Chapter III            Ever Beauty

The bus made an abrupt stop, Eun Jun, Cha Min, and Mari all stepped out of the city bus with a frown plastered on their faces.

“My weekend is ruined!” Eun Jun was the first to say anything after a short silent walk.

“Ugh, I was so looking forward to finishing my SNSD fan poster!” Cha Min commented.

“I was going to see grandmother Heo, she was finally going to come home after visiting Aunt Park in Jeju!” Mari whined. “And I know she is going to bring me a souvenir, she always does.” Mari pouted.

Cha Min looked over at Mari with her puffy pouted cheeks sticking out. “Aigoo!” he couldn’t resist and squeezed them.

“Ah,” she slapped his hands away. “Stop it, it ain’t cute!”

“Yes it is!” Puffy cheeks!” he kept squeezing them while Mari tried to pull away.

“Would you two idiots stop acting cheesy?!” Eun Jun sounded annoyed making them stop immediately, both stared at her and soon Eun Jun’s face began to get heated. “Y-you two look so disgusting together…like an actual couple!” she turned away from her friends.

“Wha?” Mari quickly pulled away feeling herself grow hot.

The rest of the walk was awkward as all three were silent, two girls feeling hot with embarrassment and a boy who felt somewhat confused by their silent treatment.

“Hey kids, home so early?” all three looked up to see Mari’s mother, Yoo Min with a broom in her hand standing near her flower shop.

“Omma!” Mari ran over to her mother with a displeased look. “How could you?”

“How could I what?” she stared at her daughter confused.

“How could you make me take a two day trip?” Mari huffed disappointed.

“Oh, that. Well, I thought it’ll be great to have you not around all the time.” Her mother quickly put a hand over as Mari gave her an expression of surprised and offended. “Honey what I mean is that well you’ve done enough here and you barely go out and I want you to get more time somewhere else besides coming home for the weekends and staying home! Wouldn’t you like going out once in a while?”

Mari realized she couldn’t argue with her mother’s words, because she was right Mari really did want to get out of the house and not just keep alternating to school, work, and then home every day. “Well I guess I’ve compressed myself to be around three locations all the time.” She agreed. “Ugh, ok mom I’ll take this trip in consideration.”

“You don’t have to, I already did!” her mother quickly pulled a bag out from behind the shop door and threw it into Mari’s arms.

“You already packed for me?!” Mari’s mouth fell open. “Ugh, now I know how much you love me.” She sighed with annoyance in her tone.

“Ok bye! You three have fun!” Yoo Mi quickly waved and shut the flower shop door behind her as she walked inside.

“Aish that woman sometimes…” Mari nodded her head as she opened her bag to see what was all packed in there.

“Well I wonder how my parents are going to kick me out of my house for the two day trip.” Cha Min wondered.

“I bet my parents already have my stuff out the door.” Eun Jun said as she began to walk off to the direction of her house. “See you guys in an hour!”

“Well I better go get packed then, that is if my parents haven’t already did that for me.” Cha Min began walking towards the direction to his house.

Mari eyed her watch only to see it was barely 12:05. ‘This is going to be one long hour.’ She noticed she was partially alone only with a cat walking on the other side of the street. ‘What do I do in one hour?’

Lotte Mall

Mari ascended the electric staircase and began walking gradually seeing a few teenage stores.

“Now, where can I find the outdoor stores?” she said trying to look for a nearby map and finally spotted a large one in the middle of the crowded hall.

She went up and touched it surprised that it zoomed in at the store she accidently pointed at. “Oh whoa, it’s a touch screen map. How cool! Wait am I really not with the times anymore, because last time I came they didn’t have these!”

She zoomed out and began her search for outdoor department stores. “Ah here in second floor is the, Good Sporting Outdoors dep. Good I just have to make a right then.” She began to run to the directions the map gave her and found that the store was indeed around the corner. “Huh, very easy.”

Mari felt a rather large yet short body bump into her. “Ah,” she was taken aback by the sudden impact.

“Watch were you are going! Stupid girl!” the older chuuby woman snapped at her as she walked away in a hurry.

“Jesus, have old ladies absolutely lost their manners nowadays?!” she called out but the woman soon disappeared out of sight. Mari began to walk in the store until she felt something crack under her shoe.

She slowly removed her foot to see she stepped on a silver ring. “Oh no I stepped on it.” Mari lowered herself to pick it up. Before she turned away from the ring she noticed an inscription in it.

To our Ever Beauty. –KimShimLeeJoNo

“What does that even mean?” Mari took a look around to see many pedestrians walking and talking. She slipped the broken ring in her pocket and proceed into the store.

“Now to buy me some bug repellent.”

Sorry guys there was no action in this chapter but their will be soon I PROMISE! It's just this is all of what I can make today. I hope you enjoyed the mystery in this chapter and who is the Ever Beauty anyways? Looks like you are going to find out later in my upcoming chapters guys!