LESSON 1

“REJECTED!”

“WHAT??!, to say that I was angry at the moment was an understatement. I was beyond furious and was nearing on breaking the limit from pulling all my hair out and going all mental.

“I’m sorry, but your story’s still lacking. There were some parts that improved slightly, but like I said, they're still lacking. Some details are still not sufficient enough”, Chaerin said with a finality on her tone. I wasn’t angry at her words; rather it was her snobbish attitude that annoyed the hell out of me.

We both stopped talking for a moment. My eyes were throwing daggers from across the table, but she was doing quite a good on ignoring it.

I finally sighed and said, “But I worked on that all night. I even rewrote all the draft and I didn’t even had a single second to sleep, let alone bat an eyelash!”, I said exasperated, throwing my arms in the air due to frustration.

“You’re exaggerating”, Chaerin said rolling her eyes. Okay, maybe I was being a little over too dramatic, but hey, I pulled an all-nighter just to finish my work.

Besides, I’m a normal high school boy in his young years. I should be worrying more about my studies, not on these things. But I pretty much have no choice, I have to pay my bills and put food in my stomach.

Chaerin continued to ignore me, typing endlessly on her keyboard. Ever since I’ve entered this room, she was already typing on her laptop. Oh, this infuriating devil-of-a-woman!

I sighed once more, but this time more dramatically. Okay then, if I had to show all of the theatrics I’ve learned from the past years, then so be it.

But wait, I didn’t gain any knowledge on that. Except only for that one time that we had a school play, and needless to say that it didn’t go that well. I mean, except for tripping off the stage and bringing down some of the props, everything was fine.

“Look Chaerin, I even dated a girl—“

I was cut off from finishing my sentence, “YOU DID???”, she looked so surprised. Hey, was she insulting me? Thinking that was an undateable(if there was even a word) guy? Or that I never had a chance at dating? How rude.

“Uhh-yeah… Anyway, as I was saying, I even went over the line and dated a girl. Don’t you know how I felt while I was on that date???”

“Uh, you felt blessed?”, she sarcastically said, looking at me for a second, then continued typing on her laptop once again.

“NO! I was terrified! Don’t you know how awkward that day was??? It was as if my brain was going crazy from thinking what to do and what not to do!”, by the time I was finished talking I was already panting very hard. But Chaerin remained unfazed about it. She just couldn’t stop typing on her forsaken laptop.

“But look on the bright side, now you can proudly say that you’re a full-grown man”, she said with an encouraging smile on her face

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!”, my eyebrows furrowed up.

“It means that you’ve gained yet another experience in you r life. And at least now you know what to do on a date the next time you had to go”

“NO! There’s no way I’m going on a date ever again! You girls are so complicated. Why can’t you just say things straight-forwardly to avoid confusion and complications?”

“You see Jiyong, we girls aren’t at all difficult to understand. It’s you men that overthink things and keep on making assumptions. Look at it this way, a girl doesn’t really need all the materialistic things that you men buy. Like when you buy her a bouquet of roses, yeah it does make her happy, but even just a simple flower and a simple saying of ‘I love you’, that’s way more than enough for her to be contented, if not more. She agreed to be in a relationship not because you can give her things, but because of who you are. And you’re the reason that makes her happy, not the gifts.” Wow, for a second, I thought that Chaerin really does know a lot of things. I suddenly felt defeated. But that doesn’t mean I fully understand how a mind of a girl works.

I gave up, “Fine”. Those were my last words before I went out the door feeling defeated. But not before catching a glimpse of a grin on Chaerin’s face.

Oh, that devil-of-a-woman.

“UGGGHHHHH!!!!”, I finally let out all my frustration, throwing up all my hands in the air.

“Hey what’s the problem”, my eyes shot up wide open when I suddenly heard a female voice coming from behind.

My eyes widened in horror when I realized who it was.

Bom.

“Wh-what a-are you doing here?”, I quickly stood up from the couch. It was an early morning, probably around 7 am.

“I was going to give you this”, she handed out a plate of cookies with a generous amount. “But then I saw your door slightly opened, so I decided to let myself in. Sorry…”, her cheeks reddened and I really thought she was cute.

“N-no! Sorry… I mean no, it’s fine. Thank you for the offer, it’s really… sweet.” Sweet? Sweet??! Really Jiyong?? Since when have you become like this?

“Really???”, her face suddenly lit up. “You see, I was practicing my baking and I really want to see if people would actually like or not”, she was showing a cheeky grin.

“Oh, so you’re aspiring to be a baker or something?”, I mentally slapped myself. To think that I asked that of all questions. But hey, you couldn’t blame me, I was lost for words.

“Hmm… not really. It’s just a hobby that I’ve come to like recently”, she said shyly

“Oh, that’s good”, she handed me the plate and I held onto it as if it were going to fall off any second from now. “Uhmm, do you want a drink or something?”, I asked her politely.

“Uh no. I’m good”, there was this nice vibe coming off from here which would also make you smile at her or something… or was it just me?