When I was still a kid, my mother always used to tell me that I was too slow in my life, that I moved along through my days in such a lazy pace. I didn’t exactly get it back then for I was really really young, back then before she decided to leave me, but as I grew older, slowly approaching the society and faced the world, then, I realized what she really meant. By then, my mother had left me, for real.

Well, even now, things weren’t exactly clear and sensible to my liking. Maybe I was too naïve, or giddy, but still, well, I was still trying to move ahead in my life.

I was still as slow as a snail on fasting taking a morning jog; I was slow at whatever I did. This whole phenomena has a logical sense to it, I guess, and owing to the very same logical sense I couldn’t help but go on in the same pace that I started up in, or else I’d be moving too fast, and then I would never know where on earth I would end up, I’d be the slow snail on fasting taking a morning jog for the rest of my life, because that’s how I started anyway, that was how I started being me. It’s all for owing to being me from the very beginning, the slow slow snail taking a jog, for being slow back then, and even now. Or maybe, that’s just the pace that my entire life moved on, or maybe the time was too fast that I couldn’t catch up; there are always two sides to a sword, right? Or maybe; it’s just the perks of being me;

The perks of being Jung Eunji.

And then there were the sad, nerve-wrecking moments where I regretted being myself. No, it’s not that bad if I was giving any wrong ideas, I wasn’t depressed, planning self-harm or suicide, that would be dumb, no; I was just tired of the whole ordeal, I just wanted to change. It’s hard, I tell you, to be Jung Eunji; there were more than one thing to deal with, and I was not that bright to handle so many things at once, and of course, I was too slow at understanding things, and when I finally do, things would be already gone, or would be even more complicated than they originally were, and it’s frustrating, because it’s even harder to catch up with the time I lost.

Maybe that was why I was never very bright, never did good at school. It was out of luck that I had come this far in my life, or else I would be standing at the very same spot that I started up in.

I didn’t know where the hell that was.

There’s this thing about me. Despite being normally scatterbrained, I tend to forget things that had happened in my past. In fact, I didn’t know how my first homeroom teacher looked like, or who my middle school best friend was or what grades I got for my CSAT, hell! I didn’t even remember what I did the previous weekend! And this, I did, purposefully, deliberately, for a reason.

I hate to recall, because all I would gain out of doing that was well, reminiscent. I had so much of pain, wrong-doing and mistakes to regret. I didn’t see myself through them, nor did I correct myself seeing the mistakes I did; none of this but regret, like my frail little snail-brain had nothing better to do with all the time it had.

Thus I followed this really masterful, clever saying that my good friend believed; enjoy the moment as it is.

It was yet another day at college, and as you would have guessed, yes, I was ceremoniously late. And I was most likely to lie to myself, it made no difference anyway, I’d be me no matter what; yet, out of reflex I would blame the local transport system, or the lift, or the alarm or the coffee machine instead; maybe I was too scared to admit it myself that the real problem was my punctuality.

So, yes; I’d say, the bus was ritually late, and was full, and I had to keep standing all the way that I was too tired to take the stairs that I took the lift, and it got stuck, and it didn’t even budge for twenty minutes, and even when I tried to ring the bell-

The lecture hall was full to the brim as expected, except for the front row which people would generally avoid for particular reasons and also which I would generally take as though it was a life-long curse. Oh god knew how terrible it was to sit down there, all alone for two hours, eventually to walk out with a neck stiff to the bone that I have sit and wait in the same position for another twenty minutes before my muscles reflexed. But fate seemed to have all sorts of funny games to play solely on me, sadly. And it wasn’t even funny anymore.

In fact, fate is such a witty thing. I really didn’t know what exactly we refer to as fate; however, the very term has a day to day sense, like taking the treasure bus every morning; we all get our decent share of fate every single day, yet we could never be certain of what it had in store for us; the only reason why it’s different from taking the bus every morning because the bus, well, every morning the bus is pretty much the same but every morning, we couldn’t even imagine what could have taken place in our life by the end of the day. It could be that we weren’t even walking on the face of earth anymore. Every single day, hour, minute, second is different from the previous, and the next; that’s what which makes life unpredictable, and that’s where fate plays its role.

I think fate is what which predetermines everything. Thinking that it’s something that we aren’t certain of its existence, the very idea sounds quite insane; but we all have our share of personal beliefs. And that’s what I believe; that fate knows what would happen in the next minute of my life. It’s so sneaky that it wouldn’t even give us a hint on it, or maybe it does and we are too vague to never to notice it; that’s why we never even recognize it at first when someone has a crush on you, and when you has a crush on someone, and when that special someone accidentally passes by you and you never notice until you remember later on; ’Ah! So it was you!’, and when you pass by someone and never even give it any thought that that person would be the next most important thing in your life. Fate is a funny thing, fate decides everything and we never know. And curiosity kills the cat for me that it excites me to wake up every morning to see what exactly the fate has got in store for me. That’s why I was afraid to die.

And I believe now that its fate which planned for me to sit in the front line, every single morning of my college-student life. It’s wrong to call it a lifelong curse after all. Well, everything that happens in life, if it’s decided by my fate, there has got to be a fair reason to it, right? Unless, of course it’s a mere coincident…

Well, still, its fate-

The front line, that inevitable front line…

…it was where I met my very first love.

With a grunt, I stumbled onto my chair and soundly pulled out my notes. This thing about taking notes down was seriously getting on my nerves. You see, I was not that much of a fast writer, and when I do get the notes down, they didn’t make any sense half of the time for I had a weak memory, and once I had gotten something down, well, basically I forgot what came next; I wasn’t any good at listening either, it was hard for me to catch up, and my biggest fear was to be seriously unaware of the subject matters and sit for the exams, because I hated when my dad complained saying that he was working too hard for my snail-brain. It wasn’t that he did a job which required some hard-working, physique, no, he owned a music store; what he meant was that he spent a good proportion of money and time to bring up his only child.

I was thankful for that.

And that was exactly why I provoke him to copy notes for me by promising him to clean his lenses and by his lunch and all, despite…well, while the other sort of intentions involved.

For an instance; well, um…staring?

Throughout the next ninety minutes, I doodled all over my notes and literally fell asleep by the end. I knew it the moment I walked into the hall the very first day, I tell you. I knew that I would never work it out well with concentrating on a pattering old man. Not insulting, just saying.  That’s why I turned to the person who sat on the very next seat to me. To be honest, there were only the two of us on the front row (because, as always, I was tersely late) just so you know because that, wasn’t at all intentional act. In all honesty I didn’t even know who was sitting next to me, I was in too much of a hurry to even to see him and slept for the next sixty minutes therefore I had no idea how that person even looked like. I just waited until the lecture ended and waited for the others to flow out of the hall before it finally hit me that I had, again, become a bad, bad student. I was to be investing for a brighter future, and to think that that was how I initialized it; well, it was a scary thought. Therefore I didn’t hesitate once before I approached him with such audacity and asked:

“Hey! Can I borrow your notes?”

Which, along the time changed into; “Yah! I said I’d wash your undies, copy for me the freaking notes!”

Time has ways to change its course and mannerisms, I tell you.

After a ten minutes of wait, sacrificing my lunch hour, he finally returned from the library, a black n’ white copy of the day’s lecture in his hands. I knew he was fuming by then, that was just how he was, although he was most unlikely to explode; it was strange how even that ugly disposition suited his face even more.

He was exceptionally handsome anyway; and exceptionally is such a deliberate phrase of exaggeration; it’s just necessary, otherwise I’d never explain just how handsome he was.

“What’s the pay?” He asked, both hands stuffed into his pocket as I nonchalantly stuffed the notes into my bag.

“Lunch” I said, not bothering to look up. In fact, it was frustrating to look at him when he spoke; I was always more likely to stumble on my words. “And undies”

The truth was, he was a clean freak, an OCD person to the extreme that he would only let me other than his Omma to wash his cloths for him; the witty thing was, he wouldn’t even wash them himself. I didn’t quite understand this trait though, why he let me do it even when he knew I was most probable to ruin everything. Maybe it was just because…or maybe it was what you call trust. However he was such a hard character to describe let alone understand.

“Cool” he said, after taking his time to ponder on the situation. “Hand-washed, extra comfort”

I winced in disgust. “Can you not exaggerate it?”

You know, he has got the loveliest laughter on earth.

“What’s for lunch?”

“How would I know?” Bickered I. To be honest, despite the fact that I liked him, I couldn’t help but scream out my frustration in return. Maybe I was mentally exasperated, like those single women we found in dramas and all; I’ve heard, it was a common trait among the women like myself.

“Ah well, anyway I was thinking of eating out.”

I glared out of reflex. “And why the hell is that?”

He smiled, making my heart skip a beat. “Eh, why. It’s all on you?”

“Yah! You rascal-!”

“Let’s have italiano.”

I raised my hand and hit his head. “Rascal! Do you think I live to feed you?”

“And do you think I live to copy notes for you?”

I was rendered speechless. If only he knew what the real purpose of it all was…

“Y-yah…Kim Myung Soo!”

“Jung Eunji, we’re having Italian for lunch, or no notes for a week”

And I couldn’t bear to lose a second spent with him.

For the silly little snail-brain that I was, well, it took me long enough to fall in love for the first time…

And when finally I did, it was Kim Myung Soo. It was Kim Myung Soo whom I loved.

/fail/

Hi? Here I present to you the first chappy which turned out to be a  freakish failiure; I APOLOGIZE! I'm just experimenting my comic skills, you know, I wasn't the most sarcastic person out there; again I apologize to being such a failure. It was fun writing it though.

A big shout-out to muchlovegyuji and bluejuice! Thank you! and let's keep our Gyuji love living and breathing forever!

I know, its just Myung Soo for now, Gyu will make his grand entrance soon, so anticipate it! Anyway I hope you enjoyed.

commenting, upvoting, subscribing is all up to you.

loads of love!

Achini

(Ps; I have my final exam's in two weeks and I must be damned for start writing this without even touching a single note! *Gasp!* so I wish you'd give me time to study before the next chappy comes up. I give you this since I couldn't keep you waiting. for the next, well I'd have to. Mianne!)