ARA’S POV

     I watched him walk away and disappear into the crowd. His laugh was still making me melt. His hair seemed a bit different… I sighed. Was every encounter with him going to be like this? Brief. A surprise run-in and then he get something on his phone and has to go? I turned and started walking back to the dorm. I wasn’t so hungry anymore… I wondered what he thought of me. He only knew me as “smoothie girl”. I hoped he really did decide to come by the frozen desserts café again. If I could just keep seeing him, I would be happy forever…

     The next day I woke up bright and early to get ready. Kyung-sook and Eun Hye noticed.

“What are you doing up so early?” Eun Hye asked.

I guess it wasn’t normal for me… I stopped fixing my hair to look at her.

“Uh…I just figured it was a good idea to start getting up earlier…I guess.”

I washed my face and put on make-up. I had more make-up than I remember. After I lost my job, I just sort of stopped wearing it. Now that my job had been saved… Everything was changing. I put my hair up in a curly ponytail with a heart barrette that matched my t-shirt.

“There’s something…different about you, Ara.” Kyung-sook said.

She’d been watching me the whole time. I glanced at her while I hummed and checked myself in the mirror.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked.

“A good thing—I think. I don’t really know what it is, though…”

I grinned. You’d never believe me if I told you…

     School went by smoother than I had expected, but I wasn’t able to take notes because I was too busy trying to understand what the teacher was saying. At first I felt totally lost, especially in art class. We had apparently been doing all these projects that I didn’t remember. But once I really got into it, it just sort of came to me—like the knowledge had always been there and I was finally unlocking it. After that, everything was fine. And I went home with plenty of homework to keep me busy all afternoon.

     Kyung-sook and Eun Hye were both so smart, they made me feel dumb. Cho He was a math and computers wiz and Kyung-sook knew everything there was to know about history and music. Me? I just liked to draw… I didn’t take any of the same classes as they did, and I still have no idea how I ended up in their room. But they were nice. Kyung-sook was the talkative one that wanted to be everyone’s friend. Eun Hye was the quiet one who kept to herself. But she talked me. They both seemed so comfortable with me, it made me feel good. I finally had some really good friends. They were nice and smart and they seemed to really like me for some reason. One night I asked them why.

“Because you’re so cool!” Kyung-sook answered enthusiastically. “You’re pretty and stylish. You’re so nice to everyone and you’re just naturally funny. You seem like you would be popular or something, but…”

“I’m not. I don’t like a lot of attention.” I shrugged it off.

I never knew anyone felt that way about me. I was never really that social before. I had a few friends and I was content with that. Then I just figured nobody really cared that much to be my friend. I didn’t see myself as “cool”.

“You’re real.” Was Eun Hye’s answer. “You’re not fake like a lot of girls these days. That’s cool.”

I looked down to hide my grin. Real. Somehow that made word looks so simple, but can mean something so much deeper. Real. The opposite of fake. But it also means things like true, genuine, sincere, heartfelt, legitimate, authentic, honest, unaffected, ect. I was flattered that a word like that could describe me. I turned back to my laptop to by TVXQ’s new song, Sky, that came out the day before. It felt weird because new to me. It was actually old. But suddenly my laptop didn’t have a lot of the old songs it had before. I guess that’s because they didn’t exist yet.

     I looked at my watch 8:00 pm. The library would be closing soon... I logged off of the computer and stood up with my backpack. It was getting colder outside. Fall was setting in early this year. It was only September, for goodness sake! I remember this, though. Because I remembered my mom getting me a new coat. I wondered what my parents were up to now. I didn’t live with them anymore. I’d e-mailed them once. They were fine, missing me but glad I had decided to go to college. I pulled out my cell phone and called them as I walked out of the library, holding the door open for some random person.

“Hi mom! How are you? I’m good too. How’s dad? Sleeping? What for? Oh, he had that doctor’s appointment today? I forgot about that. So I guess the medication they gave him makes him sleepy? Haha, well I hope he gets over this flu thing.” Even though I already know he will… “So what have you been up to? What are you talking about, cooking and cleaning is interesting. You do not have a boring life, Mom. You work hard. Oh, nothing much, just the normal. School, work…I hang out with my roommates a lot—it’s nice. Hm? Oh, ok, sorry I interrupted. Love you, I’ll talk to you later. Bye, Mom, tell dad I miss him. Ok, bye.”