Chapter I - First Impressions

What the hell is up with this girl?

I glanced beside me and saw her mumbling to herself as she clutches that rabbit-fetus stuffed toy close to her chest. Is she seriously talking to that ugly thing with eyes as buttons??

Normally I wouldn't give a damn about weird people like her being like this in public but because of her incessant mumbles, I can't frigging sleep and take a nap!

I rolled my eyes and groaned to myself as I heard her say, "Tamtam-ah, are you comfy there? Or do you want to eat? Eomma will buy you food~"

What in the world?!

"Christ…" I whispered to myself thinking she wouldn't notice, but I guess I was wrong when I saw from the corner of my eyes that she turned her head towards me.

"Excuse me, did you just say something, Mister?"

I glanced my eyes towards her without turning my head, and I think I saw her flinch seeing as how I'm glaring at her.

She has wide almond eyes, curled hair that just reaches her shoulders, cute nose and a round-shaped face. She looks like she's just around her early 20's. Maybe that explains her childish antics of talking to inanimate objects. She's really cute, but too bad she's such a weird girl and she's annoying the hell out of me.

I hate anything or anyone annoying.

"Do you always talk to non-living things like that without considering that you're in a public place?" I asked her, perhaps in a really mean way, because right then I see her expression turn from polite and curious, to pissed and offended. And her cheeks started to redden too. Which made her hella lot cuter.

Her brows knit together and meet on the center as she folded her arms, "Yah. Did you just talked down at me? Where are your manners kid? Is that how your parents raised you? How old are you?" She fired all the questions at me in one go, and I didn't fail to notice how her polite soft voice turned into ahjumma-nagging voice.

What the hell?

I raised my eyebrow at her, because I'm pretty sure this girl is nowhere near 25 years old, and yet she's acting like she's a whole lot older than me.

Okay so maybe that means a good thing because I guess I am baby-faced enough to be mistaken as younger than she is, but still the tone she used doesn't sit very well on me.

"Excuse you, I know I look younger than what I look like, I'm baby-faced anyways, but let me break this to you. I'm older than you are by at least 2 years, so I think I have the right to talk down at you especially when you're antics are annoying the hell out of me and preventing me of my well-deserved nap time during this flight," I paused as I saw a smirk creep up her non-lipstick-ed lips. I quickly shifted my gaze back up to her eyes, praying to everything that's holy that she didn't notice me check out her lips just a second ago. "So I hope you don't mind, maybe you could tone down your mumblings a little so I can get a piece of quiet and take my nap before we land because I need lots of energy for my very tight itinerary," I finished as I leaned my head back on my headrest and started to put on my eye mask.

"You know, for a boy, you sure do talk a lot," I heard her say beside me with an obvious sarcastic politeness in her tone, and I can tell without looking at her that her voice is full of amusement.

I decided to ignore her comment as I put down my eye mask. I do get that comment a lot. I mean, I'm from the advertising field, where my bullets for survival are my words and my charms besides my imagination and creativity. But of course I don't feel like I have the need to explain my talkativeness to this weird girl. It's not like I should care about what she thinks about me. It's not like I'm ever going to see her again after this flight, so what's the point?

I plugged in my headphones connected to the panel on my front. It's playing instrumental piano music right now. Ahhh.. Perfect. This should effortlessly put me to sleep.

Just as I was about to let Yiruma's "River Flows in You" sink in through my system and make me relax, someone rudely pulled off my earphone and I jolted straight up on my seat out of surprise. I pulled up my eye mask and I saw her leaning so close to me, her face a few inches away from my ear. So close that I can feel her warm breath on my skin. I feel the hair on the back of my nape raise, and my sense are all hyperaware of everything about her.

"Listen boy, I think you might have mistaken my age. All I'm telling you is, no, I don't think you are baby-faced, but yes I am pretty sure I'm older than you are, so better fix those manners of yours, will you?" She paused and again I felt her breath on my ear.

"Personal space, do you mind?" I said in a panicked voice, and I can practically hear my heart pounding through my ears. I wanted to push her away but it seems I lost all control of my limbs and my muscles.

I see her smirk back at me again, but this time, it did intimidate me because she did look older than me with that way she smirked. She finally leaned away, but not before reaching out to me and putting back my earphones and pulling down my sleeping eye mask.

I slowly leaned back on my headrest, as I tried my hardest to calm myself down.

This woman is crazy.

She's ing crazy.

And yes I am now convinced she is older than me.

Dammit.  I hate it when I realize I'm wrong.

oOoOo

"To our dear passengers, please fasten your seatbelts. We are now about to land Manila, Philippines in a few minutes. Please watch the screens on your front panels for the demonstration on how to secure your seatbelts. You may also ask the assistance of our flight attendants---"

I haven't slept a wink during the entire flight, since she pulled off my earphones and removed my eye masks and put them back again. I didn't remove them then and pretended to be asleep than have myself experience more of her craziness. Thankfully, the next hours were uneventful.

So here I am pathetically trying to make myself look convincing in pretending to be asleep. I tried to even out my breathing. But when I heard the inflight passenger announcement by the pilot of the plane that we are now about to land already, I removed my eye mask to start re-fastening my seat belt and fix myself.

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