Happy New Year!
Beautiful Stranger
Setting: New York City, Dec 31, Year 2006
Yubin was picking out some outfits from the closet, wondering if she should go for a pair of jeans and sleeveless top look or a little black dress look. Her bestie, Yenny, was hurrying her to decide faster as she did not want her boyfriend, Rick, to wait when he arrived to pick them up. They were preparing to go for a new year eve’s party at a popular New York club. Yubin was fussy when it came to clothes because she loved fashion. Yenny was already dressed in her tight black dress and was waiting impatiently.
“Unnie. Rick will be here by half an hour and we are leaving without you if you are not ready by then.” Yenny reminded.
“Aish.. Yenny. Sometimes you give in so easily to a guy. Men should understand such womanly issues and be patient so when their lady love comes out perfect, they are happy.” Yubin explained her theory while finally picking out the sleeveless silver top and skinny black jeans as her final decision.
“But he’s not your man. What are you talking about? And I’m already dressed. Hurry up.”
Yubin nodded and got dressed quickly. She wondered how Yenny seemed so smitten with an impatient dude. He was a white guy they met when on a short holiday here in New York 3 weeks ago and they hit it off instantly with him soon confessing how Yenny was THE ONE for him, even though after the new year’s, the girls were going to fly back to California and finish up their final year in UCLA and Yubin doubted their relationship was ever going to continue by then.
Years ago, when Yenny and Yubin became roommates at campus, Yubin at first hid her royal blood identity from Yenny. Until several months later, she trusted Yenny enough to not judge her and finally disclose to her that she was actually the daughter of the current crown prince in Korea. Yenny was at first shocked but after calming down, she was thrilled her best friend was a royalty. Yubin told her not to treat her different from any of her normal friends in campus and that revealing her royal status was only because she didn’t want to continue lying to her best friend. Yenny agreed and did not treat her too different after. As you could see, she was hurrying a royalty to get dressed.
Yubin got used to the independent life during her stay in the US. She had to do her own laundry, cook for herself, house-keep and all these became things she actually started to enjoy without some servant waiting or keeping an eye on her since she was born. If given a choice, she would prefer not to go back to Korea to live that pampered controlled life but rather travel the world, learn new things and meet new people. However, she knew very well how much she loved her parents and would never leave them for too long or go against their wishes.
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Taecyeon was having a new year’s eve dinner with some of his close university friends at a nice restaurant in New York. They were all studying at MIT and decided to take a short holiday break to celebrate New Year’s at NYC. Siwon was the organizer of the whole trip. He had the luxurious hotel suite booked and the 6 of them were to stay for 2 nights and fly back to Massachusetts after new year’s day. Taecyeon could never understand how he got himself into all this party scenes since he was pretty much a nerd in school. It was until he met Siwon who basically ‘taught’ him the ways. Siwon was a rich kid who always had a group of Asian kids hanging around him in campus like they were his bodyguards and he loved recruiting new kids into his so-called Asian Ace club. That didn’t make him an anti-social with the Caucasian kids. He got along well with some but he hated those who bullied the Asian kids.
When Taecyeon first came into MIT, Siwon was already at his 2nd year but they never met or interacted much because Taecyeon always kept to himself and focused on his studies. It was only through one incident when Taecyeon got himself into an unnecessary fight with a jealous jock who thought his brunette girlfriend had a thing with Taecyeon. The brunette in actual fact pleaded Taecyeon to help her with her homework and when he obliged, she wanted to thank him by making out with him but he resisted her, thinking he didn’t want to get into trouble with her boyfriend. She told her boyfriend in a fight one day that she wouldn’t mind sleeping with Taecyeon because he was tall for an Asian and probably had a bigger than him. That was when a fight ensued in the cafeteria when Taecyeon got shoved and punched by the jock and Siwon came to the rescue. Siwon was like the referee in a match, trying to calm things down between the 2 guys and it always got settled with money involved. Taecyeon was of course grateful to Siwon but had sworn to pay back the money. He did return Siwon the money which he earned from tutoring but Siwon never accepted the money and insisted Taecyeon to continue being part of his group of friends and party with them. It was then that Taec(as Siwon and friends loved to call him by) turned from nerd to handsome popular Asian smartie in campus.
This new year eve party was gonna be their last celebration with Siwon as he would graduate and move back to Korea when 2007 came. They were gonna have this nice dinner and then head to a popular club called Lush to celebrate the countdown.
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When Rick arrived to pick the girls up, Yubin and Yenny were already prepped and ready to party. Yenny’s boyfriend knew the owner of the famous club, Lush and could get them in through VIP entrance. Yenny was obviously excited about it while Yubin was more worried about the crowd and whether she could even move around freely. Lucky for them, it wasn’t too over-crowded and the club was just as high-end as what was reviewed in the papers. Rick did not waste time in ordering drinks and they also met a couple of Rick’s friends. One of the guys whom Yubin would refer to as Shortie(since she would never remember his name) seemed interested in Yubin but she was more interested in the drinks and music she didn’t really chat much with the guy. Yenny was not surprised there as Yubin always had a tendency to attract guys everywhere. Guys were always drawn to Yubin’s tanned exotic looks while Yenny was more of the tall and fair Asian type. When they first met Rick at a café, Yenny was kinda surprised Rick was more interested in her than Yubin. She made a mental note that if he knew she was royalty, things might have been different. However, it seemed more convincing that Rick was not interested in Yubin was because he preferred a fair Asian girl.
So Shortie then felt the need to challenge Yubin in drinks since that seemed to interest her more but he lost it before it even hit midnight. He was so drunk he sat next to her feet on the steps leading to the dance floor with his head in between his knees. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was already sleeping. Is he even gonna countdown with everyone? She thought. It was already 20mins to countdown and everyone was really high and all.
Yenny was all touchy-feely with Rick and having a great time dancing. Yubin at this point could feel the alcohol working on her and everyone started to seem kinda blurry to her. It was by this time that some tall dude accidentally bumped into her while walking past her. She was standing on some steps and nearly trip over when that particular someone quickly held her shoulders to stop her from falling. He was facing her, his face only inches away and asking her “I’m sorry, are you ok?”
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