I stayed at the hospital for another day, only feeling ready and eager to go home by the time it was Sunday evening. I finished all my homework at the hospital, even though it felt weird and pointless to read the brail homework assignments when I could now clearly see which letter was which without touching. 

Umma took me home before dinner on Sunday. She talked a lot, and of course she struggled to drive straight as she did so.

I was barely listening. I sat in the passenger's seat with my chin on the lowered window, staring around me at the whirlwind of colors and shapes. Everything zipped by so quickly, and everything was so gorgeous. Since it was late October, the sky was decorated with falling leaves, which boasted rich shades of gold, brown, red, orange, and yellow. There was so much going on at each house we drove past, but I hardly had time to decide on the color before we passed it.

"I can't believe it!" my umma sang, grinning over at me.

"Eyes on the road, Umma!"

"Sorry. You can see, Kookie! You can read and write and draw and watch movies and look at scenery and just...ugh!" she didn't stop smiling once that evening.

I grinned back at her, feeling my heart bounce and skip all around in my chest. I knew we were in debt because of the surgery, but my parents' happiness was worth it. My happiness was worth it.

I thought about Jimin a lot more than was probably normal. He had only hung out in my room for a half hour or so, but he had left a rather....significant impression on me. It must have been because he was such a good-looking person. That was it, right? Jimin was good-looking. Even twenty-four hours after he left and a whole car ride worth of sights later, I still hadn't found anything more beautiful than him.

Maybe that would be a problem later, but I liked to picture him in my mind. I liked to think about his red shirt, brown hair, golden skin, and young face. He was a treat to my noob eyes, and all I wanted was to get another glance at him and make sure my mind wasn't playing tricks on me about his looks. He really couldn't have been so many times more gorgeous than every other person I had seen.

I decided to blame it on the fact that I hadn't yet seen any other teenagers and pushed the thought of Seokjin's friend aside.

...

That theory destroyed itself pretty quickly the next day.

At school, I did nothing but stare unblinkingly at other people, not even caring how creepy it looked. I looked at people's outfits, hair, shoes, backpacks, skin, but most of all I looked for Jimin. I looked for Jimin and I looked for his red shirt. I wasn't sure where the odd visual obsession I had with the boy stemmed from, but I was just going to roll with it. I had been wrong - none of these teenagers were as good-looking as Jimin.

My "friends" from slightly special ed weren't the prettiest on the eyes. A lot of them had snot hanging out of their noses or giant, braces-bearing teeth that were full of crud. A few growled at me when our teachers told them I was going to be switching to building one soon.

Seokjin was going to come up to our literature class last hour and help me start to learn how to read. That was one of the things I was most excited to do. I knew how basic grammar and sentence structure worked, but I had no idea how to read the alphabet. I could recognize Korean letters without a problem, but how to write them? I didn't have the slightest clue.

While I was busy holding a pencil a centimeter away from my face and examining the lines of the wood, I felt a pat on my right shoulder.

I in a deep breath. "Jeesh, I almost poked my eye out!"

"Would have been a shame after they just started working again," a familiar voice chuckled.

I stared at the new face with shock. "Holy...Seokjin?"

He grinned and reached out to shake my hand. "Nice to see you, Jungkook."

Seokjin had light, smooth skin, maybe even smoother than Jimin's, and plump pink lips. His hair was dark and tidy, framing a delicate and sweet looking face. He was younger-looking than I had predicted, but no less good looking. "Hey, you're pretty handsome."

Seokjin just laughed and sat down across from me. "Thanks, not so bad yourself."

I cringed at the memory of looking into the mirror. Seeing my own face for the first time had been the strangest experience of my life. I stood there in the bathroom for twenty minutes straight gazing at myself, observing the plump curve of my nose, how blindingly white I was compared to Jimin (the only other teenager I had seen at the time), how ginormous and scared-looking my eyes were, how my chubby cheeks made me look younger than sixteen, and how I had a permanent expression of fear. It didn't take much imagination to figure out where my nicknames came from.

"When I saw myself for the first time..." I just looked at Seokjin and scrunched up my nose. "Nah."

"You're a cute person, Kookie," he assured me, pulling some books out of his backpack. "So how was the surgery?"

"I don't remember. I was completely knocked out all day on Saturday. It still aches though," I admitted.

"Oh, I forgot that Jimin went and talked to you...did you get to say anything to him? Or did the nurses kick him out?"

I hated how my cheeks flushed at the very mention of my conversation with Jimin. I was putting way too much fictional value in that first meeting - my imagination was getting the better of me. "He talked to me. He was really chill, actually."

Seokjin grinned as he opened up his book, and I studied his teeth. They might have been the whitest teeth I had ever seen. "Jimin is one of my best buddies. I love that kid. I'm glad you talked to him."

"Me too," I said. Anxious to change the subject from my weird visual obsession, I leaned towards Seokjin's book and began to learn.

Reading wasn't too difficult for me, since I already knew how to comprehend