“Amber honey? Can you go help your father?” The sharp yet gentle voice of my mother interrupted my short-lived moment of absolute elation. “He looks like he sure needs some.”

And he did. My father was trying to haul our biggest luggage bag (and when I say big, I mean BIG) up the stairs into what will be our living quarters for the summer. He was evidently failing.

I smiled and let out a sigh of contentment. I light-heartedly skipped towards my father and led him into something that most people like to call the elevator. “Beep beep ding!” I playfully . “Really, Daddy, you should just take the easy way sometimes.”

This earned me an annoyed scowl that appeared on his young face, making me giggle some more. My father was never the talkative kind, and I loved him for that: he didn’t nose his way into my private business.

Seoul seemed absolutely lovely so far. There was a perfect combination between the modern city environment and the calming essence of Mother Nature, not to mention the amazing bubble tea shops around here. It was a shame that I would have to leave after two months. Already I felt like I found home.

A sad smile spread across my face as I thought about our impending departure. Such a pity to leave the place that might become a reality heaven.

DING! The elevator doors opened and I assisted my father in dragging the bag through them. It was difficult considering my overly petite body stature, but eventually we got it out and started making our way towards Room 859. My father swiftly took out the keys from his wide pockets and adeptly pushed it into the keyhole. The door opened on the first try. My dad was always the best at locks.

“Do you want me to start unpacking?” I gently asked him.

My dad grunted. That meant, “No, I’ll do it myself.”

“Okay, can I go and explore?”

My dad grunted again. This time, it meant, “Sure, go ask your mother.”

I knew my dad inside out.

Making my way towards the elevator again, I tripped over a bump from the wrinkled rug carpets and clenched my eyes shut awaiting the hard floor below me.

The impact never came.

Instead I felt a pair of strong hands clasping my shoulders. “Hey, be careful, man!”

I opened my eyes in confusion and quickly spun around. What awaited me was a rather tall young man that seemed like he was in his late teens. Then again, everybody looked tall to me.

“Oh um, well,” I stuttered. That dude was extremely good-looking, and I got really nervous when it came to good-looking guys. I settled on a simple “Hi.”

“Oh I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself,” he said after sensing my uncomfortable state of mind. “My name’s Jang Hyun Seung, and I am guessing that my uncle is your next-door neighbor.” He eyed my Dad who was just emerging from the apartment door.

“Yah, I guess so.” I blushed. “Well, thank you, Jang Hyun Seung, for… you know.”

“Nah, it’s no problem,” he answered, and with a friendly wave he turned around and headed towards his uncle’s apartment. He was right; his uncle really was our next-door neighbor. Only for the summer, though.

I mentally slapped myself for acting so lame in front of such a hot guy. He had such a pretty face.

Cursing at myself, I continued to the elevator and pushed the down button. Ding.

“Oof!” I exclaimed when the doors opened. It turned out that I bumped into another guy.

“Whoa, watch it!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, sorry,” I practically whispered. I was on the verge of tears and was blushing too hard to look him in the eye.

“Hey, dude, it’s okay, no need to be so sensitive.” He sounded really worried.

I looked up to see another tall good-looking twenty-year-old.

“Look, sorry about yelling at you; my fault this time, okay? Let’s start over: Hi, I’m Lee Ki Kwang,” and he enthusiastically shook my hand. “I suppose you are a newcomer in Seoul.”

My face fell slightly. Was it really that noticeable? I nodded slowly.

“You live here, right? Well, my friend does, too. I have to meet up with him, so catch you later and take care of yourself, okay?” He swiftly made his way past me while I hesitantly waved goodbye to his back.

Strike 2. I acted like an idiot in front of another guy.

I finally got into the elevator and pressed the GROUND button. It stopped on level 5 and I had yet another encounter with Tall Hot Guy Number 3. This one looked Thai.

“Hey, kid!” he pointed to me and gave me an icy cold glare. My hardly-beating heart could have stopped right about then. “Yes you!” he snapped when I tentatively pointed to myself in an attempt to ask a silent question. “Fix your hair,” he finally answered as the elevator doors opened on level 3.

I was left there abashed. Strike 3.

What could go wrong with short easy-going hair that you never needed to brush in the mornings? Sure, I looked like a guy in some ways but how the hell could I “fix my hair” if it was perfectly fine the way it was? Did people not like hair like this in Seoul? I started becoming paranoid with myself and involuntarily grabbed my hair as the elevator finally made it to GROUND level.

“Hey kid, are you alright?” another guy’s voice called out in my direction.

I sighed. How many tall gorgeous guys were in this apartment anyways? I saw him make his way up to me. He was tanner than the other guys and was listening to his IPod.

“Yah, I’m fine,” I answered without realizing that I was still grabbing my hair in confusion. “Just fine.”

“Then why do you look like you are going through a massive headache?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “Because you sure don’t look too well either. Are you okay?”

I immediately dropped my hands from my head and stared at the ground, flushing. Man, what was with me? “Sorry, I-I was just, um, well, habit?” If stage fright was tangible, you could have just felt the thickness of the terrified state of mind that I was going through just by talking to that guy in front of me.

“Well, okay! But just remember to take care of yourself. You are new here, right?”

I nodded.

“I’m Yang Yeo Seob, and I live on the seventh floor, so if you have any trouble, you can just go up there and yell out my name really loud several times.”

“Um, uh, sure, I’ll be yelling a lot for you,” I flushed with embarrassment after what just came out of my mouth.

Luckily, he just chuckled. “Well, see you around,” he bid me goodbye with a smile and wave, leaving just in time to catch the next elevator.

God, I was having major social issues that day, because just as I left the hotel entrance I met one last guy.

“Hey, you!” he called excitedly. I sighed in exasperation. What more could possibly go wrong? “Have you seen four tall guys around here? One’s Thai-looking, another never takes his earphones out, you seen them?”

One that’s Thai-looking? Could it be the one who dissed my hair? The one who never takes his earphones out? Is it that guy who thought I was an idiot with a concussion? Yah, I knew them, I guess.

“No, I have not seen anything of the sort,” I answered instead. You never want to give people the wrong kind of information, and I was definitely not sure if those guys I was thinking of were the ones that he was referring to.

“Oh, well, sorry about bothering you. My name is Yong Jun Hyeong, by the way.” Then he left, with his eyes fixed on the ground. He looked a bit disappointed, and I felt bad for crushing his hopes. But you can’t take things back once you’ve blurted them out, I guess.

By that time, I was getting much too paranoid and superstitious to have the courage to walk out of the apartment building in general, fearing another encounter with Mr. Tall and Gorgeous; so I just ran to the elevator, pressed the 8 button, dashed towards Room 859, and threw myself on the bare bed contemplating how y my social skills were.

Oh god, I was so cool.

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I didn’t have the audacity to leave my apartment until the next afternoon, when the sun shone too brightly for me to resist a walk in the nearby park.

“Mommy, I’ll be out on a walk, is that alright?” It was always important that I ask my parents’ permission before I do anything that is not in their jurisdiction. After all, they had a lot on their hands already—grocery bills, travelling expenses, the packing-unpacking of our luggage, etc.—and having me missing was not a great thing when being that busy.

*Flashback*

“Excuse me, sir, but have you seen a little girl? She has short black hair and is about this tall,” my mother raised her hand about three feet off the ground.

“No, I have not seen her.”

“Excuse me, miss, I’m looking for my seven-year-old daughter Amber. She has black hair and is rather short, very quick on her feet, any ideas where she might be?”

“Actually, I have not seen that many short children around the building these days.”

“Please, sir,” my mother was getting extremely worried by then, and went up to the hotel management people, “my daughter Amber is missing, is there any way you can trace her whereabouts?”

“Last name?” he nonchalantly asked.

“Liu,” my mother answered.

“First?”

“Amber.”

After a bit of typing, the man frowned and said, “Your name is not on the hotel list. Are you sure you are checking in to this specific hotel?”

*End of Flashback*

It turned out that the man behind the counter thought that my mother needed to check in, and didn’t hear a word of her plea for help to find her missing daughter. It also turned out that I was just playing hide-and-seek with myself and I accidentally got my leg stuck under the bed. It took me a long time to get out.

Anyways, I wore a hoodie outside, careful to look both ways before crossing. Who knew what hot guy would just magically turn up and make me make a fool out of myself?

Destination: the park.

Walking in the park has been a favorite activity—usually the first thing I do whenever I get back from school or when my whole family goes travelling. There was always something different every time I went to a park. Sometimes the sun shined through the trees at a different angle, sometimes a squirrel would happen to cross my way in search of acorns, and sometimes I would find be lucky enough to witness the spectacle of an eagle soaring above a clearing. Beautiful, isn’t it?

This park was just as special as the other ones that I have been to. Tourist attractions such as Korean-styled temples and others of that sort were flourishing, the air did not reek of pollution, and the grandiose of the forests overwhelmed me with a feeling of pure exhilaration and exultation.

This feeling only intensified when I arrived at a lake. The lake that I only later knew changed the course of my life. The most beautiful lake in the world.

Unfortunately, my passionate cheerfulness was short-lived.

“Ow!” I cried out in pain as a football hit me on the forehead.

“Hey, sorry about that!” I heard someone say. I turned towards the source of the sound and almost peed my pants.

Six hot guys were walking towards me. Yah, that’s right, SIX. Five of them were the ones I met consecutively at the hotel.

I looked around frantically and saw the football in front of my feet. I took it in my shaking hands and waited for the guy with the unfamiliar face—he seemed to be the leader—to retrieve it from me.

“Kid, you alright?” he asked me with a worried glance. “Don’t worry, we don’t bite! Okay, maybe Dong Woon does, but other than that, we’re nice guys!”

“I do NOT!” I heard someone call out behind Mr. Leader. It turned out to be the chap who told me to fix my hair.

“Dong Woon, you can’t keep your blunt mouth shut for even a minute,” I heard Ki Kwang say. “Remember your first meeting with my mom?”

“But she actually looked like a rabbit—she even had a green lettuce leaf stuck in her teeth, for crying out loud!”

“Hey, isn’t that the kid that—”

“Guys, stop it already!” Mr. Leader yelled out. Then he turned to me: “Want to hang out? You seem to need some good friends by your side.” He winked playfully.

“Um, okay, well, sure maybe?” I stuttered, earning myself a gentle chuckle.

“I’m Yoon Doo Joon; come, I’ll introduce you to the other guys.” He took my hand and dragged me towards the IPod fanatic. “This is Yong Jun Hyeong, but we call him the Poppin’ Dragon.” I could not suppress the giggle that came out my vocal chords.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

Not wanting to dampen his hopes like last time, I nodded. “Yah, we met at the hotel entrance yesterday,” I whispered.

“Hey, are you that sensitive kid I almost made cry?” The one named Ki Kwang pointed at me and laughed.

I blushed and nodded, looking at the ground. “That’s me.”

“Well, call me AJ for now,” he said, without ceasing his laughter. Doo Joon punched him in the arm, making him stop giggling at me. I felt my face heat up.

“Jang Hyun Seung, but you can call me So-1,” said the guy with the pretty face. “I saved you from a big headache after you tripped, right?”

“Yah, I remember that.”

“Are you sure about that, hyung?” Yeo Seob inquired. “Because my first impression of this kid was, ‘Dang, that must be one hell of a headache to go on walking around like that.’” And he started imitating my hair-grabbing manner that I did yesterday. The guys laughed while I bit my lower lip. Did I look that stupid?

God it was embarrassing, and I involuntarily hid my face in Doo Joon’s arm.

“Guys, you’re embarrassing newbie here,” Doo Joon finally spoke up. He then pushed me towards the guy named “Dong Woon.”

After looking at me for such a long time, I would have thought that the statement that came out of his mouth would have been much more noteworthy.

“Fix your hair, shorty” was all he said, and again I grabbed my hair with my hands, turning more paranoid by the second.

“What’s wrong with it?” I finally had the courage to ask.

He answered my question by plucking out one of my hairs that was sticking straight up. “There,” he said, “now your hair is perfectly parted.”

I gaped. Dude, you made me freak out over one single hair that stuck straight up?

“Dong Woon, stop harassing the poor thing!” So-1 exclaimed.

Ignoring his comrades’ remarks, Doo Joon turned to me and smiled. “So I guess you have met everybody already, huh? We call ourselves “Beast”, by the way, for every single one of us has a fire—or passion—that we want to achieve. For instance, I love singing.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you all. Again.” I decided not to tell him how much of a fool I acted in front of them.

“Guys, you can keep playing; I’ll show newbie here around.”

“Okay, man, see you!” everybody waved goodbye at us.

“Oh yah, what’s your name?” Doo Joon asked me once the guys were out of sight.

“Amber. Amber Liu.”

“Amber,” he repeated with a ponderous look on his face. “Cool! You don’t need a nickname since yours is short and I can remember it!”

I giggled.

“Do you like arcades?” he suddenly asked.

I blushed. “Actually,” I started hesitantly, “I have never been to one.” Lame, I know, but it was true.

“Are you serious?” he asked with an incredulous expression. “Well, you are not coming to Seoul and not having the chance to play in one. Here, I’ll take you to the mall and show you who’s the pro at Counterstrike.”

So we spent the day at a mall, and he was not lying when he said he was the pro at Counterstrike, and he beat me every single time we played. On the up side, I beat him at a racecar game once, but that was because he was “going easy on me.”

Once we became tired of games, we headed towards the food court. We both got bubble tea and sat down at a corner table. Turns out that we both love mango-flavored milk tea.

“Did you have fun?” he asked.

I enthusiastically nodded. “Yah, yah, loads of fun! That was the most fun I had in months!” I started babbling on about how much fun I had, half due to politeness and the other half because I actually DID have fun.

“You know, Amber,” he said when I finally stopped babbling. “That was the most you have talked in a whole day.”

And it was true. I have never talked that much in my life. One more look at the guy in front of me explained it all: I liked Yoon Doo Joon.

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“Now how the hell would I be able to confess to him?” I asked myself aloud on another walk in the park the next day. “Why would Doo Joon ever love me back anyway? I mean, he’s gorgeous, friendly, humorous, perfect, what’s not to like? Then there is me: awkward, shy, short and… awkward. Never mind the fact that his friends think that I’m an idiot! AND he is older than me by three years.”

Oh yah, I forgot to mention that. I’m fifteen and a half years old at the moment, and Doo Joon and his friends are almost nineteen.

“On the other hand, if I don’t confess, I’ll miss out a chance that I will regret afterwards. After all, he’s the first guy I have ever liked before, so maybe I should just tell him. Moreover, if he doesn’t like me back, I’m leaving in two months anyways, right?”

I racked my brain for more ideas, evidently failing. Yah, I know I’m crazy. I talk to myself whenever I have problems.

“But what if he does love me?” I whispered. “I would still need to leave, wouldn’t I? Maybe I could stay just for him? But would I want to give up my life just for him? Would I really?”

Hard questions for a young girl like me.

I saw a patch of daisies on the side of the park trail and bent over to pick one.

“I tell him. I tell him not. I tell him. I tell him not…” I delicately picked all of the daisy’s fragrant white petals until there was only one left. “I tell him.”

And I tried.

Everyday, I would look around my surroundings in hopes of seeing his familiar black hair amongst a crowd of people. Everyday he would meet me outside my apartment to show me around some more. Everyday he and his friends treated me as if I was part of their group. But everyday I did not have enough courage to tell him.

It got to the point where I had a week left in Seoul and I still didn’t tell him. God I was such a loser!

“Amber Liu, why can’t you just tell him? You have less than seven days before you need to move away. What if this is your last chance seeing him? What if you will never see Doo Joon again?!?!” I mentally yelled at myself while sitting on a park bench.

There was one place in Seoul where I always went when I was feeling down, and that was the lake where I first met Doo Joon. So beautiful it was that sweet memories of our good times together flooded up my mind and made me forget about everything else. It was my oasis from the torture of doubt.

It never occurred to me that maybe Doo Joon was already there.

“Hey, Amber!” he called out.

I instantaneously smiled though my heart started pounding at my rib cage. “Doo Joon, I didn’t think I would see you here!”

“Well, it’s fate, isn’t it then?” he said in his naturally suave voice.

I blushed.

“You know,” he continued, “Ever since I was a very young child, I always came here when something troubled me. Like when my first girlfriend cheated on me, or when my father scolded me for bad marks in school. I always went to this exact spot because this lake holds all of my happy memories.”

Well, what’d you know?

He then bent over and seemed to study the ground for a moment before picking up a smooth flat pebble. He winked at me and then threw it at the water. At first I thought it was just going to sink, but it surprised me by hopping on the water four times before submerging underneath the water surface.

I gaped. “How did you do that?”

Doo Joon chuckled. “It’s my magic trick. Here, I’ll show you.”

He found another flat rock for me and positioned my hand and arm so that it would be directly horizontal to the ground. Every time he touched me, something lurched inside my stomach. I almost died when Doo Joon clasped his hand on my stomach and told me to breathe in when throwing. By the time he was finished explaining, I was shivering all over due to nervousness. Not surprisingly, the rock sank when I first attempted to repeat Doo Joon’s “magic trick.”

“Try again,” he encouraged. “It takes some time getting used to.”

My face heated up at the tender look he was giving me. I hoped that it wasn’t noticeable.

It took a total of seventeen tries to actually get the rock to bounce once, but already I was jumping with joy at my so-called amazing feat. That is, until Doo Joon threw another one and it hopped five times before sinking. Man, why did he need to be so perfect?

“Look at the sunset, Amber,” Doo Joon said. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Like a painting. The most beautiful painting in the world.”

I looked up and sure enough there was a beautiful sunset right in front of us. We stopped skipping stones just to stare at the glorious sight in silence.

Then I remembered something.

“Hey Doo Joon,” I said, “I have something to tell you.”

“Really?” his eyebrows lifted in evident curiosity. “Then go on and say it; you can tell me anything!”

I blushed. “Well, um, Doo Joon,” I started, becoming increasingly nervous, “I know that I have only known you for a few months, but I am sure of it now; I am in love with you.” Then I stood on my tippy toes and kissed him lightly on his inviting lips.

I clasped my eyes shut and waited for his response. It never came. I tentatively opened my eyes and saw Doo Joon running away in the other direction. And man, was he running fast!

Tears welled up in my eyes and I did not bother trying to stop them from coming. “Well, Amber,” I whispered to myself, “At least now you know your answer.”

I sobbed all the way back home, unheeding to the other pedestrians who casted weird glances at me.

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It was finally time to move out, away from Seoul. In a way, I was glad; I didn’t need to face Doo Joon after my mistake of confessing to him. Yet, just leaving before having him TELL me that he rejected me was pretty painful as well.

I did not see Doo Joon at all for the last five days. Not a trace of him. The Beast members even tried calling me up to ask if I knew where he was, but obviously I did not know: I was obviously the one he was trying to avoid. I sighed.

“Amber honey!” my mom called. “Can you bring the bags down?”

“Okay,” I answered unenthusiastically. I tried carrying both of the duffel bags down, but I was too small and too weak to even lift ONE of them. I sighed again: I was so pathetic. I decided to struggle by myself, though, one duffel bag at a time. I looked like a toddler trying to carry a hiking backpack.

As I made it to ground level and got out of the apartment building, I utterly collapsed due to fatigue. What was in that bag anyway, an elephant?

“Need help?” I heard a familiar voice call above me.

I froze. What was he doing here? I looked up and started hyperventilating silently. “What are you doing here?” I asked coldly.

“I needed to talk to you, but you seem busy,” Doo Joon said in an equally cold voice. “Where are you going with that bag though? Camping?”

“I’m leaving Seoul,” I answered simply. “Now if you don’t mind—”

Before I could say anything else, Doo Joon grabbed my arm and hoisted me up to standing position. “What? You’re MOVING? Where? Why didn’t you tell me?” He seemed pretty mad.

“My stay in Seoul was only for the summer, Doo Joon. It’s September already.” I rolled my eyes as if to say a silent “duh.”

“You can’t,” he threatened. “I won’t let you leave.”

“Really?” I snapped at him, “Then why did you run away when I confessed to you?” I felt hot tears welling in my eyes and I did my best to keep them there. I needed to know.

Doo Joon’s face softened. “I apologize for that. You just left me very… confused, Amber. I took this last week to think about our relationship and your confession, and came to the conclusion that I like you, too. No, I don’t like you, I love you.”

My tears were on the brink of falling, but I had enough willpower to hold back my growing happiness.

“Sorry, I guess it just took some time for the fact that I’m homoual to really sink in. But now that it’s cleared up, I know I love you now.” He let out a breath and smiled.

I, on the other hand, was totally befuddled. “What do you mean you’re homoual? You just said you loved me!” My tears finally poured out of my eyes as I started sniffling quietly in front of the love of my life.

“Um, last time I checked, homouals were guys who were attracted to guys. I’m a guy, you’re a guy,” Doo Joon waved his hands around trying to explain himself.

I looked at him through my blurry vision, manifestly perplexed. Wait, so I’m a guy?

“I’m a girl, Doo Joon,” I told him hesitantly. “Amber is a girl’s name.”

It was his turn to be confused. His bewildered face melted into one of sudden realization. “That explains a lot,” he said. “All this time I thought you were a boy!” Then he wrapped his arms around my thin waist and bent down to kiss my tears away. I seemed to liquefy into his embrace—it was a perfect fit.

“So I guess we are not leaving after all.”

Doo Joon and I pulled away from each other, and we saw my usually taciturn father standing there with his hands on his hips.

I smiled and shook my head. “I’m staying, daddy. I want to stay here with Yoon Doo Joon.”

My father smiled and nodded. He took out the car keys and unlocked the trunk in one go. “Better start re-unpacking, then.”

I giggled when Doo Joon kissed me again.