The bedroom's window was tilted, letting the sound of morning traffic in. And hot and humid air of a warm day after a rainy night.
I woke up alone, yet did not feeling lonely. I wondered why and remembered.

My mind displayed Winja like I had just seen her seconds ago and quickly turned memories into imaginations. In my mind's eye she woke up right now, just like me. She looked around a little confused about my place but then she remembered and quickly sat up. The shirt of mine she had worn to sleep reached her thighs as she got out of bed, stretched and yawned. I saw her red hair glowing in the sunlight.

It was time to get up and check if her hair really looked as soft and voluminous as my mind was telling me. The wrist watch on my bedside table said "11:43 o'clock".

Time for breakfast.

I sauntered into the bathroom thinking about what I wanted to say to her. There was so much I needed to know about her and I so much I wished to show her about me.

"I think any good musician is free to make whatever music he wants to make", I would say and she would reply:

"Yes, but only after proving, beforehand, that he can do anything with his skills and creativity. Only then can we see that he is choosing and not just stuck in his path."
She was so smart. She brought knew ideas to me, knew viewpoints, knew visions...

I did everything to make sure I smelled fresh and clean, cursed at the hair on the back of my head that was especially stubborn today and would not stay down smoothly but spring up again after brushing it.

If she likes you, she likes you. If she doesn't like you because of a little bit of frizzy hair, she obviously does not like you at all, I told myself and eventually entered the living room feeling self-conscious but also determined.

My hair is frizzy at the back and I'm proud!

But my initial enthusiasm dropped very rapidly as I found the living room empty. Reality shoved all imagination away. I stood alone again.
That she might be just in the kitchen was a dream that immediately got destroyed when my eyes found the letter on the table, stuck under an empty cup of tea.

With bare feet and hanging shoulders I shuffled over to it and gently freed the letter to raise it into the sunlight.

Hello, Sunggyu-san!

I need to go home early before my family worries too much. I borrowed the photo of your friends and you.
Hope you don't mind.

Hope you don't mind..., I re-read the sentence with utter irritation. How could I not mind?!
Who did she think she was, sneaking into my car, sleeping in my house and then stealing the picture that she knew was so dear to me?
My jaw was clenched as I read on.

If you want it back, I suggest you can pick me up for a date next Wednesday after lunch, blue apartment at Ikutama Park.

See you,

Winja

I blinked and read the letter again and I shook my head. It was no use. The letter was as real as my fingertips that touched it. And those words written there were so cheeky, so blunt and so much like Winja.
I was as amazed as I was upset.

I suggest you can pick me up for a date, that was the most brazen thing I had ever heard but I could not feel any anger. Instead, I laughed.
I stood in my own living room, in washed out clothes, completely alone and laughed at the letter in my hand.

The amusement was still pulling on the corners of my mouth as I folded the letter carefully and stashed it into the notebook where I also hid the songs I wrote.
It was hard to believe for me how much I liked that girl. She had tricked me. She made herself interesting, even mysterious by acting so controversial. I asked myself how much she had actually told me about herself yesterday and more importantly what had been the truth among it.

"I'm accepting your challenge, Winja.", I whispered and my mind's eye saw a Winja who looked at me provocatively, motioning me to come closer.
But I would not follow. I would catch her and turn her around to me. It was time for my move.

When does she eat lunch? At 2 o'clock or later. She's on vacation so it might be earlier. 12 o'clock maybe?
It'll be very embarrassing if I'm way too early. It will look like I was waiting all week to see her which I did not, only whenever I had nothing to focus on like when I got up, ate breakfast, went to work, ate dinner...
But what if I'm too late and she has gone out with other friends already when I arrive? I bet she has many friends. She could have other male friends, too. Am I even her friend yet?

The caprice of the ways of my mind the follo