PAPER HEARTS

26

It's another chilly evening for me after my second last exam for this semester. I sit perched over my bed, legs dangling off the edge with a pair of headphones tilted off-balance over my head as I stare down at the moving figures through my computer screen.

Occasionally, I'd steal a glance at the busy street underneath my apartment, buzzing with good spirits and loud, hippy voice, setting the pace for a long holiday. Some of the students who resided just close by, roam the streets, helping the shop owners to set their Christmas trees up for an income of a decent tip. 

I hear Hoseok's grandmother yelling at him to run a few errands from the building across, and his daughter skitters outside to get things done before she got any angrier. She doesn't notice my stare but smiles tautly as she drops a whole bucket of snow down the pavement and stares at it in awe.

Then he comes out running, a look of distress and panic on scribed his face as he chides her for slipping outside without telling him.

I sigh, moving my attention back to the characters as swing across in the episode of an anime, bright sparks of light exploding all over my face at the brink of every climax scene. To put it in a handful of words, I'm struggling to find a hobby whilst putting up with Ryoko's consistent chatter as she sprawls her body, facing front, over the bed. 

She's spoiling the scenes for me in loud, obnoxious Japanese, and I'm getting as far away from listening to her rambling with the booming volume as I can. Ryoko doesn't have an exam pending, so she's free to gossip about boys, girls, and her plummeting interests in actually picking up guys from the local club.

She'd met Hoseok earlier today.

What surprised me really, was how she managed to woo his friendship under her appalling personality traits by talking him into going clubbing the very same day. Ryoko just seemed to click with people who weren't even half as badass as her, and that's something I will remain jealous of forever.

"You can't physically remain single forever, y'know," she'd said brazenly to him, completely ignoring my muffled sound of discomfort, "If you gotta get your knickers wet, you gotta get 'em wet, bro."

But since Hoseok was still that struggling father who chose his priorities wisely enough, he offered to invite us for dinner instead. Ryoko's attention was perked at the word, and she caved in for a homely meal.

I could tell that Hoseok was stumped by her gregarious construct. He did smile and accept it, either way.

I want to roll my eyes until they explode as Ryoko throws her fist against the empty air, yelling something in her heavy accent before hooting and springing to her feet and manically dancing around as she holds a bottle of Soju in one hand and her own discarded cellphone in the other.

Shutting the lid of my laptop close, I pull my headphones off and grimace as she topples against my chair and lets out an 'ow' before going about it anyway.

"Okay, what did Jeongguk do this time?" I gurn.

Ryoko visibly sparks up a bundle of nerves and her hair dances around as she squeals, jumping around in exhilaration, "It's," she howls, "a secret~"

"Spit it out or I'm throwing you out of this place." 

"Okay so," she's breathless and a faint layer of sweat covers her cheeks as she leans closer to whisper it in my ear, "You know how he was born in 1997 and I was born in 1995 -"

"Don't tell me he calls you noona and you get tingles in your tummy because of that," I warn. 

"No, you rotten sushi," Ryoko flushes pink, ruffling my hair as she pulls me by the ear. Her breath is hot and I can almost feel her heart quaking at an abnormal rate inside her chest as she whispers incoherently in my ear, "bambina. He kept calling me that okay, I didn't know what it meant but it turns out it means baby girl in Italian and my tiger's so fluent!"