Sulli lies in her bed, with a box of tissues on her left, her iPhone on her lap, and eyes glued to the glowing television screen mounted to the soft yellow walls of her bedroom. Every now and then, she cranks down the volume of the device to ease her throbbing head, or grabs a tissue to blow her nose to ease herself of her cold. This fever of hers, raging and smoldering, has appeared out of nowhere in the middle of fall, and has her sister, Amber, and her mother, Sooyoung, dumbfounded, without an explanation for it’s sudden and unexpected appearance.

It’s a mysterious, no, it’s a strange thing, it might be a sickness.

Amber pokes her blond head in, a wide smile on her face to cover up the worried expression that played on it moments before, “How’re you feeling?” She asks as she sets a wooden platter covered with steaming plates of bulgogi and bowls of soup and rice on the empty spot on the bed next to the dark haired girl with the reddened nose from all of her sneezing. Sulli barely manages to recuperate the bright expression back to her tomboyish sister.

“Pretty good,” she lies hugely, trying to sound as convincing as she possibly can, and failing miserably at it. And even though Amber sees right through her act with her piercing brown eyes, she doesn’t dare say a word as she gets up to close the door, and in a last attempt to cheer her sister up she says, “That’s good, Mom says that you might be able to get back to school in a few days once this fever of yours lets up. So make sure you get healthy real quick, or you’ll get behind in your school work, Sulli.”

Sulli nods weakly before Amber closes the door, although she wasn’t listening to almost a word the blond girl had said. Once she’s alone, she finally allows her head to drop, and she sinks into her pillows in exhaustion. Just the mere effort of smiling made her stomach weak, let alone the sheer idea of her going back to school, where she was waiting for her at every curve of the high school hallway.

I have no strength in my body, I can’t control it. 

She. Just the thought of her. Her long and silky dark brown hair that almost shines a sheen of black, the eyes that darken and glimmer with that same hungry look whenever they settle upon her, the pale and gentle hand that dragged slowly across the back of her exposed neck during Math class, the way her hips moved in the most tantalizing way as she danced flawlessly along to the hit songs of the popular KPOP group F(x) in gym class, her chic style that seemed to make her effortlessly gorgeous in whatever she happened to throw on that day.

The flow of memories from just last week let another wave of almost pleasurable nausea wash over her soul.

These bad symptoms appeared after I met you.

Sulli can remember with crystal clear vision the day the one who’d started this illness stepped into her life. It was not one of the boring, usual days that she was already accustomed to, oh no, this one was different, Sulli remembers, it was as if the air itself bent around the new girl’s body in order to obey her will.