Like some love stories, mine started with a dream.

I was running along the beach with a faceless boy. I felt liberated with the wind in my hair and the sound of the waves hitting the beach drowning our laughter. I never knew that I could run so fast. Then, suddenly, the boy stopped. 

He came closer...closer.. closer..

He is going to kiss me, I thought. My heart was beating furiously.
Then, God-knows-why, he me. 

What the hell?

He kept all over my face and leaving traces of saliva. 
Crap. I need to get him to stop.
I pushed him away and felt his furry hand.
Ew, can you say GROSS?

Then, he said something about my big . His voice was feminine and hoarse. 

That does it, I thought. 
 

Just when I was about to hurl at him angrily toward the ocean- strangely enough he barked. And holy cow, he sounded just like my puppy, Chicky!
I was still in confusion when the punk came and me again.

How dare he, after he commented about my big ?!

Then, something hard knocked onto my head and I woke up to see my Umma with a plastic cup in one hand and Chicky in another.

“Get your big up. You’re going to be late for school!” she yelled in that hoarse voice of hers. Chicky just looked at me with a terrified please-help-me look in his eyes.

That explained the strange furry- boy in the dream that I had.

I rubbed the sore spot on my head and brushed my messy hair away from my face. Sleepily, I pulled the blanket to cover up till my head and curled back to sleep.

Tug!! That was the sound of Umma mercilessly slapping my head hard.

“Umma!!!” I cried, rubbing my head furiously.

It’s bad enough that you’re sleepy AND hurting. I don’t understand why all Korean mothers just love to slap their children’s heads. When we turned out stupid, they’d blame us for being lazy and pray to God that we’d change when it was because of their constant head-hitting abusive manner that made us turn up this way. Our brain must have been damaged from all the abuse.

“Ow,Umma!!!” I cried again when she pinched my ear and dragged me to the bathroom.

That morning I left for school with one red ear and a dizzy head, all courtesy of the heartless Mrs. Lee. 

I swear to God, she’s really heartless when it comes to waking me up for school. She’d hurl abuse at my big everything; namely: head, , mouth and legs. And like adding salt to the wound, she’d find any hard object to knock onto my head. As if that isn’t bad enough, she’d then use her almighty arms to slap me all over until I wake up. 

This would go on everyday of my school life.

And people wonder why I’m so cold-hearted and mean when they haven’t met with my Umma, the God of Cold-Heartedness. I swear if Hitler was still around, even he’d bow down to her.

I walked my way to the bus stop and waited for the bus to arrive. As usual, it was just me and Mr. Jang who lived two houses away from mine.

“Hello, Ajusshi,” I bowed and sat beside him.
“Hello, ChaeRin,” he bowed back. “Great morning isn’t it?”

I just smiled meekly, my hand automatically touching my still red ear. Great morning? Thanks to Umma, I wasn’t able to share the same sentiment.

The bus ride to school was packed as usual with some familiar faces wearing the same uniform as mine. I had never bothered to be friendly with any of them before so I definitely wouldn’t start that day. It’s not like I’m the friendly, little Miss Sunshine, bubbly type to begin with. So as usual, I stared out of the window all through the journey.

When I finally got off the bus just a few meters away from the school gate with some other students, someone shoved me which had made me stumbled forward onto another student- a cold-looking boy. He turned to glare at me furiously, while trying to rub his back.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I said meekly and he stomped off without another word.

Then, it was my turn to glare at the idiot who ran into me and saw a small-eyed, big-nosed, grinning boy standing behind me.“What are you grinning for?” I snarled.

The boy looked startled.

“I’m sorry…?” he said, unsure. The grin immediately disappeared.
“Why the hell did you run into me?!” I roared. 

The punk paled all of a sudden. 

“I tripped,” he explained, his eyes darting everywhere except at my glaring eyes. “My shoelace was untied and I stepped on it. See? See?” He put up one leg and pointed to his shoe with the untied shoelace. “I really didn’t mean to run into you, swear to God,” He immediately put up his three index fingers for effects.

“Listen punk, you've just made my already bad day worse. Don’t let me see you again, EVER!” I roared and stomped off.

Little did I know that it wouldn’t be the last time that I would see him.
 

****

“ChaeRin! ChaeRin,” I heard a girl calling for me and immediately knew that it was my best friend, YeJin. 

YeJin and I had been best friends ever since elementary school. From what I remember, we were practically inseparable after she offered me her spicy rice cakes during lunch in elementary school second grade.

I stopped to wait while she ran towards me. 

“Yah, Lee ChaeRin,” she punched my left arm not-so-lightly.

“Ow!” I yelped in protest and glared at her, “Yah, Park YeJin! What do you punch me for?” I rubbed my arm.

“I saw what you did just now to that poor boy. Omo omo,” YeJin shook her head disapprovingly. “Why were you so mean to him?” She was looking at me as though I had just bullied a crippled man.
 

“He ran into me!” I defended myself, “It was his fault that I stumbled into the gangster in front of me. I’m the victim here, okay?”

“Gangster?” YeJin’s eyebrows shot right up and she was looking at me with that skeptic look of hers, “Since when does this school have gangsters?”

“