Another fascinating thing about Jung Jihyuk was that she was like a thief, appearing out of nowhere and during unexpected moments. It was a sunny noon, and Hyukjae decided that his grumbling stomach had gotten too loud to ignore. That he invited me and our friends to eat lunch with him was an understatement. Subtracting a little, he might have just taken the entire class out to eat.

"Oh man, you have a girlfriend now and she's pretty serious about you," Ryeowook, a guy from my class, said to no one in particular.

"What?" Kyuhyun, who was a year younger than the rest of us, replied. "It's not like I'll ask her out for a date right at this moment." And he nodded towards a girl across the street.

Ryeowook sighed and shook his head in disbelief. "Everyone's too good for a player like you, Kyuhyun."

It was then that I saw her. At first glance, she looked different. Instead of sporting the usual jeans and t-shirt, she was wearing a white long-sleeved polo – that looked too stiff and ironed and a little too loose on the sleeves but went tight down her torso – and a skirt that went above her knees. Her long hair was slung on one side, revealing the curved length of her neck. For some inexplicable reason, Jihyuk turned and looked back at me.

"Can you guys hurry? I forgot to do something," I said quickly, tugging on Hyukjae's forearm and pulling him back the direction we came from. I could almost foresee it, especially if Siwon noticed her too. Being the ladies' man he was, he would call for her attention and maybe even invite her to eat with us. And that I could not risk.

Hyuk wasn't even the least bit cooperating. Pushing me away, "If I don't eat right now, I might end up munching on the corpses we've been studying." And instead of letting out disgusted groans, the men laughed.

Stomping my feet on the concrete, "Let's leave! I'll treat you somewhere else, but not here! I mean, we're not even sure if the food was prepared neatly or not–"

"Ya!" Someone exclaimed and then there was the loud sound of an unknown palm smacking against the back of my head. I turned around and there she was, standing in front of me with the biggest frown on her face. "You asked my number for nothing," Jihyuk said sadly. But it passed in a flash. In half a second, the right corner of was twisted up like Mona Lisa's famous smile. "But that's okay because you're going to eat with me again." And she put her arm around my shoulders while leading me once again to wherever.

And, almost nauseating, she spun around again. "Oh, were you supposed to go somewhere?" she asked, turning to the rest of the guys. The men, however, failed to hide the knowing smiles that spread across their faces as they shook their heads no. And if Jihyuk had listened so closely, she might have heard the squealing my friends did in their thoughts.

Nodding, Jihyuk began walking away, not without dragging me with her, of course. When we were a good few feet away from them, she said, "They seemed happy to see me. No girls in med school?"

"There are some," I said. "But most of them are cut open and studied."

And she laughed, her eyes tightly shut and her free hand smacking against my arm. Afterwards, her expression turned stern and emotionless. "You make such bad jokes," she said.

Confused, "What? You laughed just seconds ago," I retorted. "And that wasn't a joke!" But she had long ignored me and instead, pushed the door to enter the newly-opened McDonalds along the district. She went straight to the counter as quickly as possible – from the bubbly, loud-mouthed woman to the silent, deeply-pondering girl in a split second. "Sometimes I don't get you," I said, advancing to her side.

She smiled. "That's the whole point." And then she ordered upsized everything – from her French fries to her Coke – that it was almost sickening. I, on the other hand, asked for a cheeseburger and a tall glass of cold water. Not a minute after we had settled down on a table for two, Jihyuk started to munch on her food like she had been starved for a month.

And I just watched her as she ate. With my chin rested on my propped up palm, I wonder what her life was like. Did she grow up with a mother and a father, or just a mother, or a father, perhaps? Does she ever get conscious of how much she eats? What does she use for bookmarks? Does she like wearing white as much as she loves to eat? I wondered about all of these, including whether or not her eyesight was clear and how many guys she has brought here. And I just watched her as she ate, observing how she dips her French fries in her soda before eating them. Maybe she likes her French fries soggy or her soda salty, but I watched her nonetheless.

"I didn't think you would answer," I said all of a sudden.

But she nodded anyway, understanding as quickly as that, without looking up at me. "You could have tried," Jihyuk said. "But then again, you might have called at an unholy hour and startled the children."

I raised an eyebrow. "Children?"

She sipped a mouthful from her Coke. "Yes, children," Jihyuk repeated and continued eating, leaving me hanging.

"Ya, what children are you talking about? You mean, you babysit children all day?" I pressed.

"You could call it that," Jihyuk said. "Basically, all teachers are babysitters."

"Ah jinjja?" I exclaimed happily, scooting closer to listen more. "What subject do you teach?"

Jihyuk, on the other hand, leaned backward, her hand clutching in horror. "Stop smiling so much. It's scaring me." But she was smiling. And there was no denying that that smile could very well lure anyone into following her doggedly wherever she wanted to go. In a snap, she was back to normal. "I teach Korean language to first graders."

For the first time since that day at the library, Jung Jihyuk felt more like a person to me, someone more reachable. And as she told me more about her job, it was like getting to know an entirely different person. The Jung Jihyuk who called me a bastard was different from the Jung Jihyuk who stamped stars on her pupils' hands as a sign of their job well done. But they were one and the same. And that was what made me stick around for the next few hours, counting on the fast food chain that boasted 24-hour service.

I remembered meeting her and thinking she would never be my type. And she was beautiful. My cheeseburger was still inside the wrapper and the ice cubes from my glass of water had long melted and her fries had been digested and her soda wasn't cold anymore and she was beautiful. She was the kind of beautiful that would turn heads but not hearts, the kind of beautiful that was not exactly drop-dead gorgeous but beautiful.

It was when she took a long pull from her Coke that I figured it was time for her to leave. "I'll take you home," I said, not so much as a request but an order.

She scooted back on her chair before standing up. "That doesn't leave me that much choice then," Jihyuk said and sighed, but she was grinning. We both shared the same look of shock on our faces after exiting the place and realizing it was already dark. Not exactly late, but dark.

As we strode, "Try calling me," she said.

"What if you were in the middle of a class?" I tried.

She nudged me lightly by my shoulder. "I just said you should try calling me. I didn't say I would answer." And then we laughed. And I wasn't sure which Jihyuk I preferred. Near the sidewalk was a concrete ledge on which she stood up, holding onto my shoulder for balance. She walked along the ledge with one foot in front of the other. And I took the hand that was on my shoulder and held it, before she spun around, nearly stumbling down the asphalt. Jihyuk laughed.

"Wouldn't your girlfriend get furious of you walking a different girl home?" she asked out of the blue, catching me off guard.

I snorted. "Girlfriend? Never had one."

She blew a lock of her hair away from her face. "Why?"

And then I wondered why. Maybe it wasn't because I didn't have time. Maybe it was because I never knew how to start and end and prolong a meaningful conversation. Or maybe because my hair was always messy and my reading glasses were always in their rightful place. I look at her and find her already staring, waiting for my response. In the end, I shrugged.

We stopped walking as soon as an available cab appeared into view. I opened the door and let her slide in first before I did. She stated her address briefly before the vehicle started again. "What about you?" I asked. "Do you want me to get off this cab a block away so your boyfriend wouldn't have to see me?"

Jihyuk laughed, like my statement was the funniest joke she has ever heard. "Don't be so funny. You want to see where I live, right? You might as well meet Sunmi or something," she said and looked out the blurred view outside the window. In minutes, I found myself paying for the fare while she trudged up the porch steps to her house.

I followed soon after as she pressed on the doorbell one too many times that I was afraid the person living inside would be irritated. But Sunmi opened the door. Seeing Jihyuk standing in front of her, Sunmi rolled her eyes before marching away. "Okay, I'm sorry. This guy just appeared from nowhere and I just had to eat with him!" Jihyuk exclaimed all of a sudden.

She entered, leaving the door open behind her. I stood outside, thinking it would be disrespectful of me to barge in without invitation. But I didn't know that there was no such thing as invitation to Jung Jihyuk, because seconds later, she appeared by the doorway and motioned with her hand for me to get in.

"You could have called," Sunmi said from what I figured to be their kitchen. The entire house was neat, as was expected from two women living in the same house.

"But we were eating!" Jihyuk defended, kicking her shoes off hastily. And she stormed to the kitchen and returned now hand in hand with Sunmi. "Gosh, Sunmi, could you be any more embarrassing to a guest?" She gestured to me while I stood, awkwardly and out of place, in the middle of their living room.

Sunmi sighed and bowed slightly as greeting. Jihyuk smiled. "Great. This is the naggiest person ever to live on earth and that one's the funniest bastard ever to live in human existence." And she disappeared into the kitchen.

While she was away, Sunmi advanced towards me. "Sunmi," she said and held her hand out.

I did the same. "Donghae."

When Jihyuk reappeared, she pulled me by my wrists and led me to somewhere. "Sunmi, I'll just give her a tour around my room," she informed loudly. Sunmi was about to say something, but we were already inside the confines of Jihyuk's room, painted a faint shade of blue. On the left was a table piled with all sorts of papers and to the right was a floor-to-ceiling shelf filled with books.

I walked towards her library and examined the spines of the books. "So were you and Sunmi high school friends?" I asked.

"Ani," she chuckled. "She's my younger sister, you idiot. So if you're thinking you could work your way in with her through me, better abandon that thought now because my sister is strictly owned by her boyfriend or whatever."

"You didn't tell me she's your sister," I said.

She shrugged. "Well, I told you now, and you never asked before."

And I returned to examining her books, scanning through titles briefly. "Why do you like novels?" I asked, not turning to face her.

"I don't know," she said. "Most just have really great impacts on you, you know? Like, when you read a book, you become so absorbed and so connected to it that you think the world will never be the same if people don't read that book. It becomes your religion, as if the author wrote that book just for you, and your life becomes the story."

And as she spoke, I figured she was just like the novels piled up and stacked neatly on one side of her room. Jung Jihyuk was a thousand-paged novel – it takes a while to read her, a few seconds to love her, and a lifetime to forget her. It was like she vandalizes on people, as if she could get your soul and etch Jung Jihyuk was here and you could never erase her again.

After more chatting, I thought I should call it a night. Before I could exit her room, however, she took my hand and stamped a star on the back of my palm. Smiling at me, she said, "You did well today." And I left Jung Jihyuk's house that night with the biggest smile on my face, like the glee of a child with a stamp on his hand after school.