Back then when I was young, my parents used to hold various dinners for friends and family because my mother used to cook so well and also because my father was good at maintaining his relationships. I have a vague memory of those times, for those were the times where I had so much of time to spend with my mother, and I remember how difficult it was for me to be the only child. I was around nine or ten back then, and all those friends and relatives meant to taint my ego, literally, treating me like I was one of those pretty china dolls who required constant dolling-up and sweet driveling.  Some would carry me around, the others would hold me in their laps and ask me about school and friends, and some would buy me pretty frilly dresses and dollies; the only thing I happily accepted though, were lollipops. For the others, well, I did accept them because my father wouldn’t let me get away with it, but with a fake smile.

My father used to tell me, on those kind of days; ‘Jung Eunji, first impression matters’

I didn’t really understand what he meant by that, because I was too young and naïve to have my understanding developed quite so. However I had a vague idea that he meant being nice to them the first time we meet. And that’s how I learned to smile at everyone I meet.

When I grew up and faced the world, however, I learned how it worked. First impression, I mean. I understood it to be the way we firstly comprehend another’s personality, and the idea we take on him would always depend on how our perception worked on his personality. Thus we would treat them accordingly. That was why they used to buy for me dollies and pretty dresses, that’s why they carried me around and spoke to me in those annoyingly sweet tones, because I smiled at them every time we meet, because, well, I gave them a first impression on the positive end of the spectrum.

First impression, indeed mattered.

The first time I met the handsome stranger, I thought there was an oddly beautiful light emitting from him, a light which said I might know him, I might have known him somewhere in my life. This was a strange thought, of course. I had no idea how I might have known him; besides I was passive in remembering faces so there was something serious amiss.

Generally it took me all too long to understand certain things. Like I said before; I was a snail on fasting taking a jog; therefore, it took a good proportion of my time for me to realize that the impression I had on this particular person was all too wrong.

First impression truly mattered to learn how a person could be. It begs to differ along the time though. The impression on a person I mean. It tends to take its course on the negative spectrum or the positive spectrum. It’s our duty to sustain the impression as how we began. I was good at doing that, I tell you. Because some of my father’s friends still bought me china dolls.

The handsome stranger, however,  had definitely lost it.

At that very moment when I witnessed him being, you know, a definite bad boy who was so willing to get laid and share his girls, I knew; the handsome Ahjussie stranger was indeed something. My first impression on him did beg to differ and took the negative course of the entire element; it wasn’t my fault though. It must be fate that I happened to be standing there before him when he had decided to unleash the beast inside him. Plus, he was drunk; and it was a general fact that drunk men didn’t think further before they speak.

But when he saw me, recognition immediately clouded his perfection; eyes widened, mouth ajar, definitely surprised.

And that was when the other person (His face most beautifully suited his symphonic voice, I tell you) pointed at me, eyes shining with excitement and exclaimed; “Hyung, you know her? Is she one of your chicks?”

There was another thing that my father told me back when I entered high-school and met Howon; “Make the perfect alliances, find the perfect friends if you don’t want to be judged.”

Except for Lee Sung Jong, back then, I never really had a closest friend; I hung out with several of them, we were a little clam who had picnics on beaches and all but never had any involvements personally, and that, I guess, evaded every reason to be judged. I was judged, certainly for my individuality; and by Lee Sung Jong. Therefore I knew that the idea the others had on me wasn’t quite explaining who I was.

After I met Lee Howon, though, people, including my father, saw me in a different light. It was a good thing though, changing their perception on me. What they all saw in common in me was that I was opening up to the world more than I used to; which was certainly a good thing. After my mothers’ death, being called a murderer, I was afraid to face the world, let alone open myself to the society. Howon, however, although he was silent and reserved among others, had completely turned me into an all new person. And that was how I was judged by the alliances I made.

The handsome stranger, as how I judged him, had made the worse alliance ever; I mean, who on earth roams streets, drunk and talking about broken love affairs and sharing girls? And He on the outlook definitely wasn’t it. However the handsome stranger could be, I saw him, right at that moment; in the very same light I saw his drunk friend, which undeniably wasn’t agreeable.

The next morning I went to school feeling so bitter and betrayed, as though I had swallowed raw carps for breakfast, not even seeing Myung Soo steaming hot and sweaty early in the morning wasn’t any helping, which made my anger even worse. To top it off, he decided he wanted fried chicken for lunch, since he was bored to drive, I made him be appreciative of the cold, dry chicken the college cafeteria had to offer us and shut him off.

“What’s with the face?” He asked, stuffing his face with the chicken, looking as though he was attending a royal dinner. “Did something piss you off?”

“Yes” I said, aggressively stuffing the straw into the drinking yogurt that he got for me. “I’m so pissed off at how the world is going”

He stared at me then, blank and bland before nodding away. “Ah. Okay”

I rolled my eyes. “Can you be more specific?”

“Back to you Eunji”

I sighed. “You see, I met the biggest doofus on earth last night”

“Doofus?” He asked, sounding as though he was discussing a leisurely trip to the nail salon. “What did he do?”

“Called me somebody’s chick. And that doofus was the next biggest doofus on earth”

He blinked once, twice; “What makes him a doofus?”

I shrugged. “He called me a chick! Plus they were talking about getting laid and sharing girls and then the first doofus saw me and asked the second doofus if I was his chick when I clearly am not!”

“Oh…Fair enough”

“Why?”

He smiled in response. “Because you’re nobody’s chick”

I reached out and hit him on the head. “This rascal! You’re not any better!”

He shrugged. “So that’s why you’re pissed?”

I nodded, looking down at my hand. The truth was, you see, I thought the handsome stranger was a nice person. Not in a Myung Soo kind of a way, but still nice. I was disappointed that he didn’t turn out to suit my expectations. “I’m pissed that my judgment was wrong…”

There was a definite silence on Myung Soo’s part, and after a while, he nodded understandingly. “I see…”

He then wiped his hands off on a tissue and turned to me. “You know, Eunji, you can’t always expect your judgment to be right, it depends on how you look at it, not what you look at. Perspectives”

Perspectives, Perspectives.

“And that’s why we say, don’t judge the book by its cover. You get it? The perception is the cover while there are other perspectives to look at. I don’t know what exactly happened…” He continued, wiping his fingers, one after the other. “But I’m sure there’s more to it than what you see and what I know…”

He stood up, leaving me speechless and pushed the chair in. “I’ll get a drink and come. You want anything?”

I looked down at my barely touched chicken and shook my head. “No…or maybe another yogurt please”

“All on me” He said cheerily before disappearing into the queue of crowd.

This thing about judgments differing on perception really is something, I tell you. It’s strange how everything could depend on the view point of one’s judgment; being good, bad vice versa, and how everything was most liable to change along the time.

Myung Soo, at first sight I had judged as a petty flower boy around whom half of the girls lingered like they’d do around a rare rose or something. That’s what he looked like, at least in the primary view-point, but I had been all too wrong because, although the girls did swoon around him as though there was no other man on earth as handsome as he were, that wasn’t what made Kim Myung Soo,  Kim Myung Soo. There was so much more to him than what I saw him in the first sight. Maybe first impressions gave all too wrong impressions, or maybe it differed on perceptions. Perspectives, yes, they definitely mattered.

That was exactly why I shouldn’t judge a situation by the perspective that I see it in; but when I was confronted by a situation which I couldn’t grasp with a sane mind, judging it in the perception that my mind was willing to was all I could do.

That evening Myung Soo pulled me off to a side before heading to the final lectures and proudly announced to me; “I’m playing hooky again”

I didn’t say anything though. Even though Myung Soo was the last person that one could expect to play hooky on a regular basis, I looked at the perspectives and let it pass. “Okay…then I’ll go home”

His response was to hit me on my head. “Idiot! Where on earth are you going to get the notes?”

I shrugged. “Where the hell are you going? Is Hyung turning the house into a pigsty again?”

“Nah” He said and buried his hands in his pockets. “I just….got to go somewhere”

“Oh. Alright then” I said, finally in agreement. Although my instincts were telling me that there wasn’t anything so good about this, again, I let it pass. Maybe instincts could be wrong too. I mean, judgments and instincts, what big difference did they have?

But later on when I headed off to the final lectures, being giddy and broody and wishing I could play hooky too, screwing the darn lectures, I realized that I was once again wrong, or wronged. Because I turned my back to the message my instincts was giving me, because I was ignorant, because I thought being wrong could be the rightful solution to it.

Myung Soo, I saw him heading out, chatting away merely and happy-go-lucky with a girl that I couldn’t exactly recognize; still, there was something in his eyes; that something that my instincts were trying to tell me, that something which I refused to grasp because I thought I could be wrong, that something which only meant…

…my love for him was on the edge of extinction, my love for him was on the edge to be gone unreturned and unknown.

Because my first love, probably was in love with someone else. Someone who definitely wasn’t myself.

“You don’t seem very happy today” Sung Yeol commented the moment I walked into the counter of his coffee shop once I had changed into my workplace attire and threw myself into the nearest chair. The truth was, I was frustrated. I was frustrated to know that I had major competition on my way. Well, it wasn’t that I hated challenges; no, I love challenges, in fact, I myself am an adventurous person who don’t mind getting into trouble once in a while, but this…well, allow me to get something clear. I like to be selfish sometimes, so I would be now; although Kim Myung Soo wasn’t rightfully mine, I’d been having him around me for almost two years, he trusted me, I trusted him. He helped me, and I helped him in return. We had mutual interaction, and something along the line of mutual understanding although I didn’t know whether we had mutual feelings; but one way or the other we had the relevant potentials to continue our relationship as a couple without being the tongue-tied batch-mates which we were. Okay…we weren’t exactly tongue-tide. We were just a little awkward which wasn’t much of a deal which could possibly pull us apart, neither were w best friends which some may misunderstand because, yes, as I told you before; my best friend was Lee Howon, and the relationship Myung Soo and I shared was way beyond that. So there, I had reason to turn our relationship into something more. But only; Myung Soo wasn’t even trying.

There were so many other girls coming on our way; however, this was the first time, after all the time we had spent together, that I witnessed Kim Myung Soo interacting so freely with another girl; presumably one of the hundred many girls who were following after him. It’s another reason why I should keep Myung Soo to myself, because none of them knew Kim Myung Soo as much as I did; in fact I was an encyclopedia on Kim Myung Soo, although certain things such as names and places could have slipped my mind.

So yes, that’s why I need to be selfish, that’s why I need to win over his heart. Maybe I wanted to protect him…

…or maybe I was just-

“Jealous?” Sung Yeol’s voice sounded from nowhere, pulling me out from my reverie. I looked up, all ready to respond, but what I happened to witness was Howon, Sungyeol and Chorong staring out the glass panel of the coffee shop, somewhere across the road. It was for their luck that the place wasn’t very crowded, or else god knows what they could do with their reputation.

“Jealous? Why would I be?” Howon demanded in his very same crisis-debate tone. In fact, both Sungyeol and Howon attended the same university which was a college specializing visual arts unlike Myung Soo and I; although Sung Yeol and Myung Soo claimed to be best friends, well, trust me; they looked nothing like that together; more like earth to sky. Whatever.

“That’s Naeun, Wonnie, The Song Naeun. Who wouldn’t be jealous?”

I stood up at hearing the name and made my way towards him. My ears were sensitive, and yes, they would immediately attract me to any news that had to do with the neighborhood princess.

“Naeun? Why? You found her mystery boy?”

Sung Yeol turned to me. “Not exactly. We can’t see how he looks like so it remains a mystery…”

“Ah…” Mused Chorong as though she was watching a leisurely weekend drama. “There they go…”

“I give up” Howon said, looking grumpy as ever. He probably was jealous, because out of all the people around me, he was the one who spoke of the neighborhood princess the most.  “This is no fun”

“True” Chorong added, turning away and headed towards the counter; to add to the horrid disposition of mine today, Chorong unnie too looked extra grumpy. “I have better things to do than that”

Sung Yeol rolled his eyes. “Geez! What’s up with you girls and grumpiness? Is it that time of the month?”

I threw him a glare and finally sighed in frustration before returning to the counter and sitting beside Chorong unnie who was now busy scribbling on a sheet of pink paper.  Howon followed suite and leaned over the counter. I looked up. “What’d’ you want?”

He smiled. “How about a big warm cup of Jung Eunji is frustrated because?”

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously! Can you be a little more specific?”

“He needs to have a chat, Ji.” Chorong unnie added and looked up. “Sung Yeol’s right. You don’t look very happy”

I sighed and folded my arms. “I’m tired of my life…”

Sung Yeol stared at me from behind the cashier, and blinked a several times. “So mister Grumpy did kick you on the …”

“So it’s about Myung Soo?”

Something about Howon, he was extremely observant, another thing; only Sung Yeol, Howon and Chorong unnie knew that I had feelings for Kim Myung Soo.

I nodded without a word. It was embarrassing, really, to have all of their concern on me, especially when it came down to Myung Soo so whenever he was mentioned in the conversation, things all of a sudden would become awkward.

Howon released a long sigh before coming to me around the counter and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Eunji, you know what I think? You should tell him”

“Tell him?”

I looked up, only to witness that I had three pairs of eyes transfixed on me. Sung Yeol nodded in agreement. “Yes. Eunji, you see, he gets all the girls he wants on a daily basis, but you, he hung around with you for almost two years. You must be special, eh? So you might stand a chance?”

“Sung Yeol makes sense” Chorong added, still her concentration focused on whatever she was writing. “I don’t know him much, but I know him enough to say that you’re indeed somewhat special to him”

That, I tell you, made me feel much, much better. You see, Myung Soo and I were close enough to have him making me wash his cloths and me feeding him on every lunch break; I was his getaway, he had told me several times; it was on me that he always let out his frustration, and indeed he had admitted it himself that he opened his heart to me and that I was the only person he could talk to with an open heart therefore I knew it myself that I was special to him. But only I needed a confirmation. How they made me feel better was that they confirmed to me my precious belief.

I looked up at Howon and smiled. “True…you may be right. Maybe I should tell him”

Sung Yeol reached out and smacked on my back. “That’s the spirit! You go sister!”

I didn’t exactly like Sung Yeol’s manner of interaction, I tell you. Most of the time he tended to cross over my line of patience. I whipped around to give him a piece of my mind when he changed the topic with ease and looked down at Chorong unnie who still wasn’t done with her writing.

“Cho noona! What are you doing?”

“Can’t you just say by looking?” She returned through gritted teeth.

“Okay. Writing. But what?”

“A letter” Howon replied instead to which unnie herself added her explanation. “You see, I broke my phone, my internet’s not working, the land-line is impossible, so how on earth am I to catch up with Moon?”

Moon was Chorong unnie’s all-time boyfriend and enlisted just about a week ago about which she was frustrated over the world. She was the clingy type, Chorong unnie was, and had a case of panic attack so Moon oppa, just before he left had to assure to her that he’d be returning in one piece in another two years, but she wasn’t convinced so he had to agree to her pleas of calling him every night every day the entire span of two years. The tough luck of them was that she had lost all sources of communication.

“So you write letters” Sung Yeol added to my train of thoughts. “Oh alright…quite old fashioned but-,”

“That’s it!” Howon declared all of a sudden, reminding me of that time when Archimedes ran all over the streets in . “That’s it, Eunji!”

I made a face and looked up, confused. “What’s it?”

“A love letter” He said, now clutching both my shoulders. “Since I know you’re an who wouldn’t go and tell him the truth, why don’t you write him a love letter?”

I looked ahead and nodded, pondering on how much of sense it made to me and said in agreement. “Hmm, that sounds legit”

And allow me to tell you this now; that was exactly where everything began.

Hello everyone!

I'm finally back after poring all my tears to the babies who died in the ferry disaster, my prayers are with them, and i hope you pray for the kids to rest in peace. That said, I decided to title all the chapters because i haven't done it before. Besides this story will be full with loads of drama (Its on the way) so its nice if I title the chapters, right?

I'm sorry that there's less Gyu in this chapter but he will be there in other chapters because I miss my bias too! I wish him a very happy birthday in advance because I'm not sure if I would be around at that time to wish him. (The world youth conference is here in Sri Lanka, and like the I could be, I volunteered for the preparations, so, if I get selected...) HAPPY BIRTHDAY GYU-AH! YOU'RE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!!

So yeah. wait up for the next update!

Commenting, subscribing is up to you to decide.

Love;

Achini.