I met Kim Jennie a day after chicken tender night, when I nearly hit her with my car. I was lost in my own thoughts on my way to work, and had barely made it down the street from the house before I had to slam on the brakes.

She’d been chasing her escaped dog across the street, and I came so close to hitting her that when we locked eyes through the windshield, I could see her glowing porcelain skin and her natural fiercely cat-eye.

It was the first time I could remember looking at someone’s eyes before their cheek. Hers were a beautiful dark brown orbs. Her silky brunette hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail, with a couple of stray tendrils framing her face. She was beautiful.

She cradled her dog in one arm and a leash attached to a collar in the other. I didn’t make the connection until later that the dog must’ve slipped his collar while she was taking him for a walk.

I think she was – quite understandably, really – stunned at first, because she didn’t move from out in front of my car. I shifted the gear into park and scrambled out, and felt my cheeks heat up as I rushed to apologize to her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you,” I explained hastily, my eyes still on her very, very pretty cat-eye. “You’re okay, right?”

She blinked back at me, a little wide-eyed, and then turned red right before my eyes. “No, I’m sorry. That was my fault. Kuma here doesn’t like to listen to me.” She gestured to the dog in her arms.

“He’s cute,” I said, mostly because I didn’t know what else to say. The dog was a cute brown Pomeranian, and he was struggling to get out of her arms, so she knelt down and placed him on the ground, then reattached his leash and collar.

“So do you live around here?” she asked me.

“Yeah, just down the street.” I pointed to my house as she straightened back up.

“Nice,” she said casually, and smiled at me as though I hadn’t just nearly killed her. “My parents and I just moved in last week. We’ve been transferring from town to town because of their work. I hope to stay here for a long while, since the weather here in Seoul is quite nice.”

“Yeah, well… beware the people. I don’t think they’re as nice as they are in other towns,” I warned her. “Everyone’s always in a hurry.”

“I noticed.” She has a cheeky smirk plastered on her face. “I hear they nearly hit you with their cars.”

“Ouch.” I pressed a hand to my chest, and she laughed at me. Then we shared a smile. There was something about her that made me comfortable in a way I wasn’t used to feeling. I’d heard before that sometimes two people could meet and instantly click: instantly know they’re going to get along. It was like that with her.

“Alright, well…” she said at last, still cradling Kuma to her chest, “I guess you probably have somewhere to be, but it was nice to meet you, other than the whole near-death experience thing. I’m Jennie, Kim Jennie by the way.”

“I’m really sorry,” I apologize again.

“It’s fine! I’m fine…?” She looked at me expectantly, and I realized she wanted my name.

“Lisa. Lisa Manoban. Okay. Enjoy Seoul, Jennie.”

“Oh, I will. Bye, Lisa.” She gave me a wave and moved to turn away, and I remembered her left cheek at the last second. My eyes darted to her cheek, and in hindsight, maybe they shouldn’t have. Maybe I should’ve let Jennie be the one untainted human interaction I’d had in years. The one person whose company I’d just enjoyed for a few easy, simple seconds without pondering depressing, existential-crisis-inducing things like her age and cause of death.

But I glanced to her left cheek and swore I saw 23, and then she’d turned away. Walked away. My nosiness was getting the best of me, and I was suddenly doing something I told myself I’d never do. I was caring.

“Jennie!” I called after her, and she paused to turn back again. I wasn’t looking at her eyes anymore. The 23 on her left cheek held my focus as I struggled to think of something to say. I’d only called her back to get another look at her number. “Um… if you need someone to show you around, I’m free most days in the afternoon,” I finally blurted out.

She smiled at me again, almost slyly, and then nodded. “Okay. I might take you up on that, Lisa.”

“Okay. Cool.”

I watched her go, and then, when she was back inside her home, I clambered back into my car and let out a heavy breath. I reached up and gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white, and immediately berated myself. I’d spent so long keeping to myself, and the first person other than Hoony that I’d reached out to was a girl who’d be dead within the year. She had to be 22 or 23 years old already. She looked my age or at least about early twenties, and I was 22. Hoony was going to be disappointed in me.

* * *

“YAH! What exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish?” Hoony asked as his forehead creased on confusion.

“I don’t know,” I murmured. “It just came out. I saw a pretty girl and turned into a complete idiot. I didn’t even notice her number at first.”

“Who does that?” he countered, looking confused. We were on break again, and it was so hot out that I could see sweat dripping from the tips of his dark, shoulder-length hair. I myself could barely stand the heat.

“You have the power to see when people will die, and you met someone and didn’t immediately look to see?”

“She has nice eyes, it was a beautiful cat-eye and she’s too y. I swear–” I mumbled, and only felt dumber when he raised an eyebrow at me.

“Seriously?”

“And I’d almost run her over, too, so I was a little distracted, okay?”

“Daebak! Her number was 23 after you nearly hit her?”

“Yeah, clearly she wasn’t meant to be killed by me,” I told him, rolling my eyes. “Obviously it’s something else.”

“Something else that’s happening soon,” he reminded me. “The smart thing to do would be to not get attached.”

“I’ve never been that smart,” I said.

“Just don’t be dumb,” he told me. I nodded, understanding. No initiating contact. That was mostly fine with me. I didn’t want to befriend a pretty girl months or year from death. That sounded like a tragic novel waiting to happen…. but only if she somehow found me attractive.

“She was probably straight, right?” I asked Hoony, half-kidding. He smacked me on the arm in response and rolled his eyes at me. I smiled back, and it helped. And then I tried my best to forget about Jennie, because if I thought about her too much, I’d wind up dwelling on the fact that she was a real person with a real life who had real parents that were going to be devastated when she die.

As long as I didn’t think about her, and as long as I didn’t see her, I’d just hear about her death through neighborhood gossip, and maybe my dad and I would talk briefly about how unexpected and then we’d move on. Life would go on with or without Jennie Kim, after all. It waited for no one. It never had.

* * *

My dad was a lanky, black-haired man with thick-rimmed Harry Potter glasses and a voice that confirmed he’d been kind of a dork growing up. On rainy days back when I was younger, I’d sometimes liked to sit on the couch with him and watch a Vampire TV Series and we’d joke around about how he and the main characters would’ve been best friends.

Dad got even quieter after we lost Mom. He worked from home now, so he spent most of his time during the day in his office on the computer. But he did come out to make dinner most nights, and occasionally we’d watch an old movie together. I knew he loved me, but I also knew he didn’t like being a single dad.

I didn’t look much like him. He’s my step-father after all. Anyways, I had Mom’s brunette hair, only mine was a slightly darker shade than hers, but I dye my hair to blonde. I also had her dark brown eyes. Dad used to like to joke that he couldn’t tell my pupils from my irises, but he’d stopped when he’d realized it was making me insecure. But everything had made me insecure back then. For a while, I’d been obsessed with being perfect because this is Korea and we are not Koreans so.. I’d thought that maybe if I was flawless, I’d live forever. Ten year old logic, huh?

During dinner maybe three days or so after I’d met Jennie, Dad perked up out of nowhere and told me, “Oh, right. I can’t believe I forgot. A girl stopped by looking for you today while you were at work. It was just half an hour or so before you got home, actually.”

“A girl?” I repeated quietly, although I obviously knew who it’d been. I hadn’t talked to any girls other than Jennie lately. Or ever.