“Wake up, fatty.”

“Hmmm?” you mumbled as you tried to buy yourself more sleeping time.

“I said, WAKE UP!”

A pillow smacked you in the head.  Ha.  Like that’s going to wake me up.  I’m used to that trick, Lemon Candy.  You rolled over so that you were facing away from the guy.

“Aish!  Fine, keep sleeping.  But don’t blame me if you’re late for school.  School starts in fifteen minutes,” you heard as he walked out of the room.

“BWO?!” your eyes shot open and your hand reached over to our phone.  You had accidentally set your alarm as PM instead of AM.  “Dang it!” you sprang out of your blankets and dashed into the bathroom.  “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead,” you repeated as you brushed your teeth and changed into your school uniform.

“I’ll worry about my hair later.  Thank goodness for having short hair,” you said as you made it to the front door.  “Bye, eomma!” you shouted as you slipped into your high-top sneakers.  You ran outside.  “Gotta go, eomma.  Lock the door for me, please!”  You didn’t even look back as you sprinted down the street.  You could run fairly fast, but today, like many other days, your backpack weighed you down.  “Dang this stupid backpack!” you groaned as you felt the extra weight on your lower back.

Just then, you felt a hand grab your backpack strap.  You frantically looked up to see who was stopping you when you only had about five minutes left to get to school.  It was Sungjong.  You were confused as to why he was still here.  Didn’t he leave before me?  “Why are you still here?  We’re gonna be late!” You exclaimed as you grabbed his arm and continued running towards the school.

“Yah, what’s the rush?  We have like thirty more minutes,” he smirked.

You stopped in your tracks.  Did he just smirk?  “Bwo?” You asked.

His smirk deepened satisfactorily.  “Yup.  I reset your alarm clock so that it wouldn’t ring.  Then this morning, I acted as if you were late in getting up just to make you panic.”

You gave him a deadly glare as you whipped out your watch to check the time.  It was 7:30; exactly 30 more minutes until the first bell rang.  “Yah, Lemon Candy!  How dare you do that to me!  You know how much I need my sleep!”

“Ha.  Like I care,” he retorted.

You scoffed incredulously.  “Jinjja.  Why couldn’t I have been rescued by anyone else but  you?” you said as you continued towards the school.

“It’s fun pranking you,” he laughed.

“Yeah, yeah.  ‘Cause I’m so gullible.” You rolled your eyes.  “And it’s because of you that I can’t walk to school with Woohyun today,” you pouted.  “Oh well.  I’ll see that pabo after school.”

At that moment, your stomach growled loudly.  “Aish, you made me run out of the house without even eating anything!”  You yelled at Sungjong.

He smiled widely.  “That’s what I intended.”

“Meanie,” you muttered.

“Hey, we have plenty of time left.  Wanna stop at a convenience store for breakfast?” he offered.

Your head shot up at his offer.  “Of course!” you beamed, and ran to the nearest convenience store.  You knew the locations of all the convenience stores in the neighborhood by heart.  “Hurry up, grandpa!” You rushed Sungjong.

“I’m coming.  Pick out something for the both of us,” he responded as he strode leisurely towards the store.

“Ok,” you said.  You ran over to the ramen section and picked out two bowls of instant spicy kimchi noodles.  You went to the counter to pay as Sungjong finally made it into the shop and found a spot at the windows.  As the cashier rang up your items, you called over your shoulder, “You really are a slowpoke sometimes, Lee Sungjong.”

He scoffed, “I don’t have to rush.  I’ve got you to get me my food.”

You mumbled curses to him as you brought over the bowls of ramen.  “I’ll go get the hot water,” you said as you set the bowls down.  You walked over to the counter and poured two people’s worth of boiling water into a styro-foam cup.  On the way back, you grabbed two pairs of chopsticks.  Sungjong had ripped off the paper lids of the noodles and was patiently waiting for you to pour the hot water in.  You ignored his bowl and began pouring into yours first, setting the cup down afterwards.        

“Yah!  What about mine?” he asked in a rejected tone.  “I’m hungry, too!”

You began stirring the noodles with your chopsticks so that they would cook.  “You have hands, do it yourself,” you replied.  You still haven’t forgiven him for his prank that morning.

He gave up and served himself.  “Just so you know, doing that to you this morning cost a lot of my energy as well.  I had to get up extra early to reset your clock and prepare for school before you.”  He stirred his noodles and placed the lid back on to trap in the heat.

“Wow.  I never knew you would go to such troubles for pranking me.” You said sarcastically.  You didn’t wait until your noodles were fully cooked; you were too hungry to.  You dived into your bowl of spicy kimchi noodles, sighing in content as the delicious food entered your mouth.  You slurped the soup noisily.

Sungjong just looked at you devouring your noodles monstrously and calmly picked up his chopsticks again.  He peeled off the lid and blew on the noodles before picking it up and putting it efficiently in his mouth.  He bit of the remaining strands and chewed meticulously.

“If you keep eating at that rate, we’re really going to be late for school,” you scolded.  You continued stuffing huge chopstick-fulls of noodle into your mouth.

“At least I won’t be at risk for choking to death on noodles, like you,” he retorted.

You disregarded his insult and finished up by raising the bowl up to your mouth to down the remaining drops of soup.  By then, Sungjong was still calmly eating, biting the noodles each time his mouth was halfway full.  Your hunger wasn’t fully satisfied yet, so you reached over to his bowl to grab a couple of strands with your chopsticks.

“Yah!” Sungjong covered his bowl protectively.

“Aw, I’m still hungry!  Let me have some.  You’re not even halfway done yet, and school starts in thirteen minutes.  Let me help you,” you begged.

He considered what you just brought up, and loosened his defense on the noodles, allowing you to get some for yourself.  You didn’t hesitate in scooping up a huge chunk and stuffing it into your mouth.  He sighed.  “It’s gross how a girl like you can eat another person’s food without getting disgusted by the thought of sharing spit.”

You smiled proudly.  “As long as I get to eat.”  You picked up the bowl to slurp the soup.  “And besides, I’ve lived with you for twelve years.  The idea of sharing spit with you means nothing to me.”

“Jinjja,” he scoffed, and pulled the bowl away from you.

Guessing that he would take at least ten more minutes to finish, you pulled out your notebook and reviewed last night’s notes.  You could feel him staring at you, so you said, “Just hurry up and eat so we can get to school on time, dude.”

You heard a clang of wood being set down on the table and you glanced up questioningly.  He couldn’t have finished it that fast, could he?  You curiously peeked into his bowl and saw that it was empty.  You were shocked at how fast he ate.

“How…?” You looked at his expression and saw that he was pretty satisfied with himself.

“You were worried that we would be late to school.  So, let’s go.”  He stood up and started cleaning up his area.

“Uh, wha..?”  You’ve never witnessed Sungjong eating that fast, so it came across as a total shock for you.  You began clearing your trash as well.  You stuffed the notebook into your backpack and swung it onto your back.  Sungjong was already halfway out the door.  “Yah, what’s the rush?” you asked as you tried to keep up.

Then, you remembered the incident at the library last night, and you smiled suspiciously.  “Ohhh, I know what this is all about.  You’re excited to meet your lady friend, aren’t you?” you joked.  You were pretty sure that the last thing he wanted was to be around that girl, considering the way he acted towards her yesterday.  Nevertheless, you wanted to annoy him just a bit.

“Yah!”

Haha.  Saw that coming.  “What?” You blinked innocently.

“That person’s not my friend, and in no way is that a lady,” Sungjong fumed.

You didn’t think that he would get that agitated with her.  You asked softly, “You really don’t like her?”

“Of course not!  And I’m telling you, that person isn’t like a girl one bit.  That person’s even worse at being a lady than you!”

“Um, excuse you,” you said, a bit offended.  However, you continued.  “I think you should give her a chance though.  She seems to really like you.  I saw how disappointed she looked when you ignored her in the library yesterday.”

The school was now visible in the distance.

He scoffed, “Whatever.”  A moment later, he added with a smirk, “If you think she’s so great, why don’t you give her a try?”

You contemplated this for a moment, and said, “So what if I will?  She doesn’t seem that bad.”

“Surree, ‘she’ doesn’t seem that bad,” Sungjong said slowly.

You didn’t understand why he had to emphasize the word ‘she’ so much, but just ignored it.  “Ok, challenge accepted.  I’ll try talking to her today at school and get back to you on the details tonight before we go to sleep.  Sounds good?”

He smirked.  “Sounds great.”

You guys arrived at the school gates just as the bell rang.  You split up to go to your eleventh grade classes, while he went to the senior side.

“Talking to this girl’s going to be no big deal,” you chanted to yourself.  “Then tonight, I’ll rub in Sungjong’s face that she’s actually a nice girl.  That’ll make him accept her for who she is.”  You arrived at your first class, Calculus.  “Hwaiting, Haerin!” You cheered in your head.