The first time I saw her, she was reading a book.

Not that that was unusual; she was always reading. It was the first day of school, and I guess she had started reading between classes, continuing on through roll call. The teacher had to repeat her name before she looked up and raised her hand to signal she was present. Then she went right back to her book.

There really wasn’t anything special about it.

Im Soo Young sat in the desk next to me for my last class of the day, always reading. She never talked to people, not that I saw, but I wasn’t sure if they were connected, and if they were which one was the cause and which one was the effect. But everyday, it was the same. She’d walk into class, sit down, and start reading. At first I thought it was just an interesting book, but the book would change, sometimes daily. I eventually spotted her one day in the cafeteria, too, a couple of weeks after school had started, and I was surprised to see her sitting by herself, reading while she ate.

Didn’t she have any friends?

That question bothered me more than it should have, considering I still hadn’t even talked to her. You could argue that it’s good-hearted of me to care and that I shouldn’t think it’s weird, but I feel that only works if I was worried about the other people who sat alone, but I didn’t. The thing was, though, that she didn’t seem bothered to be alone. She actually usually seemed really excited to sit down and read. Especially in the cafeteria, I’d usually catch her opening up her book to start reading immediately, and then fumbling around blindly to pick up her utensils and eat her food. She’d barely turn from her book to concentrate, which usually turned into a very entertaining show.

I guess if she’s happy, though, it shouldn’t bother me.

~

“Come on, Jong In,” my sister said to me as she dragged me into a bookstore. Well, tried to. She had one hand gripping my wrist while the other was trying to maneuver the stroller to fit through the small store door. “I just need to find one book. Come on and help me.”

“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes at how unnecessary it was for her to grab me. I had come to hang out with her and my niece, and she’d already promised to pay for my lunch, so I wasn’t planning on leaving her. At least, not until I had gotten my free food. “Just use both hands, you’re holding people up.” She released me and finally managed to angle the stroller just right. “What book are you looking for?”

She pulled out her phone as we stationed ourselves near a new releases table so she could check on the name of the book and the author. While we were standing there, I looked at the books on the table, and recognized one of them; Soo Young had been reading it the other day.

Interested, I picked it up and started reading the back. It actually sounded good, and suddenly I really wanted to give it a shot. I opened it up and started reading until my sister found what she was looking for. I closed the book and tucked it up under my arm.

“What are you doing?” she asked, eyeing the book.

“Helping you.”

“You don’t read,” she said, pointing at the book.

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don’t. Not for pleasure.” She paused and narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do you want that book.”

“Expanding my horizons?” I asked, not sure what she was so suspicious about.

She grabbed it from me and began inspecting it, checking the front and back covers before flipping through the pages.

“There’s not any in here, is there?”

My face flushed.

“What? No!”

At least I don’t think there is. This is a girl who doesn’t seem to have any friends and gets really excited about what she’s reading. It is possible content.

No, no, I’ve noticed her reading some classics and literary works, like Coetzee. She must be reading legitimate books. But then…

She arched an eyebrow before narrowing her eyes again at the book. She inspected for a few more seconds before handing it back to me.

“Lend it to me when you’re done,” she said, now turning her suspicious eyes on me.

“Why?”

She pursed her lips and lifted her chin, flickering her eyes between it and me.

“It sounds good.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Whatever. What’s that book you’re looking for again?”

~

The book was good. So good, in fact, I couldn’t put it down. Despite that, Soo Young managed to go through two more books in the time it took me to read this one. She must be a really fast reader, too, because I hadn’t done much else in my free time besides reading. I guess it would make sense for her to be faster at it since it’s something she does so much.

I started paying a bit more attention to what she was reading since I wanted to try more books. I picked up a few more and read them as well, and enjoyed them a lot. My sister ended up reading all of them, too, and loved them, which wasn’t surprising since we’d always had the same taste in movies. She wanted me to start getting more recommendations straight from Soo Young so she could get more from the romance and thriller genre because she liked those more than the fantasy, which wasn’t really her taste. I never did, though. I couldn’t build up the nerve. I’m not really shy, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. She was just always reading and I didn’t want to interrupt her. I may not be big into reading, but I did know that it was a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single person in possession of a good book must be in want of being left alone. Besides, she might not want people to talk to her in general, not just when she’s reading. That might be another reason she read so much at school, to signal people to leave her alone.

There was another part of me that did want to talk to her, though.

While I kept watching her to check on what she was reading, I eventually began just watching her. Looking across the cafeteria or at the desk next to me just to check on her. See if she was there. See if she was all right. You’d think there wouldn’t be much to see since she always did the exact same thing, and honestly, there wasn’t, but for some reason I liked doing it. It didn’t hurt that she was pretty.

~

“Isn’t that the same book you just had me read, but from the guy’s perspective?” I heard a girl say from the aisle next to mine.

I was back at that bookstore looking for some more of the books I had seen Soo Young reading recently. I had decided to grab a couple more than usual; I was going through them faster now, and it was getting annoying having to come here every week.

“Yeah, but I don’t think I can read it. I’m still a little scarred from “Midnight Sun”.”

Another girl.

“I’m the same, it happened so long ago, but I’m still not over it, either. I can’t read stories from the guy’s perspective, either.”  

I was debating one book currently, since I found out she had been reading the seventh book in a fourteen book series, and each book was pretty long. It seemed like a popular series, and I usually liked all the fantasy books she read, but this seemed like a little too much.

“Anyways,” the first girl continued, “me and my mom are fighting. Again. She’s just being so frustrating lately. It’s my life, my future. I should get to choose it. Once I graduate, I won’t be crawling back to her for help. I’ll move out and get by on my own. I’ve got a plan, and she just needs to stop worrying about it.”

“She’s your mom, of course she’s worried about you.”

I decided to forgo the book, wanting to try some of the other ones that required less of a commitment first. I walked out of the aisle and rounded the corner, intending to walk down the one the girls were on since I needed some books from it. I came up short when I saw Soo Young there. It was just her and another girl I didn’t recognize, and I realized it must be them that I overheard a second ago.

I was surprised when I saw the girl she was standing with. She was a bombshell; all legs, perfect body, beautiful face. She looked like she had just stepped off a runway even though her clothes weren’t anything special, at least not that I noticed. Soo Young next to her was a much more subtle, softer beauty. She definitely didn’t belong on a runway, but she was still cute.

“She just needs to back off,” her friend said, apparently the one who had been complaining about her mom. “I’m so sick of her acting like this. I know what I want, and I’m going to do it. She needs to get over that.”

I was suddenly nervous that Soo Young might look over in my direction and see me, recognize me. I panicked and darted back around the aisle to where I had been before, heart pounding. Clearly, I liked this girl too much.

Clearly, I liked this girl.

I was about to walk away, make a safe escape, but then I heard her talking. I had never heard her voice before the comment she had made a few seconds ago, so I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to listen to it. Plus, it was too interesting to not listen to.

“Listen, Ga In, I know you’re upset, but you need to stop and think about your mom’s perspective for a second. She’s got you, plus your siblings, plus her job to take care of. I mean, you dad helps with it too, but they’re both so incredibly busy with work, it’s got to be hard on them. You’re mom’s pretty much always stressed out, and I’m sure the added worry of what job you’re going to get down the road is already bad enough without you picking something so risky. I know your mom, and I know she’s just doing the best she can, but she’s not perfect, she’s human, and she’s not going to be able to always communicate with you perfectly. Sometimes, you have to meet your parents halfway, and this is probably going to be one of those times since it’s so important to both of you. And I’m not saying you should just change all of your plans to accommodate her, but you just need to talk to her calmly. Yelling at each other all the time is just going to keep making both of you angrier, and nothing will get solved.”

It was quiet for a second, and I waited with baited breath for what Soo Young might say next.

“Holy crap,” her friend said. “I think that’s the closest you’ve ever come to yelling at me. I’m actually a little proud of you.”

“You’re not angry?”

“No. Well, a little bit. I was kind of relying on you agreeing with me even when I’m being immature and irrational. So I’m a little annoyed by that. But at the same time I’m sure your right. In fact, the more I think about what you just said, the more I’m convinced about it, and it was something I needed to hear. I just hate that I’m wrong.”

There conversation faded back into talk about books, and I couldn’t keep listening. Soo Young’s words may have been directed towards her friend, but they also fit with me weirdly well. I wasn’t fighting with my mom about what I wanted to, but I was fighting with her. A lot. All the time, really.

We’d been on bad terms since my dad walked out on us a couple of years ago. We used to get along really well, but, even though he was the one who left, something had soured between us. The fighting didn’t really start up until my sister that was closer to my age, not the one with a kid, moved out, leaving us alone with each other. Apparently, she had been working as a buffer between us, and when she left there was no one to talk us down before we exploded on each other.

I had been thinking all this time that my mom had been being a crappy mother, but this was the first time I started thinking maybe I was being a bad son. I guess it’s time to find out.

~

Still not sure which of us was more wrong, but neither my mom nor me had been right. I apologized to her that night, which made her start crying and apologize back. We ended up talking, not yelling at each other, and it was nice.

I felt stupid for not think of doing any of this before.

From that day, though, I had a lot of respect for Soo Young. For her being smart enough to think to say those things, and then actually having the courage to say them to her friend. She wasn’t just some girl who read really god books all the time. But, again, I felt stupid for not thinking that earlier, either.

I started finding myself watching her more than I had before; my eyes were always drawn to her. I’d catch myself looking at her during lunch or in the middle of class.

It didn’t take me long to realize I had a crush on her. In fact, it was made completely obvious to me the day a girl from one of my other classes confessed to me. Her name was Soo Jung, and she had left me a note to meet her after school. In all honesty, when I first read the note, I thought it said it was from Soo Young, and I got excited for a second. I agreed to meet with her anyways, because at the time I wasn’t sure what it was for, and figured even if it was a confession; I should let her down in person. I wasn’t even sure who she was, so I didn’t want to date her.

She wanted to meet in an empty classroom, which made me pretty sure it was a confession, so when she came in and started talking, I could tell pretty easily that she was building up to telling me that she liked me. I was going to turn her down before she got too far along, but before I could speak, I noticed Soo Young through the window. She had stopped at a tree and set her bag down. I was confused on what she was doing, but then I noticed her pulling a hair elastic off her wrist. She started gathering her hair behind her head and secured it in a high ponytail. The whole thing was weirdly attractive to me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. It was probably extremely not normal to find a girl tying up her hair so attractive.

I was pulled back to the conversation at hand when Soo Jung said my name. She had noticed I wasn’t paying attention, which made me feel even worse about having to turn her down than I already did.

I thought about talking to her, Soo Young, but I pulled up short by that again for the exact same reason as before; she was always reading. I mean, she had a friend, so I was pretty sure now that she liked people, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be interrupted. What if she only liked hanging out with older people? That girl she was with could have easily been in her twenties. Maybe I was too young for her.

Sometimes I thought just saying screw it, and going up to her anyways. I doubted she’d be so annoyed she’d hate me and want nothing to do with me, and if that were her reaction, then I probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her, either. This thought kept popping up more and more as the days passed, and I was getting close to just doing it.

Then the day came when she noticed me.

We were sitting in class, and I was actually paying attention for once, when I noticed a pencil fall to the ground and roll next to my desk. Acting on instinct, I reached down and grabbed it before sitting back up and handing it to the person next to me who had dropped it.

I didn’t remember it was the side the Soo Young was sitting on until I locked eyes with her.

My heart started thundering in my chest, not prepared to have her eyes on me, focusing on me, nor so close to me. I could smell her; it wasn’t perfume, but it was definitely nice.

“Thanks,” she said, but I hardly heard her or realized that she had already taken her pencil back.

I couldn’t help but stare at her. She had droopy eyes, a button nose, and full lips. Her hair was thick and long, and bangs framed her face. She was somewhere between cute and beautiful, and I was captivated.

Slowly, my brain registered what she had said, and I nodded, acknowledging that I had heard her. She began to turn back to the front of the class, but then turned back and smiled at me.

She freaking smiled at me.

My heart sputtered to a stop and then picked up again at an even faster pace. I whipped my head around to face the front of class, my brain and heart working overdrive from the onslaught of attention from her. I had not been anywhere near prepared to have any sort of interaction with her, not at that moment. And I was just so surprised. I had never seen her smile like that. Yeah, she smiled and laughed at her books sometimes, but that was the thing, she always had her head tilted down to read. Sometimes, she’d seem to remember that she was in a place with other people and she’d try to control it or hide her smile with her hair or hand, so I had never seen her smile, not in all it’s glory. And then it had been directed straight at me.

She had smiled right at me.

I suddenly realized what I had done, and I was so angry with myself. She had smiled at me, smiled at me, and what had I done? Turn away so fast it’s a miracle I didn’t get whiplash. I looked back at her, trying to think of a way to apologize, to make up for it, maybe even try to explain, but she was looking at the teacher again, seemingly paying attention.

I couldn’t believe it. Not only had I ruined the first time we had ever had any sort of interaction with each other, but I had also probably left a horrible first impression of myself. She probably thought I was a jerk or that I didn’t like her. This was horrible. How was I supposed to get closer to her if I couldn’t even handle her smiling at me?

She glanced back over at me, and like the coward I apparently am, I darted my eyes back to the front of class, my nerves acting up again because I was scared of getting caught staring.

Thankfully, or unfortunately, it was near the end of class, and nothing else happened between us. I wanted to talk to her, but I was too much of a mess to be able to do it properly. Plus, she had rushed out of the classroom soon after the bell rang. She never stayed for too long.

~

So I was definitely the biggest coward in the world. It was decided the next day when I saw Soo Young at lunch, sitting at the same table she always sits at, completely alone, like I knew she’d be because she’s always alone. I had made the resolution the night before to talk to her, make her forget about how rude and weird I was yesterday, but I couldn’t. When I woke up today, I kept stressing about the idea that she may dislike me now, maybe even hate me. Maybe she really doesn’t like people. Maybe her friend was the exception rather than a rule.

I didn’t speak to her in class, either. I couldn’t even look up at her when she took her seat, and I only took a hand full of glances at her while the teacher was talking. She didn’t seem upset during class. I don’t think she ever looked my way, at least not that I saw.

I was feeling better by the time class ended; not enough to talk to her, but enough to start thinking she might not actually hate me.

“Hey.”

I was still in the middle of putting my notes away when I thought I heard Soo Young speak. I paused for a second, but figured I was just hearing things. Soo Young doesn’t speak at school, not unless she has to, so even if she were talking, it wouldn’t be to me.

“Hey.”

It was her voice again, and I saw her leaning towards me from the corner of my eyes. I finally turned to look at her and our eyes met. I was struck again by how attracted to her I was.

She seemed to hesitate, uncertainty in her eyes, before she spoke.

“You have a nice face.”

I stared at her for a second, but then the words set in and I was so surprised. She said I had a nice face, and she seems to have said it sincerely, so that means she likes my face, which probably means she thinks I have a good looking face, which means she probably finds my face attractive. She thinks I have an attractive face. She finds me attractive.

Yes.

“That’s all!” she practically squeaked, the words shooting out of . As she spoke, her cheeks turned first pink, then red. She was so flustered. Something about it triggered some protective instinct in me that I didn’t even know I had. “I don’t really have anything else to say so I’ll head home first! Goodbye!”

She then slung her bag over her shoulders and rushed out of the classroom without so much as a backward glance, leaving me to try and figure out what exactly had just happened.

She had spoken to me first, which was new, and not just for us, but in general. I was pretty sure the only time I had ever seen her talk to people was after they had spoken to her first and it was usually because of an assignment or something. And then she told me I had a nice face, which we’re going to go ahead and translate roughly into “You’re a y beast.” Like I said, rough translation. Then she got nervous, blushed like crazy, and beat a fast escape.

I mean, what did that mean?

The only logical explanation I could think of for any of this was that she liked me. Why else would she speak to me first? Why would she compliment me like that? Why would she get so embarrassed over it that she ran away?

I knew it was almost too good to be true, and maybe it was, but there was something I was now completely and indefatigably sure of. I had made the decision before I even left the classroom.

I had to have her.