2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 41

All throughout that winter, spring and summer, I felt numb to all men, and feared I'd lost my ability to love altogether because of Ed. Perhaps I was only destined for one great love in life, and I'd already fumbled it into ruin by the ripe old age of twenty. When school recommenced in autumn, I braced myself for the heaviness of the workload again, but the spirit of summer fought to linger, in the force of the afternoon heat and the in-surge of sun-kissed students just oozing farm-to-table freshness. As I watched them, I was surprised to be greeted by a feeling that was once familiar yet, forgotten – I felt my heart stir.

At men!

If you've ever paid attention to people and their auras, you'll notice some are gentle like the breeze, others are shriveled like an unopened bud on a cherry tree, well, these guys, my new peers, their auras are so potent and so big I don't think their humanly bodies could contain it. In the two years that followed, I came to meet some of the most eligible bachelors I would ever meet...(to date). Bursting at the seams with promise and energy, they are a marvellous embodiment of charisma, brilliance and hurtfully fine features that. Just. Makes. You. Angry. Or at the very least, go, Arg! Calvin Klein is going to be very sorry to lose their underwear models to our little business school. Every time they strode across our long corridors on their long legs, I get jittery. All my molecules start shaking at a frantic frequency. They were like the F4 except there were more than 4 of them. And they don't fly around in private jets or band together to bully people, and they aren't stupid like Gu Jun Pyo. (Sorry, inside joke for Korean drama fans.) But the effect they have on me is similar to the effect F4 has on the rest of school. Swoon would be an understatement. Needless to say, there's a lot of compulsive fidgeting.

Our interactions would've stopped at my staring at them in a state of stupor like an amorphous wallflower, if it wasn't for a business competition. I was chosen to be on the team, and they organized the competition and coached the teams. For 4 months, we trained together. I admired their intelligence, their speed, their eloquence, their drive, and of course their athleticism on the softball court. The Michael Jordan moment captured forever on the logo, taut limbs in full extension, going for the goal, owning the court, as they like to call it, was an image that left an imprint on my mind.

You'd think for someone endowed with so many dazzling qualities at a young age, one would be hauling around enormous egos like a hot air balloon, leaving little room for other people to breathe. Upon the first meeting, they greeted each other with familiarity and warmth, while I, the only Asian and female on the team, wasn't even acknowledged.

But once we get into training, I was surprised by their maturity - the self-assuredness with which they present their views but also their openness to listen. Their ability to drop their egos at the door and just be one with the team. Our coach, a cocky intimidating figure himself, was our rock. In every sense of the word. He was as gentle as a rock and solid as one. There's no frou frou, no coddling, no undeserved praise, just a stern, almost militant demand for quality and speed. (Another phenomenon I noticed, when men get together, they get militant.)

One day shortly before the competition, we each received a card from the organizing committee. When I opened mine, two of the organizers signed their names, a third one, signed off with love.