ETHAN

"Damn man, you totally got her," Landon hails me like I just did the impossible as we enter Flops. I shrug his hand off my shoulder and pretend to look around for Freddie.

I totally got her? She totally got me. My jaw still hurt from her punch, it's a good thing she didn't use too much force because if she had I would have ended up with a broken jaw. She's strong, I'll give her that and her right hook is a killer. Thanks to her I would be wearing roundneck until the marks she left on my chest disappears.

She behaved like a tigress that was disturbed and I don't blame her for what she did to me. I deserve it and more. I shouldn't have poured her coffee on her, it was a dick move and I didn't like the way I felt after. The guilt isn't something I'm used to.

Hilsa Fries is beautiful woman, I didn't really get a good look at her but the glimpse of her bright blue eyes trapped me. She is someone that's angry and should be left alone and not disturbed. I learned that the hard way. I guess I did the bet because I didn't want to back up down from a bet. That would make me look like a loser.

And now I think I just made an enemy. An angry, vicious tigress.

Up until today I don't think anyone has ever made my heart race like she did earlier. Thank God I wasn't the only one feeling like that, I could feel her heart racing because she was mad at me. She is like no other, I have never met anyone like her. All women I've met worshipped the ground I walk on but she is different. She broke the ground along side my jaw. She is a feisty little one and I'm going to crawl under her skin like a nasty little worm.

"Neo michyeoss-eo?!" I spin my head to the direction where the angry tone is coming from, where I see Freddie throwing her hands out as she curses Darren, my other roommate, in Korean.

Freddie is half Korean and she's fluent in the language. I've learned so many insult in Korean, thanks to her. When Freddie is angry, she switches to Korean, I think she does that because she doesn't want us to know what names she's calling us. She also tries to teach us the language but none of us are willing to learn. Freddie can be very scary when she's teaching.

She and Darren are always arguing over the stupidest thing. Last night it was about a popular Korean drama series, Squid Game. Darren casually said there's no need for Netflix to renew the series for a second season, but Freddie thought different and it ended up becoming a full blown argument.

I do not even want to know what they're arguing about today. Both of them stress me out on a daily basis and I'm too young to be this stressed.

Not bothering to approach them, I follow Landon to our usual booth at the back of the room and slide into the seat opposite Landon.

"So..." He beats the table, doing the drumroll gesture. "What do you think of her?" I look at him, his eyes shines with both curiosity and mischief.

"I kind of like her," I admit with a chuckle, making it sound like a joke but it's the truth. I do like her spirit and since I know who she is and what she looks like now, we will be seeing each other again very soon.

"She is bad news," he tells me but I don't agree, I'll be judge of that. "Not the usual type of bimbos you go for, she's like a loose cannon"- runs his fingers through his hair in frustration-"God I wish there's a way I could hurt her badly but she seems inhumane, someone that doesn't feel anything."

Every human feels something, we just have find where Hilsa's humanity is locked and we turn it on.

I can't call Landon my friend but he's one of my guys, and if someone messes with him, they mess with me. He's done somethings for me over the past few years we've known each other, so I will get revenge in his place. My grandmother raised me to be a perfect gentleman and I would never raised my hand on a woman but there are other ways to hit her without being physical.

Landon is a man, and his ego gets crushed whenever he has to explain about how a woman sucker punched him in the face. I never ask why she does it very often because he can be a jerk sometimes but still, she doesn't fear anything.

"There's a way we can hurt her," I suggest to him.

He leans closer with interest. "What do you mean?"

I shrug and recline against my seat, placing my arm at the back. "We could play with her feelings-"

"Who stole your German Shepard?" Freddie interrupts me as she slides in the seat beside Landon while Darren takes the seat beside me. They must have worked out their differences because she doesn't look like she wants to kill him and he's looking less bored. Argument with her always stress him out. "Who made you mad that you want to play with their feelings?"

Leave it to Freddie to always want to know about what we're talking about. I'm sure it's not her break and she's sitting with us.

"It's Hilsa," Landon tells them.

My eyes falls on Darren, whose expression quickly changes from bored to mixture of shock and anger. I look at Freddie to find the same expression on her face.

It's no surprise that we all know who Hilsa is, even though I've never seen her until today. Freddie has mentioned her coming here to Flops to get coffee everyday, and we still don't know how Darren knows her. Landon talks about her all the time, and every time he tries to bad-mouth her, Freddie and Darren will always come to her defense.

"What did she do to you?" Freddie questions and turns to me.

She didn't do much to me but I want to do so many things to her.

"She punched me." Half truth.

Freddie bites her bottom lip, struggling to believe my answer. Darren on the other hand doesn't take bullshit.

"What did you do?" He demands in his thick English accent. Oh yeah he's English.

I remove my arm from the back of the chair and scratch the back of my head. "I might have left the part where I spill coffee on her."

If look could kill, I'd be ten feet under from the look Darren is giving me. It's makes me feel guilty for suggesting we play with her feelings.

"Nappeun Salam!" There she goes again, overreacting. "She was wearing a white shirt, how could you spill coffee on her and ruin her clothes? What did she do to you?!"

Landon clears his throat. "Okay, you guys are clearly overreacting... Again."

"She is my favorite customer you dickheads!"

We know. She only reminds us fifty time a day.

I don't know Hilsa well but she is something. I have a friend that wants to destroy her and two other that wants to protect her. We haven't even gotten anywhere and she's already splitting us up.

"And you, Darren." We all face Darren at Landon's question. "Is she you ex or something?"

I also would love to know how he knows her.

In his response, Darren gets up, shooting Landon a glare. "Or something." He faces me and addresses me. "Don't do anything stupid or you are going to have deal with me."

He leaves after that.

"I can't even look at you." Freddie remove the towel hanging on shoulder and tosses it at me before going back behind the counter.

"What is their deal with Hilsa anyway?" Landon asks. I don't know what their deal is with her and I would love to know.

I get up and tell Landon, "see you later Landon." I try to catch Freddie's eyes but she's busy typing furiously on her phone.

Sighing, I head towards the door, just when I'm about to pull the door, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I open the door and pull it out. A smile appears on my face when I see it's a message from my sister.

Willow: Hey, Ethan! Just checking on you since you forgot I exist. P.S I love you muahhhhhh.

I type out a reply as I walk.

Me: As if I can ever forget you exist. You are too adorable to disappear from my memory. I'm sorry for not calling or texting this month. School has been crazy, and I know it's not an excuse. I'm sorry. I love you.

God! I miss my sister. She's the only real person in my family.

It's time I go home and visit her. My parents lives in the city, not too far from here.

I pocket my phone and hasten my pace to see if I can catch up with Darren. By the time I reach the picnic table, he's already sitting, his earpiece in his ear and the music blasting off.

He is angry. I can tell because he only listens to music loud enough to tear his eardrums when he's angry, he does this to avoid acting on his anger. He's a quiet person but very dangerous when angry. I don't have to stand close to him to know how loud the music is. What I don't understand is why he's angry at me? I get it, I was a dick to Hilsa and she didn't deserve what I did but what's done is done.

He doesn't acknowledge me as I take the empty seat opposite him. The music is so loud I can hear it from here.

I once asked him why he prefers to drown himself in loud music instead of work his anger out. He told me a girl he used to have crush on is the one that does it, he only started doing it to get her to notice him, and now it's a part of him.

In our 'little' crew, Darren is the most decent, he's quiet and easygoing. He is the calmest person I've ever seen, and I always wonder why he's still friends with me. To say the truth, I don't know him that well, we only just started living together a year ago and somehow he's still one of the few people I trust in this world.

"I don't know what your deal is with Hilsa but she has been assaulting Landon, just because she's a woman doesn't give her a free pass. Everybody would be all over our asses if roles were reversed. I admit that I spill the coffee on her deliberately and it was for a stupid reason. After everything she's done to Landon, the least she deserves is a stained shirt."

If there's a way to justify my actions to him, then so be it.

He yank his earpiece out and glares at me. He heard everything I just said, he must have stopped the song when I started.

"I do not care what she did to Landon yesterday or last week. Today she was the victim. And you are not Landon, you had no right taking his side when you don't want what's happened between them." He comes to her defense.

He is not all wrong though because Landon always bitch about how he got punched by a chick but never tells us what he did to the chick, and I never cared to ask. I wouldn't even have thought about if he hadn't brought it up.

"You didn't..." He hesitate, "you didn't mean it when you said you were going to play with her feeling, right?" He asks, finally meeting my eyes. "That was just a joke?"

He must really care about her, it's so obvious in his tone it's annoying. "I was only shitting with Landon, you know how much he hates her."

He eyes me for some seconds, not sure if he should believe me or not. He nods.

"We're good?" I ask.

He punches my arm playfully. "Of course we are good as long as you don't mess with her."

The protection is there. His eyes are matching his mouth. I think he's really going to kick my ass if I ever mess with her again.

"Incoming." His English accent becomes more thick when he mutters.

I follow his gaze to see who he or what he's talking about.

Dawn.

When I said I only spent one night with women, I lied. It wasn't intentional, I've forgotten about her until now. Anyway, Dawn is my on and off fuck buddy.

I met her through Darren and as usual he is not happy about my relationship with her, apparently they used to be friends and now they don't talk to each other again. They don't even say hi when they see. He won't tell us what happened but I don't think I've ever seen Darren look at someone with so much hate the way he looks at her.

"Hey Ethan." She waves when she reaches us. She look different today in her sweatpants. I don't really pay attention to what she wears but I always have easy assess whenever we want to fuck. This is the first time I'm seeing her in sweats. She's always wearing dresses or skirts, which makes it very easy for me to enter her.

Darren packs his stuff into his bag and gets us to leave. "Good riddance," she mutters when he's gone.

I don't want to know what happened between them, its like watching a live soap opera. Dawn can be annoying as fuck, just because we fuck around, she thinks she is important in my life.

My eyes catches someone while watching Darren's walk away, I spot Hilsa walking down the motion ground, gripping her bag like she going to kill someone.

There she is.

"Helloooo, Earth to Ethan!" Dawn sing-song, her voice cuts my thought short. I glance up at her to see her pouting. "What are you staring at? For her sake, I hope it's not some girl." Her words reeks of jealousy and I don't have time to that right now. This is why we are always off.

She gives a good head, best I've ever had which is why it's hard to totally cut her off.

"Nothing and mind your own god damn business." I continue. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm bored," she complains, pouting again. I miss those lips wrapped around me.

"And that has to do with me because..." My gaze following Hilsa, I watch as she speaks into her phone, I wonder who she is talking to.

Dawn places her hands around my neck, breaking my concentration from Hilsa to her again.

"You know what I want." I know what she wants and I also need a distraction to keep my mind away from Hilsa. "Your room."

She smiles like a kid on Christmas morning.

*****

Language Meaning:

Nappeun salam: bad man