If you asked me if liked Kim Bum from the get go, I would have flat out answered ‘no’. I wouldn’t deny that I found him inarguably good-looking, in a reformed bad boy kind of way, the moment I laid eyes on him. With his well-defined features that bordered between boyish and manly and sinfully attractive smile, he had what it takes to make the ladies’ drop. However, he gave off a repulsively cocky vibe that instantly threw me off. It wasn’t that he did anything particularly offensive to me, but how he seemed to make others feel that he was better than them and know how to use his good looks to his advantage really got into my nerves. Not to mention how he acted as if he were an A-lister, even though he debuted only in 2006 (which makes me his sunbae, ha!), made my blood boil like crazy. Add to those were rumors about him being an iljin who beat the crap out of his classmates in high school. Alarmingly shady, I must say.

I would never forget my displeasure when he was teamed up with me and Ara in an acting task. On the one hand, I was thrilled that I would be working with Ara as she and I instantly hit it off when we sat next to each other on the first day of classes. On the other hand, I already had a reason to dread working on that task. Things were painfully awkward at first, but thanks to Ara’s gregarious self, the ice was broken. As the weeks went by, Bum didn’t turn out to be the jerk that I thought he was. It dawned on me that he was just an extreme perfectionist. He had this meticulous streak that could annoy the hell out of anyone, but those who were able to look past his condescending demeanor would know that he could be one of the sweetest guys ever. At that point, I couldn’t care less whether those shady rumors about him were true or not. What mattered was how he proved my reservations about him wrong.

Although the acting task had come to an end (and to our delight, it was a success), the three of us would still regularly hang out. Other fellow actors, such as Park Shin Hye and Kang Ha Neul, were also part of the ’08 batch in the Film and Theatre Department of Chung-Ang University and I did consider them to be good friends of mine, especially Ha Neul, but Ara and Bum became my constants. Bum would occasionally hang out with the boys, but he always ended up spending majority of his time with us. Since the three of us were conspicuously inseparable, we were hailed as the ‘Tight Trio’. However, Ara constantly insisted that she was nothing but a third wheel because she had always sensed a budding romance between me and Bum. Despite her relentless teasing and cajoling, both of us would just laugh it off and act as if we weren’t the least bit affected by any of it.

But both of us knew deep down that Ara’s observations weren’t exactly groundless. Well…at least on my part. I honestly had no idea how it all began, but the more time I spent with Bum and got to know him, the stronger my feelings grew. I did try to shrug it off and forcefully convince myself that it was just one of those school girl crushes that I would eventually grow out of, but my emotions always betrayed me. Even the most mundane gestures such as holding the door for me and bringing me food (okay fine, for both me and Ara) could already send me into a frenzy. It wasn’t really supposed to be too big of a deal, yet something told me that the feeling was mutual. I was never one to assume, but you know what they say about a woman’s instinct. It could never go wrong.