Flash Fiction (Stories under 1000 words)

English to Korean

        “Oh my gosh, would you stop singing!” Joonpyo shouted with hands over his ears, as the short blonde girl sang the 15th Owl City song since the beginning of their nature walk. 

“Again,” Allison said with a goofy smile. “I can’t understand you, because I can’t speak Korean.” Joonpyo just sighed, on account of he couldn’t understand her either. He was being forced to spend his 3-day vacation with someone from a totally different country, with the loudest personality in existence. How was he going to get through these next two days?

“Oh come on Mr. Grumpy pants, if we’re going to be together for the next few days, we might as well make the best of it. Even if we can’t understand each other’s languages, maybe there’s still a way for us to understand each other.” 

Joonpyo gave her an irritated look, being that the only words he understood there were “Oh” and “pants”. 

“Wait!” Allison put a hand in front of him, bringing both of them to a halt. “I have an idea!” She reached for his pocket and he dodged fast. 

“Hey! What the heck are you doing?” 

“Ugh, how do I explain this?” Allison said to herself. Then she turned back to Joonpyo and made big hand gestures, while talking loudly and slowly, as if it that would make it any easier to understand her foreign words. “Do you have a phone?” She made a pretend phone with her hand and held it up to her ear, repeating the word “phone” a few more times. 

Joonpyo understood, but was still hesitant when pulling the phone out of his pocket. She held out her hand for him to give it to her. Why the heck did she want his phone?! He barely knew her, and she just wanted him to hand it over!

“Hey,” she said with a sweet smile. “Trust me.” Joonpyo got the message from her eyes, not the words. And with a sigh, he placed the phone in her hand. 

Allison lifted the phone to her face with a smile, and into the mic she spoke, “Siri, can you translate English to Korean.” Soon after a translator popped up, and Allison screamed into the phone. “Hi!”

Once it started loading she held the phone up to Joonpyo’s face. “Anyung!” Siri said. Joonpyo smiled a little, finally understanding what she wanted the phone for. 

“It works!” Allison screamed. “Great! Now I can sing the songs to Siri, and you can actually understand the lyrics.” 

Allison started saying line after line to Siri, and then holding the phone up for Joonpyo to hear. And this time he didn’t sigh or groan, instead he chuckled. And with a smile he said to her. “You know, you’re actually kind of cute.” 

“What?” Allison said. “Oh here, say it to Siri.” But he didn’t, he just kept walking with a big smile on his face.