What if you
Could wish me away
What if you
Spoke those words today
That's easy. Joshua Radin.
Drop his name
Push it in and twist the knife again
Watch my face
As I pretend to feel no pain, pain, pain
T-Pain should've sung it for easy marketing.
Name!
That Katy Perry boyfriend whatshisface.
How could you name Katy Perry and not John Mayer. Blasphemous.
Same reason why Voldemort is known as You Know Who. JM is whatshisface.
How dare you!
Come at me Bro.
Don't you ever say
I just walk away
I will always want you
Eeeeww Miley Cyrus
You said Eeew but you know the lyrics. I bet you sing it in the shower.
I used to memorize Spongebob Song because it was freakin' annoyingly ever present on morning TV
Your loss for watching Nickleodeon
I LOVED Jimmy Neutron and Thornberrys so shut up.
So I think of all the years spent alone
it's like you're searching for something
to make you feel whole
HANG ON A MINUTE MISSSY!
I know what this is.
It's your BROKEN HEART PLAYLIST!
What happened?! Tell me!
AAAARRGGHHH!
Jae Kyung! You're no fun!
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Fast forward a couple of days and Ga Eul was ready to ask Yi Jeong to let her pack her bag and back to her apartment. She was getting restless with each passing day, cooped up in the beautiful house. Not that she was comparing herself to Beauty from the fairy tale, but was this how Beauty felt? Trapped in the house without an exit window to the outer world? She was being overly dramatic, she knew that. But sometimes it's fun to put yourself in a fairy tale just to fight boredom.
Speaking of tale, she couldn't help thinking about the two complementing stories she heard both from Yi Jeong and from her office Sunbae. It was decidedly worrying, but in a beautiful sunny day like today, the mysterious affair seemed more and more like a fancy tale.
Weekend had been uneventful. She found a beautiful corner in the garden and set up her laptop there to work. Her only companion was a beautiful white Persian cat which despite lounged around like a bum nearby, was constantly hissing at her. Must be a female cat, she concluded after her tenth try to touch its long and gorgeous fur resulted in the cat baring its teeth at her. Not only would she have to compete with all the women in Yi Jeong's life, if ever she decided to try her luck, which she swore she'd never do, she also had to win her way to his cat. Unbelievable.
Fortunately for her, Yi Jeong was expected to give a lecture about Korean pottery in Japan and as a result had left her home alone. That is if home alone includes the set of helps and a whole squad of security team.
By the time Yi Jeong back in Korea on Monday, Ga Eul was busy working on her interview piece for the magazine. She had to admit after reviewing and transcribing their conversation, that Yi Jeong came a lot more mature, thoughtful and charming now than he'd ever been before. He sure would gain a lot more female fans after her piece came out. Not that he needed a boost in that area.
She made a note to finish the final draft as soon as possible so she could move on to other projects.
'Hey Ga Eul, do you know that there is a string of 452 active volcanoes in the ring of fire belt stretched around Pacific Ocean?'
'Ummmmm….' Ga Eul turned her chair around, looking at Hana, her office mate sitting closest to her desk.
'130 of them are located in Indonesia.'
'Errrr.. are they?'
'That's like, what, volcanoes everywhere.'
'Ummm, maybe not everywhere.'
'Of course it's everywhere, duh.' Hana rolled her eyes. 'Apparently some of them are being really, really active and erupting right now.'
'Yeeesss?'
'And flights are suspended because of the dust. Are they, like, suspended because the pilot can't see where they are going? Aren't there wipers outside the window? Do they have water squirt out from below to clean the glass window? Where do you think they put the water? I mean, what happened if they hit a bird or something. Fascinating huh?'
'Errr….'
'They should definitely have them, right?'
'Pretty sure that's not how airplane works.' She mumbled.
'Do you know that a super volcano eruption can trigger a mini ice age?'
'I… just, like, what are you working on now?' Ga Eul asked curiously. 'Something for national geographic?'
Hana looked at her like she had gone mad for asking such a question.
'Obviously, article for the top ten holiday destinations, duh.'
'But…'
'Naturally I'm researching Bali, which, just so you know, is located in Indonesia.'
'I know that…'
'Yeah? Good for you. Look at all these brochures,' Hana waved her hand to show her messy desk. 'Am really spending lots of time looking at the beaches and dive sites. And got distracted with volcanoes.'
'Right.'
She looked intently at Ga Eul. 'We should really go and hike a mountain some time. Put it down in our bucket list.'
'Why?'
'Tone your legs and apparently it's all in the rage. Plus have you seen the latest batch of active wear they have in the shop? Totally freaking cute. I wouldn't mind wearing them to the office.'
'Of course…'
She shook her head and switched her focus back to her screen. Sometimes she wondered if her friend was all there.
Yeah, if only she could throw all her feelings for Yi jeong down a volcano like Frodo did to that ring, she would gladly go on a hike up Mordor, fighting the scary giant spider and hungry orcs. Only that there was still that possibility of her ended up jumping into the said volcano after that ring, just like Gollum did. The thought depressed her a little more. Was she as bad as Gollum? Holding on to something she shouldn't have had in the first place?
Damn it Yi Jeong, she mumbled quietly in annoyance, now you even make me questioned my sanity and compare myself to Gollum. Just awesome.
She reached for her mobile phone and dialed the garage to check on her car, thinking it would be just her luck if it had turned out that the car was still in a sorry state and not fit for driving even after two weeks repair time. To her utter surprise, the receptionist told her that it was ready to be picked up.
'Great!' she found herself smiling. 'I'll be there after six.'
She put back the phone on her desk and started humming to herself.
Broken heart playlist? Pffftttt, that girl Jae Kyung knew nothing whatsoever about her. What broken heart playlist? To be contrarian she started humming the new wonder girls' song.
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By six thirty, Ga Eul had left the garage with her small and sleek red Hyundai accent. She loved her compact car since it was about the only car easy enough for her to maneuver to get inside her small allocated space at the apartment car park.
She was not all too happy, however, when she heard about how much she had to pay for the repair cost.
'Why is it so expensive?' she frowned and looking intently at the bill. 'I thought it was just the battery replacement. It can't be that expensive, right?'
But the owner told her it was the starter system that got malfunctioned and needed a lot of replacement and tune up. 'You know me for a long time now, Miss Chu. Did I ever charge you for something you don't need?'
She took a deep sigh and gave her credit card to pay the bill. Gone was her holiday saving for Christmas. She had been planning for a back packing trip to Europe with Jae Kyung. Now it looked like she had to go and spend Christmas holiday at his dad's hometown. It wasn't that she didn't want to see her parents, oh she loved them dearly, but she had made plans on what to bring, where to go, the sightseeing they were going to have. Again she sighed as she signed the receipt. Such is life, she thought mournfully.
The sun was close to set. Ga Eul loved the bright orange color interrupting the darker blue on the horizon. Fall was always her favorite season, but she also loved these summer afternoon when day turned to dusk. She drove slowly, savoring the freedom after two weeks of buses, taxis, and Yi Jeongs. She had informed the driver earlier not to bother collecting her from the office.
'But Mr. So specifically instructed me to wait on you, Miss.' He said, a little bit worried.
She assured him that she was a perfectly capable driver. Plus, no one, absolutely no one could pick up her car from the garage other than herself. 'The owner said so, 'she lied. One of these days, she had to start learning ways to improve her lying. Because that, well that sounded stupid even as she was saying it.
She took a quick detour to check on her apartment and grabbed a few more office wear and essentials for the next few days. She had agreed to stay with him until the end of the week. It was easier to just hold on to their agreement rather than risking another argument with Yi Jeong (for she might lose another argument yet again and ended up staying with him longer).
By the time she left her apartment, the day had completely turned into night. She sent a quick message to Yi Jeong telling him where she was before settling comfortably on the driver's chair and started her car.
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The So residence was located at the older part of Seoul. It was an affluent suburb where houses tended to sit on large blocks of land. The streets around the area were normally quite sleepy since there was no housing complex or business district around. Ga Eul loved to just walk along the street with its beautiful trees lined up from one end to another. It was a completely another world to the area she's used to live with blocks of apartments and convenient stores crowding the neighborhood.
She drove her car steadily, covering miles with an easy pace. It wasn't long before she left the business district and heavy traffic. The busy after hour had ended, leaving her with quiet road ahead. She didn't really pay much attention to her surrounding until she heard a tooting horn from a car behind. She glanced at the speedometer to find that she was driving about 50 km/hr. What an ass, she thought, rather annoyed. She pushed the accelerator a little. The car behind seemed to follow her along. It was a little weird, but she drove along anyway.
The second time she got tooted, she turned on her left indication, telling the driver to overtake. Weirdly, the driver seemed to not care about it and follow her still. She glanced at the mirror to see a black SUV with dark windows following her along. It was a rather big SUV as well, the kind which had horse power compared to her compact car.
This was getting creepy she thought and pushed down the accelerator. She really didn't want to stop in the middle of the quiet street and wait to see what the annoying car wanted to do with her.
'Stupid car,' she mumbled as she put a distance between her and the black car. Her relief, however, didn't last long. A few minutes later she saw on her rear view mirror the lights from the black SUV closing the distance quickly. She pushed down the accelerator but it really was no contest based on the size of their engines alone.
Seconds later she heard and felt a crash on the back of her car, like another car slamming on her bumper. This was crazy, she turned her head briefly, only to see the black SUV closing the distance again. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. She wished they were still at the CBD area and not in this quiet and sleepy stretch of road with no road camera installed nearby. Her heart beat loudly, she felt like her stomach dropped when the SUV bumped into her car the second time around. It was not an overly loud and heavy crash, but enough to jerk her car forward like a hard tackle from behind.
'What the fuck!' she yelled as she pushed her car faster. What insanity was this? Fear started to trickle into her mind. Who would want to harm her? Or scare her to death? Because it's working rather splendidly now. Cold sweat started to form on her forehead. What if Yi Jeong's tale was right, she cringed, that she had become a target by associating herself to him? 'No, please just no,' she gritted her teeth almost painfully, her palms sweaty on the steering wheel.
The third collision didn't come from behind. The SUV at last overtook her, if only to crash its body to the side of her car. She screamed loudly as the car swerved like mad, her feet pushing the brake almost as if she tried to stand on it, willing the car to halt. It felt like a slow motion scene in a movie, snapshots of stills strung together in a music video, the longest few seconds she had ever experienced in her life. Despite her desperate attempt to stop, the car hit the big fig tree on the side of the road. She screamed and screamed even as the airbag popped out from the steering wheel and the engine stopped running.
When she finally came to her senses, the black SUV was already gone. She opened the door and stepped outside, hands grasped firmly on the metal body. She felt weak liked she had just run a full marathon, her throat parched and legs felt like jelly. 'Fucking hell,' she whispered before her legs gave and she slumped down on the ground. Her car silent beside her, like a big piece of metal wall standing between her and the road.
Fucking hell, she repeated, her breath ragged on her ears.
She leaned back in distraught and pressed her head against the cold metal, hands covering her face.
Then she started to cry.
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