I thought of running home after he shut the door in my face.  Hell, I thought of running up through North Korea, through China, and into Russia. 

                Except I couldn’t.  I couldn’t move.  I stood outside his apartment for however long, just staring at the door.  I didn’t cry.  I didn’t whine.  I could barely feel my body.  I actually kind of wished I’d passed out.  I’d do anything to fall asleep and not have to think of being in the middle of this nightmare.

                When I finally could move, I couldn’t run.  I could barely lift my legs.  I had to drag myself down the hall, into the elevator, out of the elevator, and out of the building.  Once outside, I pulled out my phone and after dropping it twice, I managed to punch in Amelia’s number.  When she answered, I asked her if she was busy.  No?  Then could she meet me?

                “Of course,” she said, her voice unsure.  “Everything ok, Jo?”

                I blinked tiredly.  “No.  Nothing is ok.  Please call Beki and come meet me.  If you can, if you can’t, it’s ok.”

                “What?  No, of course we’ll come meet you!  Ten minutes,” she said before hanging up the phone.

                It took me three tries before I could aim enough to get the phone into the hoodie pocket.  I held the sleeve up to my nose and inhaled. 

                I didn’t see anything around me and made it over to the little Korean restaurant us girls always met at to have some girl time strictly on autopilot.

                Sitting down, I forced a smile when I ordered from the ahjumma whose family owned the restaurant.  We liked this place because the family knew us and didn’t get all weirded out when they heard a bunch of white girls speaking perfect Korean.  After living here as long as our families had, it’d be kind of disgraceful if we didn’t speak the language.

                I was shoveling food into my mouth when my friends showed up.

                “Whoa, it’s worse than I thought,” Beki murmured to Amelia as they sat down next to each other across the table from me.  The table was covered in dishes.  I handed each of them a set of chopsticks and a spoon.

                “Please stuff your faces with me,” I asked them, resuming my shoveling.

                They glanced at each other and began picking at the food.

                “What’s up, Jo?” Beki asked after a minute.  “Tell us what’s wrong.  What happened?  What do you need us to do for you?”

                I sniffled, but I still didn’t feel any tears coming.

                I shrugged unsure of how to begin until the words just fell out of my mouth.  Everything.  Every detail.  From day one.  I repeated everything I said to Ji Ho and added more of the crazy thoughts I’d had throughout this whole thing.

                “You wanted Yu Kwon?” Beki blurted out in the middle.  I hung my head in shame.

               “Beki!” Amelia hissed.  “She was having a breakdown.  She said she wanted Jae Hyo, too.  All of them.  Even little Tae Il.  She didn’t mean it.”

                Letting her finish first, I continued.  I told them about Kyung’s failed plan.  About every conversation I had with him and about Ji Ho’s reactions to everything.

                “And now,” I continued after taking a breath.  “I must kill Kyung.  He was wrong and then wrong again and then wrong – oh yeah – again.  He saw me in my underwear.”

                Amelia laughed lightly.  “He was just trying to help, you know that.”

                I sighed heavily.  “Yes, ok.  I won’t kill him.  Beki, pull his eyeballs out of his sockets for me?”

                Beki chuckled.  “Listen, Jo, you-”

                “Fine.  I’ll spare Kyung because he’s my friend.”  I stretched across the table and shoved one of my chopsticks in her face.  “Take this.”  I pointed to my ear.  “Jam it in here.  Do it hard because I need you to pierce my brain.”

                Beki sighed and grabbed my chopstick, tossing it across the table. 

                “Cool it, sister.  Listen to us.  Everything will be ok,” she said.

                “Yeah,” Amelia added.  “You know how Ji Ho is.  When he has a problem or fights with someone, he likes to be alone to figure out what he’s going to do.  Everything’s going to be fine.  Just give him some time.  You kind of dropped a bomb on him.”

                I slammed my fists down onto the table top.  Oh, there are the tears I was waiting for.  I looked helplessly to my friends.  “I am so sick of hearing that everything is going to be ok.  You didn’t see the look on his face when I explained everything to him.  He must be so mad at me.  And the look in his eyes before he shut the door on me.”  I shook my head.  “He was right.  We can’t just pretend this never happened.  I can’t do anything now.  I messed up.”

                “Give him some time,” Beki said.  “You guys have been friends too long for him to just let you go like this.”

                “And, you know, I never would have even really noticed it before, but now that I’m thinking about it.  It was kind of stupid of us not to see what Kyung saw.  I mean, think about it,” Amelia said looking at Beki.  “Ji Ho’s whole face would light up when Jo walks into a room.  He’s always looking for her.  If he meets us somewhere and she’s not there, the first thing out of his mouth is to ask where she is.  I can’t believe, after he cools down, he wouldn’t admit he cares about you the way you do for him.”

                Not what I wanted to hear.  I ran my sleeve across my eyes.  “I can’t do this.  I’m going home,” I said, fishing money out of my pocket and dumping it on the table.

                “We’ll go with you.  Come on, it’s been a while since we’ve had some official girl time,” Amelia said, jumping up.

                “No, you guys probably had plans today with…”  With your boyfriends.

                Beki waved her hand in front of her face.  “The boys can play by themselves for a while.  This is an emergency girl hang out.  We’ll go to your house and watch movies.”

                “Great, I can stuff myself full of ice cream at home in private,” I muttered, leading the way out of the restaurant.

                “How has that girl not exploded yet?” I heard Amelia whisper from behind me.

                “How is she not a blimp?  That must be why she’s on track,” Beki added.

                We walked to my apartment building.  My friends chattering mindlessly in an attempt to help keep my mind off Ji Ho.  It wasn’t helping, but I appreciated the effort.  Beki was in the lead as we went up the flight of stairs to my floor.  I was in the doorway of the stairs when Beki came to a screeching halt causing Amelia to crash into her and me bump into her.

                “What is this, the Three Stooges?  Move,” I whined. 

                Beki glanced at Amelia and both girls’ eyes bugged out.  They stood in my way, keeping me in the doorway.  “We’re going to go,” Beki said, in a sudden hushed voice.

                Amelia nodded like someone had a gun on her.  “You call us when you’re done if you want,” she added, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the hall.

                “What the hell?  Done with what?  Eating myself into a coma?” I snapped.

                “When you’re done,” Beki said through gritted teeth, as the girls shoved me in front of them. 

                I looked down the hall toward my apartment door and even though I opened my mouth with every intention of speaking full words, the only thing that came out of my mouth was a bizarre squeak that sounded like someone stepped on a dog toy.

                “He looks like he’s sleeping, so take a second to collect yourself if you need to,” Beki whispered to me as she grabbed Amelia by the arm and yanked the shorter girl through the doorway and down the stairs.

                Yeah, take a second to collect myself.  That’s the excuse I’ll use for why I’m not moving and not that, even though it’s only been some hours since I’d seen him last, the mere sight of him had me frozen in place.

                I didn’t realize I was shuffling toward him until I noticed his form was getting bigger the closer I got.  He was sitting in front of my door.  Back to the door, one leg stretched out, the other leg bent with his arm on it, head tipped back, eyes closed, mouth open a little.

                Slowly lowering to my knees next to him, I chomped down on my thumbnail to keep from touching him.

                “Ji…” I began, losing the battle and brushing my fingertips to his shoulder lightly.  His eyes snapped open and he gasped in fright.  He shot to a standing position and I scrambled to follow.

                “Damn, you scared the crap out of me, Dani!” he scolded me, panting, hand over his heart.  I resumed gnawing on my nail.  He put his hands on his hips.  “I need to talk to you.”

                “O-ok.”

                “Could we go inside?” he asked politely.  His voice, like his face, were completely and thoroughly void of any trace of any emotion.  It was making me nervous.  And slightly crazed.

                “Ok.”  His eyes roamed my face, but he said nothing.

                “The door is locked,” he informed me.

                “Ok.”  Slight delay.  “Oh!”  I yanked my keys out of my – his – hoodie pocket and fumbled to get the right one into the right lock.  He pushed the door open once I had it unlocked and waited for me to go through it.

                Silence filled the air inside my apartment.  My parents were at work and he wasn’t speaking.  I waited for him to decide where he wanted us to talk.

                He took off his shoes in true Korean fashion and left them near the door.  I kicked my own off and tripped trying to put them near his.  He was already in the living room.  He leaned against the wall that held up our flat screen TV.  I shuffled over and stood across from him in front of the sofa.

                “I just…” he shrugged and picked at one of his nails before jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans.  “I’ve been thinking about what you said and I need to talk to you about it.”

                I nodded.  Every other part of me was frozen stiff.

                “How long have you felt like that for me?” he wondered.

                “Since the day you came up to me in school and said, ‘Hi, my name is Woo Ji Ho,’” I answered automatically.

                “You’ve liked me since we met back when we were ten?”

                “Well, ok, I had a crush on you when we were ten, but after I got to know you, I kind of, sort of, completely fell in love with you.  So, uh I guess I’ve felt like this since we were maybe eleven or twelve,” I explained.

                He scoffed lightly.  “And you never said anything.”

                “Why would I have ever said anything, Ji Ho?  We are so close.  You mean everything to me.  I couldn’t risk making things awkward.”  So instead, I wait six years and explode.  Yes, that was a much better plan.  “Besides, I’ve seen the girls you’ve dated.  We’re in different leagues.  I mean, look at me.”  I held my arms out for a second before letting them fall back to my sides.  I was a mess.  Pieces of hair sticking out of my hood, baggy track pants.

                “Those girls never lasted, did they?” he muttered.

                “What?”

                “Dani, how could you lie to me?” he demanded, eyes burning into mine.

                I looked down at my feet, ashamed.  “Ji Ho, I’m sorry.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I should have called Natalie.  I still can’t believe it.  I must have been temporarily insane.”  Temporarily is lasting a bit longer for me than for most, though, I added mentally.

                He sighed and moved over to stand at the opposite end of the sofa.  I turned to face him.  He looked annoyed now.  “I was talking about Kyung.”

                “Kyung?”

                “You lied to me.  I thought you were with him.  I thought you guys were together.  When I saw you and him in your room…”  His eyes took on a faraway look and he shook his head.  “Dressed like that, you…”  His eyes focused and set back on mine.  “Do you know what it felt like to see you under him like that?  Dressed like that?”

                “No, I don’t!  You showed no emotion whatsoever!” I shouted accusingly.

                “That’s because I thought that’s what you wanted!  To be with my friend!  My team mate!  I thought you wanted Kyung!  How could I be mad if that’s what you wanted?!” he retorted furiously.  “And then you tell me it was a lie.”  He flailed his arms out and he laughed, somewhat sarcastically.  He stepped closer to me.  “It wasn’t real.  It was just to make me jealous.  You weren’t ever with Kyung.  You weren’t sleeping with him.  You hadn’t even kissed him.  And you know what I felt then?”

                “I can honestly say that I have no idea, Ji Ho, because you’ve been nothing but a blank slate this entire time!”

                “I was relieved!”

                “Relieved?”  So I didn’t imagine it.  It was relief in his eyes.  I don’t understand.

                “Yes, relieved that you weren’t with Kyung.  Relieved that you hadn’t been with him yet,” he said, voice calmer.  He stepped closer again, now an arm’s length from me.  “Because that meant there was a chance you would want to be with me first.”