Chapter 9

“I have a life, don’t I have a life? I totally have one, don’t you think?” I asked Yun Ah the second she answered her phone. It would have been one thing if someone with a life had said those things to me but Ji Tae? He probably thought starring at a wall was fun.

“Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie and make you feel better?” she asked, sounding bored.

I rolled my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Instead of answering like a normal person, she laughed.

“What’s funny? Are you trying to say that I don't have a life?”

“Answer me first: Do you want to hear the truth or something nice?” she insisted.

I thought about it for a second. What exactly was this bit.ch insinuating? “Are you saying that the truth isn’t something nice?”

“Yep.”

What a cow! With friends like this... I was about to go off on her when I decided to give it some additional thought. Something nice, huh?

“I don't have all day.”

It had been said that ignorance was bliss so what the hell? “Okay. But you’d better tell me something really nice,” I said before we both burst out laughing.

“But seriously, I can't stay home tonight and just watch my mom clipping my dad’s toenails, so what’s going on?”

She sighed. “The party that Ki Won tried to bribe you to attend - that's what.”

I groaned. “Park Eun Ha’s party? That’s tonight?” I groaned even louder.

“Yep.”

“You know how annoying her voice is. I can't spend the night watching and listening to her. Let’s so somewhere else.”

“You know I can’t because she’s Kyung Min’s cousin and he promised to attend.”

“He promised. Why do you have to go?”

“When you get a boyfriend, you’ll figure it out," she said in that condescending tone married women reserved for their spinster friends.

I rolled my eyes. From the way she acted, you'd think that having a boyfriend raised one’s IQ by like 30 points. “But I really don’t want to come.”

“Then don’t.”

“What's with the meaness, Miss High and Mighty?"

“I need to get dressed and you're wasting my time. Can I hang up now?”

***

“So was the neckline like that?” One girl said, trailing her fingers against her collarbone.

“Yes, can you imagine that? Am I a nun for chrissakes?” her even dumber friend replied.

“But wouldn’t it have been better here?” The first girl said, this time running her fingers along the top of her breasts.

“Exactly. That’s what I said but my grandma was there and she wouldn’t agree. How can I go to my cousins wedding looking like a librarian?”

“I know. How unfair is that? What do you think… ehm… ehm,” the first girl said, looking at me.

I knew I was standing there but I would have been happy to not have been included in their conversation.

“Hee Soo. My name is Hee Soo.” I said, knowing that she’d forget it instantly. From what I could see, she was slightly more intelligent than a bucket of paper mache. I looked around the room and I smiled when I saw a familiar face. “I’m going to get a drink,” I told them before I left.

***

“Ki Won ah,” I said, walking into the kitchen. “Ki Won ah, why does this party suck?”

To my surprise, the kitchen was pretty empty as it only had three other equally as bored people in it.

I kept walking till I was standing next to him then I rested my head on his shoulder. “Why does everyone suck? Why does everything suck?”

He glanced at me. “It doesn’t suck.” He picked up a cup and filled it with punch. “Try to have an open mind and mingle a little. Or you can come and hang out with us.”

I hissed. “Yeah, right. You guys are all coupled up. If I come with, I’d literally be the fifth wheel.”

“Well, if you’d agreed to come with me in the first place, I wouldn’t have brought Soo Jin, would I?”

“Whatever,” I said as I watched him spill some of the liquid on the table. I turned to find a cloth to wipe it off with when I saw Ji Tae walk in with Han Yong Sil – the most annoying do-gooder in my year. Boy did he stick to his type. And to think that this loser had accused me of not having a life? If having a life consisted of ruining the rainforest by handing out numerous pamphlets about things nobody cared about then he was definitely right about me. Besides, weren’t they supposed to doing the whole ‘dinner and movie’ thing or was Eun Ha screening a movie afterwards?

When Ki Won turned to leave, I called him back and asked him about the punch.

He shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“What’s in it? Rum or Vodka?”

“Vodka.”

“Eww,” I said, making a face. But what the heck, if I couldn’t have fun the least I could do was drink. “Alright, let me taste it,” I said, sticking my head out so that he could feed it to me. He did just that except there was some miscalculation on his part because he spilled some of it on my dress.

“Ki Won ah!!! What the fcuk?”

He apologized but he was obviously not sorry because he kept chuckling as he wiped the liquid off me with a napkin. It wasn’t like it was my favorite dress but it was pale blue and I knew I was going to face hell when I got back home. I was still screaming at him when a shrill voice called his name.

We both looked at the direction of the sound to see a very red faced Soo Jin glaring at us with one hand on her hip.

“Oppa, what the hell is wrong with you? When you didn’t come back, I just knew you’d be with her,” Soo Jin shrieked. “Are you some kind of--?”

I looked down at my dress and was sure that the stain would be permanent. Soo Jin was still screaming as I walked by Ji Tae and Yong Sil and out of the kitchen.

***

Since we were seeing each other often, I thought it was only fair that I inquire about him… you know, in a nice neighborly fashion which was the one and only reason I asked Ji Tae about his changed date plans.

“Why do you care?”

“Forget it.” Once a bastard, always a bastard. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. So much for being a nice neighbor.

"Is everything okay with your friend and his girlfriend?"

"If by okay you're asking if they've broken up, then yes," I said chuckling. I always laughed when those girls thought they could get away with saying sh.it about me to Ki Won.

"I'm sure that makes you happy."

I gave him a sidelong look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you want it to mean."

As usual, he’d come to my room to study and as always, I was doing anything but studying. But if he was going to be an ass, so could I. Rolling my eyes, I turned my music on and started singing along to it.

“I’m trying to study here.”

“Why should I care?”

“Don’t be a bit.ch,” he said, not bothering to hide the venom.

“You’d know all about being a bitc.h, won’t you? And in case you’re confused, this is my room so I can do whatever I want here. If you don’t like it, you can go to the study.”

“So that your mother can kill me? I don’t think so.”

“Then take it or leave it.” If he'd been worth the effort, I would have stuck my tongue out at him. I kept singing along till the music changed to one of my favorites. I immediately reached for the knob and turned the volume up. “You know, I will give you everything…” I sang. I got off my bed and moved to the beat. “We’ll never be apart now I know…”

For no particular reason, I glanced at Ji Tae only to find him staring at me curiously.

“What?” I barked. Leave already!

“You like Clazziquai too?” he asked with disbelief.

"And so?"

“I like them too," he said as I turned around and kept dancing. Who cared what he liked? I got lost in the Clazziquai-controlled world till I was jerked out of it by the feeling that someone was around me. Pissed, I turned around and found myself face to face, okay, more like face (mine) to chin with Ji Tae.

WHAT THE FCUK? “Dude, dude, dude, what are you doing?” I quickly backed away like he had the plague. I didn’t stop till my calves hit the side of the bed and my butt hit the mattress. What the freaking hell? “What was that all about?” I screamed.

He shook his head in pity then sat back in his chair. “It’s called dancing. What’s the big deal?”

“What’s the big deal? Why the hell were you dancing with me? Don’t ever do that again!”

I could feel the goose bumps popping all over me.

“Don’t flatter yourself -I wasn’t dancing with you. That just happens to be one of my favorite songs and since you weren’t allowing me to study, I decided to dance. The end.”

“Yeah, whatever. Next time you feel like dancing, do it over there,” I said, pointing at the door. “I mean, I don--”

“Do you have the Color Your Soul album?” he asked, interrupting me.

The question would have sounded less daft if I'd played anything else so far. I sighed. “Yeah.”

“Which version do you have? The one with the bonus tracks?”

I shrugged. “I downloaded it so lemme check,” I said, clicking on my Window’s Media Player.

He frowned. “What do you mean you downloaded it?”

I pretended not to hear the edge his voice had developed. “I mean I downloaded it. What’s hard to understand about that?”

He arched his brow. “But you like them.”

“So?” I asked, not taking my eyes off his. If he wanted to get into a stare contest, I was ready for him.

“So don’t you think you should support them? Why rip them off like that? Do you think they spend all that time and money just so that you can enjoy their music for free?”

The fcuk? “Do you work for the recording industry?”

“No, but I have a conscience.”

Bastard. “Are you crazy or something? I’ve attended their concerts twice. The first time I went with Yun Ah and the second time with Ki Won. And neither of them are fans but they paid for concert tickets because of me. If that’s not supporting them, I don’t know what is.”

“I bet you’d have attended the concert if you could for free,” he said with a smirk.

I could feel my hands balling into a fist. I inhaled to keep my anger from escalating. I was not going to allow Park Ji Tae to piss me off so soon after listening to Clazziquai. “What’s it to you? Are you related to them?”

“No, but do I need to be to see that what you're doing is wrong?” he asked, matter-of-factly.

“Just shut the fcuk up, okay?” I got off my bed and started folding the clothes that were lying around my room. “Just fcuk off.”

“Yeah, exactly. When you don’t know what to say you just curse, right? You need to come up with something new.”

Fcuk maturity. “You know something, Ji Tae? FCUK YOU, YOU FCUKING PIECE OF mini cooper! FCUK FCUK FCUK!!!” I would have kept screaming if my mother didn’t come in a few seconds later and shut me up.

***

I walked into my bedroom and slammed the door behind me. “The study is empty,” I announced. It had been a day since the stupid bastard sitting at my desk had decided to get all Recording Industry on me. After spending 30 annoying minutes in silence , I’d gone over to check to see if my mother was using the room. “Did you hear me? The study is empty.”

He looked up from his book. “So?”

“So go and study over there.” Did he really need everything spelled out? “I’m going to be playing my music really loudly so you might want to go there.”

He shrugged. “It’s fine because I’m not studying,” he said raising the book he was reading to me.

Like I cared about what he was reading. I was sure that Playboy would be just as interesting outside my room. I regarded him closely. “So are you saying that you’re not going over there?” I asked impatiently.

“I don’t see why I should. You mother said I should study here.” He cleared his throat and waited for my response.

“But it’s empty now so it’s okay for you to leave.” Was I being too subtle?

“I don’t want to.”

“Then why should I be the one to leave? This is my own bedroom.”

“Then don’t leave,” he said in a bored voice. “Did I ask you to?”

ARGHHHHHHH. It was one of those rare days that I actually had work to do and his presence was really distracting me. How can you learn trigonometry when all you can do is think up ways of getting away with murder? I started putting my books back into my bag.

“Before you leave, I got something for you.”

I picked up my pencil and sharpened it. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Just take it,” he said as he shoved a plastic bag in front of me.

I turned my head and looked at him. It’d hoped his face would tell me something but it was devoid of all emotion.

Curiosity killed the cat so I guess you can call me Kitty because I took the bag from him and looked into it. What the hell? “It had better not be what I think it is,” I muttered to myself as I reached into it, pulled the square object out and read the text: Color Your Soul by Clazziquai. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No. Is it funny?”

“Then why the hell are you giving this to me?”

He shrugged. “I just feel that if you truly--”

I threw the CD at the wall and slammed the door behind me. Could anyone be more moronic? I was walking to the study when I realized I'd forgotten to throw the youtube videos, thus his hypocrisy, in his face. Bastard.