Subject: [Fwd: Re: Seriously, Taehyun?]

From: NaminParis@staygold. com

To: Hiphopbabylion@bbusan. com

Date: 01 May 2015 2:22 pm

 

 

Seunghoon wrote:

When you do something, you do it all the way! Dude, you embarrass me! I’m officially taking the ‘I am proud of you comment back’. Moving on, among the long list of my many to mention friends, I don’t know anyone else who would burn his underwear in order to get rid of a ghost, and that movie guy was just a poop! You should’ve used the karate moves on him! Was Seungyoon mad that you guys had to leave early? You must be in Paris now; tell me what it’s like! I wish I could be there with you! Wah! You’re so lucky! You’re in PARIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

There are times when I’m absopositively certain that God or whoever runs the universe hates me. And then there are times like this when I know it’s true. Because I have proof!

                Yes, I’m in Paris (note temporary Paris email addy.) I’m here, Jinwoo’s here, the Class Rep is here (her mom and Jinwoo’s mom work together, and her mom thought the French school sounded like a good idea), and Raeryun is here.

                Yes, Raeryun. My Baby Drive You Insane. Lord have mercy on me. Why, you must be asking? Why, oh, why did I drag a baby doll that cries at a drop of a hat with me on my übercoolio trip to Paris? Why? Because Mr. Kwonforehead Dragon hates my guts and wants me to go crazy, that’s why!

                All right, I’m going to tell this properly even if it kills me (and it probably will). Last Sunday, while I was e-mailing you about what a horrible day I’d been having, Mom—still a bit wigged out by the accident—convinced Donghyun to take me to school so I could drop Raeryun off (Yes, he got his driver’s license last month and he, unlike mwah, can properly drive without hyperventilating over stop signs and pedestrian lanes). The dragon was supposed to be there waiting to collect Raeryun, download the data, and release me from my baby .

                But he wasn’t. We were only FORTY minutes late! And he had left! LEFT! Like he couldn’t have waited? Ok, I admit, maybe it wasn’t terribly smart to go strawberry-flavored- shopping beforehand, but I didn’t know he was going to leave!

                He taped a note on the library door that said:

 

                Nam Taehyun—as a student in my class, you know that punctuality is a quality I value greatly. Since you deemed it not worth your time to keep the appointment you made with me—an appointment that forced me to arrange my entire evening’s schedule—to turn in your HelloBaby, I assume that you desire to keep the doll with you another night. Mrs. Milford will be in the school library tomorrow morning from nine o’clock until ten to facilitate the return of the dolls. If you do not return your HelloBaby during that time, you will be responsible for its care during the two weeks of spring break. I need not remind you that your grade for the semester depends upon the data collected by the HelloBaby—regardless of the duration of the time it is in your care.

 

                Now you know me: I am not one to panic. I stopped screaming after only five minutes, which I think is pretty good, considering what Mr. Kwondragon had just done to me.

                “What am I going to do?” I wailed, dragging Donghyun out of the car so he could see the note. “I can’t take Raeryun with me to Paris! It’ll ruin the trip! OHMYGOD! I will not only die a but i will also die of anxiety. you can make a mental note of editing my tombstone right now.”

                My brother just pursed his lips and raised his brow. “Hmm. I suppose your mother could return it for you tomorrow, if you ask her nicely.”

                I grabbed his arms and shook him. How could he be such a big scholar and not see the obvious? “I’m leaving tonight! In three hours! I can’t leave Jack all night; he’ll record that I abused him, and the dragon will fail me for the class, and that will bring my GPA down even more, and I’ll never get into Harvard with a crappy GPA!”

                “The dragon?” Donghyun asked, looking all dopey, the way scholar brothers can.

                “Mr. Kwon. Brother! What am I going to do?!”

                “Surely one bad grade can’t ruin your GPA—” he started to say.

                “It’s not just one! He’s given me awful grades all year! I’ve had to be doubly good in the other classes to make up for his grades, and another bad one will absolutely kill my chances at Harvard!”

                “Perhaps if mother can take care of the baby until tomorrow—” he started to say.

                I shoved my wrist under his nose. “She can’t! The key is hot-wired so if the band is taken off my wrist, the doll knows. It’s to keep us from having someone else watch the baby. I’m doomed!” I tossed my hands up and stormed off to the car. “Either I have to take a crappy grade and ruin the whole, entire rest of my life, or I have to take Raeryun with me to Paris. I hate my life!”

                “Calm down, Tae; there’s no sense in getting upset over something so trivial,” Donghyun said as he got into the car.

                “Trivial!” I gasped.

                “Trivial,” he said in that end-of-discussion voice. “I don’t believe that your GPA will suffer as greatly as you claim, but if you are convinced of it, then you have two choices. Either you take the doll with you to Paris, or you contact Mr. Kwon this evening, apologize for your tardiness, and politely request that he take the doll before you leave for the airport.”

                “You’re a genius,” I yelled, and kissed his cheek (he deserves it once in a while).

                As it turns out, he wasn’t that much of a genius. The whole time I packed, Mom tried calling Mr. Kwon, but there was no answer. We even went by his house on the way to the airport, but the woman next door said he’d gone off to the Cotswolds for spring break. WAH!

                So there I was three hours later, standing in the middle of Heathrow Airport with Raeryun, the baby carrier, my luggage, and Raeryun’s bag. Could life get any worse?

                “This is so unfair,” I sniveled to Mom. “Can’t you call up the school and explain to them what happened? Can’t you tell them this isn’t my fault? Can’t you tell them its illegal or something to make me take care of a fake baby for two whole weeks?”

                “I’m afraid they’re not going to see it that way sweetheart,” Mom said and patted me on the arm. “I’ll try to get hold of the headmaster for you. If he says you can cut the bracelet off, I’ll call you.”

                “Thanks,” I said, as miserable as I possibly could be, but what was I supposed to do? Mom couldn’t take Raeryun or I’d fail the class. I couldn’t leave Raeryun behind or I’d fail the class. I couldn’t take him to Paris and ignore him, or I’d fail the class. It was my baby or my grades, and I’ve worked hard to keep my grades up to toss them for a couple of weeks of UTTER AND COMPLETE BLISS.

                I have the worst life of anyone I know.

                People looked kind of strangely at me as Jinwoo and I checked in, but no one said anything to me until we were on the plane. The plane attendant came over as I was clutching Raeryun’s carrier to my chest.

                “I’m sorry,” she said as she looked at a list. “I don’t see that you’ve purchased a ticket for your baby.”

                She wanted me to buy a ticket for Raeryun? I was so tired from lack of sleep (which, I’d like to point out, is all Raeryun’s fault) that I stared at her until Jinwoo nudged me. “Oh. It’s not . . . This isn’t a real baby. It’s fake, see?”

                “A fake baby!” she yelled, loud enough that everyone sitting around us could hear her. (*rolls eyes*)

                I flipped Raeryun over and pulled up his baby tee to show the key slot in his back. “Fake.”

                “Oh. Why—” She waved her hand around. (*rolls eyes again*)

                “School thing,” I said, and tried to pretend that everyone wasn’t staring at us. My first trip by myself, my first trip to Paris where I was going to meet my boyfriend, and I get stuck hauling a fake baby doll around. Tae, the doll freak, yes, sir, I’m him.

                I hope you’re crying for me, because I had a good bawl in the bathroom on the airplane. Jinwoo did his best to cheer me up, but he wasn’t the one who was damned to have Baby Screw Up Your Life with him during his whole fabulous time in Paris.

                “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” he said. “Maybe you can look at this as a unique opportunity to find out what sort of a father you will be.”

                “I know what sort of father I will be,” I said grumpily (the grumpiness was so justified). “I will be the sort of a father who has enough money to hire a nanny so he can spend to glorious weeks alone in Paris with the man of his dreams; that’s the sort of father I’ll be.”

                Jinwoo just smiled. He was all dreamy and happy