"Why am I here again?" I whined, half awake.

"I don't know." Choi Siwon, the guy living right next to the apartment Hyukjae and I shared, shrugged. So the racist whoever who concluded that Asians were short must have not seen Siwon yet, whose height in centimeters could possibly equal to his IQ score. I know men shouldn't feel intimidated or insecure or threatened in any way, but I did, especially since Siwon looked like the guy who stood in the front of the line when God gave out perfection. "I just told Hyuk to accompany me."

"See? You didn't even need me here," I complained, smacking the back of Hyukjae's head. There was only one explanation for being born in the same year, having the same last name, and sharing the same apartment with Hyukjae: misfortune. And I don't know how far we both could go proving and convincing people that we are not gay, nor do we have the hots for each other. "I could have just slept in or something."

Hyukjae nursed his aching head. "After Siwon buys his book, we will eat. So be happy about it." I sulked, but he grabbed me by the jaw. "I said be happy about it. There are millions of children who go to sleep with an empty stomach," he ordered like a mother, so I showed him a big smile for him to let me go.

"I still blame it on corruption. Hunger, I mean," Siwon said as he pushed the door to the bookstore open. "It's all a domino effect, I think. Because of corruption, it results to poverty which results to hunger which results to crime. And I just feel bad for them, you know?" Besides a big brain, he also had a surprisingly big heart.

"Another thing which increases in scale is homelessness," I added, remembering how I had felt after waking up alone on a bench in the middle of a park. The self pity came first, I thought, knowing that I had a comfortable bed back in the apartment. But instead, I had voluntarily slept beside a girl I barely knew who left without a word. But I shrugged the thought off and realized that the world is full of people like her.

And though I never opened my mouth to say her name out loud, the devil appeared nonetheless, whereas the term 'devil' refers to the girl standing on her tiptoes as she reached for a book on the highest shelf. Ironically enough, there was a ladder just a few feet from her. So it was either she thought she was tall or she just wanted to be a damsel in distress.

Luckily enough, it turned out to be the latter, because I came in with a prince charming. Siwon came to her rescue, what with the lamp post height he has, and flashed her a warm smile. I rolled my eyes and dragged Hyuk to the endless shelves of books. "What does that horse need so we could look for it now and buy it and leave the place as quickly as possible?" I asked.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he commented before chuckling. "Relax. You've been reviewing for and panicking endlessly over the board exams which will be, like, two weeks from now. You've barely left the house. Live a little."

Even though I wanted to trample down on his face, I suppose he was right. I needed a break, and a girl from a few days ago can't just show up and ruin my life...or could she? I turned around, ever so slightly, and watched her from the corner of my eye.

 Siwon was telling her something, and whatever it was, it must have been funny enough for her to just begin laughing. As if that wasn't enough, she laid a hand on Siwon's shoulder just until she had calmed down from her outburst.

Psh. Siwon and his "funny" jokes.

I walked over to the nearest table I could see, towing the first book I touched. I sat down and got busy with the piece of literature in my hand. Glancing quickly at the title, I wonder what was so intriguing about the 49 different shades of the color gray...

"Ya!" I cringed at the sharp blow to the back of my head. "What the hell do you think you're reading, Hae?" Hyukjae pulled a chair back and sat beside me. His expression made me look as if I was the worst person on earth.

I asked, "What did I do this time? You tagged me along, even when I wasn't even needed and even when all Siwon is doing—" I peeked at Siwon and Jihyuk from behind. "—is flirt at the bookstore."

"Don't you shift the topic away from you, mister. That is in your hands, for your information," he said as a-matter-of-factly.

"What? This is not..." I flipped through the pages quickly, and the words that appeared randomly surprised me. "I thought this was about colors?"

"Well, apparently, that is what passes for 'bestselling' in this country, so..." Hyukjae said and watched me return the book to its original shelf.

Resuming my previous seat by his side, I turned to him. "Wait, how did you know that the book had adult content?" I asked, arching an eyebrow suspiciously.

He shrugged and paged through one of the magazines he had brought. "I have my sources."

Feeling bored, I snatched a magazine and began reading. Just as I was about to stare at pictures of step-by-step origami, an awfully familiar laughter grew louder and clearer. I shifted in my chair uncomfortably and turned my back on the nearing people. Hyukjae sensed my discomfort and was about to ask what the matter was, but got cut off.

"Hyung, this is Jihyuk," Siwon declared, and Hyukjae inched away from me to shake her hand. "Jihyuk, this is my next-door neighbor Hyukjae and he shares the apartment with Donghae." I cringed and didn't dare look towards their direction. "Donghae?" Siwon called out, but still defiant, I didn't budge. Turning to Jihyuk, he said, "I'm sorry. He must be—"

"A bastard," Jihyuk stated with ease. "Yes, he really is. I am now friends with a bastard."

"A friend?" I scoffed. "You don't sleep with a friend and then leave them in the morning." My voice had a hint of anger and self-pity and I didn't know where those feelings came from. From weeks of endlessly wondering, perhaps? I turned around and looked at her. And I was right before. She's beautiful. "You don't just appear unexpectedly and then also disappear in the same manner."

She marched to the seat across mine. "I didn't leave you, for your information. You were the one who left me. I woke up and felt hungry so I bought food, which was supposedly for the two of us, and then when I came back, you weren't there anymore."

In the long while that we snapped back at each other, I had forgotten that I was with my friends who, at that time, just stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the both of us.

"So you two know each other?" Siwon clarified, to which we both nodded.

"And you slept together?!" Hyukjae added hysterically. We nodded again.

"Where?"

"On a bench in the park," Jihyuk admitted.

"Wait." I held a hand up in front of the men's faces to silence them. "So you didn't leave me?" I pressed, hopeful.

I hadn't realized she had left her seat until I felt an arm around my neck. "Of course I didn't, bastard," Jihyuk said, pulling me to stand up and leading me to wherever. In our relationship so far, Jihyuk has called me a bastard one too many times that I doubt if she had remembered my name at all.

"So they slept together?" Hyukjae asked Siwon from behind us as we walked together.

The other nodded. "On a bench in the park," he quoted perfectly.

"Is that even possible? I mean, nobody even noticed and no one called the police?"

I rolled my eyes and turned to look at them. "She meant that we slept beside each other, okay?" I said and faced Jihyuk. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Today, you are going to talk more while I eat more and while your friends wonder more," she said. And her arm that was wound around me grew tighter as we walked.

And she was right. I didn't know how, but she always turned out to be right. She did eat more and my friends did wonder some more. But maybe having too much information told to them all at once was sickening, like how she had been able to stuff — get this — three sticks of fish cake in without choking, and so my friends called it a day and left.

"They're nice," Jihyuk commented as she chewed.

"Gosh, how could you chew and swallow and talk all at once?" I exclaimed, but she just shrugged.

So I figured she was just like that. She was a girl who didn't do things she doesn't normally do to please people she didn't even like. "Wae?" she asked, and then I realized I've been staring at her for a while longer than necessary. And I wanted to kiss her, just like I had wanted to do at the bench weeks ago. But this wasn't the time for that. In the end, I just shook my head and looked away.

"Talk to me," she ordered.

I scratched my head. "What do I say?"

"Tell me why you left," Jihyuk said as she poked on her food. "I left you while you were peacefully sleeping so I could buy food and then when I returned, you just weren't there anymore. So I ate all the food. And then I bought some more."

I laughed. "It's been, what, almost two weeks? I thought you would have forgotten me by now."

"I may be forgetful," she defended. "But I'm not stupid." She threw the sticks from her fish cake away and began walking, not leaving me much choice but to follow after her.

It was then that we arrived at the park. Obviously enough, she led me to the bench, the ever memorable bench. She sat down, folded her legs, and invited me to do the same. "What happened to your doctor stuff?" Jihyuk asked.

"What doctor stuff?"

"You know," she said. "The one you've been studying for. Your friend back at the bookstore said something about you going out of the house after a long while."

Damn Siwon and his uncontrollable mouth. "The board exams will be two weeks from now. Hyukjae, my roommate, just exaggerates on things. I go out of the house, but I just study most of the day. I wake up and eat and shower and brush my teeth and then it's back to studying again. My everyday goes like that, usually."

I looked down at my hands and then gazed at her, only to see her already staring back at me. "What?" I asked, suddenly growing conscious.

She closed her eyes. "You're by the side of the road and you're doing all the talking while I stare at my shoes. They're nice shoes, brown and comfortable, and I like your voice*," Jihyuk recited. When she opened her eyes, she beamed at me. "I did well, right?" Not knowing what she was talking about, I was at a loss for words. My shoes? I looked down at the pair I was wearing. They weren't brown but they were, indeed, comfortable. "On the day that I met you, that was the poem I was reading," she explained.

"You like to memorize poems?"

"Ani. It's just that the book was really good and I wouldn't want to forget something like that. I'm quite forgetful."

"So you forgot that you had already told me that already?" I teased.

She hit me on the arm lightly. "Bastard."

***

*From Richard Siken's Crush