Seoul, South Korea, Earth

Like a stumbling ghost, Min stepped into the small laundry outlet behind her older sister who had a dirty laundry basket hugged at her waist. It was always sundown on a Friday night when Min was forced to accompany her sister while she watched the clothes turn inside the laundry machine. The electrical whirring noise she was used to, but Min was distracted by the cicadas that were present in the summer time.

“Hey Solji, I’m going to get some food, can I borrow five bucks?” she asked innocently. Solji glared at her with a hand on her hip and didn’t bother to answer.

“Make that ten; actually, I might want some chocolates too… can I borrow twenty bucks?” she puffed out her cheeks and put her hand out in front of Solji’s face because their height difference allowed her to; although Solji was only a mere two centimeters taller than Min.

“No, get a job. You’re eighteen for goodness sake. And why the heck would I give you twenty bucks to spend on just snacks?” she replied candidly. Solji shoved the remainder of her clothes into the next empty laundry chute and sat on the chair with her legs sluggishly apart.  

“Aww but I’m hungry, unnie,” Min complained bleakly.

“You’re always hungry.”

“Yes! Yes I am. I’m a growing teenager, what d’ya expect?”

Solji handed Min a twenty and looked at her solemnly, “I expect change and an ice cold beer,” she ordered her younger sister with a half-grin. Min turned around to leave but spun around again and pointed at Solji with a big teeth-showing smile. “Ah! I just remembered that I don’t have an I.D nor am I old enough to buy beer you ,” she reminded her mockingly. 

“Take mine; we both look the same anyway.” And with that clarification, Min pushed the door handle and exited the outlet.

The road was dark and peaceful despite the cicadas that chirped hidden in the grass. Min squinted as she walked alongside the silent road to find the nearest mini-mart. She had short black hair tied into two curled ponytails just below her shoulders and it didn’t help that she needed to trim her fringe really soon.

She fussed about with it and walked wherever her feet took her, which was somewhere she had not been before. The sudden realization that she was lost did not faze her at all.

She was always this way; she was always lost.

But like always, her eyes narrowed into malicious slits and she managed to drag her feet across the road. In her peripheral vision Min saw head lights in the near distance and she inhaled then exhaled a scream that made the car skid side-ways and curve just past her small body.

Afterwards she put her hands in her pocket and started walking again like it was normal to have a near-death experience every day of her life. She made a left turn and saw that she walked into a No Standing zone and therefore a dead end. Languidly, Min rubbed her eyes in defeat, yet her eyes came to chase after the trail of sweets before her.

“Uwahh a sherbet candy!” she picked it up and popped it in . Min made a sour expression, matching the taste of the candy sizzling on her tongue. She noticed a box of peppero in front of her and looked around to see if anyone dropped it. After her quick scan, she grabbed the box of peppero and ripped the foil to take one out and bite the top bit off one of the chocolate covered goodness.

“Well at least it’s not poisonous,” Min shrugged, chewing happily on another one, not knowing that she inconveniently jinxed herself. This routine was repeated a few more times, with every mile stone she took another bigger and more delicious type of sweet would appear until she reached the end of dead end.     

Min was soon met with an unfamiliar smell of cologne and black leather, which was the material of the pants the man in the tailored black suit wore. She tilted her head up and glanced with brooding eyes at the unseemly man with a grim expression planted on his face.

The man's mouth curled into a petulant boyish half-smile and Min's face turned a wan shade of white.

"Uh-oh," she breathed woozily. Her sight blurred as she collapsed to the concrete pavement. The last thing she saw was the man in the suit bend down enough to give her an indication to his identity.

His epithet read: Kim Myungsoo, Paradises' Valet.     

Author's ramble: trust Min to get in to trouble with something associated with food.