PROLOGUE I WAS LOOKED AT,
BUT I WASN'T SEEN

2018

             She has a very intense disliking working at the market, which is the place that makes her, makes her dissociate the most.

     Ignorance is a bliss.

      Now when she says she has an intense disliking to working at the market, it's not the market that she dislikes. She loves selling fruits, making her customers happy, including her boss.

     It's just the way her eyes always wander at all the happy people passing through. It makes her really envious of them. Rather, it's tourists or locals. It's just a very deep envious feeling in the pit of her stomach.

     Sometimes her eyes wander for quite too long that she doesn't realize she's not attending her customers, too busy making up scenarios in her head for each couple passing through the market.

Which brings her down to this moment, where her eyes have just wandered on a couple who seem to be arguing, reminds her when she seen her parents argue those arguments that she so wishes to Heavenly repress. But all it does haunt her when she's alone. Alone in her bed, that when it gets too quiet, she hears the yelling in her head just echoing.

     She can still hear all the cruel words her mother would say about her. It would hurt her even more, especially since she was only just a child, hearing all those cruel words from her own mom, someone who shouldn't be telling her all those cruel things, but better yet make her feel good about herself.

     Her mother was supposed to be her bestfriend, her protecter, not her enemy. Now she carries her mothers rage in her body, and she hates it, every fiber of it.

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

A sudden finger snapping of a man's fingers brought her back down to reality, and she could see the full aggravation written all over his face, impatient man, "I've been standing here for fifteen minutes. Are these the only fruit you got?" the annoyance in his voice was easy to detect. Customers with a very short temper always sour her mood.

"We only sell certain fruits. Meaning that the fruits that you see up here on display are what's sold here." She had instantly flashed him an innocent smile, but she was seething inside. It wasn't that she was bothered by the question, but bothered within the fact that he snapped his fingers directly into her face.

     "You don't sell bananas?" He ignorantly dismissed her response, "Is there a shipment coming in soon?" His eyes wandered onto the shelves of the fruit that were displayed.

"No, we don't sell any bananas over here, sir, but the second closest market does sell them." Yoon-Mi tiredly responded as she came to a conclusion that this is going to be a back and forth argument with him, not understanding that they don't sell bananas in this market. She tightened her fist into a ball, nails digging into her skin.

"Can you check?"

     Breathe in. breathe out.

       She was suddenly hit with breeze hitting her face, hair blowing in the wind, causing her hair to stick on her lips due to her lipgloss. She quickly moved her hair to the side, as this was one of her biggest pet peeve's. She then calmly again spoken to him, "There is a market that's only thirty minutes away that sells what you're looking for. Please understand that." She was getting frustrated.

Why are customers so stubborn?

She noticed when he clenched his jaw, his fingers viciously typing on his phone, possibly messaging whoever wanted the bananas that they don't have what they are precisely looking for at this market, as she was keeping a very cautious eye on him while quietly organizing the fruits on the stand.

       The very sudden roughness of his voice startled her, causing her to drop an apple, and watching it fall and roll down to her feet, "Poor business. What kind of market doesn't sell what a customer comes looking for." He angrily snapped at her.

     She couldn't believe with her eyes that he was lashing out on her all because there are no bananas sold at this specific market, even though she given him another option another market where he could find bananas at.

Breathe in. breathe out.

Yoon-Mi stood her ground, and again calmly spoken to him,"I apologize that the store is an inconvenience to you, but please dial down this nasty attitude that you have going on with me." His attitude was causing all the wandering eyes to look at them, and also the market, people whispering amongst each other. And that's not something she wanted for the business. This is something that makes the business look awful, and causing people to stay away.

     The man had let out a dry, bitter chuckle before responding to her response, "Afraid my anger will cause people to stay away from this inconvenient store? Hm?" A hint of amusement lingered in his eyes as he could see that he was making her blood boil.

All this for bananas again, she thought. All this fuzz over a simple fruit.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave, please, now." She had raised her voice, fist clenching, with her heart beating out her own chest. They maintained eye contact for what felt eternity, neither one of them breaking eye contact until he clenched his jaw and glanced away.

"Fine!"

She had instantly felt the way her lips wanted to curve upwards, but not wanting to be smug, she had maintained a neutral face, though, he noticed she wanted to smile. This is what ticked him off as he was leaving, he had knocked down some of the fruit stands, causing fruits to roll down the street.

Her jaw dropping, and out of impulse she went chasing after him, bumping into people, hearing quite the grunts and complaints, and right before she could reach him he'd already been gone. She interlocked her fingers with her hair, and groaning in annoyance.

"I should've gone to college. Anything would've been better than this." She quietly spoken to herself, walking back to her stand at the market, she just knew all the fruits that she had to pick up off from the ground, and replace it with fresh ones.

What a waste of fruits.

The moment that she arrived to her stand, and expecting to having pick up all the fruits all on her own, she instantly paused as she seen a man all on his own picking up the fruits off of the floor.

He must have felt the wandering eyes on him that he had instantly glanced up, and had spotted a woman with long, black hair, "I see this must be your stand. Your fruits fell." He hesitantly waved one of the apples that was in his hand.

couldn't help but let out a snort. Yeah, right fell, she thought.

"You could almost say that they all fell down." She had bent down, helping him pick up all the fruits and placing all the fruits in the boxes, replacing them with new ones.

      The kind, handsome man still there, offering a helping hand, in which he didn't have to, since he wasn't the one that caused this destruction. It had taken approximately forty five minutes to organize everything back to how it once was.

     Yoon-Mi anxiously bit her bottom lip, rubbing her hands on her arms before speaking to the unknown man, "I appreciate for the help, you didn't have to pick up these fruits." She bit the inside of her cheek.

     No one's ever been this nice before.

The man offered her a genuine smile. His voice was rough, but soft at the same time, "It would've been ignorant of me to ignore all of these fruits rolling down the street." His eyes wandered at all the strangers passing through, not a single one who bothered to help. That had made him feel a certain way, and not in a good way.

A genuine smile appeared on her face.

"Thank you. What's your name?" Yoon-Mi curiously asked him. She felt her heart quickly race. She has never felt this nervous before, not for a man before.

     The man felt his lips instantly curl upwards, hand extending, "In-Ho. What's yours?"

     "Yoon-Mi."