“You are funny,” Boram deliberately laughed, murmuring those three words playfully. “You do know that it will be impossible for that club to hire a pretty boy bartender. I mean, most of their bartenders look like they have been confined in cages for three years.” She teased cynically.

I sighed, completely disappointed. “I don't even know why I bother to tell you about this.” I collected the acrylic paint tubes off the grass ground, arranging each one neatly in its old box. Each tube has its own curls and sizes, a reflection of which I used the most—of which I could care less to use at all.

“You're not making this up?”

“I don't think so,” I replied, my voice strained with the slightest annoyance when a yellow acrylic paint stained my fingers. I wiped it off immediately onto my apron, but the paint has partially dried onto the back of my thumb. Still annoyed, I flung the box into my tote bag.

She collected her apparatuses, mostly balancing her palette with oil paints and her paint brushes in both of her hand before she glanced at me. “I am so sorry,” she apologized sincerely. I nodded my head slightly, picking up my tote bag and balancing my palette, my paint brushes and my wooden tripod in my hands. “It feels weird to think that, after several years that club finally hired at least one pretty boy as its bartender.”

“Yeah, it is weird.”

The two of us left the field area and headed back towards the staircases that led to the Faculty of Music building. It took approximately five minutes of walk from the field to reach the staircase, and another five minutes to climb the staircases up. I could hear Boram humming a tune from her favorite boy band—a tune I was not familiar with. She always hums discreetly, although I strongly believe that she has a nice voice to sing it out loud.

Boram and I occasionally come to the grass field at the back of the Faculty of Music building after the Theory of Avant-Garde class on Thursdays. Not many students realized how beautiful the grass field at the back of Faculty of Music is, especially in the afternoon when the sun is up and the grasses look greener. I love painting the whole beautiful scenery—although my painting could not define the beauty of the scenery perfectly.

We reached the hallway and our views were filled with crowds of students throughout the hallway. It is normal to walk awkwardly among a group of students, each holding onto instruments like guitars, violin and even trumpets. Boram and I were invincible, regardless we were holding onto our own kind of instruments—palettes, paint brushes, tripods and we even smelled off paints.

“Be careful with that,” Boram grabbed onto my right hand, pulling me out from my imagination instantly when I nearly hit a female student with my paint brushes. It could have stained her clean white dress, and I would not want that to actually happen.

The female student glanced at me, fear of my paint brushes. In only times like those that our presence are completely visible, because most fear our apparatuses—mostly still wet with paint—will stain their clothes, their folders or their instruments. I could do nothing but to pull my apparatuses closer to my self, allowing those paints to stain me instead. Boram and I quickened our pace.

“How about we go to the club tonight?”

I rolled my eyes onto Boram and saw her eyes sparkled with hope. I did not answer instantly, because I probably needed to spend my night writing and organizing the notes for the Visual And Critical Studies 3 class. “Well, maybe we could spend an hour there.” I nodded my head hesitantly.

“I just want to see this pretty boy bartender by my self.”

I smirked. I managed to barely avoid a male student who was holding a bass guitar. “If you lucky, you might see him.” I replied nonchalantly. It seemed harder for both Boram and I to continuously avoid the students that were crowding the hallways. Seemingly, most classes have ended for the day. Lecture halls on both sides of the hallways were empty. Lecturers were already making their ways to the office.

“Is he handsome?”

Avoiding yet another male student, this time the one who was holding a black case, I answered. “Probably, just a typical pretty boy with pretty hair, pretty face, pretty hands.”

“I could probably find one boy who fits that lousy description right here right now.”

“There you have it,” I shrugged. “Pretty boys are common faces right now.”

“Come on, I need you to be a little more specific.”

I inhaled deeply, breathing the air that smelled off sweet. I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember the pretty features of pretty boy bartender. “Brownish hair and gloomy eyes, I could barely see his features with the poor lighting of that club, Boram.” I lied, because I could only remember the way his hand moved when he folded the paper crane, or the way he touched his dove badge.

Surprisingly, even though I avoided everyone, I eventually bumped my petite body into someone.

There were gasps almost everywhere around me. I widened my eyes, taking a moment for my stimuli to respond. I dropped my apparatuses—my palette and my paint brushes. Boram could have probably pulled me back, because it was then when I realized that I have bumped into someone who was standing in front of me. I literally gasped. My eyes were on the paint stain on the black guitar gig bag, the color of yellow and white smeared right in the middle of it. My paint brushes caused that stain. Acrylic paint, I reminded my self. That stain was permanent. I felt like burying my face somewhere where no one will bother to look.

I shrieked. “Oh my God.”

Boram was completely in shock, she could probably drop her apparatuses too. “Kim Hyeyoung, what the hell have you done?” I could barely hear her voice. The only sound I could hear was my own increasing heartbeat. What have I done?

That male student who I have bumped into slowly turned around.

I wanted to shoot my self to death almost immediately. My eyes widened as a response and my lips started to stutter. That male student was looking directly at me, a familiar gaze—the same gloomy eyes that looked at me in the pale lighting of the club on the night before. The same feature that looked at me in confusion when I started a conversation with a complete stranger on that night before.

The pretty boy bartender.

“It's you!” I shrieked for the second time and this time, it got the pretty boy bartender to look at me as if I was such nuisance. He narrowed his gloomy eyes, curiosity reflected through the pale color of his eyes. I almost chocked on my own words. He might not be the same pretty boy I met last night when he stared at me as if I was a bug he would rather not care about.

He did not recognize me.

“Hey, there's a paint stain on your guitar gig bag.” An unnoticeable friend of the pretty boy bartender who appeared abruptly from nowhere pointed out the obvious mistake to him.

The pretty boy bartender pulled the guitar gig bag off his shoulders and examined the damage by his self. I swore, I could see his face cringe—probably in anger and annoyance—when he saw the acrylic paint stain on his black guitar gig bag. Yeah, I would probably be angry if someone stupid enough to bump into me while holding wet apparatuses and ruined my guitar gig bag. I gasped again, although I do not own a guitar gig bag.

“Damn it,” pretty boy bartender curse silently under his breath, oblivious that I could hear him.

Invincible friend of him scoffed.

“I am so sorry,” I have completely ignored the palette, the paint brushes and the wooden tripod I have dropped onto the floor. “I'll pay for the damage. I'll buy you another guitar gig bag.”

He stopped examining the stain on his guitar gig bag and looked down on me slowly. His eyes were the same as the gloomy eyes that sparkled underneath the lighting of the club on the previous night. His bangs hovered about his eyes, before his hand brushed it off. The same habit, I reminded my self. But could he not recognize me? I wanted to ask, but my question was less important that the damage I have caused.

“You can clean it,” he finally muttered. The same voice of the pretty boy bartender filled in the spaces between us, which I took as a positive sign that he was the same pretty boy bartender from the previous night. But the tension of his deep voice triggered fear in me. He was annoyed, he was probably angry. He could not be that soft-spoken bartender from previous night at all.

I shrugged.

I grabbed the guitar gig bag off his hand unknowingly and examine the dried stain of its nylon material. Boram who watched from my side cringed when my stained fingers ran above the stain on the guitar gig bag. It had completely dried.

“This is acrylic paint,” I answered, my voice trembled in an unexplainable way. The pretty boy bartender narrowed his eyes, questioning my words. “It is permanent.”

“What the , Song Seunghyun,” the invincible friend of him shrieked and almost punched me directly in my face. I inhaled, yet it took a second before I could properly exhale. The moment I realized the invincible friend has mentioned the pretty boy bartender's name, I swallowed my saliva. It tasted bitter, I wanted to choke. “Just let her buy you a new one. That guitar gig bag is damn expensive.”

Song Seunghyun.

Why can't you recognize me?

He slowly pushed my hand off the guitar gig bag, the rough edge of his palm rubbed against my cold hand—the roughness of a guitarist's hands. He ped the guitar gig bag and pulled out the beautiful Fender electric guitar off it. He put on its strap and hauled it over his shoulder. Both Boram and I watched as he zipped the empty guitar gig bag again and abruptly handed it over to me.

“What are you doing?” Invincible friend nudged his arm, surprised by his act. Honestly, even I was surprised by his act. I shifted my view onto the guitar that hauled around his tall figure because I could not look into his eyes anymore.

Seunghyun—or whatever his name was—grabbed my hand and forced me to hold onto his guitar gig bag.

“You’ve ruined it,” Seunghyun muttered, his tense voice sent shiver down my spine. Where the hell did the soft-spoken pretty bartender disappeared to, I asked my self the foolish question. His eyes narrowed when he looked at me, as if he was ready to eat me as a whole alive.

You could have forgotten me, pretty boy.

“I am so—”

Before I could say out my apologize for perhaps the hundredth times to the pretty boy who I could no longer recognize, he took one step closer to me—close enough to allow me to breath in his beautiful scent—he peculiarly smelled off vanilla. I immediately lost the words I wanted to say out loud.

God, who was this pretty boy?

“I demand that you fix it.”

Pretty boy Song Seunghyun, I officially hate you.

----

Title taken from the song Suddenly Everything Has Changed by The Flaming Lips.