Chapter 4

"Make sure you're back by 10:30," my father called as I walked out of the house with Na Young and Tae Ran. It was the evening before our family trip to The Promised Land so I was spending it with them. They'd come over to beg my father to let me stay out past my not so newly imposed curfew of 9pm (because he didn't understand why a young girl needed to be outside her home at night) and we were supposedly going bowling with the rest of my class.

"Yes, Sir!" Na Young said cheekily before she shut the door behind us. "Phew!" she exclaimed a few moments later as she unlocked the front gate. "With the way he was staring at me, I could almost swear that he could tell that we were lying."

"Shh!" I implored, nudging her. I was almost certain that my father was watching us from behind a drawn curtain and I didn't want him to get any hint of the fact that we were about to go to a party. "Do you know when the next bus comes?" I asked, walking briskly onto the road. When I was sure we were out of sight, I began to sprint. The sooner we got on the bus, the sooner my breathing could return to normal. My friends followed suit and about a minute later, we were sitting at the bus stop, fighting to catch our breaths.

I was in the middle of giggling about the entire stupid situation, when I felt familiar hands cover my ears. "Guess who?" he whispered.

My friends were even sneakier than I thought because I hadn't expected to see him till the party. My father's presence at our lessons had obviously killed any fantasies of creating any kind of love nest in my backyard so I was glad that after almost two months of seeing him almost everyday but being unable to touch him, I finally had him all to myself.

I took an embarrassingly dramatic deep breath and felt the fingers covering my eyes. "Who could this hand belong to? Kim Rae Won?" I asked hopefully.

"No. Try again," he replied coolly.

"Kim Jae Won?"

"Nope."

"Lee Min Ki?"

"Nope."

"Hmm…." I scratched my chin and pretended to think hard. "I'm sure I'm wrong but could it possibly be this one guy? What's his name again? Ha Min Ki or something like that?"

His hand fell off my face and settled on my shoulders. "You're getting better at this, Su Jin ah. It only took four guesses this time," he said before planting a kiss on my cheek.

Before I could respond, I heard the sound of Na Young pretending to throw up. Min Ki and I laughed while Tae Ran just shook her head at her. "One of these days, you'll get over your jealousy," she said to her.

"Why would I be jealous when almost every guy in town is fawning at my feet?" Na Young retorted. "Or have you forgotten that I'm the hottest girl in school?"

Well, she wasn't exactly hot. In fact, at first glance, one would peg her as the stereotypical self-deprecating chubby girl who used humor to mask her pain. Except she would swear that her personality had absolutely nothing to do with her looks and that she was very happy with her weight. She looked good enough to me but as we all know, guys suck.

"Are you guys ready to go?" Min Ki asked. "Jinnie, my car is over there," he said, pointing to his tan Hyundai parked along the street.





***

"I'm so jealous of you," Il Woo, one of my classmates, said to me. Il Woo and I had always maintained a nice, platonic friendship and when I said that I was going to miss him, I really meant it.

"You're jealous of me? I'm jealous of you. I wish I could stay here with you."

I'd been at the party for a little over an hour and the room had only begun to fill up. The more people came in, the more I realized that I was going to miss so many of them – even those I barely ever spoke to. Would this be the last time I was in a room filled with Korean faces? The thought of being the odd one out and never making any friends had only just begun to sink in and I was increasingly becoming more and more frightened. "I really wish I didn't have to leave," I said to myself.

"But it's America. Everyone wants to go to America."

I hissed. "Why? What's so great about it?" Hamburgers and baseball. Yep, sounded like heaven.

He shrugged. "Maybe you'll get to meet Michael Jackson?"

I rolled my eyes. "Why are you so stupid? This isn't 1980 so nobody wants to meet Michael Jackson anymore. The guy barely looks human these days," I said, immediately fighting the image of his fifteenth nose out of my head.

"Well, I wouldn't mind meeting him."

After a few more minutes of useless banter, I said, "You have to do something for me…." My voice trailed off when I noticed that his attention seemed to be elsewhere. "What's going on?"

He pointed behind me and I turned around to see my brother and his girlfriend going at it so hard that one would have thought that the world was five minutes from some kind of apocalypse. His tongue was so far Young Hee's throat that I was scared that it might come out of her butt.

I took a huge gulp of my Coke to keep the bile down and turned back to him. "Thanks so much for that. Next time, when you see my brother making out with someone, please keep it to yourself. Now I have to go to the bathroom and scrub my brain. And you," I said, slapping his hand to get him to refocus his attention on me, "if you ever want that to be you, you have to talk to Eun Bi at some point next term." Joo Eun Bi was an average-looking girl he had a major crush on but never had the courage to approach. She certainly didn't seem that intimidating to me and I had offered numerous times to play Cupid but he always refused.

"Oh, not that again. I told you I am not interested in her anymore."

"Yeah, right. Is that—" Before I could complete my sentence, I felt someone tap my shoulder. I looked over to find Min Ki standing behind me.

He nodded at Il Woo then to me, said, "Let's take a walk."



***

"I hope you don't mind but I just wanted to talk to you alone," he said as we walked on the pedestrian path. He took my hand and I smiled. Shortly after, we were swinging our arms together.

"I can't believe that I might not get to see you for like four or five years," I said. I didn't want to cry but walking with him on a random residential street in Seoul on a cool Summer evening was playing games with my tear ducts.

"So," he said, suddenly stopping.

I turned to him curiously.

"I got something for you." He hesitated before disentangled his fingers from mine then putting his hand in his pocket.

"What?" My eyes were trained on the outline of his hand in his pocket.

"Well," he began, "I'd wanted to get you a Blackberry or something like that just so that we can always been in touch."

I frowned. "I can check my email with my phone," I reminded him. And when exactly did electronics count as romantic gifts?

"Yeah, so I thought that this might be better," he said, pulling out a ring box.

My heart jumped to my throat as I looked up and stared into his eyes. A ring? I could feel my chest tightening as I inhaled to keep myself from panicking. He was awesome but sixteen was far too young to get married. But if he proposed to me, did I even have it in me to say no?

Not noticing my turmoil, he opened the box and revealed two rings.

I exhaled. Phew!

"I know that we're still very young but I wanted you to have this," he said, taking the smaller one and holding it up to me. "Will you wear this?"

I looked into his eyes and couldn't keep the tears from forming in mine. He looked so sincere and honest that I couldn't help but silently ask God what I'd done to deserve him.

"Will you?" he cajoled.

I stretched my shaking hand towards him.

He put the box back in his pocket then took my hand. "I know that you can't really wear it all the time but will you wear it today?"

I nodded and watched him slip it on my finger. It was a little too big so I tilted my finger to keep it from falling. I smiled at him then down at my finger. Even though it was a very simple ring, my hand had never looked so beautiful.

"I love you, my Jinnie and I want us to still be together when you return to Korea in five years. What do you think?" Without waiting for a response, he moved closer to me and when I raised my eyes up and looked into his, all I could see was how he felt about me and I knew that he meant every word. He really wanted to be with me forever.

My chest tightened again as he moved closer and pushed his lips towards mine. We were one of those couples who usually held hands and gave each other pecks but when it came to kisses, for some reason, we never did. It wasn't like we avoided them but there never really seemed to be a reason for us to do it. Plus, at the back of my mind, I never really wanted to initiate any kisses just in case I disappointed him with how badly I was at it.

But at that moment, feeling his breath against my upper lip, I knew that the time had finally come.

As he moved closer and closer, I didn't really know what to do. Was I supposed to shut my eyes and tilt my head? Was I supposed to part my lips? When his lips touched mine, was I supposed to press mine back at his? Or was I supposed to remain still and just let him kiss me?

A million thoughts were still shooting through my brain when it finally happened. It felt like soft skin brushing against my lips and I was so shocked that I froze. I thought of parting my lips but immediately changed my mind. What if he tasted my tongue and threw up? So I kept my lips together and tried to ignore the tickling sensation of his nose brushing against my cheek.

A few seconds later, he stopped. My first kiss! I'd survived my first kiss! Then I looked into his smiling eyes and immediately felt sad. Did I have to wait for like five years for my next one?

"Want to go back to the party?"

I jerked forward and threw my hands around him. No, I didn't want to go back to any stinking party. I wanted to be with him so that he could give me enough kisses to last a lifetime. "No, Oppa. Let's stay here for a while longer."