On a late afternoon, Krystal Jung dumped me in the middle of Han River. I thought I had the worst luck in the world. Before you start to think dumping as in dumping my body into the river, zippered in some bag and sink in that water, that was not it – she broke up with me. Her favourite Doc Martens boots stomped all over my heart and then she got behind the wheel of her sister’s Maserati and left without a word. She was so incredibly inconsiderate. The fact I took her out on a date in a duck boat ride and did all the pedalling just for her to break up with me? Also she was the one who wanted to do it after her friend Amber suggested that you could take that stupid duck boat and pedalled together in the middle of the river having a romantic time alone. So much for a romantic date. We even had to wait for half an hour for a boat, and when we finally got a red one, (her favourite colour), I pedalled us out to the middle and that was when I heard a big sigh coming from her. “Seulgi,” Krystal had her eyes on the dock, “I just can’t do this anymore.” At first, I thought she was talking about pedalling the boat, but it was I alone who did it. But the next line she said had been quite a blur for me. She must have spoken something more but I turned blank. I felt my throat dry and my mouth hung open unable to conjure up any words. It’s just that…you aren’t really the type of person I deserve, something along the line. “What type of person do you deserve, Krys?” I managed to croaked, my voice constricted than usual. “Someone…I don’t know…” Krystal avoided her gaze, “Someone who’s more interested in stuff?” “Stuff? What stuff?” “Seulgi, stop making this harder.” I wish we had taken a rowboat if there was one. I would drop the oars into the water and make the both of us sit in the middle of the lake and let Krystal realise she was making a big mistake. But Krystal suddenly decided to pedal all the way to the dock while I sat numb and watched my own pedal automatically move because it was connected. Like me and her used to be. They were almost near to the dock when Krystal bit her bottom lip. She has a habit of doing it, I noticed. “You don’t think about things Seulgi. You just follow along and do whatever everyone’s doing. You don’t even try to understand yourself and your issues, because you do have issues, Seulgi, in case you don’t realise—” “I love you.” “I know.” “I mean, I really, really love you!” “I know but let’s just –” “Is this because of Amber? Because I think when she told you about pedalling on this stupid duck boat, she meant for it to be between you and her.” “You’re crazy.” “I am. About you.” It was too late to stop from what I had said. It sounded way too tacky like those romantic films Krystal always made me watch. She rolled her eyes. Krystal always has a habit of that as well when she is either irritated or annoyed. And now she is rolling her eyes at me when I just said something tactlessly sincere. As the dock came nearer, the guy in charge called out for them to toss the rope. “No.” I clenched my fists on the rope. “Seulgi please don’t be such a kid.” “No.” “Whatever,” Krystal stick out her head from the boat and stretched her arm for the guy to grab and when she hopped out, she turned to me, still on the boat, “Come on, Seulgi. I want to go home now.” “Then go.” “What do you mean? We’re at Han River. How are you going to get back home?” “I’ll take the bus, or the subway.” “You’ve never taken the bus in your life and you rarely ride the subway.” They stared at each other, more like glaring and Krystal rolled her eyes again for the nth time before she fished out her car keys from her purse. She dangled it between them. “I’m leaving so this is your last chance for a ride back home.” “Pass.” “Fine. Good luck with…whatever.” Krystal gestured the lake before I watched her back leave and the Maserati sped away out of sight.                                                                   ***     I’m not sure why I never really bothered to get my driver’s license. Most of my peers dream of driving as soon as they were old enough to dream. But when I turned sixteen, I was one of the few who didn’t apply for license like everyone else. Well, perhaps I never needed one. Because I started to date Krystal when we were almost sixteen and a month after her sixteenth birthday, she got her license like everybody else so I had her to rely on – until today. But now I’m stuck at Hangang River with my house being seven kilometres away. It was actually 7.2 kilometres away to be precise, which I learned because I walked all 7.2 of them. I had a phone and I could have called Mom. Or Dad, though I knew he was at work. I could have called Wendy or Jongin, they would have come and pick me up without a doubt. I could even have called a taxi, but I was just not in the mood to face anyone. The guy in charge, who had his yellow life-jacket on, was still looking down at me from the dock. “You’re getting charged extra which is equalled to an hour since you’ve cut your second hour sitting there.” I reached into my wallet and fished out another note and sat back in the boat. The guy walked away after receiving the cash and I started to aimlessly pedalled, away from the dock. I realised there was quite a number of similar looking duck boats with different colours floating about as well. I could only sigh at the sight. I had no idea where I was pedalling. My eyes were fixed towards the sun which had begun a lazy descent. This day was going to take its time ending. How do you go from saying ‘I love you so much Seulgi’ to dumping her in Hangang River in the span of a week? I was too caught up with my thoughts and where I went wrong, I did not even realised I was pedalling far too fast, and too directionless. I did not notice there was a girl crying out for me, perhaps she was yelling as well but the next thing I know, the stupid duck boat I was on violently shook. It collided with another boat so hard that it wobbled sideways and tipped over. Everything happened so fast and the next thing I knew, I was head to toe soaked and struggling to stay afloat. Actually I panicked. I had never fallen off from a boat. I thought I was going to drown. I didn’t know how to swim. But there was this girl, perhaps she was the person behind the boat I collided. She swam towards me. “Hey, stop!” Despite her long black hair plastered all over her face, the girl still looked attractive. She grabbed me by the arm, “Why are you struggling? You’re wearing a life-jacket!” At the girl’s word, only then I became conscious of the vest hugging my body tight. I was floating and so was the other girl, who cast a worried look at me. “Are you okay? Although you’re the one who’s supposed to ask me that.” “Did I hit your boat?” “Yeah and I was screaming at you but you seemed out of it.” Well, I truly was out of it. “I’m sorry…” The girl didn’t said anything after that and soon the water crippled and made small waves because the guy in charge, now swimming towards them, instructed them to swim back to the dock while he used his muscly arms and pull those two ducks. Without a word, I did my best attempt of swimming and pushed myself up towards the dock. No, actually the girl arrived first and she took my hand and heaved me up. As embarrassing as it sound, I had barely enough strength to hoist myself onto the dock. “Well that wasn’t what I had in mind on how I want to spend my evening today.” The girl took off the vest, revealing a drenched black top over her beige khaki pants.  I did the same and took off my socks and sneakers which was annoyingly making loud squelching noises when I walk. Everything that happened fell