"What about this? I think it fits you perfectly." The girl raised a purple dress to her overweight friend who shyly looked away, she discreetly scanned around to catch some graceless laughs people throwing at her.. "No, I think this one will, my God, didn't you say you wanted a red with a long tail dress for our prom? This is definitely working, honey." The beautiful friend continued to stick her eyes on and trail her hands along to the colorful, beautiful dresses on the clotheslines. "Oh my God, Jieunnie, look at this!" The red-haired girl squealed as she brought a short white dress to her friend's side. "It's perfect, the color fits your skin color and everything, all we need to do is ask them to make it a bigger size."

The chubby girl tried to push the dress away as well as said.

"Come on Hyosung, I won't fit it, we should get going." Her voice was clear and low, but it was enough for her friend to hear it.

"No, we are not going. You have to have something to wear because you're my prom mate, remember? How can I go there without you? And my dear we're SO eager to go there, it's a once life time."

Hyosung prelected her saying with a very stringent and convincing voice, she held tight on Jieun's hand, trying to persuade her.

"Only you who want to go, not me." Jieun shrank her small lips. Her chubby cheeks looked like they would squeeze her nose to the point she wouldn't be able to breath because they were bigger and fatter than usual and was also buried by it. And the size of her body as well, she was overweight, almost 200 pounds so her movements brought such a heavy aura because of those puffy blocks of meat.

Also, a pair of glasses on didn't give any help to her not-so-flattering appearance except for her smooth flossy hair, although she had donated it for a charity of animals a month ago so the length of it was only around her shoulders at the moment.

In short, Song Jieun is just a definition of an obese loser.

"Did you change your mind? No, Jieunnie, at least please do this for me, it will never happen again in our lives." Hyosung earnestly begged.

Jieun looked at her friend's eyes.

Hyosung was the first one to approach her at lunch time, asking her if she could share with her the rolling egg and some kimbap and hanging out with her without feeling any ashamed about her appearance.

Jieun adored Hyosung a lot, Jieun had never had a friend since middle school, if the ones asked her to do the cleaning after school time weren't counted, the only time they were sweet to her. She always did things alone, nobody cared to come and talk to her, they laughed whenever she got called to the board or when she walked along the hall, she would hear laughs here and there questioning her why she didn't grovel on the floor so that she would take a shorter time to go home.

Hyosung didn't protect her, Jieun only knew that after Hyosung came to make friends with her, all the cruel jokes were stopped. It took her a straight year to realize that ALL of the boys in this school wanted a chance to date Hyosung, and the fact that they desired her to the point that they threatened the other girls to not make any harm to Hyosung as well as her friend, means Song Jieun, actually made her life at the school easier and better. After that Hyosung claimed to the whole school that until Song Jieun her gets a boyfriend, she will not date anyone.

The whole school, I mean, boys in the school went wild. Some tried to ask her out days and days but with a condition that Hyosung was tagged along then Jieun realized she was used like a piece on the chessboard. Hyosung was furious because of that, she didn't even look at any boys in the school with full of an eye and refused all the proposals to her going out with them as well as, trying to keep Jieun from being hit on by the boys.

"Okay,but stop with this." Jieun snapped the dress out of Hyosung's hand and placed it back on the shelf, she seriously looked into her friend's eyes. "And I will be on my jeans and hoodies."

Hyosung smiled and nodded repeatedly. Then they walked out of the shop, together.

"Should we go to Cake Baby? I heard they had a new flavor for their cake."

Hyosung's suggestion brought a huge smile on Jieun's face, she loves sweets, of course she would never refuse.

"That's actually what I want right now."

"Jieunnie yah, if people misunderstand us as a lesbian couple, it's all your fault, okay?"

"Hahahaha, that's scary but okay, I look more like a boy than you anyway."

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Jieun eyed crossing at the door when her mother stepped in, she nibbled on the toast as she drank some strawberry milk.

"I don't remember our having any orders this early morning." Jieun blankly said.

She was still annoyed about being awakened up at 7am and having to watch the house until now, 10am.

"Take off that face, Song Jieun and we're having guest. Our new neighbor extremely likes my cookies so she's coming over to learn some tips, we get along very well and she loves cooking like me, she's the same age as mine and we're going to talk more to each other, maybe you will like her son."

Jieun stood up from the table and left to wash the dish, sluggishly. Her boring face oddly didn't make the older woman drop her mood, she kept excitingly talking about her new friend and what they're going to do, this and that. Now she knew why Mr. Han Woobin moved last week, he must have been fed up with her cupcakes and her oh-so-long-and-boring old stories.

"Is he a newborn baby? Is he cute?" She asked.

"No, don't be so silly, he's not a newborn baby."

Jieun raised her overweight arm to place the dish back to the shelf, heavily but successfully. She recently learnt how to not break things while working already, although it was still so fatigued to watch her work sometimes and her mother refused to look at that. Instead she started to flip some pages on the magazine today, smiling while answering.

"He's 18, the same age as you. His mom hopes you two can be friends but I'm worried that you're too difficult for that."

Jieun bothered looking back at her mother.

"I'm not, mom and if he's not going to mock me for my weight, we totally can be friends."

"Probably not, he seems to be a good boy."

"Yeah, probably."

Jieun threw her body on the bed, she breathed heavily. She didn't tell anyone about this but she recently started to feel so hard to breath, even walking hurt so much, especially after doing some usual chores she had always done, it was not the same as before. Jieun tried to sit up, she failed and failed until somebody grabbed her arm and pulled strongly.

Before catching up with her breath, Jieun noticed a strange guy standing in front of her, looking at her weirdly. She touched her face as looking back at him.

"Who are you?" She asked.

The boy stared at her, then slowly said with a died-toned husky voice.

"Are you Song Jieun?"

She nonchalantly nodded, this must be the neighbor guy her mother had talked about and she was waiting for a round of laugh at her face, like anybody else who met her for the first time.

"Interesting!" He nodded then started to wander around her room.

"Don't touch my things." Jieun raised her voice.

The boy turned back to look at her,smirking.

"You don't want to know my name, Bear?"

"Bear?" Jieun bit her lower lip, expressing that she wasn't happy with the way he called her but she overlooked it. Jieun tried to act cool as she stood up in the hard way. She snatched the stuffed rabbit back from the boy's hand then she emphasized. "And yes, who are you?"

"I'm Bang Yongguk, your new neighbor."

Yongguk gave Jieun his hand but she slapped it away, the young man laughed at her corpulent cheeks which were so hilarious as she talked. Those were so cute, it was his first time to meet somebody.. well, this overweight. He didn't mean to offend, of course. It was just so interesting.

"Who said you could enter my room without my permission?"

"Well, somebody has a mom, who accidentally told me that her grumpy daughter was upstair and asked me to make friends with her since she's been lonely for 18 years already. And as a well-mannered man like I am, I'm here now!"

Jieun shrunk her nose, she was quite not satisfied with the very "fact" that she just learnt here. How could her mother make her look like a total messy loser? Wait, doesn't she look ed up enough?

"No Sir, I'm not sure why my mother told you such a false thing, but I am not lonely. I have a friend, and she's Hyosung, very beautiful and popular."

Yongguk seemed to be unsure looking at Jieun, he dumbly asked.

"So, are you going to confront her or what?"

Jieun shook her head in disbelief, she sighed as she made her wait to the table, where her oversize chair was standing.

Yongguk observed all of her movements, he frowned lightly.

"How heavy are you? Exactly I mean?" He asked out of curiosity.

"Why are you curious about that, curly hair?"

Jieun seemed annoyed at the question, she rolled her eyes. Yongguk noticed it, he coolly waved it.

"Ey, don't feel offended, I didn't mean it that way."

"Once again, I'm not lonely, I have a friend." Jieun clarified.

Yongguk only laughed slightly.

"You sound like you don't want to have any friends no more."

"What do you mean?"

"Can't we be friends?"

Jieun was shocked at Yongguk's composed yet serious expression, she thought Hyosung would be the only one in this world to ask to make friends with her, who is this strange guy? Was he kidding her?

"I'm new here, I need a friend, and I'm interested in you. Can we be friends, Song Jieun?"

Jieun looked away in shock, she kept wondering why. Why does this boy want to be friends with her? Why so suddenly? Will he laugh at her face for believing in his words if she says yes? Is he serious?

Yongguk was waiting for Jieun to reply then he heard some knocks on the door, he looked at Jieun who was having her back faced him then he slowly raised up from the bed to approach the door and open it. Jieun sneakily stole some look at Yongguk, then she saw him taking something from her mom and closing the door. He caught her staring, he laughed.

"Why stand there? You can just say no."

Yongguk seemed to be so cool about getting rejected.

"You asked me to become your friend but you're so OK with me saying no? You're not genuine at all." Jieun rasied her voice dramatically.

Yongguk placed a tray of small slices of watermelon on the bed.

"So do you want me to make you agree by force or something?"

Jieun stared at Yongguk weirdly, for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. Her puffy cheeks almost met other as she laughed but what remained in Yongguk's head after that was the sound she made, it was so cute, and she had a beautiful pair of eyes.

"Okay, agree. We're friends now, you seem to be the type of person who doesn't bully me for my weight and looks."

Yongguk watched carefully as Jieun chewed on the slice of watermelon, moreover, he seemed to be more surprising about what she just said than the fact that Jieun was eating the watermelon without spitting out the seeds.

"You get bullied?" Yongguk raised his voice a bit.

"Shhh, my mom can hear you." Jieun suddenly stopped eating and whispering at her lowest voice.

"You are crazy, Song Jieun. You get bullied at school and you try to hide everything away from your mom? Why did you tell me then? That was a bad mistake because I'm so going to tell her."

Bang Yongguk HATED bully. He hated the fact people got dishandled just because they were different from others, although Jieun was still a complete stranger to him, he still felt so bad for her.

"No, you are not."

"Yes, I am."

Jieun was astonished with Yongguk's serious face. What was that for, though?

"I didn't know I just made friends with a bastard who likes to embed his nose into somebody else's business." Jieun yelled sarcastically.

"And the business that I'm trying to bother is that my friend is getting bullied at her school and she's trying to cover such a terrible thing up."

Jieun fell in silent, she stared at Yongguk but he just uncomfortably continued to eat watermelon, looking away. Jieun suddenly felt guilty toward him, she realized he was just worried about her.

She endured the silence a bit more before speaking up.

"Okay, look, I'm sorry, for yelling at you. As you see, I'm an overweight girl, my looks cracks people up just by looking at, I'm like a joke and I'm so well aware of that. That was before when I got bullied though, when Hyosung made friends with me everyone stopped."

"Why?" Yongguk asked cryptically.

"Because my friend, Jun Hyosung is such a beautiful queen bee, guys want to date her and she claimed that before I got a boyfriend, she would not date anyone. She basically saved my life."

"Why? I mean, why did she do that?" Yongguk watched Jieun carefully.

"Because she's a so nice person, dummy. She wants to make friends with an obese loser like me, not other famous girls, that means she truly loves me for who I am." Jieun proudly said.

Yongguk only nodded, his eyes wandering around.

"So, Bang Yongguk, you're not going to tell my mom, are you? Things are settled down perfectly, no worries, okay?" No replies from Yongguk. "Okay?" Jieun repeated. Yongguk looked at her, silent. "Okay? Come on, Bang Yongguk!"

"Okay." He said when she was about to lose all patience.

Jieun sighed in relief, she noticed the empty tray of watermelon then she looked at Yongguk.

"Yah! You didn't leave any for me."

Yongguk laughed at her chubby cheeks which were moving up and down as she talked.

"Sorry, I'm a watermelon lover."

"Anyway, are you moving to our school, too?"

"Maybe, because I bought the uniform and took the map already."

Jieun felt like her brain just got washed after those words, she looked at him with a questioning look.

"Leave it at home, I'll be your one-day tourist guide. You can't learn all about the school with just a map. But Hyosung's going with us, are you fine with that?"

He nodded.

That's how they became friends, weird, but sweet.

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