It all started in the morning of that fateful day.
After flying for six long hours, while sitting in the cramped but affordable economic seat, Mayu was finally able to get some space for herself in an empty airport washroom. Her low effort but looking-cute grey monochrome joggers outfit, as her best friend had described it and chosen for her to wear, was completely crumpled up due to her high efforts in finding a good sleeping position in the flight and her newly “keratin-treatmented-college-debut” hair looked no less than a bird’s nest.
While she was fixing her hair and washing off the fatigue from her face, a woman walked in and went into one of the stalls. The woman would have gone by unnoticed, if it wasn’t for her rich and sweet-smelling perfume, which reached Mayu’s nose as soon as she walked in. It was the kind of smell one would get in those expensive perfume-oriented showrooms, where employees would make you smell coffee beans in order to neutralize the effect of perfume in your nose.
“What a nice smell,” Mayu thought.
As she continued on with herself, the woman walked out and stood in the washbasin next to her. She let out a deep sigh of despair and looked at herself in the mirror.
From a diagonal point of view, Mayu secretly gazed at the reflection of the woman. She was wearing a navy-blue trench coat over a light blue turtleneck and black pants underneath. Her skin looked soft, like the texture of whipped cream, but the visible lines on her forehead and around her purple-grape painted lips, hinted that she may be in her late forties. She was wearing a pair of white pearl earrings and a similar pearl necklace, and had her eyes covered with a dark shade of expensive looking rectangular sunglasses which she didn’t bother taking off inside the building.
Those dark glasses made it difficult for Mayu to decipher the expression that the woman wore on her face. She reminded Mayu of the rich and elegant Kdrama mothers who would offer money to the female lead to chase them off from their sons, a.k.a. the male lead.
She laughed silently in her mind.
While Mayu naively continued to admire her, the woman suddenly snapped and slapped the counter loudly. It made Mayu flinch. She then speedily washed her hand and then she aggressively pulled out paper towels from the dispenser. She then proceeded to wipe her hands roughly, enough to make her skin red and then finally threw the paper towel angrily into the dustbin. She gave off an aura of frustration and violence, which made Mayu secretly shudder.
“Did she read my mind?” Mayu thought, “I hope that’s not the case.”
Mayu’s instincts told that it was best to not get noticed by that woman, so she continued to finish off her business quickly and quietly, while the woman now started to aggressively type through her phone.
But it didn’t last long.
Suddenly Mayu could feel a strong and hungry gaze all over her body. It was from that woman, who was now shamelessly eyeing her up and down. The intense staring made Mayu uncomfortable. She tried her best to avoid the situation by looking the other way or looking down to her hands then clumsily opening and closing the water tap to create a diversion… which she realized was stupid.
“You are very pretty.” The woman suddenly said.
For a moment Mayu didn’t understand what the woman said or what she should reply with. All the Korean that she had learned for the last six months suddenly flew away.
“Th.. tha…. Thank you,” she answered by quickly getting hold of the floating words in her head.
Mayu smiles at the woman for her unexpected kind words.
The woman continued to stare at her intensely. Mayu’s smile of thankfulness was slowly turning into that of awkwardness while cold sweats were running down her spine.
“You are not Korean, are you?” The woman finally said after a long period of awkward silence and smiling.
Given by her looks it was quite easy to tell that Mayu wasn’t Korean. She questioned if the woman was staring at her for that long to decide on such a conclusion, or was she trying to figure out which country she belonged to.
“No,” Mayu answered, “I’m not.”
The woman nodded.
“What is your age?” The woman asked again.
“I am 19,” Mayu answered, “Oh wait,” she remembered, “I think I will be 20 in Korean age.”
“So young. Are you here for tourism?” the woman asked.
“No, I am here as a student.” Mayu answered.
“Oh? Which University?”
“SNU”
“Oh, that’s one of the best universities here. You must be academically talented.”
“Oh no,” Mayu laughed, “I just worked hard.”
The woman nodded again. “Are you staying in an apartment near your school or will you be staying in a dorm?” she asked.
“I will be staying in an apartment,” Mayu answered with a smile.
“Where?” The woman asked eagerly.
“In—” Mayu halted.
It suddenly hit her that the first thing she had done after landing in a very unfamiliar city was share her personal information with a complete stranger that she just met in the airport. And also, that particular stranger had acted very peculiarly not so long ago.
She remembered she knew nobody in the city and that the only person who could help her out, if she got into any kind of trouble, was her best friend’s mother who could not be contacted very easily. She was disappointed in herself for getting swayed after just a few moments into conversation.
While she was deep in her thoughts of self-depreciation, the woman diligently waited for a reply.
“Miss?” The woman said.
“Oh,” Mayu snapped out of her intense thinking. She looked at the woman who was looking at her with curious eyes.
“I must not talk to this strange woman anymore,” Mayu thought, “I must run away now. Yes!”
“Miss,” the woman started to say something again, “I wanted to ask—”
“Oh, look at the time,” Mayu said loudly, interrupting the woman’s words, and looked at her wrist, which unfortunately did not wear a watch. Luckily, she was holding her phone with the same hand, so after facing a second of embarrassment, she quickly tilted her hand and looked at the phone screen.
“I must get going now,” Mayu said as she abruptly shoved her things from the slab into her bag, and grabbed onto her luggage. “Nice meeting you, Ma’am,” she said with a cheerful smile on her face, “Goodbye now.”
She almost walked out of the door.
“Ouch,” the woman suddenly wailed.
Hearing her made Mayu stop at the door. She looked back and saw the woman crouching, her hand on her hips while she made an expression of immense pain.
“My back hurts,” the woman said, “It hurts very much,” she wailed, “Can you please help me carry my handbag till the exit,” she asked with wretched eyes pointing at Mayu.
The crouching woman didn’t really seem dangerous, rather she looked fickle. Witnessing such a sight made Mayu not want to leave her alone. Even if the woman was lying about her pain, rejecting someone older asking for help didn’t feel right to her.
Mayu walked back to the woman and picked up her, very expensive looking, bag from the counter.
“Okay,” Mayu smiled cheerfully, “Let me see you till the exit.”
“Thank you very much, Miss,” the woman smiled back at her.
Mayu realized that it was the first time that the expression in the woman’s face had changed since they met. Matching her entire aura, the woman’s smile was rich and sly.
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