Not Always A Happy Ending

The Arrival

The first thing Yuna noticed when she arrived in California was that it was hot. Really hot that her body started sweating ugly. The second she noticed when she saw her ride waiting for her, casually dressed in black punk skirt, and wearing a carefree smile, was that Yerin's hair was neon pink.

It's too neon that it glowed.

It looked ridiculous.

"Yuna! Yuna!" Yerin yelled, waving her arms back and forth aggressively, almost slapping a passerby in the face. "Over here!"

"Yerin, were you under the impression I wouldn't see you?" Yuna replied when she reached her friend, dropping her suitcase on the floor ungracefully to give her friend a hug. "Because I totally see you. Anyone who was still two kilometers away will, you know, with a hair like that."

"Hey! I'm trying here!" Yerin retorted and pushed Yuna from arm-length and posed. "What do you think?"

"It's unique," Yuna said as she felt her sweat drop onto her chest. "Tell me your car has air-conditioning."

"It has," Yerin said and Yuna instantly sighed at the thought of cold air, "but baby, I own a convertible so we're not using it."

Yuna glared at her friend, "I hate you, Jung."

"Hey! You could at least pretend to love me," Yerin teased, "It's been a year since I left."

Yerin's English was fluent, which was only natural because it is spoken language there. Her Korean, though, sucks, it sucks but she can speak it. Yuna, on the other hand, can't speak enough English to save her life, on top of the heavy Asian accent too.

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Yuna said and hold her heavy luggage up again. It had wheels, so she could easily drag it around. "Though I'd like to be somewhere else, somewhere with air conditioning. And possibly ice cream, but just the aircon would be a start."

Yerin saved her best friend from her torture and carried her luggage onto the backseat with an ugly grunt. "What's in that?"

Yuna opened her mouth to answer but Yerin changed her mind. "Never mind. You'd better not be thinking any smartass comments about my Korean right now either, or I will make you try to speak English, and then where will you be?"

"I love you," Yuna grinned speaking in English, "You love me."

"I don't know what you're trying to say," Yerin followed it up with a cheeky wink, "but whatever noise you just made, it wasn't English."

"I'll smother you in your sleep," Yuna said with a smile, and it's almost as if it's only been a little while since she and Yerin were last sitting next to each other, fondly insulting each other as a way of saying hello.

                                                                              - My Frog Prince -

"I'm really glad you came to visit," Yerin said over dinner. "You sound so bored on the phone, and I was under the impression of you dying on your couch. It must have been lonely without a boyfriend."

Yuna kicked her friend under the table and Yerin tried kicking back but failed when Yuna dodged it.

"I'm really excited about the place you've always talked about over the phone." Yuna picked up the thick noodles with the disposable chopsticks Yerin had handed her when the take-out arrived. "Minus the weather."

"California is a wonderful place." Yerin said, gazing outside at the beach view the window gave. "If there's anything I got used to in Korea, it's that it's nothing compared to in here. Everyone loves the sun."