"I'm home!" I called out as I pulled off my shoes.

"How was school?" my mom called back from the kitchen. She had been a stay at home mom while I was growing up, but once me and my older sister got old enough that we didn't need her around all the time, she started working at a daycare since she loves children so much. Most days she gets home before I do, and she's usually already in the kitchen, like today. She loves cooking and baking, so she's usually in there practicing, or watching the cooking channel on the small T.V. my dad got for her to put there for his anniversary gift a few years ago. She said she prefers watching the cooking channel when she's in the kitchen because it helps her "visualize" herself cooking, which somehow makes it easier to learn.

My poor sister loves to cook, but she doesn't really have a knack for it, which surprises all of us as me and my dad are also pretty good at cooking, and every once in a while he will make us dinner. It doesn't happen that often because by the time he gets home from work some nights we're all starving, but others he's able to get away early.

"It was okay. They finished renovating the second floor bathroom, the only one on that floor. Apparently the students held a mini opening ceremony between classes, and one made a speech," I answered as I walked into the kitchen and took a seat at the table as my mom bustled around the kitchen, making dinner preparations.

"Did you hear it? Was it any good?" she asked, shooting me an inquisitive glance complete with an eyebrow raise.

"I didn't hear it myself, I was still on the first floor when it happened, but I heard it was the most inspiring and moving two minute speech any of them had ever heard."

"I wish I could have been there," she responded, turning away. "Who did you hear about it from?"

"I overheard some girls in one of my classes talking about it," I explained, confused. 

I never really talked to any of my classmates, not for conversation, anyways, and my mom knew that. I figured it would be obvious that I overheard it from people, and that I hadn't talked to anyone directly about it.

"Oh," she said. Short. Clipped.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, still confused. There was something about what she said and how she said it. Was she mad?

"Nope, just curious. Anything else exciting happen?"

She wasn't looking at me while we were talking. True, she was busy making dinner, but something about this seemed more deliberate than that. She looked tense. Something was definitely wrong, but I had no idea what. Everything had been the same this morning. Did something happen while I was at school? Was it something awful? Was it just something annoying? But my mom isn't the type to take her feelings out on others. I just couldn't figure it out, and she obviously didn’t want to talk about it.

"Not really," I answered. Even amidst all my worrying, the question did trigger a flash of a memory in my mind. That boy’s face. The way he looked at me. It was silly, and little, but it felt different than from when something like that usually happens, which is unfortunately a lot. It felt too insignificant to share, especially with my mom acting this way. "Do you need any help?"

"No, I've got this. Why don't you go get started on your homework?" she said, still not turning around.

"Okay," I said, slightly hurt. I usually would spend this time in the kitchen with my mom, helping or watching the T.V. or doing homework or whatever. It was strange for her to send me off like this. I felt like I was being banished.

I went to my room and sat down at my desk, pulling out my book, not really in the mood for homework. I read until I heard my sister come in, having just finished at school. Her classes don't actually run that late, but she's made a ton of friends and is always with them, usually studying. I heard her great our mom and talk for a few minutes, then come down the hall to bust open my door.

"Oh my gosh, you would not believe what happened to me today!" she said as dramatically as she could, dropping her bad and flinging herself on my bed.

I finished the paragraph I was on before putting my bookmark in and turning to her.

"Hello to you too, Jin Ri."

"This is too important for that kind of nonsense!" she says, sitting up.

"Well what happened?" I asked, taking the bait.

"I was sitting at one of the tables in the library studying for my test next week and then I noticed someone sitting across from me," she begins, bursting at the seams to share. "I didn't pay much attention, because I was studying, but then I happened to look up and I was completely surprised by who it was! It was Xiumin! You remember me talking about him, right?"

"How could I forget when you had the biggest crush on this guy for all of high school and you cried when he got a girlfriend and when you guys graduated because you were going to different colleges?"

"Well it's been a while and you're so bad with names!"

While I am bad with names, and it had been over a year since she graduated, he had been such a dominant topic for our conversations while she was in high school that he was hard to forget. She'd had a crush on him since the first day she saw him, but from what she's told me has only spoken to him once or twice. When I asked her why she never told him how she felt, she said it was because she respected him too much. Apparently he was the top student in their class, and had even left to study abroad. Jin Ri, on the other hand, was an average student. She felt he deserved to be with someone smarter. She also said she was intimidated to speak with him. He had a calm and gentle personality, shy. Jin Ri, on the other hand, was a loud and rambunctious person, but didn't feel like she should be that way around him.

I only ever saw him once, the day of their graduation. He was surprisingly cute. I had always imagined Jin Ri to like manly men, like body builders, but he wasn't like that. I didn't get to talk to him, but I saw Jin Ri with him. She was very quiet, like a contained version of herself. She was also nervous, though it might not have been obvious to people who didn't know her. They only spoke for a minute or so, then they smiled at each other as they said goodbye, and that was it. That was the end. Or we thought it had been.

"I thought he was studying over seas?" I asked

"I did too! I don't know what he was doing there!" She said, grabbing one of my pillows and hugging it.

"You didn't ask?"

"I couldn't talk to him!" she burst out, her eyes wide. "I was so surprised! I thought I had gotten over him but apparently not! Once, I calmed down I ran out."

"Why did you run?" I asked incredulously. I'm usually the one who runs from people, not her.

"I panicked! He'd changed so much! So much muscle!" she exclaimed, staring thoughtfully off into the distance. Sensing where her brain was going, I tried to reel her back in.

"That's really weird that he would just appear like that. Are you going to talk to him the next time you see him?"

Her face turned thoughtful, and I could see her mulling over my question, deciding either what to say or how to say, maybe both.

"Maybe," she began, carefully, "People change a lot when they start college. It'd be good to talk to him."

I didn't respond, not sure what to think of what she had said. Then the expression on her face changed, and I was surprised at what I saw. A gentle smile. A rare one for her. The same one she wore on the day she graduated when she was talking to Xiumin.

I don't think she ever got over him.