She was unlike any other.

Heck, I didn’t even know she existed and was in my class until both of us somehow met by coincidence. Maybe part of the reason why I never really noticed her in the first place (how I wished I was more observant) could have been from her quiet demeanour. Maybe she was wearing some invisibility cloak around herself. Or maybe I’m just blind. Whatever it was, the first thing that I blurted out after my lecturer assigned me to tutor someone by the name of Sunyoung was…

“Who?”

“Sunyoung. Park Sunyoung? You know… your classmate. Does it ring a bell?” My lecturer questioned as I stood in front of him in that hustling and bustling staff room, trying to recall that name from my memory bank. I must have looked like a complete retard to him, what with my shifty eyes and my chin held up high. “You need to pay more attention to the people around you, Soonkyu.”

 

I broke my chain of thoughts prematurely after experiencing a somewhat painful flick to the forehead. Damn, that almost left a mark.

 

“Your grades are fantastic, but when it comes to interacting with the human species, well I might have to give you an ‘F’ for that.”

 

“You make it sound like I’m some kind of anti-social freak, teach. That’s harsh…”

 

He attempted to give me another killer flick after I did my infamous pouty face but I quickly dodged it. Thanks goodness my reflexes were as top-notch as ever.

 

Mr Kim was one of the most laid-back lecturers in all of Korea that I’ve ever met. However, he couldn’t really handle it whenever students tried to do the cutesy act on him (including me). Whether they were doing it for the sake of persuading him to extend the deadline on our mind-wrecking thesis or getting a pass instead of a fail, it would always be deemed unsuccessful. I still don’t understand why there were still people persuading him to do otherwise though.

 

“Alright, alright, have mercy!”

 

He lowered down his deadly fingers of steel, much to my utter relieve.

 

“Anyways, let me refresh your memory if you really have no idea of who I am talking about.”

 

I watched on curiously as he took out the class list, which had the individual pictures of my classmates and me, from one of the drawers of his cluttered desk. He brought it right up to my face and pointed at a somewhat familiar-looking bespectacled brunette. She had a shy smile on her from what I could tell on that tiny photo.

 

She was cute.

 

“This is the person that you’re going to help during this student tutor programme. Now do you remember?”

 

Her profile vaguely popped into my mind.

 

“Um…maybe?” I sheepishly told him while scratching an imaginary itch on the back of my neck. Mr Kim, in turn, heaved out a heavy sigh.

 

“Okay, I don’t blame you though. Our class does have a bigger number of students than average. Plus, Sunyoung is quite a silent one so it’s understandable that you have a hard time remembering her.”

 

“So, does she know about this tutoring thing?”

 

“Yes, she does. I told her about it a few days ago.”

 

“What does she need help with?”

 

“Well, she has some difficulty on explaining thoroughly on the subject matter at hand in her works. I’ll give you a copy of a few of her thesis that I have already marked later, and you can probably clarify on her mistakes in a simpler way for her better than I do.”

 

“How did she do for the preliminary exams we had a few weeks ago?”

 

“She passed, but it was almost a borderline fail.”

 

“What were her grades for the other tests we had in the past?

 

“Really now, Soonkyu… Haven’t you ever talked with the girl since the beginning you stepped foot in this campus? Not even a single ‘Hello’?”

 

I admit, I am pretty guilty of the fact that I had never even made eye-contact with this classmate of mine that I was supposed to be tutoring. But I wasn’t going to tell that to him not without risking a smack on the head by one of those huge textbooks that all of the student body had to carry around. It was not because that I did not like talking with other people. I just prefer having conversations with friends that I’m close with.

 

Okay, maybe that wasn’t a good enough reason for me to not socialise with my classmates in the first place.

 

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

 

Just as always, I came into the lecture room to find myself seeing the same ol’ people I studied with the first time I came here. Idle chatters and giggling between friends could be heard all around. Some of them waved at me when they saw me entering the grand hall. I waved back at them with a smile, of course. And to think Mr Kim thought that I wasn’t friendly enough to my own classmates…Hmph.

 

Anyways, after I did my usual morning greetings, I climbed down the stairs in the middle aisle of the room while scanning around to locate the girl I had to tutor. My eyes locked onto a brunette sitting at the far end of the front row which perfectly matched the description. Although the back of her head faced me, I was damn sure that this was the girl. Gripping the strap of my shoulder bag tightly, I put on a friendly face and went over to her.

 

“Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but are you Sunyoung by any chance?”

 

The face that I saw on that photo Mr Kim showed me the day before looked up at me from the book she was engrossed in, but with a more bewildered and surprised expression on it.

 

“Y-yes, I am. May I help you?” she asked in a soft voice, while adjusting the rims of her glasses properly. Man, those were some huge geek glasses she was wearing. It pretty much covered half of her facial features.

 

“My name’s Lee Soonkyu,” I introduced myself. “And I’m gonna be your tutor for two months.”

 

“Oh, you’re my tutor!” she stood up from her seat hastily and bowed ninety degrees in front of me“N-nice to meet you! I’m Park Sunyoung and it is an honour to be tutored by you!”

 

Everyone in the vicinity stopped to watch the little historical drama scene starring the both of us.

 

Well, this was embarrassing.

 

“Um, nice to meet you too but you don’t really need to do all that.” I awkwardly brought her back up to an upright position and suggested that we took a seat first, while trying to ignore the stares and muffled chuckling of the others whom had witnessed that. “Is there anyone sitting here? It’s easier for me to help you during lectures if I sit next to you.”

 

“Sure, be my guest. Nobody really likes to sit in the front row anyways except for me.”

 

After hearing that comment, I looked at the whole row of seats at the front and, sure enough, nobody else was occupying them as most of our other peers preferred the middle and back seats. I didn’t notice that at first. Me and my lack of observation skills…

 

“Yeah, you’re right,” I turned around to face her again, “guess I’ll be taking this seat from now on.”

 

I put down my bag on the miniature desk connected to the chair and gotten myself comfortable, when Sunyoung’s voice spoke again.

 

“I…I sometimes get slow if something just doesn’t makes sense to me, so I hope that you can bear with me until I can finally figure it out.” She nervously said.

 

The way she kept avoiding my gaze by looking down and twiddling around with her fingers was absolutely…adorable. She could even beat my cuteness that calls for a knuckle sandwich, and that says A LOT. I momentarily stopped my inner gushing at the woman’s unconscious aegyo to give her a reassuring pat on the back.

 

“Don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it with my help.”

 

That gesture certainly brightened her up a bit. Her lips curved into that same shy and timid smile that I saw on that photo when she turned to face me. My goodness, this girl could totally beat me in an aegyo match and I won’t even mind letting her win. I wanted to admire this creature a little more, but reality just had to interrupt.

 

“Alright, people, settle down!”

 

Here comes the great Kim lecturer bursting into the room when I didn’t want him to…

 

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

 

“That’s a wrap, guys.” Our mighty lecturer announced behind the podium as he shut his laptop down. “Remember that this will be very important in your upcoming paper in three weeks time. Better write that down somewhere before you forget. And finally, for heaven’s sake, do NOT come knocking at my staff room door to whine in an irritating voice about extending the deadline for that. I know all of your methods already.”

 

The whole class groaned in despair. Guess they would have to find another way to make Kim succumb to their needs.

 

“So, when are you free?” I asked my newly-acquired student after packing up my stuff.

 

“P-pardon?” she obviously didn’t hear what I said as she was still scribbling something on her notebook.

 

“I said, ‘When are you free?’. Since we both have to submit that thesis eventually, I thought we could spend some time to plan it all out and in the meantime help you with anything that you aren’t sure of. It’s the weekend tomorrow and I was wondering if we could meet up somewhere to study.”

 

“Um, I have something on during the weekend.”

 

“Oh.” I was a bit disappointed by that answer.

 

“But I’m available right now, if you want to.” She quickly added in.

 

“That’s great! Do you have somewhere in mind that we can go to? Preferably a place where you can focus.”

 

“M-me? What about you?”

 

“I’m fine with anything,” I nonchalantly said while shrugging my shoulders. She contemplated about it for a moment before finally opening again.

 

“Well…there is a place that I’ve always liked to go to.”

 

“Okay. Lead the way, then.”

 

After waiting for Sunyoung to finish up with what she was writing earlier, we made our way through the hallways and out of the busy campus in awkward silence. During the walk to wherever the heck she had in mind, I couldn’t help but to be intrigued by my companion walking beside me. She was clutching onto her books tightly, darting her eyes back and forth at anything or anyone except for me. Was I that unattractive to look at? Feeling that I needed to break the ice between us, I started up a little conversation with her.

 

“So, where are we going?”

 

“The park.”

 

“You mean the one a couple of blocks away from here?”

 

A simple nod was the answer.

 

Another moment of silence was experienced yet again as we made the short journey to our destination.

 

“So…nice weather we’re having today, huh?”

 

‘Why in the world did I ask that lame question,’ I thought while mentally smacking myself on the forehead.

 

“Hmm, yeah. It’s great weather to bask ourselves in the Sun actually.” She smiled up at the bright and clear blue sky with a glint in her eyes. “It’s picture-perfect.”

 

That worked better than I thought it would be.

 

As the conversation started to have a little more variety, we were finally at the park. It was filled with the usual weekday crowd; office workers taking a much-needed break or having a bite to eat before heading back behind their desks to continue with their mundane tasks, some joggers braving the mid-afternoon Sun to burn off some unnecessary fats, kids running around and flying kites over at an open space, and quite a number of couples enjoying their time here while displaying some public affection. I grimaced at one of them close by. Can’t they get a room or something?

 

My companion, on the other hand, ignored all that and went straight towards the small pond in the middle of the park with me in tow. There was a wooden bench in front of the pond, so we both placed our bags down and sat on it whilst enjoying the sights and cool breeze that had just blown through. For a neighbourhood park, it sure had a lot of stuff going on in it and quite a number of interesting things to see. I couldn’t recall the last time I’ve seen a flock of ducks being fed bread by a kind passer-by, or a frog sitting motionlessly on a lily pad, only to lash out its long tongue when a helpless fly buzzed around it. Those kinds of things I’ve seen in the zoo, not a park in the middle of an urban metropolis that is Seoul. As I tried to scan around for more things that I had yet to see, a slight cough brought me back to reality.

 

“Do you want to start now?” Sunyoung asked, as she started to unpack her notebook and a pen from her bag.

 

“Ah, sure,” I answered and then took out a handful of papers. “Mr Kim gave me a copy of some of the past thesis that you’ve wrote. He marked them already and then passed it over to me for evaluation so that I have a better understanding of how you write. You wanna take a look at your marks?” She nodded eagerly and I handed them over. I witnessed her expression go from pure astonishment to utter disappointment after every flip of the bundle of papers. It was kind of sad to see that, though. “I guess we have a whole lot of work ahead of us.”

 

“But…I put in so much effort into these,” she said as she tightly gripped her works. Her knuckles were beginning to turn white as snow until I gently placed my hand on one of hers. It calmed her down, somewhat.

 

“If you put in so much effort into it without knowing your mistakes first, then won’t it be a waste of effort in the end then?”

 

“But I did follow the lecturers’ tips and tricks to improve it! Why aren’t my works good enough for them!?”

 

Not wanting to start an argument on the first day we’ve met and talked with each other, I slowly pried the papers from her long fingers and then rubbed the palm of her hands with a light pressure. “Sunyoung, I’m here to help you. Whatever the lecturers said to you, put them aside for awhile. I’m not saying that you have to forget everything that they’ve taught you. Just push them towards the back of your mind, and let my tutoring handle everything for a bit. If you feel like I’m not doing a very good job at it, then you have the right to say ‘no’ to me and let Mr Kim find another much more qualified person to take over. Deal?”

 

I watched her contemplating about it for a moment before finally announcing an agreement. “Deal.” I felt her hands clasped mine as if the sake of her academic success rested on my already heavy shoulders.

 

“Alrighty, then!” Let’s get to work!”

 

Those hands, however, didn’t release their hold on me.

 

“Uh, we’re gonna have to let go soon if we wanna do any of that, though,” I sheepishly said with a silly grin.

 

“Ah! I’m sorry!”

 

The loss of warmth from her hands hit me like a brick wall. I’ve never wanted to grab onto someone’s hands so much, unless it was my parents or one of the celebrities that I adored. I shook those meandering thoughts away and focused on helping this poor girl with her grades.

 

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

 

By the time we’ve settled out the main problems that hindered Sunyoung’s road to an A+ in her essays, the day was already beginning to settle into dusk. Much of the crowd that was in the park had deteriorated to a trickle as the place had gotten slightly darker.

 

“I think we’ve covered everything that we need to do now,” I looked at my watch, “and in good time too.” After packing up, I stood up and stretched until I could hear all of my joints letting out a loud, audible crack. Sitting in one place for several hours did not do any good for the body. “So, did you understand any of that?”

 

“Yes, definitely! It makes sense now, “Sunyoung exclaimed.

 

“Glad I was of some help for you,” I scratched the back of my head, inwardly grinning at the fact that I did my part well, “I didn’t think that you’d get it so quickly though. I was practically rambling off and showing you how this and that are supposed to flow together in your writing.”

 

My student shook her head vigorously. “No, it wasn’t like that at all. In fact, I have a feeling that I’ll be able to hand in this thesis by next week thanks to your help!” Did I just saw a glint in her eyes when she said that? Must have been my imagination playing tricks on me.

 

“Whoa, slow down! We still need to go through several more topics before you go and give that to Kim. I don’t think he will go easy on you just because you handed it in early.”

 

Sunyoung pouted adorably at that but it was for the best of intentions. I can’t just let her dive in head first into the deep pool when she had only gotten her basic swimming lessons. It takes time and a lot of practise to master something. Even writing a goddamn essay. We exited the park; my brunette friend now having a new-found way to tackle the savage beast that was the upcoming thesis. I noticed a bounce in her step as we walked towards the bus-stop nearby. A stark contrast to how she carried herself when we left the campus. I smiled at her change in demeanour. She seemed to notice that though, and suddenly went all self-conscious on me.

 

“Aww, c’mon. It’s good to see an energetic Sunyoung for once.”

 

“Hyomin.”

 

“Huh?”

 

She finally looked up from the ground to face me.

 

“Call me Hyomin. I prefer that than Sunyoung.”

 

“Is that your nickname?” I asked, curiously.

 

“Yes, my parents and close friends call me that.”

 

“Does that mean that you consider me as your close friend then?”

 

She bashfully smiled. “I’d love to have you as a close friend.”

 

I gave her a grin in return. “Well, that would have been my line too.”

 

Hyomin, huh? I couldn’t figure out where the origin of her nickname came from since ‘Sunyoung’ and ‘Hyomin’ weren’t really all that close together, but hey, whatever she wanted to be called was fine by me. I’m just flattered at the fact that she intends to be someone whom I can relate with, but it would take time for us to get to know each other better. Friendship is a slow, growing process after all.

 

Offering her hand, she said, “Here’s to a great friendship ahead, Soonkyu,” which reacted a teasing smirk from me.

 

“You’re one for cheesy lines, aren’t you?”

 

My response emitted a small blush splattered across her face. Letting out a hearty chuckle, I decided to end her awkwardness by shaking her dampened-in-sweat hand.

 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. And my goodness, relax! I’m not gonna bite.”

 

But to be honest, her bashfulness was a sight to see though. Never saw anyone turn red so easily like her.

 

A short while later, Hyomin’s bus arrived at the bus stop. Her home was several blocks away from the campus so she had to take public transport to travel to and fro. Mine was of a walking distance.

 

“So, I’ll see you next week?”

 

“Of course.”

 

We bade farewell and she went inside her ride along with the other commuters, while I stayed at the very same spot. She took a seat facing my side and waved goodbye to me through the window. I smiled and returned the gesture gratefully. When the bus drove off, I went on my way.

 

But then, I stopped in my track, finally realising something.

 

I forgot to ask for her number.

 

“.”

 

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

 

“Hey midget, wake up!”

 

“Rise and shine, unnie!”

 

Someone was trying to ruin my beauty sleep and I already knew who the culprits were. Sinking my face deeper into the soft, comfy pillows and ignoring the annoying voices did not do anything to make them get the hell out of my room. Just my luck that I always get stuck with the most frustrating roommates ever. And both of them had a black hole for a stomach. Now, they have resorted to plan B, which is vigorously shaking me and slapping my back multiple times to awaken me. Not to mention that they were using those awfully grating voices again. I reluctantly opened an eye to look at the time on my digital alarm clock on the bedside table.

 

It was eight in the morning.

 

On a Sunday.

 

Good grief…

 

With every ounce of patience already drained from my existence, I sat up from the comfort of my bed and turned around to show these two shikshins a piece of my mind.

 

“Don’t you people know what time it is!?”

 

“Of course. Its breakfast time and I didn’t see food on the table for us.” The towering girl who I was glaring at folded her arms as she said that in a matter-of-factly tone.

 

“Sooyoung, you’re a grown woman! Can’t you cook food for yourself by now?”

 

“I can but my cooking can’t be compared to the likes of yours, Lee Soonkyu.”

 

“She says the truth, unnie.”

 

“Yoona, please be a dear and betray your Sooyoung unnie for once.” I was secretly praying really hard that she would finally come to her senses and side with me instead of that food-digging monster of a glutton. My prayer was left unheard.

 

“No can do, shorty.” The giant intervened while placing her arm around the doe-eyed girl. “We shikshins have vowed that, as long as there is someone who is skilled enough to prepare better meals than we do, we will use our teamwork and loyalty towards each other for the sake of satisfying our stomachs.”

 

That very ‘touching’ oath earned a high-five with a pillow right in the giant’s face.

 

“I’m going back to sleep,” I muttered as I turned back over to the other side of the bed.

 

Seriously, these kids.

 

And just when I thought that my misery was finally over, those irritating nasally voices came back once again into my ears, preventing me from getting some much-needed shut eye.

 

“Unnie~”

 

“ALRIGHT ALREADY! I’ll COOK YOUR DAMN BREAKFAST!”

 

Normally, I don’t like to yell at Sooyoung and Yoona at the top of my voice whenever both of them complained to me about their hunger tendencies. I will feel bad for treating my juniors so harshly. But this was the last freakin’ straw. As I grudgingly got up from my bed and stomped past the two troublemakers, I took heed of the very audible snickering coming from them but decided to turn a deaf ear on it.

 

Living the college student’s life is no easy feat, especially if you’re living with a couple of pigs for a few years and counting. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Sooyoung and Yoona. I could never remember a page in my life where I could bicker so much with someone and yet still think that they’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. They’re also my two closest friends. We met in high school and from then on, managed to make it through and ended up entering the same university. They were a year younger than me but that did not hinder them from pestering and bossing me around when it comes to food. Their freakishly long legs being an added advantage to my vertically-challenged appearance.

 

After making my way through our shared dorm and into the kitchen, I forcefully pulled the door of the refrigerator to whip something up for the two gluttons.

 

“What do you guys want to eat today?” I called out to them as I mindlessly searched through the fridge for ingredients.

 

“Well…that’s the problem, unnie. There isn’t anything to cook in there.”

 

It seemed that my brain was still buffering due to the drowsiness of waking up so early. Right after that statement was how I finally realised that there wasn’t anything at all to stuff ourselves with except for a half-full carton of milk, bottles of plain water, a small bar of butter, and a lone egg sitting in one corner. Even the stash of lollipops and chocolate bars that Sooyoung usually bought weren’t in sight.

 

“Yah, why the heck didn’t you guys buy the groceries when it’s gonna be empty soon!?”

 

“I thought it was your turn to buy them on Friday.”

 

Sooyoung’s rebuttal refreshed my memory. Two days ago was when I had to tutor Sunyoung, or as she wanted to be known now as Hyomin, and the trip to the supermarket on that day failed to cross my mind. The morning’s ambush was typically my fault and I mentally face palmed at that. If I had remembered that it was my turn, I could’ve enjoyed a few more hours of beauty sleep.

 

“Alright, alright, I completely forgot about it.” I humbly admitted my mistake. “Just let me freshen up first and I’ll head straight to the store to buy the both of you a quick breakfast.”

 

“You mean we have to wait even longer until you come back here with the food!?” Sooyoung complained.

 

“Look, if you’re starving right now, just cook that last egg and share half of it with Yoong.”

 

“That won’t even fill a quarter of our stomachs! Besides, that’s a salted egg in there and not a regular egg.”

 

“An egg is still an egg, isn’t it? It’s not going to give you high blood pressure just by eating one.”

 

“Eww, I think I just lost my appetite at the thought of eating that all by its lonesome.”

 

“Then I guess I don’t need to go to the store now.”

 

“Yah!”

 

“Unnie!”

 

That was my cue to bolt into the bathroom, take a nice quick shower, and go to where I was needed to go before they both do more than use their highly irrational voices on me.

 

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

 

The sound of the bell dinging as I stepped inside the cooling convenience store echoed throughout the interior. The place was decorated just like your normal, average, everyday store. Your entire daily needs sitting on the assorted shelves neatly and ready to be bought. My eyes automatically locked onto the cashier whom I was very familiar with. Her ebony hair was tied in a neat ponytail to accompany the uniform which she was wearing. A lock of hair managed to escape from the hold of the hair band and blocked her view of the magazine which she was engrossed in, causing her to tuck it swiftly behind her ear. I smiled at her behaviour whilst shaking my head at the sight. The girl would always take every opportunity she could get to press her face into those fashion magazines. Good thing that the store was practically barren at this time of day, seeing as I was the only one in the small premises. Her manager wouldn’t let her get away with this if he saw her slacking off like that.

 

I strolled nearer to the register and it successfully got her to break her attention on the magazine.

 

“Hey Sunshine,” she greeted me with that distinct eye-smile of hers. “Isn’t it a little too early for you to be up?”

 

“The kids at home were nagging at me about breakfast again. Only this time there weren’t anything in the fridge to make a decent meal for them.”

 

“What a way to start off a lovely Sunday morning. No wonder you look like you’ve just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” I dismissed her implied statement on my frustrated mood and started to browse around the store. “Aren’t you supposed to be working instead of flipping through that, Tiffany?”

 

“Hey, it’s the new issue that just came out today! I can’t pass up on this.”

 

“I don’t think your manager would be so accepting of your obsession with magazines though. Or more specifically, your obsession with pretty ladies wearing clothes you can’t afford with your monthly salary right now.”

 

“Oh, be quiet Soonkyu and let me enjoy my hobby.”

 

That shushed our conversation for a while as I searched around for the things I needed. Hwang Miyoung, or Tiffany as she preferred to be called, was another friend that I somehow met and gotten to know by just being a regular at this twenty-four hours convenience store. Most of her shifts collide with my daily visits to her place of work, and from then on we decided to get to know each other. She is a bubbly and cheerful woman with a beautiful eye-smile that can attract anyone from all walks of life. She studies at a different community college and is majoring in English Literature. Oh, and she has an addiction with fashion magazines. Did I already mention that?

 

After I picked out all of the groceries that I had forgotten to buy two days before, I went back to the counter and not at all surprised to see Tiffany still engrossed in whatever she was looking at. Feeling a bit cheeky, I scattered all of the items in my hands onto the counter to startle her.

 

It worked surprisingly well.

 

“Yah, that scared me!” She yelled and placed the open magazine on her chest to calm her beating heart down.

 

“What if someone decided to come in here and rob the place whiles you’re busy reading that? That would be ten times scarier than me dropping all my groceries in front of you.”

 

“Fine, point taken,” Tiffany sighed as placed the book down and started scanning all the items.

 

With Tiffany diligently doing her work, my curiosity got to the better of me and I took the liberty of flipping through the object which peaked interests her so much.

 

“I don’t get it. I mean, sure there are some nice clothes in here and all. I wouldn’t mind wearing them but I don’t understand why you’re so hooked into this.” I said while looking through pages after pages of models posing at different photo-shoots.

 

“Are you sure you’re a girl, Soonkyu?”

 

“Last time I checked when I went to the bathroom, I am indeed a girl.”

 

“Well, don’t you understand the meaning of ‘eye candy’?”

 

I rolled my eyes at that phrase. “C’mon Fany, looks are deceiving.”

 

“But isn’t it nice to admire their physique?”

 

“You’re starting to sound like a erted, old man.”

 

“No, no, not like that!” my ebony-haired friend denied and flailed around to prove her point. “I meant that wouldn’t it be nice to have a body like that?”

 

“…Now you’re starting to sound like a wannabe anorexic teenage girl.”

 

“NO, I-I mean… I-I…” This was the first time I’ve seen the joyful woman being such a nervous wreck over a simple reason for her addiction. She heaved a heavy sigh and continued, “Okay, I just like looking at the models in there alright? Go to page 60 and you’ll know what I mean.”

 

I nonchalantly obeyed and flipped to the designated page. What awaited me was a picture of a beautiful woman who looked to be around the same age as us, posing rather professionally in the streets of Manhattan. The other pictures of her were also done magnificently well. She had an aura to her that was very much different than the other models in the earlier pages I saw.

 

“That’s Jessica Jung,” Tiffany said. “And there’s something about her…” When I heard the tone of how she spoke about this model, I immediately looked up and saw a dreamy Tiffany lost in her own wonderland as she stared at the open page where Jessica was in. Oh my, this girl was love struck.

 

“Uh, Earth to Tiffany?” Waving at her managed to break her from her reverie.

 

“Sorry, I was lost in thought.” She gave me that eye-smile again though I could tell that it was a bit forced.

 

“Yeah, well I can totally see why you like looking through these.” I teased, not forgetting to add in a smirk for good measure. A blush successfully crept onto her white-porcelain face.

 

“But there is another one that looks a lot like her.” Tiffany coughed and changed the subject. “Turn to page 75.”

 

“Man, you even remembered the page numbers,” I deliberately yet again and resulted in her continuing her original task of putting all of my stuff into a carrier. When I got to the page, I was greeted by another beautiful woman who looked very similar to Jessica Jung yet different at the same time. This one was wearing a body-fitting black dress which showed off her delightful curves, and she was posing by staring out a window with a sombre expression.

 

And she looked oddly familiar…

 

I furrowed my brows. I couldn’t put my finger on it but there was definitely something tugging at me regarding this woman. I just didn’t know what it was.

 

“Who is this?” I asked Tiffany.

 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out too. Actually, this model debuted several months ago so she’s quite a newbie, but she has a really good rep. I don’t know much about her other than she uses the initials H.M as her name.”

 

“H.M?”

 

“Pretty mysterious, right?”

 

“Pretty AND mysterious.”

 

“So I see that you’re interested with this one, huh?” Now it was her turn to tease me and wiggle those thick eyebrows of hers. Gawd, it looked so sleazy when she did that.

 

“Yah, do that again and I’ll shave those eyebrows of yours.”

 

“Meanie. That will be 19000 won, please.”

 

“Add in the magazine for me, will ya?” I said as I gave the book to her, much to her astonishment.

 

“Did you just experience love at first sight?”

 

“Says the one who ogles at Jessica Jung almost every day.”

 

“It’s not ogling!”

 

“Ah, so you do admit that you stare at her face almost every day.”

 

That made the cashier at a loss for words for once. I paid for everything and bade Tiffany goodbye as I exited the convenience store. It was fun teasing her like that. Going back to the dormitory, I looked down at the plastic bag that I was carrying and the picture of that woman flashed back in my mind.

 

‘Why is she so familiar?’ I thought.