chapter one | the first encounter

The right way to love someone is to lightly run your fingers over that person's soul until you find a crack, and then gently pouring all your love into it.

             Yoona stared at the black and white words in her laptop screen. She reread the sentence once, twice, a hundred times too many before grinning to herself and stretching her limbs. For someone who has never been in love, she does a heck of a job writing about it. Maybe that's why her stories are popular over the internet: her innocence never stained the idea of love. For Im Yoona, love would always be pure, attainable, and love could fix everything.

             "Get ready! It's almost seven-thirty!" Her mother's booming voice send her back to reality.

             , Yoona thought. It's morning and sleep  hasn't visited her due to writing. Yoona clicked Save and Upload on the webpage she's in before slapping her cheeks awake to prepare herself for a new day ahead. It doesn't matter, at least my readers would be happy. Touching people is so satisfying.

             Jumping off her chair, Yoona ran to her bathroom for a quick shower. Then, she dried herself, slipped into her pressed uniform and braided her hair. Yoon applied makeup to her panda-like eye bags and ran downstairs to grab a snack bar and kiss her mother goodbye. Dumping her school bag on the basket, she unlocked her bike before riding on it.

             "Contemporary art is just classical art modernized to suit our taste." The aging professor babbled his way around the lecture hall.His wiry eyeglass was set so low on his nose Changmin's scared it might fall off at any minute.

             Shim Changmin studied the compact hall.    

             All of the students are listening intently, some of them are scribbling down as fast as they possibly can save for one girl whose gentle snoring was bothering him. It's his seat mate, Im Yoona. He doesn't know her personally, after all, he's just moved into this small town a week ago, but he's definitely heard enough about Im Yoona.

             "She's deranged man, deranged!I get the creeps whenever I see her." His new friend, Donghae, had whispered earlier when they walked past her. "She's pretty, but no one has ever heard her speak. She just types whatever she wants to say in her phone so her voice is always robotic. No one strikes a conversation with her if they can help it."

             Changmin had asked whether she was naturally mute.

             "No man, no. I've heard from Luna, the neighborhood gossip, that she was a bubbly sort back in high school. Then, something big happened. Saw her dad died or something right after her graduation. No one heard her voice again after that. "

             Remembering their conversation, Changmin leaned his head on his hand and studied the sleeping Im Yoona.

             There was no rational reason why he and Yoona should talk, but Changmin was determined to do something about it. There's no s