The sign on Lotte Mall said 70% off for any shoes and dresses purchased. I glanced down at myself – looking directly at the hideous heels with straps that wrapped around my ankles like some glittering snakes and a frilly pink prom dress that was fluffed up and stiff enough to dance on its own. Sue me but the gown was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. I wondered why I was wearing it and what I was doing at Lotte Mall. Then, I saw something that made my eyes went blink blink!

Buy One, Free One!

Pushing through the store’s electric door, I grabbed a hand basket and started wandering from one aisle to another. The shelves, surprisingly, didn’t line up with clothes or shoes or whatever else you could imagine being displayed.

They were lined up with guys instead, arranged like cereal boxes, with all sort of sizes and varieties of guys, blond and dark, hunky and slim, gorgeous guys in suits, guys standing straight as Ken dolls and grinning majestically at me.

“Seul, you’re a life savior. Thanks for asking me along,” said my friend, Irene.

I glanced over my shoulder. As always, Irene was the epitome of beauty, the ultimate representation of a dream girl. She was wearing a very simple plain white dress, her face touched with minimal make up but amazingly she still looked like a beauty queen ready to pose for a front page high-end fashion magazine.

And unlike me who looked like a potato wrapped in a stupid pink dress, she was pushing a huge cart.

“No biggie.” I told her, then reached and picked a cute guy from the shelf, dropping him in my basket. But in a blink of an eye, Irene pulled the guy from my basket and put him in hers.

I reached for another. Irene grabbed him out of my basket again. I reached again and so did Irene. I took off, racing down the aisles, like how I always ran during my 100m-track meeting, plucking guys from the shelves like mad. Soon, I was moving so fast until I couldn’t even see their faces. I was still wearing the grotesque outfit, but now I was rolling on my roller blades, reaching and dropping every guy that I managed to grab on the shelves into my basket.

Shockingly, no matter how many guys I grabbed, my basket always came up empty. But Irene, on the other hand, was getting her cart very full. Enraged, I skated faster, wielding my hockey stick, clearing the shelves of guys. Irene was right behind, and never once did I manage to run away from her.

“I can’t stand it anymore!” I finally exploded. “Take them. Take them all! They’re all yours, Bae Joohyun!!!”

I threw my basket and hockey stick on the floor, feeling totally frustrated, and raced towards the exit. Irene was right behind me, perhaps hoping for a sidewalk sale. She didn’t pay. Bae Joohyun never worried about the cost of things, not even once in her lifetime.

The store alarm went off. It was shrieking at me, blasting like it was inches from my ear.

#for horatia, this one for you.