Jane was sitting at a low table with several books opened at once. She was taking notes with her right hand and was shoveling noodles into with the other. She had missed this, being in such a studying “zone.” It was as if she could feel her brain actually filling up with information, like pouring water into a glass. “Crap!” she cursed as noodles fell from her spoon onto her notebook.  Instead of picking up the fallen noodles with her hand or spoon like a normal person, she brought her face down to the page and slurped them up.

“How many times do I need to tell you? You're a person not a dog?” Her dad called from the entry way.

Jane threw back her head and quickly swallowed her noodles. “You’re home!”

“Yep,” he responded as he sat with his daughter at the table. “This is new.” He said, pointing to the books on the table.

“I already watched all the movies that I had…three times,” Jane said with a laugh. “I needed something else to occupy my time.”

“And you chose to study?” He asked.  Jane answered with a nod. He reached across the table and ruffled his daughter’s hair.  “My daughter is such a nerd.”

Jane playfully batted his hand away from her head and narrowed her eyes. “I take after you.”

“I should really say ‘daughters.’ Your mom called. Maggie got the internship.” Her father said with a proud smile.

Jane looked down at the paper at her hands. “Really? That’s great,” she said feigning happiness.

It was followed by a pang of guilt. She should honestly be happy for her little sister, but she couldn’t help feeling jealous. She had a slight complex when it came to Maggie. Maggie seemed to have observed everything that Jane had did wrong in her life and improved upon it. When Jane’s shyness nice had caused her to live through high school  without having a boyfriend and going to every dance without a date (not to mention that her current love life was not so different from her high school’s) , Maggie managed to attract the attention of several teenage boys and was never without a date. When Jane discovered her talent for languages and subsequently specialized in one no longer spoken or relevant, Maggie discovered her talent for the math and sciences and decided to become a doctor…just like her father. Although he didn’t mean to, sometimes their father would show favoritism towards the youngest daughter because she had followed his footsteps. Even now, when she just received a competitive, paid internship at his hospital, he could not hide his immense pride for his daughter.

Maybe it was her competitive nature or perhaps jealousy, but Jane wanted her father to praise her. She picked up one of the books from the table and showed it to her father. “I picked this up today. I decided that one of us should be able to speak the native language.” She had three other Korean grammar books on the table.

“Honestly, I’m surprised that you haven’t tried earlier,” he said as he made his way to the refrigerator. Not exactly the praise that Jane was looking for, but how could she compete with an internship when she was unemployed. “How was your day? Did you get toothpaste?”

Thinking back to her convenience store encounter with the smiling boy, she responded, “It was alright. Nothing really happened. Toothpaste is in the bathroom.” It was better that her dad didn't know that she told a complete stranger where they lived. After all, before they had left, he made her watch “Taken” as a lesson of what not to do in a foreign country.

“What’s this?” Her dad asked, pulling out one of the drinks that Dongwoo had bought for her without her knowledge. He opened it and sniffed the beverage. He then broke out into a giggle. “Felt like having a drink?” He looked at his daughter with a fake sadness, “Do you hate living alone with your daddy that much?”

Beer. Dongwoo had bought her beer. Had she really looked like she needed to drink that badly? Yea, probably. After all, she did break down in the middle of a store. She would’ve thought the same if the situation was reversed. “I just wanted to know how Korean beer tasted like,” she lied.

Her father took a swig from the can. “Tastes like cheap beer.”

“You and your expensive beer taste.” Jane put out both of her hands. “Please gimme one too, Daddy.” Her father obeyed his daughter and handed her a can. She popped the tab and clinked it with her father. “To Maggie’s internship!” she toasted.

A couple days passed, and Jane spent it with her nose in her new grammar books. When she wasn’t drilling herself with written sentences in Korean or practicing her pronunciation, she was enjoying her new favorite pastime, watching Korean daytime sitcoms. They helped her to understand the language better…and make her laugh. Although she couldn’t understand everything, some humor transcends all barriers.

But sometimes she would lift her head from the books or look away from the tv and wondered, whatever happened to that man from the store. She couldn’t remember his name anymore. Dongwoon? Donwoon? If she couldn’t even accurately remember his name, would he actually remember where she lived? Or even her name?  Jane couldn’t tell if she felt relieved at that thought or disappointed.

One day, Jane had felt particularly lazy and not even bothered to change out of her ducky pajamas. And why should she? She wasn’t planning on going outside. At the moment, she was rummaging through the fridge with a spoon in looking for something to eat. Although she had been feeling a bit queasy, she still felt like she should eat something. “What should I eat?” she mumbled. “There’s nothing to eat…”

 “Holy crap!” she said with a start. There was a knock at the door. She cautiously walked over to the door. She looked out the peephole and saw…nothing. Jane hesitated for a while before she grabbed the door handle and then she slowly turned it. She opened the door just a crack. She couldn’t see anything still. She opened it wider. Nothing. She threw the door open and cautiously walked out into the hallway. She was holding out her spoon in front of her like a sword. “Is anyone there?” she asked in Korean.

“Oh! You speak Korean?” Someone said from around the corner.

Jane spun around, spoon in hand. It was the was the boy from the store. She dropped the spoon. “D-donwoo? Woon?”

“Dongwoo.” He said with a sad smile. He walked up to her, picked up the spoon, and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. She felt bad that she couldn’t remember his name. Despite being good with languages, Jane still remembered faces better than names. “Uh, how are you?”

“Hungry,” he said with a cheeky smile. He rubbed his belly like a character from the cartoons Jane used to watch when she was younger…like the previous year. Jane remembered that she did owe the man lunch, and he came to collect her debt.

“You want me to buy you lunch?” she asked. He nodded. She looked down at her outfit. “One moment please.” She walked back into her apartment and was about to close the door, but Dongwoo managed to squeeze his way in. She had kind of hoped that he would wait in the hallway. Her apartment was a mess, littered with grammar books and random pieces of paper with poor Korean written on them.

Dongwoo looked around curiously, fascinated by his new surroundings. He found her books on the table. “Studying?” he asked. “Good job!” He said in English giving her a thumbs up.

“Thank you.” Jane said. She began to struggling with her words. She was slowly reaching the endpoint of her Korean knowledge. She had no idea how to say how she needed to change out of her ducky pajamas. “Ah. Sit. Wait, please.” She pointed to the tv and handed him a remote. “Watch.”

He took the remote. “Okay! Thank you.” And he the tv. He was quickly making himself at home. It was weird.

Jane went into her bedroom and walked to her closet (she finally had unpacked her suitcase, settling in). She didn’t know what to wear. Did it really matter? Yea, Jane really cared what she looked like. She needed to erase in image in Dongwoo’s mind of her in her pajamas. She wanted to look cute, adorable, lovable. It was time to break out one of the few dresses that she brought.  As she reached for the dress, she felt a sharp pain shoot through her stomach. Did she really pull a muscle reaching for a dress? Jane wasn’t really surprised. She injured herself worse in her sleep. As she put on the dress, she winced. The dress clung tightly to her waist, putting pressure on her new injury. Jane inhaled deeply. “ it up, Janie,” she told herself. The things women put themselves through to look attractive. She then walked over to the mirror to put on make-up. She saw beads of sweat forming on her forehead. “Ew!” She said quickly wiping them off. “Better skip the foundation, or I’ll melt. Why am I so hot?” The thought of eating with Dongwoo must be making her nervous. Her stomach also began to feel queasy again. Was it butterflies? She hardly knew this guy. Well, he was cute, with his goofy, toothy grin.

She was finally ready and opened her bedroom door. Dongwoo was sitting on the floor laughing loudly. His laugh was contagious, and Jane found herself laughing with him. “What are you watching?” She asked looking at the tv and seeing a rather attractive man dancing with an ice cream cone. The screen cut to black. Dongwoo had turn it off.

“Let’s go!” he said, jumping from his seat. “I’m hungry.” He looked at her up and down. “Waah! Pretty.”

Jane felt her face growing even hotter. “Let’s go!”  She walked towards the door and the pain in her stomach increased. She decided to ignore it. Growing  up with a dad as a doctor, she learned how to up pain. Her dad was notorious for saying that she was just fine whenever she complained of pain. Most of the time he was correct. Although there was that one time Maggie broke her arm, her dad looked at it lazily thinking that his daughter was overreacting. But after seeing his daughter play a baseball game with one arm, catching and throwing with the same hand, he was finally convinced. “It’s not serious,” she said in her mind. “Just nerves and a pulled muscle.”

They finally made it outside the building, and Jane looked nervously around. She had no idea where to go. She turned to Dongwoo and laughed. “Ah, I don’t know. Where?” she asked, hoping that he would understand her broken, unfinished sentences.

He miraculously did. “Do you want chicken?” Jane nodded. They walked over to the restaurant silently, just smiling at each other. Jane was busy taking in her surroundings. This was the farthest that she had wandered outside her apartment since she got there. “Look,” he said nudging her arm.

“Is that it?” Jane asked. Dongwoo nodded. They wandered inside and sat down at a table. As she sat the dress cut further into her waist, adding to the pressure on her aching side. “Ah!” she let go a slight whimper.

“Are you okay?” Dongwoo repeating the first thing he ever said to Jane.

Jane tried to find the words in Korean. She decided to abandon the new language and went back to her default tongue. “I pulled a stomach muscle.”  She looked at Dongwoo’s worried expression. “I should be fine. Let’s eat.”

Dongwoo had ordered for them, and dishes were quickly brought to the table. Jane’s eyes widened. She had never seen anything on the table before, besides the chicken. Jane couldn’t help it. Her curiosity got the best of her. “What’s this?” she said pointing to some of the tiny dishes.

“Kimchi.” He responded happily.

After seeing how quickly and nicely he responded, she proceeded to do that with every dish on the table. This interaction was the most they have conversed all day. Jane even asked who the celebrities were in the alcohol advertisements posted on the walls. Even Dongwoo started to ask her questions about the English words for objects lying around. It became a game for them. However, they were beginning to run out of things to point at. The conversation was slowly dwindling. Dongwoo looked around the table desperately, “What is…” he picked up one of the little white dishes whose contents they had devoured. “What’s this?”

She took it from his hands and studied it. “It’s a…..little hat!” She claimed putting it on her head, changing the direction of their game.

He giggled and grabbed it from her head. “No no no,” he said wagging his finger. He picked up another dish and put it to his ears. “Headphones.” He said bobbing his head to an imaginary beat.

“Nope!” Jane exclaimed, taking the dishes away from his ears. She placed them in front of her eyes and made a funny face. “They’re glasses.” She looked around and whined, “I’m blind! I can’t see.” Dongwoo giggled and took the dishes from her hands. “It’s a miracle! I can see!” Jane exclaimed.

“Look!” Dongwoo commanded. He put the dishes behind his head. They looked like little white ears. “I’m a lion!” He growled.

Jane began to laugh uncontrollably. But with every laugh, the pain in her side increased tenfold. She felt the sweat form on her brows again. Her lunch slowly crawling back up . Her hand instinctively went to . Dongwoo was still continuing with his lion impression. Jane furrowed her brow. No not now. Please not now. Then the worst possible thing happened. Jane at least had been lucky enough, she guessed, to have “politely” turned to the side as she began to empty out the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

Dongwoo dropped the dishes, and his big eyes became even larger. “Are you okay?” That question was quickly becoming Dongwoo’s new catchphrase.

“I’m…” Jane looked up at Dongwoo’s concerned face. She felt her eyes slowly roll back. Her world became black, and her body became slack, unfortunately falling into the mess she had just made.