"Kaylee!" TaeTae yelled and ran to hug her as soon as she stepped through my front door.
"Down, girl!" I teased and my little sister stuck her tongue out at me.
"Shut up, Joonie," TaeTae replied.
"Joonie?" Kaylee questioned, laughing. "Since when does anyone call you Joonie?"
"Since halmeoni came to visit," I answered.
"Your grandmother's here?!" Kaylee asked, excited.
"Yep, she's in the kitchen," TaeTae answered. Kaylee ran to the kitchen to greet my grandmother and I dumped our backpacks on the couch.
"Sooo, when are you going to tell her you have a huge crush on her?" TaeTae asked in Korean.
"Never," I replied. "Because I don't have a crush on her."
"Mhmm…" I could see she didn't believe me, so I repeated again, in English this time, "I don't!"
"You don't what?" Kaylee asked. Before TaeTae could open her big mouth, I said, "Nothing."
Kaylee shrugged and said, "Anywho, your grandma made kimchi. I'm going to text my dad and ask if it's okay if I stay for dinner. If it's okay with your parents, of course," she said, looking at me with one eyebrow raised.
I ran upstairs to ask my parents if Kaylee could stay for dinner. "Eomma!" I called.
"I'm in here, son," I heard her reply. I went into her room and asked about Kaylee. "Of course it's okay, son." She smiled. I went back downstairs and nodded to Kaylee. "My mom said it's fine."
"'Kay," she said and took out her phone. She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and I stared at her for a moment. She's beautiful, I thought. Then, What the heck? She's your best friend. Crap. Maybe I do have a crush on her? I caught my sister looking at me looking at Kaylee and I averted my gaze. TaeTae grinned and left.
"Peulig," I muttered.
"What's that mean?" Kaylee asked.
"Nothing," I said quickly. "So which subject should we do first?"
"How about math? It's the worst and we have a test."
"We do? When?" Kaylee snickered at my stupidity.
"Don't you pay attention? Mrs. Fisher told our class today. Tomorrow's the math test." She paused, then added, "Pabo."
"Don't call me a pabo. And to answer your question, no, I don't pay much attention. I have you to copy off of." I winked and she laughed, shaking her head. We headed up the stairs to my room, and my dog jumped off the bed. "Down, Yeontan!" I said.
"Yeontan!" Kaylee opened her arms and the tiny dog jumped right into them. "Joonie's a pabo, huh, Yeontan? Joonie-pabo. Come on, say, Joonie-pabo." I rolled my eyes and she laughed.
"Here, Yeontan!" I called and the small dog jumped into my lap. Kaylee pouted while I grinned.
"So, what's 'pudding' mean?" Kaylee asked.
"It's pronounced kind of like puddy, and it means 'frick,'" I answered absentmindedly.
"Care to tell me why you said 'frick' downstairs?" she smirked and I felt my stomach do a flip flop.
Ignoring the weird feeling, I pretended to think for a moment before saying, "Nope." She flipped over on my bed and her long, light brown hair fell to the floor. She looked like a model, honestly. A small, ski jump-shaped nose, light green eyes, white skin, and, like I already mentioned, long, brown hair. She had an almost perfect body. The only problem with her is her low self-esteem. She thinks she's ugly, fat, and stupid. None of which is true, but I've been trying to change her mind about herself since middle school started, and now, we're about to graduate high school. She's really stubborn sometimes.
"Yoohoo, earth to Joonie," I snapped out of my thoughts and back to reality. "Are you okay?" Kaylee asked, eyebrows knitted together. I couldn't tell if she was really worried about me or not. I shook my head to clear it and nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just got lost in thought." She chuckled.
"I didn't know you were capable of thought," she teased.
"Ha-ha," I said sarcastically and gave her a death glare. "Do you want to get to studying or do you want to keep teasing me?"
"Hmmm. I want to keep teasing you, but if I don't study, I'm going to fail. So let's get to studying."