Introduction

It is Saturday afternoon, exactly 3:52 pm and I’m currently hanging out with my best friend Seungri in a plant shop. No. I’m not getting a plant. I don’t know about Seungri. We’re here so that Seungri can check out this guy he’ been obsessing over for two weeks now. The guy’s name is Nickhun and he goes to Young-dong High School. His parents own the plant shop so he works there too, which is an advantage for Seungri because he can check the guy out just by playing pretend customer. We’ve been going to this place every Saturday afternoon just so that Seungri can have a glimpse of this Nickhun guy.

“You’re planning to grow a papaya tree?” Nickhun points at the little pot with the small papaya tree that Seungri is holding. Seungri gives Nickhun a shy smile.

Aw boo. This Nickhun guy is really dense. He’s in love with you, you idiot! Otherwise he wouldn’t be buying plants whenever we come here!

“Gri~ Let’ go to the zoo. I wanna check out the monkeys!” I hope we don’t spend an hour here like we did last time.

Seungri who was facing Nickhun turned his head around and faced me, giving me a hiss.

Fine, I’m gonna go talk to the roses again. They treat me better than you do! Humph!

The roses actually look really beautiful. They’re bright yellow and have blossomed to perfection and SOMEONE’S GRABBING THEM-

“Hey!” I shouted at the hands that grabbed the beautiful yellow roses.

“What? Were you going to buy these?”

Lo and behold, who is this I see?

Tall, fair-skinned, thick eyebrows, dark intense eyes, and a deep raspy voice that is all of Choi SeungHyun’s, Epik High School’s baddest underground rapper. Or people who go to clubs say he is. I’ve never really heard him rap before. He’s actually pretty quiet at school, talks only to a few people but he is nonetheless one of the hottest guys in school. He has dated two of the prettiest girls in our school (one from our class and one who was a senior) which gives this guy a really awesome rep. Plus, I’ve seen him driving his sleek bike around. Must be rich too.

“Uh…no. You…um…yeah…you take them.”

I left without giving him a look, feeling very foolish of myself.

I wish he doesn’t think I like him. Because I don’t. I think... I just don’t feel confident in liking him.

You see I’m not really what you would call attractive. I have braces, a long scar on my neck just under my chin, a big nose, and well, my big nose just destroy my whole face. My umma told me that my dimple on my right cheek goes well with my full round eyes but my gigantic snot maker is just too distracting for people to notice that. I already plan on getting my nose smaller-sized once I make enough money. I can’t wait for that to happen!

Getting back, I nudge Seungri’s elbow. He was making small talk with Nickhun. Wow, they’re in that level already? Finally, an improvement!

I hear Nickhun say “No…I’m sorry we’re not really hiring…”

Okay, maybe there’s no improvement. What an idiot Seungri is. He should just give it up. Nickhun is definitely straight. I keep telling Seungri that but he won’t budge. He told me he believes that Nickhun will be his and his only when the time comes. I told him the time wasn’t on his side and he just hit my head with a carrot.

What a shame. I hope he doesn’t die of rejection when Nickhun blasts him full time. If he does, I’ll miss him. A sweet boy he was.

“…are you sure?” Seungri puts on his cute face. Barf.

“…almost sure…” Nickhun answers him with a nervous chuckle.

Tell him you don’t want to ever see his face again ever! And that you prefer s to no-s! Just say it and it will save you a lot of time and stress! Say it!

“Try again when my parents are here. They’re busy right now but I think they’ll be here tomorrow.”

What?

This boy does not know what he is getting himself into. I can already imagine Seungri waiting outside the shop before store hours looking very desperate.

Seungri’s face lit up as if it had just been applied with a light glowing makeup.

He claps and give Nickhun a bow then turns around and grabs my hand. He’s pulling me outside and once we were out of sight (from Nickhun), he leaps and giggles like there’s no tomorrow. I'm standing in front of him, not knowing how to react. I must look like an idiotic bystander next to him, ogling him whilst he basked in his joy.

Seungri is still doing his victory dance so I look around and see a girl sitting on the bike of what looks like Choi SeungHyun’s. She is pretty but I can’t really tell because her sunglasses cover her eyes but I can tell from the outline of her face that she’s pretty. She has long silky hair too and an amazing pair of legs sticking out of her jeans shorts. Must be Choi SeungHyun’s latest fling.

I see SeungHyun walk out of the shop and walk towards the pretty girl sitting on his bike. He hugs her from the back and the girl turns around to face him. Choi SeungHyun hands the pretty girl the yellow roses.

Aw. How sweet.

But what happened next confused me.

The girl looked down at the beautiful yellow roses and held them like they were bloody brains or something else equally disgusting. Then she stood up and SeungHyun grabs the helmet that the pretty girl was holding and puts them on. Without saying a word to the pretty girl, SeungHyun speeds off with his bike.
The girl looked heartbroken as she kept looking at the yellow roses. She then screams and shoves the yellow roses at a garbage bin in front of her.

What the heck was that?

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The Bad Luck of the Yellow Roses

It’s 11 pm and I’m on the roof above my room munching on barbecue flavored potato chips. Earlier I was studying for the Calculus test we are going to have on Monday but now I want to get some fresh air. Seungri and I went to the zoo after the shop so I was happy to see the monkeys I’ve been wanting to see. We discussed about SeungHyun and the girl and the yellow roses and we’ve only come up with one theory. The yellow roses probably were not SeungHyun’s girlfriend’s favorite flowers so she became upset when she learned that SeungHyun does not know what her favorite flower is. So she cursed SeungHyun and SeungHyun got annoyed of her so he left without taking her to his bike.

That was Seungri’s idea. I don’t know what the heck’s wrong with that girl. Those roses were beautiful, they are my favorite flowers as a matter of fact. I was going to buy them if I didn’t have the need to save money for my nose job. I wanted to get the roses from the garbage bin but then suddenly this random guy got to the garbage bin before I did and barfed into it. Literally. Like it was his own personal toilet. Curse him and his stomach.

Speaking of stomachs…

I see my neighbor Young Bae undressing inside his room. He’s taking off his shirt…oh…how nice. He then leaves the room to go to his bathroom. My phone rings. “MARTIAN BOY” is calling. I answer it.

“Didn’t your parents ever tell you what happened to Peeping Tom?”

Omo. Did he just say what I think he said? Fifteen years of leaving right next door to him and three years since I’ve noticed he doesn’t close the blinds when he changes and now I’m caught? Damn! I’m too professional for this!

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.

“Oh, and also Pinocchio? Actually I don’t know the ending of that story but I’m sure he suffered through his wooden life with that nose of his.”

“Excuse me? Did you just say something about my nose?”

“I meant that his nose betrays him whenever he lies!”

“Oh…Okay. Carry on.”

I heard him chuckle on the other line and saw him come out to the balcony outside his room. My house is just across from his so we see and hear each other perfectly. Don’t really know why we’re still talking through our phones though. But through the grace of god…he is still shirtless.

“Can you stare at this for the last time? I don’t really feel comfortable having a female teenage neighbor spying in on me on my private moments.”

Ugh. You think you’re the only one in the world who owns a six pack?

He’s not really like this with other people because he’s known as the sweet gentle type. We talk like this to each other only at home. I don’t know why but he doesn’t talk to me at school.

“Are you trying to make a deal? Well I’m not going to negotiate,” I smirk, happy with my response and my tasty crunchy chips (although I was embarrassed as hell).

Young Bae shook his head and laughed as he went back to his room. He hung up his phone and so did I.

“Young Bae!” I shouted.

“What?” He gave me that you’re-annoying-me face that I just find so y.

You see, his real name is Tae Yang but I like to call him Young Bae because there was this popular movie that came out years ago and one of the characters in the movie was named Young Bae and that guy had a disgusting scene with this dog where they smooched, almost French kiss style and I remembered the dog that Tae Yang used to have. Tae Yang used to kiss that dog a lot so I nicknamed him Young Bae after that dude in the movie. His brother calls him Young Bae sometimes but I call him Young Bae all the time. He doesn’t really like me calling him that but he know it’s too late to drive it off of my system.

“I saw SeungHyun give this girl roses earlier today. I’m just curious. Something bad happened when he gave her the roses, but I don’t know what the deal was. Clue me in.”

He looked a bit shocked.

“…I think I know what you mean. But…you should know. Curiosity often kills the cat,” he answered.

Ugh! I hate it when he talks to me like that. Have you noticed? He always speaks to me in riddles or some other way where I find it hard to understand him. I think he’s part Martian or something. Hello Young Bae! I’m an Earthling! I think you are too! Please speak our language!

“Young Bae, what on MARS are you talking about?!”

“I happen to know you like yellow roses…”

“Yes, yes. Go on,” I was almost inaudible from all the chips I was chewing.

“And that you also kind of a little bit just a teeny witty bit like Choi SeungHyun.”

I almost spat out the chips I was chewing.

“So do not!”

He pulled out a cucumber from his jeans pocket (???) and stood sideways. With lousy background music from his mouth, he made the marker look as if it was a growing extension of his nose, an obvious portrayal of my twin, Pinocchio.

“He hates going through the speech part. So just like that. He uses yellow roses to break up with his girlfriends.”

He uses yellow roses to break up with his girlfriends...

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[POSTED: 19 Nov 2009]