Hate (That I Love) You

Having woken up late, J.ace quickly threw on some clothes and then rummaged through her closet for her favorite pair of sneakers, hoping that she would make it in time to meet up with the boys at the baseball field before they started playing. Although she wanted to run out the door, she decided to tiptoe instead so that she could slip out of her apartment without her next-door neighbor, the actor Kim Soo Hyun, hearing her. Lately, it seemed that every time she left her apartment, he also happened to be leaving his.

Today, apparently, was no different. The moment she opened her front door, there he was.

“Jesika-yah! Annyeong!”

“Aish, are you stalking me?” she asked, trying to hide her smile.

“Erm, I live here, remember?” He folded his hands across his chest and smiled. “Did you lose your memory? Maybe someone threw a baseball at your head again?”

J.ace put her hands on her hips in a huff. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

Last Saturday, she had returned home early from the field when the ball that she had failed to catch hit her square in the face. Soo Hyun saw her come in and, despite her protests, had brought her into his apartment where he cleansed and iced the welt for her. She had been embarrassed by him taking care of her like that, so much so that she blushed the whole time. He seemed to enjoy making her blush.

“I promise to stop teasing you about that someday,” he said. “Just not anytime soon.”

“Aish!” She continued hiding her smile as she searched her pockets for her keys to lock her door.

“Where are you going today?” he asked. “Wait, let me guess. It’s Saturday. What do women like to do on Saturdays? Go shopping? Go to the spa?” He was using that sarcastic voice that J.ace found quite annoying. “Ai, but not you, right? I’m thinking… baseball again?”

She locked her door and then breathed in deeply as she stared at him. “I think I have you figured out, Soo Hyun-ah. You’re in love with me!”

“What?” He laughed, almost exasperatingly so.

“Well, you’re surrounded all the time by beautiful actresses, but it’s all fake beauty anyway, and so once you put that aside, there’s not much more to them, right? So, I must be a breath of fresh air in your life, eh?” She no longer hid her smile. She wore it proudly now, happy to give him a taste of his own medicine. When she saw that he was blushing, she bit her lower lip and decided to push him a bit more. “Oh, am I right? You’re in love with the girl next door?”

Soo Hyun’s mouth fell open in what was obviously a dramatic act. “Girl next door? More like… erm, boy next door!”

“You’re calling me a boy now?” she asked.

With an air of confidence about him, he said, “Yeah, that’s right. I called you a boy.”

J.ace lightly smacked his arm.  

“Aish, nevermind,” he said. “You’re definitely a girl. At least, you hit like one.” He smiled now as he rubbed his arm. “But seriously, what kind of girl doesn’t like flowers?”

“What?” J.ace had no idea what he was talking about. “Where did that come from?”

“You told me once that you thought it was stupid that boys bought girls flowers. You said flowers serve no purpose and just wilt and die within days.”

“Oh, I did say that, didn’t I? Well, that’s true.” She flashed Soo Hyun a smile goodbye, but just as she was about to turn to leave, she heard footsteps in the stairwell.

A deliveryman was ascending the stairs. When he saw J.ace, he said, “I have a delivery for a… Jesika Aceituno. Is that you?”

J.ace nodded and stared curiously at the long white box as she signed for the package, unable to imagine what it held. When the deliveryman left, she untied the red ribbon and opened the box to see a dozen long-stemmed roses inside. Her face reddened immediately.

“Wow,” Soo Hyun said. “Whoever sent you those flowers must not know how much you hate them.”

J.ace slapped his arm again. “You did this!” she said. “I can’t believe you would actually waste money on this just to tease me!”

Soo Hyun started laughing. “Gotta go!” he said, smiling widely. He started to descend the stairs but J.ace grabbed ahold of his arm.

“Wait! Where are you going? You can’t just send me flowers like this for no reason and then… just leave!”

“Why not?” he asked.

J.ace stared at him, not really knowing how to answer his question.

“Anyway, I really have to go,” he said. “I have an audition for a new drama.”

“Oh, are you going to play another lonely alien?” she teased.

“That’s right,” he said. “Except instead of living next door to a beautiful actress who I eventually fall in love with, I’m living next door to a disheveled tomboy who… who has no idea what I have in store for her today.” With that, he winked and then began climbing down the stairs.

“Wait, what?” She leaned over the railing and peered down the stairwell. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “What do you have planned?” Her voice rang hollow, echoing in that stairwell long after Soo Hyun left.

Aish, that Soo Hyun, she thought. As she put the lid back on the box of flowers, she saw a small notecard attached to the ribbon. It read: Jesika, what kind of girl doesn’t like dresses?

“Dresses?” J.ace asked aloud. She shook her head, confused, and then saw another deliveryman coming up the stairs.

“Is your name Jesika Aceituno?” the deliveryman asked.

J.ace sighed. I’m going to kill that Soo Hyun, she thought, as she signed for the package. 

She sat on her couch and stared at the two white boxes on the table before her. The flower box was on top, placed somewhat diagonally over the dress box, which she had not yet opened. She thought for a moment about trying to contact the deliveryman somehow to find out where the dress was bought, that way she could return it and use the exchange money to buy something for Soo Hyun that he would equally despise, but she couldn’t think of one thing that he didn’t like. He never once complained, never once talked badly about anything… well, except for how he talked to her, teasing her about her tough façade, but she knew that it was all in good fun and, though she would never admit to herself, she really did like the attention he gave her. He was, after all, a famous actor.

“Aish, what to do,” she said. She stood and opened the flower box once more, thinking that the roses were actually quite pretty. Well, of course they’re pretty! I’m not a girl who doesn’t like flowers. I just… And then she realized why she had told him that it was stupid for boys to buy girls flowers. It wasn’t because they died so quickly; it was because until that morning, she had never actually received flowers from a boy. It was just easier to make fun of something when you didn’t want your true feelings exposed, she thought.

She pulled the roses from the box and made her way to the kitchen to find a vase, letting her nose drift over the flowers as she walked. They had a sweet scent, reminding her of the perfume her grandmother used to wear. She smiled and breathed in deeply, but then her smile faded when she realized that she didn’t even own a vase. Not one. She looked around for something to use in substitution, but the only container that seemed capable of holding them was the blender.

“Ai, guess that’ll have to do,” she said, as she filled the blender with water and placed the roses inside. She carried it over to her small dinette table near the big window, centered it on the surface, and then plopped back down on the couch, forgetting all about baseball as she stared at those flowers on the table and thought about how the petals caught the sunlight nicely and brought some color to that otherwise dreary space.

Her attention soon turned to the dress box. Like the flower box, this one also had a note attached. It read: Jesika, what kind of girl doesn’t like makeup?

J.ace stared at the note for a moment and then ran to her door, expecting another delivery, but no one was out in the hall. She waited there for a moment, sure that she would soon see a deliveryman, but instead, when she heard footsteps in the stairwell and peered over the railing, she saw a petite woman carrying a small suitcase, her hair loosely tied up in a bun and her almond eyes gazing up at her.

“Jesika, I presume?” she asked.

J.ace nodded and bowed slightly to the woman as she stepped onto the landing.

“I’m here to give you a makeover,” she said, smiling.

Soo Hyun sat in the back of the van on his way home, smiling as he thought about his pranks on J.ace. He was happy that he had been there when she received those flowers, but he wished he could’ve been there to see her reaction when the dress and stylist arrived. He couldn’t wait to get home now and receive his punishment; he was sure that she was furious with him and probably already thought of a way to get even.

“What are you smiling about back there?” his manager asked. He was driving but caught sight of Soo Hyun in the rearview mirror.

Soo Hyun’s bodyguard, who was sitting in the passenger seat, turned to look at him then. “Ai, Soo Hyunnie? You meet someone? I know that look. Only women can make men look that way.”

Soo Hyun laughed. “Ai, she’s not a woman… she’s like… I mean, of course she’s a woman. I guess I just don’t see her like that.”

“How can you not see a woman as a woman?” his bodyguard asked, laughing. “What does that even mean?”

Soo Hyun waved them off, not wanting to explain his relationship with his neighbor. They wouldn’t understand. They’d probably tell him that he must have feelings for her if he teases her like that. It was easier, after all, to make fun of something – or someone, in this case – when you didn’t want your true feelings exposed, he thought.

After the van dropped him off, he swiftly made his way through the building lobby and then climbed the stairs up to their floor where he stood before her apartment door, waiting. She must have heard him come up, he thought. Growing impatient, he decided to knock, but there was no answer. For a moment, he got a bit worried, but then a smile came over his face. He was sure that this was just all part of her plan to get even, like some sort of trap. Certain that he would be able to outsmart her, he reached for the door handle.

He had never let himself into her apartment before. It felt somewhat strange. “Jesika-yah?” He slowly walked through her living room, spotting the flowers he had bought for her on the dinette table in what appeared to be… a blender? He laughed aloud then and quickly covered his mouth.

“Soo Hyun-ah? Is that you?”

Soo Hyun could hear J.ace’s voice coming from behind her closed bedroom door. He hadn’t wanted her to know that he was there. He was hoping to figure out whatever revenge scheme she had come up with in time to point it out before he was caught in it; however, he realized that he had lost the element of surprise once she suspected he was there.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said. He dared not approach her bedroom door, thinking that she was surely leading him there.

“Go away!” she yelled.

Or maybe she wasn’t leading him there? He eyed her bedroom door suspiciously. Is this reverse psychology? Telling me to go away so that I’ll instead come there?

In his sarcastic voice that he knew she hated, he asked, “Oh, is someone mad at me?” He continued staring at her closed bedroom door, enjoying the teasing. But when she didn’t answer, he began to wonder if she was really upset. Somewhat tired of the game now, Soo Hyun walked toward her bedroom door and slowly opened it. As he did, he saw J.ace suddenly stand from her bed. She looked…

… different. He noticed her face first, which was usually bare but now refined with color – her once pale lips were now luscious in a shimmery pink, and her once dull eyes were now shadowed in soft hues, her lashes thick and long. And her hair – he knew that she had naturally wavy hair and that she straightened it each morning, but he had never until just now seen her hair like that… with such gentle waves, like ribbons unfurling down upon her shoulders. And the dress! He looked her up and down, eying how the blue strapless gown hugged every curve of her body. He didn’t even know she had such curves, as she always wore baggy clothes.

“That fits you… perfectly,” he said, still staring at the dress. As he walked closer and returned his attention to her face, he saw that her eyes were glassy. “Have you been crying?” he asked.

“You bought the dress too big,” she said. “The stylist hemmed it in for me.”

“Is that why you’re crying?”

“What? No! I’m crying because…” She turned to look at herself in the mirror.

“Because you look absolutely beautiful?” he asked.

J.ace turned to him, slightly agape.

Soo Hyun cleared his throat, embarrassed by what he had just said.

“You’re blushing,” she said.

“So are you,” he said.

She held her hands to her cheeks, feeling how hot they were, and then fluttered her hands in front of her face to cool off her skin.

Soo Hyun couldn’t help but smile at her aegyo-filled act. This was not the J.ace he knew. This was… this was the real Jesika that hid behind the tough nickname.

“Why did you do this?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. It had begun as a game, but now it seemed different. He realized that he didn’t understand his real motivation. His mind was a mess over her beauty.

“I hate you,” she said, plopping down on the bed.

He laughed. “I hate you, too,” he said, sitting down beside her.

She looked over at him and then laughed, too.

Being that close to her in that moment drove Soo Hyun crazy. He wanted to kiss her. He hated that he wanted to kiss her. It made him feel superficial, like he was only able to notice her now that she was all done up like a celebrity.

“You did this just to make me feel awful, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Is that how you feel?” he quietly asked. “You feel awful?”

J.ace slowly shook her head no. She had thought that he was trying to prove some point, to show her that if she only took care of herself, she could be as pretty as the actresses he saw every day. But now she wasn’t as sure about his motivation. Hoping to read his face for any hint as to why he had done this, she looked up at him and then saw that he was staring back at her, somewhat oddly. “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” Soo Hyun had no idea what to say and felt uncomfortable looking directly at her. He instead turned his attention downward and then noticed her bare feet dangling from the bed. “Oh, I forgot to buy you shoes!” he said.

J.ace slapped his arm again, now smiling widely, seemingly having forgotten her tears.

“Well, since you’re all dressed up, we should go somewhere,” he said.

“Like where?” she asked. “To do what?” Her imagination ran wild with scenes from dramas in which the rich man spoils his unsuspecting date with a limo ride and an expensive restaurant and…

“Erm, I’m thinking… baseball,” he teasingly said, his smile wider than ever.