소녀, 사랑을 찾아봐 [haesica, hyohyuk, hyosica, R]
Title: 소녀, 사랑을 찾아봐
Pairing: HaeSica, HyoHyuk, HyoSica
Rating: R
Summary: Jessica tries to find love and gets lost in the process. (Sort of AU follow-up to 소녀, 사랑을 만나다.)
Note: I wrote this for my creative writing class, again. I wanted to write something about a girl lost in love, and I was particularly interested in doing it about a Korean girl trying to find love in all these different places, and in looking at my past stuff, I thought I'd do a follow up to the story about Krystal, but take it out of the entertainment business and into just a regular life, and so Jessica struck me as the right person to try this with, so there's all different people she loves: in the US, in Korea, boys, girls, etc. Enjoy! And please tell me what you think, since this is something I worked long and hard on and is more than just fanfiction.
The first time Jessica falls in love, she is five years old and her name is still Sooyeon. Her kindergarten teacher is tall and handsome, with sandy hair that falls over his darker eyes and pale skin that instantly has her smitten. He pronounces her name correctly, unlike the stout lady who shows her the classroom, and makes sure she has a good place to sit. He smiles when he speaks to her and makes sure that he goes slowly enough for her to understand. She hasn’t been in the US long, but with Mr. Strider there for her, everything is easier. When she goes home after her first day at school, she tells her little sister not to worry about entering school. Her sister looks up at her with a crease in her brow and asks her to repeat that, please, in Korean.
The second time Jessica falls in love, she is fourteen years old. She’s gone by her English name for the past seven years and she’s grown used to her life in California. She’s dating a boy in her class named Michael, and when he kisses her behind the pool shed at Sarah’s birthday party, she swears she sees stars. The hot June sun beats on her shoulders as he sloppily stick his tongue in her mouth and it feels weird and too wet, but there’s a little stirring in her stomach and she smiles afterwards and waits for him to turn away before wiping the spit off her mouth. She holds his hand as the walk back to the pool and blushes when their friends whistle at them. He splashes her with water as she sits by the side of the pool and she thinks that maybe she loves him, even though she is young. They break up when school starts for no reason other than that they lose interest and need to move on. Jessica cries for one night and then goes to school the next day. She’s not even jealous when she sees a girl from another class flirting with Michael. When she comes back home in the afternoon, her mother tells her that it’s better this way. “It’s not natural to date a white boy, anyway, Sooyeon,” she says in Korean. “You’ll find a good Korea boy when you’re older.”
Jessica moves back to Seoul with her family when she is sixteen. They arrive in early August and Jessica thinks she has never been somewhere so hot before. The rain falls down in hard showers all day long and she goes through three umbrellas in the first week they’re there. It’s a hard transition, back into using only Korean, no English. The 아주마들1 at the street food vendors stare at her when she orders. They pour water over her 떡볶이2 to make it less spicy, even if she asks them not to. It’s a funny talent the people in Korea have: even if you look like them, they can tell if you’re a foreigner, and as much as Jessica hates it, she is a foreigner. She spent too long in California. The palm trees and American sun radiate from her skin and the people of Seoul sense it, like a bat senses insects in the night sky. They pick her out easily and watch her as she walks by, fascinated by the contrast of the Korean face and American attitude. She works hard to become Korean again, to react when she’s called by her real name.
When she starts school, the girl sitting next to her has a round and flat face and calls her 양키3 . The fast slurring words of the professor confuse her and she tries her best to keep up, but this is not like kindergarten. There is no Mr. Strider to guide her through, and when she asks her professor after class if she can have some extra help, he just waves her away, telling her to pay more attention. The other students try to speak to her in their badly accented English and she does her best to reply only in Korean. She needs to show them that she is Korean, not American. She needs to show them so that she can prove it to herself. She immerses herself in her studies and in learning all the names of the pop stars. She only eats Korean food, and makes sure it’s extra spicy, even if it makes her nose run and her eyes water. Her sister has no trouble jumping back into Korean life. Jessica finds it hard to believe that she could remember being in Korea in the first place, but her sister has always been more versatile, more adaptable. Her sister doesn’t get the same types of looks as Jessica does. Her tongue is more receptive to the odd spiciness of 김치4 and the strange tang of 보리차5, and Jessica can’t help but feel jealous.
Jessica meets Donghae at her summer 학원6 when she is eighteen. He has hair like an idol singer and a face to match. He asks her to the movies, to see the newest melodrama, and they skip class to go see it on a Friday. It’s been two years and people do not stare at Jessica as often as they used to. When they do, it is more often due to the long hair that reaches almost to her lower back, or her wide eyes when she tries to keep up with all the Korean spoken around her. She’s worked hard to shed her American skin and learned how to hide when she has doubts about herself. She tells Donghae that she has lived in Seoul all her life, and he believes her. When he takes hold of her hand in the movie theater, Jessica feels the same uneasiness in her stomach as when Michael had kissed her that summer by the pool. She laces her fingers with his and pays attention to the movie, where the rich bad boy falls for the sweet and lively girl from a poor family.
She dates Donghae for two months. They meet up on the weekends or after 학원6 class and go shopping or get food. Jessica let herself eat food that is less spicy now and drinks 보리차5 with every meal. Before they go back to school, Donghae buys her a necklace with a diamond star charm. “사랑해7, Sooyeon” he says, and tells her to wear it always. Jessica kisses him in response and puts the necklace on. There are tears in her eyes and that clench in her stomach, but she can’t bring herself to say the words back.
She wears the necklace faithfully, like she said she would, and she loves Donghae as much as she knows how. She throws herself into calling him every day, meeting him every night after school, buying him presents, bringing him snacks during breaks, letting him pay for her meal when they go out on the weekends. It takes time and effort and she can barely do anything else other than be with him or do her schoolwork, but to her, that is love. It’s what she’s supposed to do for her boyfriend and so she does it. He calls her Sooyeon, takes her to cafes to talk over coffee, sings ballads to her when they go to 노래방8 and kisses her hard on the mouth in the smaller alleys where no one can see.
Five months into their relationship, Donghae takes her to a motel. The man behind the counter doesn’t give them a second glance as he hands them the key to room 14, and Jessica clutches at Donghae’s hand, willing the red in her cheeks to disappear. She’s nervous and her chest is so tight she can barely breathe, but she reminds herself that she loves Donghae and follows him down the hall. The bed is hard against her back and it’s uncomfortable and it hurts. She takes a shower when it’s over, turning the water as hot as it will go so that it burns her skin as she washes off the blood. This is not the way she imagined her first time would be: in a trashy motel with dim lights and rough sheets. Donghae is asleep by the time she’s done, sprawled out and snoring under the covers. Jessica takes off the star necklace and leaves it on the bedside table before she leaves.
Jessica doesn’t go to school the next week, and by the end of it, she’s on a plane to New York City. She’s gotten twenty missed calls and twice as many text messages from Donghae, and she’s glad when she discovers that her Korean phone doesn’t work in the US. Her new roommate is Kim Hyoyeon from Busan. She’s small and feminine and has been going to school in the states since high school. Jessica smiles at her and introduces herself by her English name. She’s sick a tired of being Sooyeon.
They eat dinner together every night and sit together during Psychology class. Hyoyeon helps her get used to coming to campus a semester late and speaks to her in a mixture of English and Korean. They link arms as they walk along the city streets, eating Red Mango and making plans to visit Central Park. They go to Coney Island and take pictures on the beach, holding hands tight when they go on the roller coasters in the park. Hyoyeon becomes Jessica’s closest friend. She tells her of California and of Seoul and even of Donghae, and Hyoyeon holds her hand and strokes her hair when she cries.
“Hyoyeonah,” she says in the darkness of their dorm room one night. “Do you miss Korea?”
“몰라...좀9. My boyfriend is coming to visit soon, though.”
Jessica hums a reply and turns over to sleep. It’s late and she has class in the morning, but she can’t find sleep for an hour.
Hyoyeon’s boyfriend visits over spring break. His name is Hyukjae. Jessica has nowhere to go for only a week. It’s too short to visit her family back in Seoul, so she stays on in the dorm with the other two. Hyukjae is tall and strong. He had only finished his military service over the summer and his muscles are still sharp from his two-year stay. He shares the bed with Hyoyeon and snores at night, and Jessica tosses and turns while she sleeps. Hyoyeon holds her boyfriend’s hand instead of Jessica’s. When she’s tired, she rests her head not on Jessica’s shoulder, but on her boyfriend’s. Jessica misses her sister and misses her parents. Though she can’t really recall a place where she felt most at home, it is not here, at least not right now, and she feels so closed in. Their dorm room seems five times smaller now that there are three of them there. She hates herself when she can’t find the word in English to describe how she feels. It’s just 답답해10.
She hears Hyoyeon and Hyukjae kissing one night when they think she’s asleep and all she can do is pull the covers over her head and try not to listen. She hears Hyoyeon whispering something and takes her chance to move around a bit, hoping they’ll realize she’s still awake. She hears a chuckle and more kissing and presses her hands over ears, willing herself to just sleep. Her chest is burning with something like anger and pain and embarrassment and something else that she can’t put her finger on and before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s pushing her covers back and getting out of bed. She’s found her slippers and a jacket and is out the door before she can register the couple’s reaction and she doesn’t stick around to see if Hyoyeon will come after her. She spends the rest of the night on a bench outside the dorm, shivering in just her jacket in the cool spring air. There’s that sticky feeling in her throat like she wants to cry and she tells herself she’s shaking only from the chill. It’s five in the morning when she checks her watch again and she untangles her legs from under her. They are sore from staying curled up in the cold and her eyes are so dry. All Jessica wants to do is sleep, and she’s glad when she returns to her room and Hyukjae is snoring. She climbs in bed and the snoring keeps her awake for another hour. When she wakes up, both Hyoyeon and Hyukjae are gone.
Jessica spends the day at the bookstore down the street, reading magazine and rereading books she read in high school. She’s curled up in a lounge chair in the attached café when it nears dinnertime and Hyoyeon still hasn’t called her. Jessica pretends that she doesn’t notice and keeps reading until her stomach growls and she goes to eat the Korean restaurant on the corner. She orders her food in Korean and eats it while it’s hot. The soup burns her throat, but she eats anyway, without waiting for it to cool. Her minds keeps going back to Hyoyeon and her small face and soft hair and high pitched laugh and how she must look with her body under her boyfriend’s: cheeks flushed and eyes glassy.
Hyoyeon is sitting on her bed when Jessica comes back to the dorm. Her boyfriend isn’t there.
“Hyukjae went to the store for some cigarettes,” Hyoyeon says. “Sica, 미안해11. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Jessica sits at her desk, her back facing Hyoyeon. That feeling in her chest is back, that whole conglomeration of feelings that she doesn’t know how to sort through or even where to begin if she were to do so. “Hyoyeon, I-” she starts. Her stomach is churning around the soup she ate for dinner and she’s not sure if she should talk or not talk, which would make it feel worse. “I don’t know.”
“Jessica,” Hyoyeon says again. “Sooyeonah.”
Jessica’s stomach lurches at the name and before she can stop herself, she’s pushing back her chair and striding across the room to Hyoyeon’s bed. She gets as far as placing her hands on Hyoyeon’s cheeks. They are soft and round and when Jessica realizes what she’s doing and pulls back her palms as if burned. There’s a ringing in her ears and she barely registers the confusion on Hyoyeon’s face. All she can think of is the burning in her cheeks and the awful churning hitches in her stomach. This is wrong and unnatural and disgusting and she can’t think of whatever compelled her to do it in the first place.
“널 미워12,” Jessica whispers. Hyoyeon’s face is blurry behind the tears welling up in her eyes and when Hyoyeon wraps her arms around her shoulders, Jessica falls into and cries.
“미안해, 미안해11, I’m so sorry, Sica, I’m sorry, it’s ok.” Hyoyeon rocks her side to side as she cries and strokes her hair off of her face. Jessica cries until it’s only hiccups and wipes her eyes on a tissue that Hyoyeon hands her. “I’m sorry, Jessica,” Hyoyeon whispers.
Jessica blows her nose and shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It’s ok, I’ll be ok.” She ignores the pang of guilt in her stomach and looks up at Hyoyeon. Her eyes feel dry and she just wants to sleep. “You should go find Hyukjae. He’s been gone a while.” Hyoyeon nods and Jessica turns from her and sits at her desk. She listens to the rustling of Hyoyeon putting on her coat and the knock of the door closing in its frame.
______________________________________________________
1 married older women
2Korean ricecakes in spicy sauce
3derogatory names for Americans; from “yankee”
4kimchi
5barley tea
6study school attended after school, on weekends, or during school breaks
7”I love you”
8karaoke
9”I don’t know…a little.”
10frustrating, stuffy, claustrophobic
11”I’m sorry.”
12”I hate you.”
Pairing: HaeSica, HyoHyuk, HyoSica
Rating: R
Summary: Jessica tries to find love and gets lost in the process. (Sort of AU follow-up to 소녀, 사랑을 만나다.)
Note: I wrote this for my creative writing class, again. I wanted to write something about a girl lost in love, and I was particularly interested in doing it about a Korean girl trying to find love in all these different places, and in looking at my past stuff, I thought I'd do a follow up to the story about Krystal, but take it out of the entertainment business and into just a regular life, and so Jessica struck me as the right person to try this with, so there's all different people she loves: in the US, in Korea, boys, girls, etc. Enjoy! And please tell me what you think, since this is something I worked long and hard on and is more than just fanfiction.
The first time Jessica falls in love, she is five years old and her name is still Sooyeon. Her kindergarten teacher is tall and handsome, with sandy hair that falls over his darker eyes and pale skin that instantly has her smitten. He pronounces her name correctly, unlike the stout lady who shows her the classroom, and makes sure she has a good place to sit. He smiles when he speaks to her and makes sure that he goes slowly enough for her to understand. She hasn’t been in the US long, but with Mr. Strider there for her, everything is easier. When she goes home after her first day at school, she tells her little sister not to worry about entering school. Her sister looks up at her with a crease in her brow and asks her to repeat that, please, in Korean.
The second time Jessica falls in love, she is fourteen years old. She’s gone by her English name for the past seven years and she’s grown used to her life in California. She’s dating a boy in her class named Michael, and when he kisses her behind the pool shed at Sarah’s birthday party, she swears she sees stars. The hot June sun beats on her shoulders as he sloppily stick his tongue in her mouth and it feels weird and too wet, but there’s a little stirring in her stomach and she smiles afterwards and waits for him to turn away before wiping the spit off her mouth. She holds his hand as the walk back to the pool and blushes when their friends whistle at them. He splashes her with water as she sits by the side of the pool and she thinks that maybe she loves him, even though she is young. They break up when school starts for no reason other than that they lose interest and need to move on. Jessica cries for one night and then goes to school the next day. She’s not even jealous when she sees a girl from another class flirting with Michael. When she comes back home in the afternoon, her mother tells her that it’s better this way. “It’s not natural to date a white boy, anyway, Sooyeon,” she says in Korean. “You’ll find a good Korea boy when you’re older.”
Jessica moves back to Seoul with her family when she is sixteen. They arrive in early August and Jessica thinks she has never been somewhere so hot before. The rain falls down in hard showers all day long and she goes through three umbrellas in the first week they’re there. It’s a hard transition, back into using only Korean, no English. The 아주마들1 at the street food vendors stare at her when she orders. They pour water over her 떡볶이2 to make it less spicy, even if she asks them not to. It’s a funny talent the people in Korea have: even if you look like them, they can tell if you’re a foreigner, and as much as Jessica hates it, she is a foreigner. She spent too long in California. The palm trees and American sun radiate from her skin and the people of Seoul sense it, like a bat senses insects in the night sky. They pick her out easily and watch her as she walks by, fascinated by the contrast of the Korean face and American attitude. She works hard to become Korean again, to react when she’s called by her real name.
When she starts school, the girl sitting next to her has a round and flat face and calls her 양키3 . The fast slurring words of the professor confuse her and she tries her best to keep up, but this is not like kindergarten. There is no Mr. Strider to guide her through, and when she asks her professor after class if she can have some extra help, he just waves her away, telling her to pay more attention. The other students try to speak to her in their badly accented English and she does her best to reply only in Korean. She needs to show them that she is Korean, not American. She needs to show them so that she can prove it to herself. She immerses herself in her studies and in learning all the names of the pop stars. She only eats Korean food, and makes sure it’s extra spicy, even if it makes her nose run and her eyes water. Her sister has no trouble jumping back into Korean life. Jessica finds it hard to believe that she could remember being in Korea in the first place, but her sister has always been more versatile, more adaptable. Her sister doesn’t get the same types of looks as Jessica does. Her tongue is more receptive to the odd spiciness of 김치4 and the strange tang of 보리차5, and Jessica can’t help but feel jealous.
Jessica meets Donghae at her summer 학원6 when she is eighteen. He has hair like an idol singer and a face to match. He asks her to the movies, to see the newest melodrama, and they skip class to go see it on a Friday. It’s been two years and people do not stare at Jessica as often as they used to. When they do, it is more often due to the long hair that reaches almost to her lower back, or her wide eyes when she tries to keep up with all the Korean spoken around her. She’s worked hard to shed her American skin and learned how to hide when she has doubts about herself. She tells Donghae that she has lived in Seoul all her life, and he believes her. When he takes hold of her hand in the movie theater, Jessica feels the same uneasiness in her stomach as when Michael had kissed her that summer by the pool. She laces her fingers with his and pays attention to the movie, where the rich bad boy falls for the sweet and lively girl from a poor family.
She dates Donghae for two months. They meet up on the weekends or after 학원6 class and go shopping or get food. Jessica let herself eat food that is less spicy now and drinks 보리차5 with every meal. Before they go back to school, Donghae buys her a necklace with a diamond star charm. “사랑해7, Sooyeon” he says, and tells her to wear it always. Jessica kisses him in response and puts the necklace on. There are tears in her eyes and that clench in her stomach, but she can’t bring herself to say the words back.
She wears the necklace faithfully, like she said she would, and she loves Donghae as much as she knows how. She throws herself into calling him every day, meeting him every night after school, buying him presents, bringing him snacks during breaks, letting him pay for her meal when they go out on the weekends. It takes time and effort and she can barely do anything else other than be with him or do her schoolwork, but to her, that is love. It’s what she’s supposed to do for her boyfriend and so she does it. He calls her Sooyeon, takes her to cafes to talk over coffee, sings ballads to her when they go to 노래방8 and kisses her hard on the mouth in the smaller alleys where no one can see.
Five months into their relationship, Donghae takes her to a motel. The man behind the counter doesn’t give them a second glance as he hands them the key to room 14, and Jessica clutches at Donghae’s hand, willing the red in her cheeks to disappear. She’s nervous and her chest is so tight she can barely breathe, but she reminds herself that she loves Donghae and follows him down the hall. The bed is hard against her back and it’s uncomfortable and it hurts. She takes a shower when it’s over, turning the water as hot as it will go so that it burns her skin as she washes off the blood. This is not the way she imagined her first time would be: in a trashy motel with dim lights and rough sheets. Donghae is asleep by the time she’s done, sprawled out and snoring under the covers. Jessica takes off the star necklace and leaves it on the bedside table before she leaves.
Jessica doesn’t go to school the next week, and by the end of it, she’s on a plane to New York City. She’s gotten twenty missed calls and twice as many text messages from Donghae, and she’s glad when she discovers that her Korean phone doesn’t work in the US. Her new roommate is Kim Hyoyeon from Busan. She’s small and feminine and has been going to school in the states since high school. Jessica smiles at her and introduces herself by her English name. She’s sick a tired of being Sooyeon.
They eat dinner together every night and sit together during Psychology class. Hyoyeon helps her get used to coming to campus a semester late and speaks to her in a mixture of English and Korean. They link arms as they walk along the city streets, eating Red Mango and making plans to visit Central Park. They go to Coney Island and take pictures on the beach, holding hands tight when they go on the roller coasters in the park. Hyoyeon becomes Jessica’s closest friend. She tells her of California and of Seoul and even of Donghae, and Hyoyeon holds her hand and strokes her hair when she cries.
“Hyoyeonah,” she says in the darkness of their dorm room one night. “Do you miss Korea?”
“몰라...좀9. My boyfriend is coming to visit soon, though.”
Jessica hums a reply and turns over to sleep. It’s late and she has class in the morning, but she can’t find sleep for an hour.
Hyoyeon’s boyfriend visits over spring break. His name is Hyukjae. Jessica has nowhere to go for only a week. It’s too short to visit her family back in Seoul, so she stays on in the dorm with the other two. Hyukjae is tall and strong. He had only finished his military service over the summer and his muscles are still sharp from his two-year stay. He shares the bed with Hyoyeon and snores at night, and Jessica tosses and turns while she sleeps. Hyoyeon holds her boyfriend’s hand instead of Jessica’s. When she’s tired, she rests her head not on Jessica’s shoulder, but on her boyfriend’s. Jessica misses her sister and misses her parents. Though she can’t really recall a place where she felt most at home, it is not here, at least not right now, and she feels so closed in. Their dorm room seems five times smaller now that there are three of them there. She hates herself when she can’t find the word in English to describe how she feels. It’s just 답답해10.
She hears Hyoyeon and Hyukjae kissing one night when they think she’s asleep and all she can do is pull the covers over her head and try not to listen. She hears Hyoyeon whispering something and takes her chance to move around a bit, hoping they’ll realize she’s still awake. She hears a chuckle and more kissing and presses her hands over ears, willing herself to just sleep. Her chest is burning with something like anger and pain and embarrassment and something else that she can’t put her finger on and before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s pushing her covers back and getting out of bed. She’s found her slippers and a jacket and is out the door before she can register the couple’s reaction and she doesn’t stick around to see if Hyoyeon will come after her. She spends the rest of the night on a bench outside the dorm, shivering in just her jacket in the cool spring air. There’s that sticky feeling in her throat like she wants to cry and she tells herself she’s shaking only from the chill. It’s five in the morning when she checks her watch again and she untangles her legs from under her. They are sore from staying curled up in the cold and her eyes are so dry. All Jessica wants to do is sleep, and she’s glad when she returns to her room and Hyukjae is snoring. She climbs in bed and the snoring keeps her awake for another hour. When she wakes up, both Hyoyeon and Hyukjae are gone.
Jessica spends the day at the bookstore down the street, reading magazine and rereading books she read in high school. She’s curled up in a lounge chair in the attached café when it nears dinnertime and Hyoyeon still hasn’t called her. Jessica pretends that she doesn’t notice and keeps reading until her stomach growls and she goes to eat the Korean restaurant on the corner. She orders her food in Korean and eats it while it’s hot. The soup burns her throat, but she eats anyway, without waiting for it to cool. Her minds keeps going back to Hyoyeon and her small face and soft hair and high pitched laugh and how she must look with her body under her boyfriend’s: cheeks flushed and eyes glassy.
Hyoyeon is sitting on her bed when Jessica comes back to the dorm. Her boyfriend isn’t there.
“Hyukjae went to the store for some cigarettes,” Hyoyeon says. “Sica, 미안해11. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Jessica sits at her desk, her back facing Hyoyeon. That feeling in her chest is back, that whole conglomeration of feelings that she doesn’t know how to sort through or even where to begin if she were to do so. “Hyoyeon, I-” she starts. Her stomach is churning around the soup she ate for dinner and she’s not sure if she should talk or not talk, which would make it feel worse. “I don’t know.”
“Jessica,” Hyoyeon says again. “Sooyeonah.”
Jessica’s stomach lurches at the name and before she can stop herself, she’s pushing back her chair and striding across the room to Hyoyeon’s bed. She gets as far as placing her hands on Hyoyeon’s cheeks. They are soft and round and when Jessica realizes what she’s doing and pulls back her palms as if burned. There’s a ringing in her ears and she barely registers the confusion on Hyoyeon’s face. All she can think of is the burning in her cheeks and the awful churning hitches in her stomach. This is wrong and unnatural and disgusting and she can’t think of whatever compelled her to do it in the first place.
“널 미워12,” Jessica whispers. Hyoyeon’s face is blurry behind the tears welling up in her eyes and when Hyoyeon wraps her arms around her shoulders, Jessica falls into and cries.
“미안해, 미안해11, I’m so sorry, Sica, I’m sorry, it’s ok.” Hyoyeon rocks her side to side as she cries and strokes her hair off of her face. Jessica cries until it’s only hiccups and wipes her eyes on a tissue that Hyoyeon hands her. “I’m sorry, Jessica,” Hyoyeon whispers.
Jessica blows her nose and shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It’s ok, I’ll be ok.” She ignores the pang of guilt in her stomach and looks up at Hyoyeon. Her eyes feel dry and she just wants to sleep. “You should go find Hyukjae. He’s been gone a while.” Hyoyeon nods and Jessica turns from her and sits at her desk. She listens to the rustling of Hyoyeon putting on her coat and the knock of the door closing in its frame.
______________________________________________________
1 married older women
2Korean ricecakes in spicy sauce
3derogatory names for Americans; from “yankee”
4kimchi
5barley tea
6study school attended after school, on weekends, or during school breaks
7”I love you”
8karaoke
9”I don’t know…a little.”
10frustrating, stuffy, claustrophobic
11”I’m sorry.”
12”I hate you.”