When Subin was thirteen, she had her first kiss.It was with her boyfriend at the time, a guy named Isaac. He was an outgoing lad with striking blue eyes and brown curly hair. At first, Subin thought that Isaac was quite funny. He was often raucous in the cla.s.ses they shared but he wasn"t a bad guy— he just wanted to have fun. And so, when he asked her out, Subin was surprised. After all, she was nothing like him. In fact, she was the exact opposite. Subin couldn"t understand what Isaac saw in her and had almost rejected him if it weren"t for her best friend"s intervention.
"C"mon, you should give him a chance!" Liha urged while poking Subin in the ribs. "He"s cute!"
Subin shielded herself from Liha"s excitable poking. "But I don"t know if I like him that way—"
"What isn"t there to like?" Liha interjected. "Isaac"s tall, smart," she paused, "well, kinda smart and he"s really funny." Liha"s voice went up a notch as she tried to suppress her squeal. "I think you guys would make a great match!"
"I don"t know…"
"Su, you gotta give love a chance. It"s like a rite of pa.s.sage. You"re already thirteen. When will you start dating? When you"re thirty?"
Subin arched her brow at her friend before bursting into giggles alongside her. "There"s nothing wrong with waiting that long, y"know."
"Well, yeah, of course not," Liha replied flippantly. "But it"s not like I"m telling you to marry the guy either." She put her hands on her hips. "Trust me, Su, Isaac"s a catch. Maybe you"ll start liking him along the way. You"ll never know unless you try."
And so, Subin did.
On their first date, Isaac had invited her to watch a movie followed by lunch at McDonald"s. It wasn"t a glamorous date, but it was a lot like what Subin imagined first dates to be. Surprisingly, she had a lot of fun. She smiled a lot thanks to Isaac"s cheesy jokes, and she felt at ease the whole time she was with him. At some point, Subin started to think that maybe she did like Isaac… even if it was only a little.
"Do you know what a homunculus is?"
Subin looked up. "Homunculus?" she repeated as they started walking away from the bus stop. "What? You mean those things from that anime?"
Isaac c.o.c.ked his head.
The sun had started to set, and pools of amber light illuminated the pavement in front of them.
"Anime? What anime?" Isaac regarded Subin quizzically before letting out a soft chuckle. "Oh, you mean "Full Metal Alchemist"? No, I wasn"t on about that." He pulled his phone from his pocket and showed it to her. "I was on about this."
Subin peered at Isaac"s phone screen and almost immediately grimaced. "What the—" She met eyes with Isaac. "What the h.e.l.l is that?"
"Nasty lookin" fella, isn"t he?" He grinned. "We were learning about it in Biology the other day. Mrs. Gregory says that the bigger the parts of the body in the homunculus, the more sensitive it is to sensory input." Isaac glided his fingers across the screen so that he could magnify the image. "Look, this means that the most sensitive parts in the body are actually the hands, tongue and lips."
Subin hummed as she continued walking ahead. "Yeah, okay, but why show me that?"
Isaac stopped. "Because I…" And before Subin could register what was happening, Isaac"s lips were on hers.