I tried not to be a whiny brat, but it was really, really hard.  Especially since my very best friends and roommates were all nauseatingly happy with their boyfriends.  Just looking at them together made me want to cry.  I tried not to let it show.  But I was pretty sure I was failing miserably.  When even quiet, little Min Hyuck was trying to make me feeling better by joking with me and saying that if Kyung doesn’t come to his senses soon, he’d go out with me, I just felt more pathetic.  It was nice to have such good friends, but I just wasn’t in the mood.  I felt like I was in the middle of a really bad chick flick. 

            As Christmas approached, I just felt worse.  I felt so bad, I couldn’t even cry anymore.  How sad.

            Being unable to stop time or my life, I needed to go Christmas shopping.  The girls asked if I wanted it to be a group trip, but I needed to get their presents too, so I declined.

            Even after Beki caught me in a headlock and told me she missed the old Maddie.

            I knew I wasn’t much fun.  No need to bring down my girls with me.

            I left early one morning to go out and about Seoul looking for the perfect gifts for my family and my friends.  I needed plenty of time because while I was only shopping for my parents as my family, but I needed to shop for three very different girls and seven unique dudes.  Well, six.  No.  I was going to buy Kyung a gift anyway.  Even if he hates it and me, I’m still getting him one.  I couldn’t not get him something.

            Feeling incredibly distracted, I was surprised at how many presents I found that fit the people I needed to shop for.  I was walking through an outdoor market, in the freezing cold, my giant paper shopping bag filled with gifts hoisted over my shoulder when I saw him.  I hadn’t seen him in a while and I didn’t like the way I kind of blew him off the last time we spoke.  And then proceeded to ignore him until that very day.

            Hyun Joong.

            I gasped when I saw him a few tables ahead of me, inspecting something off the table and speaking with the woman selling the goods.

            He was facing my direction, but I didn’t think he saw me yet.  I quickly ducked around the side of a different table, trying to blend in with the massive amount of shopping Koreans.  I grabbed an oversized, floppy hat – so not made for winter – and jammed it on my head.  Ah, crap.  This was like trying to hide a pink cat in a room full of blue dogs.  Not just the whole blatant race difference, but I realized at that very second that I was surrounded by little old Korean ladies.  Stupid floppy hats.

            I tossed the hat back onto the table and made a run for another table.  Looking back over my shoulder in an attempt to see through the crowds and check if Hyun Joong was still where’d I’d run from him, I slammed right into someone.

            I really was in the middle of a bad chick flick.

            “Hyun Joong!” I gasped.  “I-I…”

            “You were running from me, I understand,” he stated, a smile forming on his lips.

            I just stared at him for a second.  Well, I’ll be damned.  I felt nothing.  Not a damn thing.  What the hell was wrong with me?

            Then it came to me.  He wasn’t Kyung.  Sure, Hyun Joong was still unbelievably gorgeous, but I didn’t get the weird fluttery feeling around him.  I’d kissed him – big, giant, elephant-sized mistake, but maybe that’s what I needed to…reprogram?  Whatever I needed to have happen, happened.  Too bad it’s too late, I thought bitterly.

            “I’m sorry.  It’s just…”

            “Could we talk?  Just for a minute?” he asked, hands in his jacket pockets.  Not alone, we can’t.  His eyes widened.  “Not anywhere private.  I just meant if we could sit down,” he laughed awkwardly.  He pointed behind himself and whispered, “All these old ladies are making me uncomfortable.”

            I sighed a laugh.  “Oh, sure,” I answered.  He led the way out of the maze of tables in the market and off to the side where there was a small cement stair case of only a few stairs leading away from the market.  We sat on the ledge, staring out at the people still in the market.  I made sure to put a couple of feet between us.  I was grateful he understood and respected the distance.

            “I wouldn’t have acted the way I did had I known you had a boyfriend,” he began, hands on his thighs.

            “I know,” I replied, watching a young girl and her boyfriend stroll hand in hand past us.  “I’m sorry.  I should have told you.”

            “I’m a little curious about it,” he continued.  Then laughed softly.  “Actually, I’m curious about a bunch of things now.  Why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend?  Why did you let me kiss you?  And why have you been ignoring me?”

            I sighed heavily.  “I don’t know, I don’t know, and my boyfriend is really mad at me right now so…”  The couple stopped at a table near where we sat.  They looked happy.  I wanted to run up to them and trip one or both of them.  Watching them face plant would make me happy.  I blinked slowly, rolling my eyes under my eyelids. 

            He nodded.  “You say we can just be friends, but then you ignore me.”

            “I just…It wasn’t that I wanted to be with you.  I’m sorry, I was just really attracted to you, but I think I was just confused.  Then when we kissed, I…didn’t feel anything and I realized my mistake,” I admitted, apologetically.  Wasn’t this kind of like a slap in the face to him?  I looked at him with a sad smile.  “Not like when I kiss my Kyung,” I added in a mumble.  He looked back at me for a second before he smiled, genuinely.

            A wintry breeze chose that time to blow through, sending shivers through me and making Hyun Joong pull the zipper on his coat up higher.  “I hope you work things out with him,” he said after a moment.

            Wow, could you make this any worse by being any nicer?

            “Thank you,” I sighed.  “But I think I really messed up.”

            He shook his head.  “I can tell you this as a fact because I’m a guy and, let’s face it, we really aren’t that complex,” he said as a matter of factly.  “Has he broken up with you yet?”  I shook my head.  “Have you talked to him since then?” 

            “He ignored me for a little while, but I talked to him yesterday.  Well, sort of.”

            “Sort of?” he questioned, turning a little in his seat to face me.

            I hung my head.  “He wasn’t really talking much.  I was trying so hard to get him to say something, but he was so calm and cool, I was getting really mad, so I kind of jumped at him and pinned him down and yelled at him.  Then we kind of…wrestled for a while…”  Hmm, this doesn’t sound any better reliving it the second time.  “But then we talked for a bit.  And then he asked me to leave.”

            Hyun Joong cleared his throat.  I’m pretty sure he was stifling his laughter.  “But, he didn’t break up with you?”

            “Right.”

            “And it’s been how long since the ball?  A long time, right?  Weeks,” he replied before I could answer.  “Trust me.  He may be really angry, but not enough to break up with you.  If he wanted to, he would have by now.  Guys aren’t that deep.  If he was done, he would have told you so.  Or some guys are just too much of a coward to tell girls it’s over, in that case, he would have just not spoken to you.  Not done a damn thing.  He would have continued to ignore you, no matter what.  He wouldn’t have let you talk to him and he sure as hell wouldn’t have wrestled you or talked to you afterwards.”

            I was getting really quite sick of everyone and his brother telling me that everything is going to be alright when they actually have no idea.  It’s not possible for them to know that as positively as they think they do.  “But he told me to leave.”

            “He’s mad at you,” Hyun Joong laughed.  “Don’t worry.  Everything’s going to be ok.  Believe me.  I’m a guy, remember?”

            I nodded slowly.  “You’re really nice, Hyun Joong.”

            He jumped off the ledge and grinned down at me.  “Maybe one day, after you make up with your boyfriend, we can be friends.  I promise I won’t try to kiss you and if we ever end up doing a partner project again, tell your boyfriend he’s welcome to hang out with us.  If he can’t, we can meet in public only.”  He held out his hand.  I shook it, unable to resist his smile.

            “Thank you, Hyun Joong.”

            He shrugged and stuffed his cold hand back into his pocket.  “Have a nice Christmas, ok?”  I just nodded.

            And he walked away.

            I could only stand shopping for another hour or so, before two things happened.  My hands began to turn blue and I just wasn’t into it anymore.  I didn’t want to start getting thoughtless and buy a bunch of stupid gifts.

            By the time I got back to the dorm, only one more week and then I could mope around at home, I wasn’t hungry so I told the girls I wanted to wrap gifts.  Which wasn’t a total lie.

            Ok, it was.  But I needed to go back to mopping again for different reasons now.

            When they returned, I was sitting on the couch, mopping in front of the TV.  Amelia bounced into the room ahead of the others and plopped down next to me.  “Hi,” she grinned, dropping an arm around my shoulders.

            “What’s going on?” I asked flatly, eyeing all three girls suspiciously as they sat down.

            “How are you?” Jordan asked.

            “What’s going on?” I repeated.

           “Block b is going to be on a show and we want to watch it,” Beki blurted out.  I laughed despite myself.

            “This is the only TV we have and you’re, what, worried I’ll have a break down?” I wondered.  Jordan grinned as cutely as she could.  I sighed.

            “I want to watch it, too,” I said, moving over when Amelia scooted closer to me so Jordan and Beki could fit after they decided they watching this would be better if the four of us were crushed together on a three person couch.

            The show started and it was a regular celebrity show, I thought.  The Block b members were given hand held cameras and were allowed to wander around various places.  Their dorm, their management building, all over.  They were funny and comfortable, like we knew they were in real life.  I lay my head on Amelia’s shoulder, silently, when Kyung’s part came on.  Beki stretched an arm around the back of the couch to play with my pony tail in a sisterly way and Jordan linked her arm with mine on my other side. 

            It was nice to have friends like these, but I wanted my Kyung back.

            Then things took a turn for the worse for my mental stability.

            The Block b members wandered into a girl group’s practice room.  The male and female MC following them.  Both groups made chit chat and did little, cutsey dances for each other.  One particular member from the girl group chose Kyung as her favorite when they were talking.  Beki cleared and laughed a little too loudly when one girl said that Yu Kwon was the cutest.  Jae Hyo made some sarcastic comment that sent both groups into a fit of laughter.  Zico was asked to choose his favorite girl member.  He chose the girl leader.  Jordan scoffed and said, “She’s his favorite?  Not what he said last night.”  I giggled with the other girls.  I admired her confidence in him.

            Then the female MC cut in.

            “Wow, look!  Block b has seven members and A Pink has seven members!” she cheered.  “Let’s play a game!”

            “What kind of game do you think we should play?” the male MC questioned, clearly rehearsed.

            “The Pepero Game!” the female MC cried out, holding up a box of Pepero sticks that had miraculously appeared in her grasp.

            Even Jordan’s giggle sounded forced when we heard that one.

A/N...in case you don't know what the pepero game is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=272x75jQTS0 , that's an example of what I'm talking about, I've seen lots of kpop idols play this haha it's super cute...I'm not very good at explaining it haha :)