

 

“If it doesn’t work, I’m firing you.”

 

Leeteuk rolled his eyes. “Your parents are the ones hiring me, and besides I’m your muse. Your best plans come from me.”

 

 “Alright. Alright.” Kim Bum chuckled, finishing his drink. “Hey! Bill, please!”

 

The waiter which came to them was middle-aged, slightly stodgy and had a rather slow brain.

 

He liked drinking, “accidentally” brushing against ladies’ rear ends and biting pencils.

 

He disliked customers who made fun of him.

 

“Yes, sir?”

 

“Bill, please.”

 

“Yes, I’m Bill, sir.”

 

And as you have guessed, his name also happened to be Bill.

 

“…”

 

Kim Bum turned to Leeteuk whose eyes looked like dinner plates. “I thought they didn’t make jokes this lame anymore.”

 

~*~