(three)

“Really?! THAT good looking?!” my friends gaped in wonder at me. Of course, I exaggerated. But even then… it was true.

“Yup.” I nodded, a smug expression donning my face.

“Woah… so far there hasn’t been anyone more good looking than Eunhyuk around here... wait, he’s 21 right? So, he’s a university student?” Jae Mi said and her eyes shone in delight.

I nodded, a bit unsure of whether he was a university student.

“Introduce me!” she cried, her hands clasped.

“Hah? No way! I just saw him that night and we didn’t talk much. I’ll get to know him and then introduce you.” I scowled. Her face showed disappointment but she nodded.

“Fine.”

“Annyeoung.” I said in a subtly nervous sounding singsong voice as I went up to the rooftop two days later.

“Yo.” Donghae said, peering into that telescope as usual. Sometimes I wondered if he really ever did anything else.

It was the first time I was going to talk to him after that day when I tripped. But I got the feeling he was a social person, so I didn’t feel weird when I said hi to him now.

“What brings you here?” he asked, still looking into that long tube.

“Ah, um, I had to take some more lights to school…” I said and walked up next to the benches. On this open space, there was a circular ring of cool ceramic benches built, so amateur astronomers could come and gaze at the sky in comfort.

“Yeah… speaking of that,” he said and finally looked at me. “What are all those lights for? I saw tonnes and tonnes there.”

“Oh, it’s for the Christmas illuminations,” I said, excited. “I’m part of the illumination club so we’re illuminating this whole village.”

“Right.” he said nodding.

For a while we sat talking about the most random things, when I remembered something I wanted to ask him.

“Donghae-ssi.” I said

“Be informal. It’s Donghae.”

“… Okay. Donghae, why did you come to this village? I mean, you were in Seoul. If you wanted work at a planetarium you could have a better job over there.” curiosity was just killing me.

“Oh that,” he straightened up. “Well, I heard this planetarium was famous. And I heard this village was famous for it’s sky too. Looks like it was worth coming here." he grinned, pointing up at the sky ablaze with stars. Yeah, I got the point.

“What’s Seoul like?” I asked, excited.

He laughed. “It’s a big busy place. Full of lights, noise… fun, I guess. Why?”

“Anii, I just wanted to know,” I started flailing my arms in excitement. “You see, I-"

“Jin Hee!!” I heard a voice shouting behind me. The voice sounded angry.

It was my dad standing at the doorway of the rooftop, a vein throbbing in his temple. He held up a sheaf of papers.

“What is this?! I told you, you won’t go!” he yelled.

Those were leaflets about Seoul I’d collected from the bookstore about universities that teach design. I thought I hid them very well but… looks like I didn’t hide them well enough.

I maintained a calm expression. I was tired of screaming at par with dad.

“What is this?!” he bellowed.

“Leaflets for enrolling in design universtities in Seoul.” I answered calmly, aware that Donghae was watching my dad and me, pretty alarmed.

“You… you will never go!!” he thundered and at one stretch, tore them into four.

That, I couldn’t be calm about. I took nearly two hours collecting those you know?

I stormed into his direction and picked up the bits and pieces, balled them up, and threw them at my dad.

“Why can't you understand, huh?! I want to do something so badly… And you just can't have me do it can you?! You're so selfish!!” I screamed, slammed the door open and ran out. Back home.

On the way, running and crying and hardly seeing where I was going, I had a vague memory that something fell off my clothes when I was busy banging the door back at the planetarium.

I didn’t care though.