J'ai la tête comme du coton. (Jun In) – My head feels like cotton. I'm tossing and turning a few times before I open up my eyes. I'm feeling tight and my back is aching... What's happening? My body numb, I'm feeling as if I have slept on a carpet full of needles and around me, everything is turning around, so much that I don't dare waking up. It's Saturday, I can allow myself to sleep a little more... No. There's something wrong about that all. Almost despite me, I slowly open up my eyes. The rooms have no windows on the outside, just a little one up high in front of the bed, letting a bit of light coming through from the corridor. Yet, in the subtle dark of advanced dawn, I can see I have slept with my clothes on. On the floor, with my sleeping bag. The television is still on, the sound low at its max and the pictures on it playing for no one. I'm sitting with a smirk, reach my hand towards the small round button and press it before I nonchanlantly let myself fall back on the floor, this time to face my bed. Why did I sleep on the floor?

An answer appears in front of my eyes wide open. A feminine arm is exceeding the box springs and seems to be levitating above me. Silky skin and smart nails. Everything is coming back to me. Mi Yeon, her key problem, our night spent laughing, drinking and eating, how I insisted for her to get the bad and not the sleeping bag, how I convinced her by palying the fool... Moron!

I'm sitting back in a rush. I'm feeling as if I was on a merry-go-round and in my head, I almost can hear a stridulent bell resounding. Maybe I shouldn't have drink all those beer bottles. I'm slipping my hand into my hair. In the back of my head, I can feel a cowlick arising between my fingers. I surely have a deathly complexion of someone who haven't ate enough, but drank too much and have spent the night in some hovel. I'm stretching my hand to my mouth and blow... Very bad surprise.

My eyes are diverging from my disheveled aspect to Mi Yeon lying on my bed between the sheets. She's peacefully sleeping, her breath regular. She looks like filled with serenity of a child in the middle of a good dream. Her face is so adorable that it makes me want to it, to feel its softness under my fingers. At any moment, she might wake up and notice what are the scales of the damages.

In front of my family or friends, it does not matter to me to know what I look like in the morning. But Mi Yeon... I want to impress her a little. I know there's something going on between us, something indescribbable floating in the air when I'm in front of her and she's in front of me. Maybe I'm completely wrong, maybe not. I don't even know if I want to know or if I want to keep thinking a string is slowly twisting itself around us two and to mix our both destinies. All that I know is that if she ever sees me in such a pity state, things could be changing and, unfortunately, not for the better.

The over-closeness between us is stopping me from acting the way I would like to. The least little violent nois might get her out of her peaceful rest, the restorative sleep of those who are lucky enough to have spent a night in a real bed. I'm acting the same way than if I was in weightlessness. In my closet, I'm flushing out the trendiest pieces I can possess. Here, looks are very important to girls. They like boys with a smart aspect and are not quite attracted by those who look slob. The choice of my clothes are to make being careful.

One last glance to my bed. Mi Yeon is shaking. She's tossing, face in front of the wall and wraps the cover around her, as if she was trying to protect herself from something. She's burying her face under my cushion. There's just a matter of seconds before she opens up her eyes. I'm grabbing my key still on the lock, take a towel and my shower stuff as quickly as I can and slips myself out of the room.

My keys are falling at my feet and I'm cursing while picking them up. It's making the ajumma passing me by, with a carry bag under her arms, laugh. I often wondered what their rooms look like, to those ageless women living here all year long, just like me. Don't they have a family to accomodate them? What are their personal stories? I'm asking myself these questions as I'm walking to the shared bathroom where, how lucky, the both showers are free.

For the about fifteen residents of our floor, there only are two shower stalls. They both close with some kind of slinding doors to block with a hook, but the hooks are rusted and don't work. No minor incident have ever happened, basically, when you see the doors closed, it means someone's using the toilets or the showers but I'm likely to be wise. I'm pretty modest and I hate the idea someone not informed could open the door inadvertently and would find myself in my birthday suit.

I'm putting my clothes on the closed bowl, hanging my towel at the hooks by the door and put my goods on the tiny washbasin of the angle. That's my morning routine. I know people here most of the time are showering at night but I can't do that, except in the summertime when the heat is unbearable. I would feel as if I would be walking around with a thick layer of grease all over my body if I wouldn't do that in the morning. That's an important ritual for me, that's the moment I'm getting prepared to slip myself into a Korean's skin. Sheltered from the eyes, in my room, at night, I drift to my American habits. But once I'm outside among the crowd, with my slanted eyes and my ebony-colored hair, I know the illusion is perfect. For everyone, I'm a Korean boy and I have to behave as one. What the world sees is me but not the real me, and me but not the real me asks a certain preparation. So I take my time at the shower to do the transformation.

However, today is a special day. I'm that other version of me and at the same time, I'm the real Moon Jun In. I don't want to fool Mi Yeon. I want that, if there ever been a chance she would be interested about me, it would be for some good reasons. I want it to be for who I really am, flaws, qualities, origins and influences all-included. If she's got time, maybe I could ask her to come with me in the city, even if I'm supposed to be writing this afternoon. A little break never hurt anyone.

My towel around my hips and the other on my head, I'm actively massaging my hair to dry it. There's no mirror so that's impossible to know exactly what I'm looking like. I only hope I have upgraded myself with that little clean-up in order. I'm wearing my slim black jeans, torn all along with thin studied cracks, a light black sweater and a long wool black jacket with a thick scarf around my neck. Simple, upwind but not fashion victim. If I have understood her characyer well, it might impress her a little. I absolutely want her to look at me with satisfied eyes. That's mechanics I'm starting to understand only once it's launched : I want her to like me. I want her to try to know who I am, to make sure this fortuitous meeting would be more than a pleasant disgression in our lives well oiled.

I'm fixing up my hair as I can and get out. A blond girl is putting laundy in the washing machine alvailable to the residents. She's smiling me by the way and I can see she's got nice blue-green eyes. Her kindness shows my appearance might fit. I'm brushing my teeth above the other small washbasin in which the ajummas usually spit at night - that's a typically Korean habit I can hardly understand... Dad never spitted - and the young girl is tapping my shoulder. She wants me to explain her how the machine is working. She has chose the right moment...

A few minutes later, I'm sinking my key in my room's lock and shove the door. I don't know what I should be expecting. Maybe Mi Yeon would be still sleeping, maybe she would already have waken up, all I know is that caught in the moment, my intentions are to ask her what are her plans for the afternoon, so I can extend last night and convert the try.

The light is on. Mi Yeon is sitting on my bed, her laps folded under her bottom. She's leafing through the magazine I'm writing for, her dress crumpled on her legs, her long smooth hair a bit tangled. She's smiling at me, with a smiling cacthing me off-guard. She's still so lovely, even this way. I've got some kind of revelation... I really like her. In a short time, something has been wakin up inside of me while close to her. It's pleasant and scary at the same time.

I'm putting my stuff back, asking her whether she had slept well or not, if she would like to have a breakfast. Behind my back, I can hear her sighing.

"I'm sorry, Jun In. I have called the manager and he's there. He waits for me to open my room's door. I wanted to wait for you to be back from the shower to tell you."

I'm feeling as if a huge rock had just crashed against me. In a few words, she has destroyed a whole slow and meticulous work, a ray of hppe in the darkness which slowly started to appear in front of me. No matter what there could have been between us last night, not matter that string spinned around us two. She never came all the way down here to get to know me better. She came because she was in trouble and I was the only one who could help her. How could I forget such an elementary precision?

My back her, I'm making sure my voice wouldn't betray my deception, pretending to tidy things in my drawer.

"It's very nice of you to have wait for me."

Behind me, I can hear her clothes slipping against my sheets, the bed laths splitting. I'm closing my drawer, my heart made of lead, but that's a comforting smile I'm giving her when we meet face to face again. She's bowing very politely and it's making me feel uneasy. Last night, we were like friends. This morning, with restrain, she's treating me as if I was an elder from school.

"Thanks a lot for helping me. Without you, I don't even know what I would have done. It was so nice."

I can't believe everything is going to stop like that. I know that if I want to hold her back, it's up to me to do so, after all, she can't guess what's on my mind if I don't let it show. I should be doing something but something is keeping myself from it. Words are jostling in my head, in my throat but never cross the limit of my lips. I'm standing here, in front of her, smiling at her but the thought isn't there. I don't know why I seem to expect everything to come from her. Maybe that's because I don't want to take a risk to be turned down. Being in the dark seem to have a warm and comforting side.

She's putting her hands on the latch, opens the door. In a few seconds, she will be gone and who know when will be my next chance to be so close to her? I'm cursing myself not to do anything and to let that chance slipping through my fingers. I'm feeling as if I was a statue in my own body. One last time, she turns to me and smile, her cheeks filling out, colored pink.

"Thanks again. You really are someone good. I will never forget what you have done for me."

Mi Yeon is closing the door behind her in silence. I can't even hear her steps in the corridor. She's gone and I haven't said a word, not even to make her understand how much I have enjoyed spending that night with her. My legs feel like foam, my arms like scrap iron bits and pieces. With limpness, I'm dragging myself to my bed and let myself fall flat on it. On the pillow besind me, remains the fragrance of her vanilla perfume. My only memory from what I have let slipped through my fingers.