“Of course I’ll go out with you again,” Inyoung says, twirling the phone cord around her fingers. “Just so long as it’s the two of us. I don’t want you bringing your whole brood again, ‘kay?”

I sigh loudly, trying to get her attention. We’re sitting in the Parks’ kitchen, and Inyoung’s been on the phone with her on-again off-again boyfriend, Lee Byunghun, practically since we walked in the door. Apparently, Byunghun’s trying to convince Inyoung to go see some new Keanu Reeves movie with him tomorrow night. Trouble is, last time they went out Byunghun brought his little brother and sister along. “I wanted to get some face time with Byunghun, not babysit a bunch of rugrats,” Inyoung had complained afterward.

“Okay sweetie, I’ll see you around six then,” she coos. After what seems like forever, she finally hangs up the phone. Her face is flushed bright red. “I can’t wait to see him,” she says, sighing. “It’s been almost two weeks since we so much as kissed.”

Involuntarily, I roll my eyes. The last guy I kissed was Henry, and that was practically two months ago. I don’t feel her pain. “So, do you wanna hear my big news?” I ask.

Inyoung grins and deadpans, “Big news? Me? Nah...”

I quickly fill her in on what happened before I left home. “So, as you can see, there’s only one logical explanation.”

“Hey, are you hungry?” Inyoung asks, rummaging around in the cabinet for some food. “’Cause I’m absolutely starved.”

“Inyoung! Are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course I am. You know what I think it is? Maybe your grandmother’s coming to live with you for a little while,” Inyoung offers as she unfolds a bag of microwave popcorn.

I consider this. “No way. Gram lives in this kick retirement community down in Florida. She wouldn’t give that up for anything."

Inyoung places the bag in the microwave and hits pop. "Good point. Okay, then, maybe your dad's having an affair."

"Inyoung!"

"No, no, hear me out," she says, holding a hand to stop my protests. "Your dad's constantly goinng away on extended 'business trips.' You never know where he's going or when he'll be back. He doesn't even leave you guys a number to reach him or anything."

I roll my eyes. Now I'm wishing I hadn't told Inyoung anything. "You know the deal with my father," I tell her. "He's an undercover agent; he has to go away on business."

"So he says. For all you know, he's banging some chick in Kansas City."

"My dad is not sleeping with some other woman," I say, purposely avoiding using the word "banging." Inyoung can be so vulgar sometimes. "If he had a secret girlfriend, don't you think I'd know about it by now?"

Inyoung shrugs. "Ignorance is bliss."

She has a small point, but there are way too many flaws in her argument. If there's one thing my dad has taught me, it's how to analyze a situation. "Well, then, Ms. Smarty Pants, if my dad's having an affair, what does that have to do becoming a little more crowded?"

"Hm... That's easy. Maybe his mitress got kicked out of her apartment, so she's going to be staying with you guys for a little while."

"Yeah, sure. My mom's going to let some y 'other woman' move in with us."

Inyoung takes the popcorn out of the microwave and begins pouring it into a bowl. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"Get it off, Inyoung. My mom's preggers and you know it." I perch myself on a kitchen stool.

"Well, if you're so sure about it," Inyoung says, "then just tell her you figured it out."

I make a face. "Puh-lease." I love her to death, but Inyoung can be so dense sometimes. "Look, Mom probably wants to wait until Dad gets back in town so they can break it to me together."

"I still think you're overreacting," Inyoung says, drumming her fingers against the countertop. "Hey!" she says suddenly. "Have I shown you Byunghun's new profile picture?"

I shake my head.

"It's to die for! Come on!" Inyoung starts towards the living room, motioning for me to follow her. She flips on her mom's laptop and pulls up MySpace.Com. Both Inyoung and I are huge MySpace fanatics. We spend hours every week updating our profiles, blogging, and posting comments on our friends' pages. It's one of our favorite pastimes.

Inyoung logs on and finds Byunghun's profile. At the very top is a cool-looking overexposed photo of him. His eyes are amazingly brownish and bit of blackish. Byunghun's not my type, but I have to admit he looks pretty cute.

"Doesn't he look hot?" Inyoung asks, pretending to swoon. "I mean, on a scale of one to ten, he's a twenty."

"He's pretty awesome."

"Just when I think I should break up with him, I think about those brown-black eyes, and I lose all my nerve." Inyoung sighs. "Speaking of hot guys, have you checked out the Copperfield section lately? Lee Sungyeol has a profile."

"Oh," I shrug, feigning disinterest. "Really. I hadn't noticed."

Inyoung gives me a knowing look. It's common knowledge (well, common to Inyoung and my other friends) that I have a ginormous crush on Lee Sungyeol. I've liked him since eighth grade. He's tall with chubby cheeks, black eyes and black hair. We sort of know each other—he works at the sports editor for the Copperfield Courier, and I'm the features editor, so we frequently run into each other in the newsroom and at staff meetings. Our conversations—all five of them—have been pretty limited, and I know it's pathetic, but I've memorized every detail.

The first time Sungyeol talked to me was when he asked me to hand him a blank CD-ROM in the newsroom. The second time was when he asked me what time it was. Then he asked to borrow seventy-five cents and a pencil, respectively. And the fifth time—this is my absolute favorite—happened about a month ago. We'd just returned to school from Christmas break, and Sungyeol and I bumped into each other outside the newsroom. One thing led to another, and we wound up in a fifteen minute coversation.

It started when Sungyeol asked me how my winter vacation was. I was nervous and caught off guard, so I rambled about how my dad made these excellent toasted chestnuts and the whole family enjoyed them. I mean, chestnuts! I even told him how much my grandmother liked them. Could I be any dorkier? Fortunately, Sungyeol didn't laugh at me. In fact, he didn't say anything about the chestnuts at all. As soon as I'd finished talking, he launched into this long account of his family's eight-day tobogganing down big hills, tobogganing down little hills, and tobogganing in deep snow and shallow snow. It was kind of boring story, but I hung up on to every word. I've never been so interested in tobogganing in my entire life.

Not that Sungyeol would ever date a girl like me. He's a movie-star hot and way out of my league.

Knowing all this, Inyoung still has the nerve to ask, "So why don't you friend Sungyeol?"

"No way," I tell her. "What if he denied my request? Can you imagine? I'd never be able to face him."

"He won't. He's got over two hundred and sixty friends. It's not like he's stingy about who he lets on his list. Come on, just go for it!" Inyoung prods, pulling up Sungyeol's profile. His gorgeous smile stares back at me.

I pause for a minute, thinking it over. "Nah, I can't do it. Besides, Sungyeol has Tiffany Hwang on his MySpace Top Eight. She's number two! The only person above her is his younger brother, Daeyeol."

"That reminds me." Inyoung groans, turning away from the computer. "Forget MySpace, and your mom's pregnancy scare. We've got bigger issues."

"Like what?" Secretly, I don't believe there is anything bigger than those two. Unless, of course, she's about to tell me that Lee Dong Wook asked her out.

"Tiffany Hwang," Inyoung says, spitting the name out like it's poison. "As in, how are we going to get revenge?"

Inyoung's right. This is bigger.

Tiffany Hwang is the reigning of Cop-a-Feel High. She's so wrapped up in her own universe that she barely notices anyone else is alive. Or, if she does notice you, it's because she's looking for someone to torture.

Last week, Tiffany Hwang declared war on Inyoung. And by declaring war on Inyoung, she also declared war on me. Here's what happened, in a nutshell: Both Inyoung and Tiffany play on the girls' soccer team. On Monday they had team tryouts to determine who got which position for the upcoming season. Last year both Tiffany and Inyoung were midfielders. But when a position opened up for a forward, naturally Tiffany wanted it. Even though she's not a very good player and can't un as fast as most of the other girls, she expected to land the coveted spot.

"It's because the forwards score all the goals," Inyoung had explained. "Tiffany wanted to have the most high-profile place on the team." But then Coach Kim asked Inyoung to try out and all hell broke loose. Tiffany couldn't handle the competition, so she did what any lowdown sneak does—she tainted Inyoung's Gatorade with Ex-Lax. I'll spare you the heinous details, but let's just say that Inyoung didn't exactly have a stellar tryout.

The irony is that putting Inyoung out of commission really didn't do Tiffany much good—she didn't even make forward. A girl named Lee Sora did. God help her.

"She's raging lunatic," Inyoung fumes, shoving a handful of popcorn into . "I know how wrong it is to hate people, but when it comes to Tiffany, I can't help myself."

"It's unavoidable,"I agree.

"You have no idea how much I despise her.""

"I can kinda guess." I think about the Ex-Lax incident and shudder. "Just remember: Payback's a ..."

The problem, though, was how to dethrone her. What could we possible do that would ever faze Tiffany? It's not like she's threatened by our beauty. 'Cause, duh, Tiffany's a knockout. She resembles Mandy Moore, only with longer hair and bigger s. And it's not like we could throw our boyfriens in her face (not that I even have a boyfriend) because she's dated every fine guy at Cop-a-Feel. Well, all that tree of them. Of course, guys flock to Tiffany like bees to honey. In addition to being gorgeous, she's a megaflirt. She's always ing around in these outfits that look like something Paris Hilton would wear.

"Maybe you could write a tell-all article?" Inyoung suggests. Her face brightens at the thought. "You could list her top ten worst qualities and stuff. We could launch a smear campaign in the school newspaper!"

"Uh, no," I say. "I could get in huge trouble." My job at the Courier is way too important to me to risk jeopardizing it with a stunt like that. Sure, the hours can be long, and we about how stessful the deadlines can be, but secretly I love it. It's so much fun to interview people and write stories. I get to poke my nose into all sorts of situations I'd be shut out of otherwise. Besides, my big dream is to work for CNN as a special corrsepondent. After spending four years at Columbia University on a journalism scholarship, of course.

"Oh, come on!" Inyoung urges. "What's she gonna do, sue you for slander?"

"Libel," I correct. "Libel's the printed word. Slander is when somebody says something bad about you."

Inyoung snorts. "Maybe we should sue Tiffany for slander. God knows she's said enough bad things about us to last a lifetime."

"No lie."

"Have you ever stopped to think how pathetic our school is?" Inyoung asks, shutting down the computer. "Why do girls like Tiffany get all the breaks when people like you and me get all the crap?"

"Yeah, we do get all the crap. Literally, for you," I say, grinning a little.

"Shut up!" Inyoung says, but I can tell she's starting to chill out about the whole Ex-Lax incident. Which is a good thing. Right after it happened she couldn't stop crying.

We spend a half hour later debating the Tiffany issue, but we're both stumped.

"Maybe we're thinking too high concept," I offer, laughing. "Instead of trying to come up with one huge plan, maybe we should launch a whole series of attacks. Like lots of little things that would add up over time."

Inyoung shakes her head. "Uh-uh. We've gotta strike quick. And it's gotta be anonymous. If Tiffany knows it's us, she'll come after us big time. If we do, like, ten things to her, there's too much chance of getting caught."

"Yeah, maybe," I say. "But I still like the idea of hitting her with one thing after another. Kind of like a targeted assault."

Inyoung cracks up. "Sorry there, FBI Lady. With all this talk of a 'targeted assault' and a 'series of attacks,' you sound just like your dad!"

I'm flattered. But at the mention of Dad, I'm instantly reminded of the whole soon-to-be-announced pregnancy. And suddenly I'm not laughing anymore.

---

"So did you bring the straightening iron?" Inyoung asks as we settle down in her room to start our night of makeover magic.

"Nah. Mom's bizarro talk started before I could ask to borrow it."

"Hmm..." Inyoung studies my face for a minute. "Maybe I can straighten your hair out with a blow dryer and a big brush. But first, we've gotta take care of your skin."

Self-consciously, my hands fly up to my face. "What's wrong with my skin?" I feel really lousy all of a sudden. I've actually been having a good skin day. Only two visible pimples, and they're both microscropic compared to the monster-size ones I occasionally get. But now, according to Inyoung, my skin is a disaster.

"Oh, you're more or less zit-free," she says. "It's your pores that are the problem." She reaches around and plucks a lighted magnifying mirror from her desk. The cord stretches just to where I'm sitting. "Here, take a look." She holds it up in front of me at close range. "You'd be amazed at the things you can see in this."

I stare at myself for a good solid minute. It's sobering. There's nothing more depressing than getting a microscropic view of your skin. Out of the blue, all these weird spots and holes and bumps and fuzzy places that have never, ever been visible before magically appear. And wrinkles! Oh my God. I actually have some little wrinkles around my eyes.

I MUST BE THE ONLY SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD ON THE PLANET WHO HAS WRINKLES!

I start whimpering like some kind of a sick animal. "I have the most hideos face, Inyong," I wail.

Inyoung quickly shuts off the ligthed mirror. "It's scary, I know, but there's help." She jumps up and pads off down the hall into the bathroom. A few seconds later, she re-emerges, carrying a small green tube.

"Voila!" she proclaims, setting it down in front of me.

The label reads LOUISE BARTHOLOMEW-BRADDOCK'S PORE-MINIMIZING MIRACLE CREAM. "What the hell is this stuff?" I ask, screwing open the cap. It smells like a weak version of paint thinner mixed with stinky European cheeses. It's all I can do to keep from retching. The fact that the cream is this nasty puke green color isn't helping matters.

"It's a miracle cure, that's what," Inyoung enthuses. "Seriously, put this stuff on every night before bed, and after two weeks your face will look brand-new."

"Oh, really?" I ask. I can't help but being skeptical. I lower my nose and take another whiff, them immediately gag. "No way I'm wearing this junk. I'll vomit in my sleep and choke to death."

Inyoung flips the mirror back on and lowers it to her face. "Look at this," she instructs. "Look at how even my skin tone is and how blemish-free I am."

I scoot over beside her and take a peek. "Oh my God!" I'm totally speechless. Inyoung's skin looks fantastic. I mean, she could pose for the cover of Teen People, no airbrushing necessary. She's always been blessed with a virtually flawless complexion, but the magnifying mirror spares nothing.

"Unbelievable," I manage to whisper.

"I told you so. Don't knock it till you've tried it."

"Okay, okay, I'm sold." I dip my fingers into the container and scoop up a big glob of Louise Bartholomew-Braddock's Pore-Minimizing Miracle Cream and begin smearing it all over my face.

"Chill," Inyoung cautions. "That stuff costs sixty-five dollars a pop."

"What?!" I yelp, dropping a big glob of green goo onto the floor.

"That's like five dollars' worth you just lost there."

I grimace. "I'll pay you back."

"Don't worry about it." She smiles. "It belongs to my mom anyway."

Now I feel worse. "Should we even be using this?"

"I use it all the time and she never notices," Inyoung says. "I love raiding her beauty supplies. But if I had to choose, I think I'd rather raid your mom's closet. She has the cutest clothes."

Inyoung's telling the truth. Even though I'm embarrassed that Mom's on the fast track to becoming some kind of a guru, she is actually pretty stylish. She's no Carrie Bradshaw, but she's still very trendy. She buys all her clothes at Abercombie and Banana Republic (last month, I even caught her scoping out a top at Wet Seal) and her shoulder-length hair is chopped into a really adorable bob. As much as I hate to admit it, she has a better sense of fashion than I do. It's not that I never seem to spend the time properly fixing myself up before going out. Every time I try to mix and match different outfits and jewelry and purses, I get totally overwhelmed and just throw on my favorite pair of jeans and a sweater.

I think I inherited my sense of fashion from my dad. And trust me, that's not a good thing. My dad is a major fashion victim. He goes around wearing these really ugle fuzzy sweaters every day. I think he owns about fifty of them, in a variety of Easter egg colors. As if that wasn't bad enough, he pairs them up with some yucky pastel plaid golfing pants. He's also got passion for berets, because they mask his great big ol' bald Dr. Phil—looking head. It's embarrassing.

Case in point: Last month, my dad showed up wearing one of his classic frou-frou outfits to Parent-Teacher Night. The next morning, I came into homeroom to find the words LEE HEEJOON'S DAD IS A FLAMER scrawled across the chalkboard in big loopy letters. Which royally possed me off for three reasons. First of all, it's not even true. Hey, just because of my pop's favorite shade is ligh peach, that doesn't make him gay. And second, the person who wrote it (Tiffany Hwang—who else?) didn't even have the decency to write my first name correctly. It's Kim, not Lee. I mean, come on! If you're going to diss someone publicly, at least take the time to get her name right.

Last but not least, I was really bugged by how homophobic Tiffany is. There are several gay people at my school and I don't think it's cool to make fun of that kind of stuff. Even if my dad was gay, why would I care? Who cares?

But that's Tiffany for you. Not a nice bone in her body. She's going to have a field day when she discovers that my mom has become a columnist. I can picture it perfectly. She'll laugh straight in my face, and then say something really sarcastic like "Funny how your mom knows so much about when you're a helpless ."

"So I think we should wait and style your hair tomorrow," Inyoung suggests, staring at my head. "After you've washed it. As it is, you've got more pore-minimizing cream in your hair than on your face!"

I ignore her comment. I can't help it if I'm sloppy. Besides, I'm starting to feel downright prickly. "Hey Inyoung," I say, as we get ready for bed. "This pore-minimizer stuff is really itching."

"Huh?" she asks distractedly.

I squirm around uncomfortably, trying to keep my hands off of my face, when what I really want to do is to rake my fingernails over my skin to stop the itching.

"It itches!" I yelp. "My face feels like it's being eaten alive by mosquitoes!"

Inyoung doesn't seem concerned. "Oh, it always does that. It itches for like twenty minutes, but then it stops." She flips off her bedroom light. "Just go to sleep. As soon as you drop off, you'll forget all about it. I promise."

- - -

Ah! I finally finished writing chapter 2. It's way too long. LMAO<3

Anywho! Read, enjoy and comment. ^^ I'm off to sleep. My mom will kill me if she saw me still using the Internet this late. xD So, I'm sorry if there's any mistakes. I'm typing all this half awake. xD

Updated on: 12:20am, 22.11.2011