“You lost your what?” Howon hissed once I had dragged him to the kitchen area of the café after taking down the orders of the men. Despite knowing them, I was an employee nevertheless, and of course I wouldn’t want Sung Yeol ranting here and there about his employees not working accurately, thus I voluntarily took the orders and excused myself before stealing Howon from his friends.

Fearing the reality, I nodded away. He rolled his eyes. “Typical Jung Eunji. You don’t freak out and throw about love letters! You know how funny this is?”

“I know!” I screamed in return. “But can you not talk about that and help me find it?”

There were the moments when I wanted to pull each and every strand of his hair and strangle him until his last breath.

“I want it! I want it!! I want it!!! And that’s about it, I want it!”

“But why?!?”

I tried my best to not to reach out and claw on his impeccable visage. “Don’t you get it? Someone probably has found it there lying on the floor and it’s probably with one of the guys there that I can’t see it on the floor do you actually think it dematerialized into the thin air?!?”

“Whoa! Hold your horses, pretty lady!” He said, holding up his palms. “Why do you think they could have taken it?”

I parted my lips to respond but then I realized; I had no point to prove my counterargument. The truth is, I was the kind of a person who tend to go into immediate conclusions without considering the other perspectives. I thought of Myung Soo and his theory of perspectives. Of course, no matter how important it might seem to me, for the rest of them, a paper lying on the floor would always be a paper lying on the floor, nothing more. Although we had factually met each other at the wrong circumstances, Sunggyu, the handsome stranger wouldn’t have a proper reason to actually be concerned about a random paper lying on the floor. It was not like we had any real relationship other than a several encounters and my shameless bickering, therefore I had no reason to freak out over it. Moreover, how would he know that  had anything to do with me?

I let out a long breath, trying to relieve my nerves. “Okay…okay…so they might have not taken it…”

“But they might have seen it, one of them…” Howon added nonchalantly. “And thrown it into the bin…you know, young people are careful about their surroundings, nowadays…”

I looked up, widening my eyes. “What? No!”

He sighed for the umpteenth time. “Eunji, it’s just a piece of paper…besides, it’s not like your feelings would disappear just because the letter got lost! You can write again-,”

“I won’t” I pointed out. “Myung Soo, I figured…is seeing someone….”

The atmosphere suddenly fell into an eerie silence. The sound of the coffee grinders and clutter of utensils continued; other than that, all I could here were our even breathing. With much disdain, I gulped down the lump of defeat and sorrow in my throat.

“Oh…I see…” Was his eventual reply. I tried to smile. “It’s okay…Howon…we’ll talk about it later…”

“But that doesn’t make your feelings any less important, Eunji” He reasoned. “I’m sure…one day, things will work out perfectly well for you”

I thought back to the time when he too was in love. Howon, despite his once-hot-next-minute-cold erratic behavior, had a kind heart and never took feelings as granted. Even at that time when I friendlily rejected his proposal it was him who suggested that we should both give ourselves time because we both didn’t want to feel awkward between us. It was indeed the truth, and worked out very well; two, three days later when we met each other again, we realized, we didn’t want to let anything change between us. That was the kind of a person Howon was.

“Thank…you, Howon-ah…”

He smiled in return. And I returned to my impromptu ranting.

“Do you really think it might be in the bin, Howon-ah?”

He shrugged. “Since you never seem to give up; yes…”

I straightened up. “Then I need to find it”

“Suit yourself, but first, do the orders…”

I walked to the counter to hand over the orders chit. Of course I was ceremoniously late to hand it over that Chorong exclaimed how much she wished she could kill me. I, regardless of her ranting, merely read out the orders until I stopped on a beverage in particular which immediately caught my attention.

“Iced green tea latte…?” I muttered to myself as though to make sure myself. “With extra cream…?”

It was Myung Soo’s favorite.

“What was it again, Ji?” Chorong unnie called out, leaning over to hear me clearer. I cleared my throat, confused at the coincident and repeated the order. It was like a riddle to me, a riddle I need to solve; who was it who had the same taste as him? Did it mean anything? Like an advances clue leading me to something unbelievable? I tried to find the heads and tails of it. What made things so, confusing?

But of course, I was making a big scene out of this. I was being extremely delusional of course. I was heart-broken, hopes lost, maybe that was what which gave me all those impromptu thoughts. I was merely imagining things.

Once the orders were ready I wipe my hands on the apron I wore and carried them with ease. It had been almost two years since I started working here; therefore everything I needed to do and follow was beyond familiar to me; working here was a part of my daily routine.

Out of curiosity though, once I had carefully kept the tray, I waited to see who exactly made the order for the iced green tea latte with extra cream. The moment I took the orders the men suggested their order to Woohyun the nice voiced guy, it was him whom briefed to me the entire order that I barely even noticed that it was there. Now was the moment to see who had, miraculously, the same preference as the man I loved.

Ten minutes of waiting, standing beside Howon who glanced at me strangely then and there I realized, the men were still not moving for their respective beverages; instead, were chattering away as though they were a pack of retired women discussing their husbands and kids. I rolled my eyes in irritation, wondering how men could be worse than us women and gave up on solving the weird riddle. I had a bigger mystery to solve.

After I had safely escaped Sungyeol’s prominent glare, I quickly reached the bins which were situated crammed between the two restrooms. Of course it was a spot where people generally lingered around; however I, as willing and bold as I were, immediately reached for the first bin in the line and began to hand through the content, looking for one perceptible sheet of pink paper. For a moment, it was what which my life depended on.

The first bin had nothing more than a several pieces of old bills and scrunched up tissues, nothing pink to catch my eyes that I promptly moved to the next, then I realized, Sung Yeol had yet to put away this lot of litter from the day before. It was filled out to its brim and reeked of stale milk and food; I wiped my hands on my apron and held my nose with one as I went through the content with other, in utter disgust.

The bin was full up to its brim and there was hardly a chance that I would find a paper inside. I wanted to die.

I was carefully running my hand over the content when I suddenly felt presence behind me. Someone was watching, obviously, that I was all about to slowly retrieve my hand and slither away like a serpent, putting my best employee-of-the-year act when suddenly-

“Eunji-Ssi?”

I freaked out seeing hell to earth that I promptly pulled away, only to feel the unbearable pain on my hand. I screamed in response.

The handsome stranger, Kim Sung Gyu. It was unbelievable just how his existence could be a mere nuisance to me.

“Eunji-Ssi are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”

I hissed at the pain on my hand, witnessing the red liquid gushing out of a visible cut on my thumb. A shard of broken glass had cut through its skin.

“Eunji-Ssi” He took a step towards me and out of reflex, I stepped back, not wanting to get into anymore trouble. “No I was screaming just for the thrill of it, Ahjussie, go on y our way now-,”

“Your hand” He pointed out, pointing at my hand. “It’s bleeding”

“No it’s-,” I tried to argue but he moved promptly that I couldn’t even keep track of what happened; the next minute was I standing by the sinks with his holding my hand, examining the wound as though it could kill me the very next minute. I was confused. What was he trying to do right now? Making up for all the trouble he had caused me?

“There’s a shard of glass” he said, sounding grave, his eyes not wavering once. “We need to pull it out”

I suddenly felt dizzy. “P-pull…it out?”

He nodded and looked up, those alluringly tiny eyes focused deeply on me. “Yes…before it gets any worse” And so he raised his hand, examined his nails for my utter bewilderment and without another word reached the wound which was still covered of blood. I screamed out of reflex. “No!!!”

He shushed me. “It’s going to hurt only a little, Eunji-Ssi”

And as gently as he tugged onto my skin, he proved his words to me. It didn’t hurt at all. For a moment I was out of this world. Who was this man? What was he doing? What was he trying to tell me? What was he trying to prove to me? At any rate he was making fender benders,  trying to convert all the trouble he had caused me into reasons, for what purpose, I didn’t know, but reasons to show me that he wasn’t that much of a bad person that I thought he were. I watched how calmly yet diligently he tugged at the glass with the smooth, long fingers of his; and I just have to admit, his hands were more beautiful than of a woman, and I couldn’t help but stare at them in awe as they moved as gently as tulips would sway in the wind. His eyes were completely focused on his doing, putting all his effort into it, and slowly, as slowly as though he was pulling a petal off a blossom, he retrieved his fingers, and smiled, satisfied of his doing. The pain did subside, all I could do just then was wonder in utter befuddlement, was he an angel in disguise?

But angels, of course, wouldn’t cause all the trouble that he had caused me so far.

“See? It wasn’t that hard….”

“Oh…” was all I could manage to venture out. He stepped away and asked me to hold the wound under running water. “It would help, in case there was any more tiny shards inside” He explained. “And of course, to clean the wound, too…”

I wanted to tell him something unnerving in return; however, I couldn’t make myself to; he was being too nice to me and I wasn’t used to this kind of treatment from anyone.

Once the blood had diminished, he buried his hand into his blazer and produced a clean white handkerchief. “Here, cover the wound for the time being”

“But-,” I tried to argue, feeling uncomfortable to be treated this way anymore; I was rendered to stop when he smiled and forced it onto my hand. “Take it…I’m fine”

Since he was willingly giving it to me, I took it without a word and noticed a deliberately embroidered Chinese lettering. I didn’t quite understand what it meant since my Chinese wasn’t at all good, not even good enough to read calligraphy, however, something eccentric inside me said that I was bound to find out.

But there was still the mystery I needed to solve; provided that the suspect was right before my eyes, I decided to take my chances. “Uh, Sung Gyu…Ssi…” I called out, feeling strange to call him by his name. He diverted his attention from his hand to me. “Yes, Eunji-Ssi?”

After clearing my throat, I went for the kill. “Sung Gyu-Ssi…did you, by any chance…find a sheet of paper lying on the floor…where you sat before?”

He took his share of time to ponder upon it; throughout this time, I focused on the sound of running water as he washed his hands. “Nope” He said in the end. “I didn’t find any…Why?”

I shyly looked down at my hand which held tightly onto the handkerchief which now had a massive blot of red on it. “Nothing…just…”

“Was it anything important to you?”

I shook my head. “Not really…it’s okay”

He retrieved his hands and proceeded to dry them off. “By the way, Eunji-Ssi…I apologize for all the trouble I have caused…” He said while he was at it, pulling out tissues from the holder. I shrugged. “It’s okay…Sung Gyu-Ssi….”

“I hope….because you really don’t seem to be fond of me…”

I shook my head, forcing out the feeling, for, frankly speaking, I really wasn’t sure how I felt about him, and I wanted to be honest. “Well, that’s true…because I don’t how I should be towards you…really”

He chuckled in response and scrunched the tissues in his hands. “That was very straight-forward”

I didn’t reply, because I didn’t want to. He didn’t seem to be waiting for me to do so either; instead, he threw the used tissue into the bin under the sink and proceeded to leave. “Well then…See you around”

I nodded in response; however though, even if he proceeded to leave, he suddenly stopped on his track.

“Ah, By the way, Eunji-Ssi…I hope you’d find your important paper before they get rid of the garbage for the day…good luck!”

I, on the other hand could only stand and watch him leave, my jaw dropped to my knees, thinking of the best way to respond. It was such, such a strange day for me, and one of the very worse; it was so so bad that I couldn’t even think of something sensible to yell in retort at his retreating back.

Having grown up through my grandparent’s ruthless accusations and being loved only by my father and my late mother, I wasn’t quite used to be treated gently with pure kindness. True, Howon and his mother had always been kind to me, but this, I knew was because we were both from Busan and because he had come to see me as a sister while for his mother I was a daughter, but Sung gyu’s kind treatment and that genuine smile he gave me after all the trouble he caused, I was confused, because I had never been treated so well by a mere stranger.  I thought back to Myung Soo and what he told me about strangers. Thinking now, it was indeed the truth, because once in my life, Myung Soo too was a stranger to me, with whom I fell unconditionally in love. He too, must have fallen in love with a person who had been stranger to him once; I wondered how people meet, how relationships build, I wondered the wisdom of how the world goes with affection between each other. I wondered how people could be eminent in another’s life so expeditiously, I wondered how much of an impact one’s smile could make on another, I wonder how a simple act of kindness make someone wonder if she should amend the impression on another. The world, for me was such an undeniably complicated matter.

It was something pink and disturbing moving hither and tither before my eyes which brought me back to earth. And somebody’s annoying voice impersonation of a girl.

“Hey pigiee! Hey Piglet!!!”

I stepped back out of reflex, only to be greeted by Nam Woohyun and his annoyingly greasy smile. Before him he held the piggy pencil, its head bobbling on and on, on the spring.

I immediately snapped back to reality. Of course, I left the pencil and the notebook on the table when I left, and wasn’t there when I returned that I obviously forgot. But now it was in Nam Woohyun’s hand.

I thought back to when one of the two paid for the purchase and picked for me the piggy pencil.

“Where did you find it?” I asked, reaching out to snatch away my belongings which he handed to me with a smile. “There, on the table” He said and buried his hands into his jacket pocket. We were out on the curb of the café; Sung Gyu, Woohyun, Howon and I, Sung Gyu was chattering away with Howon about something mundane while Woohyun was picking on me. The air was chilly and humid, wind rushed my then and there; from somewhere far we could hear a dog bark. “You simply dematerialized and materialized again, eh?”

“Not really” I said, tucking my things under my arm. “But you really shouldn’t be carrying others’ stuff around, Nam Woo Hyun-Ssi”

He chuckled lightly as though it was something he did under regular basis. “Well, if a lady left her things unoccupied, isn’t it of a gentleman to decently hand it over to her?”

I made a face. “Not…quite. Ah, also….” Eyeing him curiously, I carried on. “Was it you who paid for my notebook and get me this?”

For this though, he didn’t reply, yet smiled in return; leaving me in doubt if it was him who actually did it.

But then again, there was Kim Sung Gyu, the calm, kind-hearted one who always caused me trouble; could it be him who did it in return to make it up for showering me with note-pads?

I was in a dilemma, of the extremely confusing variety. Was it one of them who bought the iced green teal latte? If so, who was it?

Or was I being too delusional?

“You shouldn’t have done it though…if it was you…” I said, in order to see the accuracy of my assumptions.

“Well, I-,”

“Woohyun-ah” Called out Kim Sung Gyu, all before he could reply, leaving me in disdain. “We should get going, that bastard must be throwing a tantrum by himself there”

Woohyun rolled his eyes and retrieved his hands from his pockets. “You and that ungrateful brother of yours”

He then turned to me. “Anyways…it’s great to meet you, Eunji-Ssi….I hope we will run into each other again” With that, he reached out and tousled my hair. “See you around!”

I smiled in response, and bid him goodbye before my eyes fixed unintentionally on Kim Sung Gyu who was beaming gently, his eyes on me as though he had been waiting all this time to catch my attention. A rush of wind blew by just then, carrying the sweetest scent of earth and a swirl of cherry blossoms; his chestnut hair winged to a side then, covering his eyes, and when he smiled again, I could swear my heart skipped a beat because all of a sudden he seemed to so so beautiful, so alluring in my eyes, the strange feeling yet again began to burn in my heart. He was an exquisite flower which I was tempted to pick but I couldn’t reach.

I knew him, yet again I didn’t…We were, yet again we weren’t…

When he and his friend finally moved further away from us, I couldn’t help but heave a sigh with an exotic feeling which I had never felt in my life. The wind was cold, the sky was pastel blue; the dog was still barking and pink petals still dances on the tarmac ground. I felt emptier though my heart was heavier than before. I felt stuck, confused and completely exhausted by all that happened throughout the day. Thinking back through them, I realize there was something eccentric, exotic, something intangible which I was bound to unveil. A hidden message, a secret which I need to reveal to know the sheer truth to solve this mystery.

I stared down at the handkerchief in my hand. It was drenched of blood; however the Chinese calligraphy embroidered on to the cloth seemed to glow in the strangest light I had ever witnessed in my life.

It was on a fine Wednesday evening after college that I came to work at Sung Yeol’s place with a massive mental breakdown. Myung Soo and his new ‘Girlfriend was utterly climbing up my nerves, and his new attitude was even more nerve wrecking; what made things even worse was that he never told me who she was, telling me that he wanted to properly introduce her to me so that we could get along very well.

I highly doubted it though, for I was merely making incompetent plans to get rid of her for once and for all, the tactics were well, beyond humanity. Simply put.

Sung Yeol, however wasn’t very satisfied with my all new behavior. Sitting at his usual spot on the cashier he was throwing a grand tantrum, hogging on everyone’s face about how incompetent his employees were.  I didn’t care though, for I had even worse matters in hand; I was spraying the table tops, wiping them when the door jingled and Howon came around, his face red and sweat trickling down his forehead.

“Now what?” Sung Yeol groaned in exasperation just as Chorong unnie came around with a tray full of pastries in hand.

“Nothing” he said, panting hard; regarding his expression though, I figured it was not nothing. He turned to me. “Ah. Eunji…”

“What’s up?” I asked, sounding as ordinary as possible, concentrating on my doing. He approached me in prompt steps and leaned over to me. “It’s Naeun…I just saw her going to this bookstore across the road with a guy…”

Upon hearing the name of the resident princess, I looked up, excitedly. I really didn’t know what was up with me, but whenever I heard anything to do with her, I would be so eager to hear the juicy gossip.

“Really? Who was the guy?”

He rolled his eyes. “Geez, Eunji, would I come running here if I knew?”

“So why did you come?”

He buried his hands in his pockets and gave me a grave look before saying; “I want you to follow her”

“You’re unbelievable” I hissed at Howon as we approached the entrance of the bookshop which was right across the room from Sung Yeol’s. Howon, on the other hand was fully concentrating on the road, his eyes running about as though to catch the glimpse of some intruder. I couldn’t understand his strategy of stalking, really; and even when we asked if he liked her, he would full-heartedly deny it. He was clueless, that Howon was. He had no idea that he was actually being very very transparent of his feelings.

“Just get in there and see who it is will you!” He hissed back, finally turning to me and gently pushed me towards the entrance. It was dark inside, I could hardly catch a glimpse of a person in there, moreover I really wasn’t intending to actually go in and see who it was. As much as I was interested in knowing the princesses’ love interest, I was concerned of not making a complete fool out of myself.

I let out an exasperated sigh. “Howon…why don’t you go in yourself?”

“Go in? Are you kidding me?”

I raised my brows challengingly that he realized he wasn’t making any sense.

He sighed heavily and became suddenly interested of his shoes before finally eyeing me. “Okay…I’ll go. But you have to come after me”

“Eh why?”

“Why? It’s because…because…” He was stuttering, obviously not willing to admit it that he liked her; I didn’t make fun of it, of course, since he never made fun of mine; however he was a lot more passive than I was in admitting his feelings no matter how obvious he seemed. I wanted to be of help just lke he was, and that was exactly what I was trying to do.

“Because?”

He opened his mouth to reply but he could never say a word when the resident princess herself walked out of the store with a guy beside her. Of course we were surprised to no end that we couldn’t move an inch. Naeun didn’t see us since she was immersed in talking to her ‘mystery boy’. I, on the other hand did my best to figure out whom this mystery boy was. We might even know him, given that the princess was from our vicinity; even still I couldn’t exactly make out who the man was, since he wore a hooded jacket and a face mask. But by the look of it, he certainly was a handsome young man. It wasn’t that Howon wasn’t handsome, he really was; but the thing is, no matter how many perspectives I used to look at the situation, I never saw him and Naeun in the element. I didn’t tell him that though, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I kept my silence and observed the couple as they walked by us.

Howon was crest fallen, as though he just lost all the hopes in the world.

In order to make him feel better, I reached out and slung my hand over his shoulder. “That’s how the world goes, brother…we’ll try another time…”

He sighed in response and turned to me. “Yeah…we should….”

“She seems happy” I commented when they stopped by the crossing and the guy waved her goodbye before he went to the other side.

“Hmm…”

“But it’s strange” I added, observing her as she went on her way. “He didn’t even kiss her good bye”

“Hmm….”

“Maybe he doesn’t show his affection in the public”

There came his very same languid response and decided to put the conversation to a halt. It’s not like Naeun had gained all my attention and interest, no; in fact I didn’t mind whoever she went out with (although I was quite keen to find out who this ‘whoever’ was) what mattered to me the most was my best friend’s feelings.

I retrieved my hand and gave him my best encouraging smile.

“Come on, flower boy…let’s have espresso, my treat!”

He sighed for the umpteenth time and finally agreed. “Sure…I want black forest”

“Not on my pocket though” I pointed out, to which he chuckled in response. “Sure, it’s on mine…”

When we returned to the cafe, bickering about who buys what, I happened to find Lee Sung Yeol with  his eyes widened, a strange smile playing on his lips as he stood in the middle of the store with a sheet of paper in his hands. There was Chorong unnie clinging on his shoulder, she too, deliberately staring into it and I, out of curiosity approached them and peeked into what they were so interested in.

“Why would you look at it like that?”  Sung Yeol asked, a strange glint in his eyes as though he just discovered a lost treasure of some sort and simply pushed it on my direction. I looked at Chorong unnie, confused of what he meant when she added, with a smile; “Take it, it’s all yours”

“M-mine…?” I stuttered, unbelievingly. Had they, somehow come across the letter I lost and never found? But by the look of it, it wasn’t the same letter, it wasn’t the same material or the hand writing. It wasn’t mine.

“But this-,” I began to argue, but stopped right when my eyes landed on what I never in my life wished to see.

‘To Jung Eunji, from someone who’s intrigued by you’

The words started to float around me in endless circles, trying to figure out what exactly I had put myself into.

Intrigued by me?

Owing to how much my mind was muddled I couldn’t even try to make a sensible picture out of it; who on earth would be intrigued by my words, unless-

I wanted to dig a hole and slither to the other end of the world.

“!” was all I could say.

“What?” Howon asked, and I showed him the letter I held with my hands trembling terribly hard. Momentarily, I wanted to die.

“Intrigued, Eunji…I think…”

I nodded in utter despair, horrified of the reality.

“Yes…Howon, the letter….”

To which, Sung Yeol added sarcastically as though it was the funniest deal of all; “Ah ha ha! Our Eunji got herself a secret admirer!”

I wanted to pull his hair, strangle him, tie him on a burning car and drive into the Han River.

Because, in all honesty I, Jung Eunji did not inquire any secret admirer. Period.

Though, seemingly, I already had.