Author’s note: Do you guys like the poster?  I hope so!  And now there are three of you subbies!  You’re the best!  I can’t wait to introduce Hoon and finally get the plot rolling.  Let me know what you think! :)

Please comment and subscribe! :D

CHAPTER 2: Romance Novels

The morning sunlight hit motes of dust floating through my apartment.  It was still pretty early, around seven o’clock perhaps, and I was leaned up against the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in my hands.  The city was fairly calm with only a few cars running around the streets.  I guess that’s why Korea is called the land of morning calm.

I wasn’t used to not having Piplup with me, so the room felt quiet and empty.  I was still ruffled about not being able to bring her with me, but my sister Hailey promised to send Piplup as soon as I had settled in.

Sighing, I stood up straight and placed my coffee on the counter before making my way to the loft to get dressed.

After rummaging through three boxes, I found my favourite sweater, an oversized, yellow hoodie that I had bought in my third year of college from the college bookstore.  Rolling up the sleeves, I opened box after box of things, some useful, most of them pointless, and started to hang up pictures, posters and unwrap cups, plates and collectable figurines from my childhood.

An hour or so into unpacking, someone knocked on my door.

I peered through the peephole to see Eli, hands in his pockets.  I opened the door.

“Hey,” I said, “what’s up?”

“Did you forget about Junjeong’s breakfast invitation?  I told you about it last night,” he gave me a look as if to say ‘are you avoiding me?’

“Ugh,” I hit myself in the forehead, “I completely forgot!  I’m so sorry!  I was thinking about Piplup and then I just started to unpack…” I let the sentence trail off

“Don’t worry about it, Junjeong only started cooking about ten minutes ago, so we won’t be late,” he smiled, “And just wondering, why were you thinking about Pokémon?”

I slipped on my shoes before answering his question, “Piplup isn’t a Pokémon; she’s my parrot.  My nephew named her because she’s blue and because Piplup is his favourite.”

We walked out into the hall after making sure my door was locked and went downstairs.

“Ellie-sshi!” cried Junjeong as I walked into the backroom.  He had a bright pink, frilled apron tied covering his slacks and work shirt.  The backroom wasn’t just an office, but a small apartment as well.  There were stacks of paper everywhere, held together with jumbo binder clips, what looked like a wardrobe without any doors dominated the back corner, and a low table sat in the centre of the room.   Junjeong obviously lived here alone.

“Does Junjeong-sshi live here?” I asked Eli, who only replied with a curt nod.  Speaking of the man, he came out of the kitchen – which had a large pile of dirty dishes in the sink – with a tray of foods that, to me, looked nothing like breakfast.  There was a large bowl of rice, soup, kimchi, and other dishes that I wasn’t really sure of.

Junjeong noticed my apprehension and motioned for me to sit down.

“Anjda, andja!” he places the bowls on the table and passed along chopsticks and small bowls.

“Gomayo,” I said before turning to Eli, “what is this?”

“It’s breakfast!” We all tucked in, Junjeong talking and Eli translating as the meal progressed.  Something about a new paint colour and the new restaurant around the corner that had opened two weeks ago.

After I ate as much rice and funny coloured sausages, which turned out to be hot dogs, as I could, I thanked Junjeong again in accented Korean.  He smiled and stood up.

“He said that you’re welcome to join us for breakfast again whenever you can,” Eli said as we left the backroom.

“Thanks Junjeong!” He waved and pulled out a stack of paper and started working.

“Sorry about forgetting about breakfast this morning, Eli,” we had walked back up the stairs and were now in front of my apartment door.

“Don’t worry about it Ellie, everyone forgets things once in a while.  Anyways, I have to get back to work now.  The landscaper is coming by today, and him and Junjeong do not get along whatsoever.”

“Have fun!” I laughed as he walked away.  Suddenly, he turned around and looked at me, one foot on the stair, “Do you want to hang out again tonight?  I had a lot of fun last night,”

His smile made me wish I could go with him.

“I can’t today Eli.  I still have a lot of unpacking to do, and then I have some shopping to do.  I’d love to have you with me, but you might get bored, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

He nodded, obviously feeling rejected, “Well, let me know what time works for you.  If you need me after work is done, my apartment is number five forty one.”

“See you around, Eli!” He walked down the stairs and out of sight.

Very few boxes were left untouched in the apartment.  Sure, I had just started unpacking, but I had left boxes half empty, others filled with only newspaper and packing foam.

I walked over to the bookshelf, the one that Eli had helped me build yesterday, and tore open the Rubbermaid totes that were filled with books.  The first one I opened was filled with paperbacks that I had bought throughout college, their pages yellowing, their spines cracked, and most read with such vigor that there were no dog eared pages.

These were my worn out paperback books.  Thousands of times, I had escaped to another life, lived in fantastic dystopias, battled monsters and mythical creatures, flown through the heavens and encountered the eternal hell of a single room.  I had lived a thousand times, unlike the other, more materialistic girls in some of my classes, who barely read.

The first of my three totes held my favourites.  In this container, I travelled to Narnia, Hogwarts, Dreamdark and Ireland.  I travelled back in time to build log cabins in the woods, and I was sent to the future to wonder why everyone had to look the same.

Pretty quickly, I had been distracted by Hazel Grace and Augustus’ true love, probably for the twentieth time.  Here in this foreign land, I was surrounded by familiar people, and I oddly felt at home.

Another knock at the door pulled me from my reverie.  Placing the only flat object at hand between the pages of the book I had been absorbed in and opened the door to face Junjeong and a woman shorter than I with a pouf of dark hair surrounding her round face.  She was dressed in a beige pantsuit, and carried a purse of roughly the same hue.

“Ellie-sshi!” Junjeong exclaimed while bowing, “my waifu.”

So I had been wrong about the old man.  He didn’t live alone.

“Choneun Macalester Ellie imnida,” I said to the woman in front of me.  She bowed in return.

“Choneun Choi Hyeonmi imnida,” her voice purred.

We smiled at each other, and after a moment, the mood in my doorway became a little awkward.

“Do you need anything?” I asked, unsure of how to translate my thoughts.

“Mianhe, no engrish,” Junjeong said shaking his head.

“Eli?” I asked.

Hyeonmi’s eyes opened wide as she seemed to remember something.  She reached into her bag and pulled out a book.

“You happy here?” she said slowly, unused to the flow of English.

“Yes,” I nodded, “very happy.”

Hyeonmi smiled and flipped through her book, “You like apartment?”

Again, I nodded and smiled, “It is nice.  Thank you, kamsamnida.”

Elated, Hyeonmi kept turning the pages of the phrase book.

“Have you eat?” she said, sure that her grammar was on the money.  If you can imagine a cute little old woman, Hyeonmi was ten times as cute as that.

I shook my head, I hadn’t eaten anything more than a granola bar that I had packed in my luggage for the flight from Vancouver.

“You come eat,” the way she worded her sentence made it sound as if she was used to getting her way.

“Oh, it’s okay.  I have plans for supper,” lies, “but thank you for offering.”

Hyeonmi searched her book for the translation of what I said.  After a moment or two of searching, she found what she was looking for, snapped the book shut and placed it back in her bag.

“You come next time,” she said, and with that, she and Junjeong turned to leave.

“Bye Ellie-sshi!” Junjeong waved ferociously as they went down the stairs.

“Bye!” I waved back before returning to my mess.

I emptied one of the containers of its contents onto my shelf before sitting back on the floor to examine my handiwork.  Back in Okotoks, I had colour coordinated my shelves, but that meant having to split up series if the bindings were different colours.  It had also meant being unsure as to where Harry Potter went with its tri-toned covers.  Wanting to avoid headache this time around, I set everything up by author, and then by series, which meant that Rowling’s books sat beside each other on the shelves, and that John Green’s Looking for Alaska wasn’t going to be over shadowed by Gone With the Wind.

I opened my second container to find old textbooks that I hadn’t looked at for a few years.  I sifted through the layers to find my binder of notes from Korean 101, a class that I took to fill up electives in my degree.  Thankful, I set it on the counter, next to the cups that my aunt had brought back from Thailand for me when I was eight.

Three hours – and many wizard duels – later, I put my last book on the shelf, satisfied at how it had ended up looking.

I slid the empty containers to the closet in the front hall and placed them staked on inside the other, at the bottom.

There, I thought, a place to put the shoes that I won’t wear, but that Hailey made me bring with me.

My sister was five years older than me and had married young – I think she was 21 at the time – and had always been the best dressed in the family.  She and her husband were always setting off to faraway places, taking their two kids with them. 

Now that Damon and Lacey were seven, Hailey had finally settled into her own place, north of Edmonton, where we grew up.  Damon took after his mom; he was outgoing and wild, and taking care of him on the odd weekend they were in Calgary was enough to make a grown man cry.  Lacey, on the other hand, was the quiet twin, and my favourite.  She would pull books from my shelf, sit on my lap and ask me to read to her.

Sighing at the sudden onslaught of memories, I dumped the shoes unceremoniously into the container and closed the closet.  I needed to get out of this place that was already starting to suffocate me with my past life.

I grabbed the sneakers that I had left by the front door and walked out of the building.

The sun was just starting to sink on the horizon, so I figured that it was around four in the afternoon.  I still had a lot to do back in the apartment – unpack boxes, deconstruct boxes and organize my life – but the fresh air and thrum of the city was calling my name.

I meandered through the gathering crowd, watching as people walked hand in hand, seemingly oblivious to the chill that had crept into the air.

“I wish I had a warmer sweater,” I mumbled to myself.

My stomach grumbled as I passed a street vendor with Kimbap rolls being hawked.  I pulled a bank note from my pocket, traded it for the food, and left, maybe ten minutes later feeling quite full.

I kept wandering down the street until I found the side street that led to Kkum Lideo.  I wanted to see what the shop looked like during business hours, so I decided to take a quick look around.

A bell rang as I opened the door.  The old wood on the floor had been stripped of all varnish from the foot traffic, and the mismatched woods of the shelves gave the place an eclectic feel.  At the far end was the café where Soohyun, Eli and I had talked over coffee last night.  Today, somebody else stood behind the bar mixing lattés and cappuccinos with ease.

His hair was a lighter shade of brown than Soohyun’s, and his face was less serious than the manager’s.  Dressed simply in a black tee shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans, he seemed like the dictionary definition of angelic.  A white apron was tied around his waist, marred only by what could only be coffee.  A girl, dressed to the nines and in sky high heels, waited for him to finish making her drink.  He snapped a lid on the disposable cup and handed it to her with a smile.

I walked up, now that he was free, and sat down on the barstool.  He had his back turned, cleaning the stainless steel machine that he had just finished using.  I looked around while I waited, which wasn’t as long as I had expected.

“Coffee?” he asked me.

“Yes please!” I was excited to hear someone speak in English without the use of a book.

“You want special?” he asked.  I couldn’t even think straight.  He was so cute!

I shook my head, “Just coffee.”

He took the coffee pot off the burner and poured a cup.  I added my usual two sugars and some cream to the cup he placed in front of me.  I took out a 5,000 won note from my pocket and handed it to him.  He dug in the pocket of his apron for some change.

“Thanks,” I said as he gave me back four 500 won coins.

“Kamsamnida,” he replied.

“Are you teaching me Korean?” I asked while smiling at him.  He smiled back before answering, taking time to think of his response.

“You teach me English, I teach Korean,” he said.

“I’m Ellie, by the way.  Ellie Macalester.  I work here on Monday.”

“Choneun, Yeo Hoonmin imnida.  My name is Hoon,” he replied, “Wol-yoil?”

I shrugged, not sure what he said.  Luckily, another customer walked up to the counter and ordered a coffee.  Taking the moment to escape, I snuck off to explore the shelves.  There were English titles scattered throughout the Korean titles, as well as a couple of what looked like Chinese titles thrown in for good luck.

A familiar cover caught my eye as I was passing through the romance section.  The black cover emblazoned with stars was almost identical to the copy I owned and had managed to mangle with my tears on the same page of every read.  Hazel and Augustus’ story made me cry every time.

“Uli byeol ejang-ae,” a voice made of pure honey said over my shoulder.  I turned to see Soohyun looking for a title beside me, “sad book,” he said.

“The Fault in Our Stars,” I said, surprised that he had read it, “It is sad, isn’t it?”

“Monday,” he said, having found the book he needed, “Wol-yoil.”

And with that, he turned down the aisle, leaving me alone. 

I walked to the counter, the copy of John Green’s novel in hand, and spotted Hoon at the bar alone.  He waved me over.

“Teach me,” I said, “teach me Korean with this book,” I pushed it across the bar to him.  He picked it up and read the cover.  He smiled.

He pulled out a blue paperback from behind the bar.  It looked brand new.  Sliding it across the bar to me, I inspected the title.

“The Iron King?” another romance book that dealt with heavy emotions.

“Neh,” he said nodding, “Meghan and Ash.”

I agreed.

Mom had always told me that true love only ever existed between the pages of a book and true love that lasted only existed in romance novels.  She also said that the people who read romance were usually the loneliest people.  So what did that say about myself and Hoon?

I referenced a few different books in this chapter, most notably The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and The Iron King by Julie Kagawa.  Bonus points if you know which other books I alluded to! :P