Sohee

I was nervous. I mean, I hadn’t talked to Kaiko in person in years – talking to someone over the phone is completely different. What if we met up in person and we both realized that we had changed too much for our friendship to go back to the way it had been? The more I thought about it, I realized that Kaiko had hated hanging out with girls as much as I did. We got along really well, and I was too guarded to give our friendship a real chance.

But that was going to change. I’m going to really try this time. But my conviction didn’t ease my nerves, since I was still pacing in the airport.

“Sohee, calm down,” Kevin assured me with a wide grin. “From what you’ve told us about her, she seems like a really nice person!”

“But it’s been years – God only knows how much we’ve both changed!” I chewed on my lip and started pacing again. “Xander, Kibum, are you sure you can talk to her in Japanese? I mean, I want her to be comfortable -”

“SoSo, I swear – I’m fluent in Japanese,” Kibum grinned and patted my head.

“As am I. Yah, Sohee… Is she hot?” Xander leaned forward, looking up at me with a cheesy smile.

I frowned at Kibum and swatted his hand away, “Don’t mess up my hair!” I then turned to Xander and shrugged. “And I don’t know if she’s hot. I don’t remember what she looks like.” The guys stared at me like I was from another planet. “What?”

“You took us to a crowded airport to meet with a girl, and you don’t know what she looks like,” Kibum deadpanned. I nodded. “How are we supposed to find her?”

I grinned and crossed my arms, “I thought of the perfect solution!” I crouched down and reached into my bag, and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

“What is that?” Kevin jumped up practically skipped over to me.

I unfolded the paper and then held it up for them to see.

It said Fushigi Kaiko in English.

“Seriously?” Kibum snickered. “You really think that’s going to work?”

“Maybe if one of you ing tall people holds it up for me!” I held it out to them, waiting for one of them to take it. Eli sighed and took it from my hands and was about to stretch his arm into the air, but I snickered and stopped him. “You might want to wait for her plane to land.” His arm dropped and he huffed. “Yah, you might want to be nice to her – grateful, even!”

“Why?” The four guys that I had dragged with me all looked down at me.

“I didn’t tell you?”

“Tell us what?” Kevin was leaning forward with his ear turned towards me, as if I was about to tell him some kind of secret.

“Kaiko is the one who asked me to talk to Eli,” I told him.

His eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”

“Yep. She made feel ing guilty,” I frowned and crossed my arms. “I pretty much did the same thing to her as Eli did to me.” I turned and looked up at Eli, “I apologized because I finally knew how you felt, and you were only trying to make things right – just like I’m trying to do with her.”

“SoSo… That’s beautiful!” Kevin cried, sweeping me into a tight hug.

“Kevin… ing… Choking…” I gasped.

“Flight 127 from Fukuoka, Japan has now landed,” I heard the announcement, and I could feel the nervousness building in my stomach again.

As I watched more and more people get off the plane, I kept looking up to make sure that Eli was holding the sign high enough. As the crowd started to thin out, I felt disappointed. Was this the wrong flight? But then as the final people trickled out, I saw a girl who looked about my age, and really familiar – and I mean really, really familiar. She was so familiar; I knew who she was immediately.

I forgot about Eli holding the sign and cupped my hands over my mouth and yelled, “Koko!” I had completely forgotten my nickname for Kaiko – in fact, I thought I hadn’t given her one. Perhaps she and I really did have a friendship after Eli left me? Perhaps it was when she left that I really gave up on having friends?

Her head whipped around, her hair flipping around her pale face. Actually, I couldn’t tell if her hair was wavy or messy, but I could tell that it was her. Especially when a bright smile lit up her face – Kaiko was almost always smiling. “Sohee-chan!” She squealed, and then took off running towards me. And I remembered something else – Kaiko was more of a hugging person that Eli. As soon as she was within arms’ reach of me, she stretched her arms out and yanked me into a tight hug. “Sohee-chan, I missed you so much!” She squealed.

“It’s good to see you too, Koko,” I smiled at her. The bright smile on her face was infectious, and I couldn’t help but smile myself. This felt really, really weird. I mean, I called her because I felt guilty, and I didn’t want to be like Eli. But by not only calling her, but inviting her here as well, I was becoming more and more like him. But seeing her again, I will admit, felt kind of… nice? It was quiet between us for a second, and I really wanted to say something to fill the silence. “So… How have you been?”

She grinned and folded her hands behind her back. “Nothing important. I just recently broke up with my boyfriend.”

“Bwoh?” I thought back to when Kaiko and I had school together, and I don’t remember her ever even looking at guys. Or girls, for that matter. “I didn’t think you even liked men,” I said without thinking. She looked at me in surprise and I suddenly felt embarrassed. “I mean, I didn’t think that you liked girls either…” I drifted off.

She laughed and shook her head, some of her hair falling into her face. “No, I like men. It’s a part of being human,” she shrugged, and then smiled playfully at me. “I should say the same for you, Mrs. Cho,” she snickered, nudging my shoulder.

“He proposed?” Eli yelled, drawing our attention to the guys. I had completely forgotten about them standing there.

Kaiko’s eyes were wide with surprise, but I was completely unfazed. “It’s a ing joke, bird beak,” I deadpanned, and then turned to Kaiko. “This,” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder to point at him, “is Eli.”

“The Eli?” She said softly, her eyes still wide with surprise.

“The same,” I stated, crossing my arms.

I hardly blinked and she was glaring at him until Kevin cleared his throat. “Sohee, aren’t you going to introduce us to your lovely friend?” He said in English, stepping closer to her and smiling at her charmingly.

“This is Kevin. He’s going to try to seduce you,” I joked, although I said it with a serious voice.

Kaiko looked at me out of the corner of her eye and smiled playfully. “Is that so?”

Xander stepped between them and said something to Kevin, nudging him away. He said something to Kaiko in what I can only assume was Japanese and bowed, and then took her hand and gently kissed it. She asked him something, and he started saying something again that made her pale cheeks slowly turn pink.

“What are they saying?” I whispered to Kibum.

He crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. “He’s flirting even more shamelessly than he did with you on your first day.”

Alexander

I really didn’t like standing around like this. It made me kind of nervous, because I didn’t want any fans to see us. Sohee was pacing, obviously nervous because of everything that had gone on with this girl. She had explained the entire story to me and the guys.

It was obvious that Sohee had gone through a lot when Eli left, and this girl had helped her a lot. However, when she had to leave, Sohee was so hurt again she kind of suppressed those memories. I started to wonder what this girl was like – Sohee hadn’t gone into much detail. Sohee told us on the way here that she and this ‘friend’, ‘Kaiko’, had listened to a lot of music together, and they had a little joke…

“It’s a funny story, really,” Sohee began, tapping her chin.

“If it’s so funny, then tell us!” Kibum begged.

“I like funny stories!” Kevin squealed.

“Well, we would listen to Super Junior together, which she declared was a complete guilty pleasure for her, and we both agreed that Kyuhyun was our favorite. And, being girls, we made a deal that if we ever met Super Junior, then whoever met him first would get dibs,” she snickered. “I told her that Kyuhyun and I are already dating, and she squealed ‘not fair!’. I brought up our deal and she was quiet for a second before she said, ‘I forgot about that’.”

Either way, Sohee would sit in the living room with her arms crossed, staring at the floor with a contemplative expression, trying to recall memories of the two. I could tell that the memories she recalled, the more excited she seemed that Kaiko was visiting. Honestly, I was looking forward to meeting her.

When the flight arrived, Sohee made Eli hold up the piece of paper with Kaiko’s name on it, although I doubt she would be able to see it from that distance. I saw the anxiety growing on Sohee’s face as more and more people filtered off of the plane.

I was about to reassure Sohee that her friend had probably just missed the sign when a girl getting off of the plane caught my attention. I guess Sohee saw her, too.

“Koko!” Sohee yelled, and I saw that girl look towards Sohee and then grin.

Her hair flared out as her face whirled around towards Sohee, and time seemed to slow down as she smiled and then started running towards us, her hair flowing behind her. The rest of the world blurred around her and started glowing, and I think I heard an American love song playing somewhere in the back of my mind.

She pulled Sohee into a tight hug, still smiling, and started saying something, but that stupid song was still playing in my head. Eli then yelled something that made me snap out of the trance I was in.

“It’s a ing joke, bird beak,” Sohee told him, turning about around to face Kaiko and jerked her thumb over her shoulder at Eli. “This is Eli.”

“The Eli?” I barely heard her say, and Sohee nodded.

“The same.”

She then glared at Eli, but I heard Kevin clear his throat beside me and started cursing in my head. “Sohee, aren’t you going to introduce us to your lovely friend?” He asked in English, sidling up beside her and smiling down at her.

“This is Kevin,” Sohee introduced him. “He’s going to try to seduce you.”

‘Oh, .’ She sounded serious!

“Is that so?” My heart fluttered at the cute smile on her face.

‘Aw, hell no!’

I quickly slid between the two of them and nudged Kevin away. “Mine,” I muttered, and then looked down at her and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Kaiko-san. Sohee speaks highly of you,” I said in Japanese, bowing and then taking her hand, and then brushing my lips over it.

“You speak Japanese?” She asked.

“Fluently,” I smiled at her. “You know, Sohee said that you were a kind person, but she never said anything about you being so beautiful.”

She was surprised for a second before a pleased smile grew on her lips and her pale cheeks started to turn pink.

“Alexander, you have to shame!” Kibum scolded me in Japanese, swatting the back of my head. He then smiled at bowed. “Kaiko-san, please excuse Xander. He and Kevin both have no manners.”

“You both speak Japanese?” She beamed, completely missing his apology.

Kibum smiled and nodded. “Sohee wanted both of us here to greet you, because we both speak Japanese. She was hoping that having two people speaking your native language would make you more comfortable here in Korea.”

“It helps,” she said, her smile softening. She dropped her hands at her sides and bowed towards all of us. “Thank you very much for letting me stay with you. I hope I’m not being a burden -”

“It’s the least I can do,” Eli told her in English, bowing deeply. “It’s thanks to you that Sohee is speaking to me again.”

“You were the one who was being a ing ,” Sohee muttered.

“Why don’t we get out of here before people recognize us?” I pitched, hoping we could hurry up and get to the van. ‘I also want to sit next to Kaiko…’

_________

I feel bad for Kevin. XD