Love Me Once Again

One

"So, what are your plans for the weekend?" Mason, my co-worker and classmate since first year of medical school, fiddled with the pens on my table stand casually as he watched me pack up.

I took off my white coat and exchanged it for my grey coat hanging on the hanger.

"I'm going to the EXO concert with Mandy," I answered. Mandy was our one year younger junior. She was a K-pop fanatic, forever rumbling on about some pretty flower boy and the latest gossip. The wallpaper on her phone and computer screen was constantly changing with the latest album covers. How she found time for all this stuff was beyond me.

"EXO concert??" He exclaimed out loud, and it was one of those occasions I could make out his eyes. He had such puney eyes that it always made us wonder if he was sleeping.

"Do you even know who they are?" He remarked with a snort.

I let out a laugh. "Not really."

Work occupied my time. We worked shifts. When my shift was over, depending on which ungodly hour that was, either I returned home to sleep and ready for the next shift, or I would be preparing some kind of report.

Recently, I had been tasked to lecture for this semester. So, while I had been excused from the wards, I now made my way back to the familiar lecture halls to give lectures to my fellow aspiring medical juniors.

On the other hand, weekends were my days off unless I was on duty, which was one weekend a month. Previously, when we had fewer doctors, it was every other weekend on duty. It was definitely an improvement.

I spent my free days visiting my eighty year old grandma and helping her out at her shop selling tteokbokki (Korean rice cakes). She made the best tteokbokki in the neighbourhood, but that was also because she was the only one selling.

And whenever I turned up, she would nag at me. "Go out with your friends," or "Rest at home." She knew how long my working hours were. I know she was secretly proud of me as a doctor. I had caught her boasting to the neighbours a few times. But as like typical human beings, when people gets jealous, they started calling the grapes sour. And Grandma started nagging at me to get a boyfriend. "Look at Dan-Li next door," she would say. "She's of the same age as you and she's already got two boys." Or, look at so and so. Then I would simply smile back at her. And usually she would give up after that. She knows that no matter how much nagging or preaching, I wasn't going to be turning up with a boyfriend soon. I was turning forty but I was in no hurry to get married. Not that I didn't want to, to be honest.

Such was my life but I was not complaining. I loved my job and I loved my co-workers and I did not feel like I was missing out anything in my life. Least to say K-pop. But it also did not mean that I avoid it. I still try and participate. If someone asked me to go for a movie, I went. If someone asked me to go for some gig, I went. I went to the clubs too, though I didn't really drink. I could manage a pint or two but I didn't want to challenge beyond that. I've seen my friends drunk and, well, acting silly, and I figured I didn't want that on me.

And thanks to Mandy, I wasn't totally ignorant.

At least, I know who EXO was.

"Why would she ask you anyway?" he asked in disbelief. He wasn't a K-pop fan himself but his girlfriend - Ga-eun was a Black Pink fan.

"Her friend couldn't make it last minute," I replied.

"So you are like a last minute option?" he mused.

"I guess," I chuckled with a shrug. "I'm free anyway. Grandma is going to some fair with the neighbours so she's closing shop for the weekend."

"It's been awhile since I visited her," he remarked. "I should soon. I missed her tteokbokki. Is she still not considering closing up?"