Anyways, just when I was comfortably leaning on Max's bony shoulder, he nudges me with his equally bony elbow.  

I made a small snort as I stirred from my sleepy daze.

"Uh, what?  We there yet?  Mommy?"  I incoherently mumbled aloud.

Max grinned as he shoved a magazine under my nose, pointing at a huge blown-up picture of some car.

"Hey Joo-Eun, check this out!  They did a bunch of research and found that the Mazda RX-8 is the best sports car around!"  he excitedly explained to me, happily jabbing at the picture with his index finger.

I rolled my eyes as he continued to babble about the car.  

One thing you have to know about Max, is that he's a car freak.  He knows everything there is to know about those things.  His mother freaked out when she found a vast number of magazines and videos underneath his mattress.  She had first thought that they were the naughty type and had put in a few good whacks with her broom at him.  

Good thing I was there and managed to help calm her down.  When she realized it was no more than car junk, she relaxed and even baked yummy cookies for us.  

She was just glad he wasn't the typical dirty guy that was every mother's fear.  

I don't blame her.  Tons of perverts around, I tell you.  

Max, on the other hand, is a complete sweetie.  So sweet to the point of dork-ism really.  He's those kinds of guys that respects his parents, tries hard in school and has absolutely no 'bad boy' inclinations in any bone of his body aka drugs, smoking, stealing, gangbangs, you get the picture.  

Yup, this boy can do no wrong.  

"It has a top engine with a 1.2-litre rotary and 238 hp." he whistled.

Ummm, and in normal human terms, that would mean?

I looked up to find Max completely mesmerized with the glossy picture in the magazine.  

Yeesh.  What a typical dude.

"What are the chances I'll get this as a birthday present?" he asked, looking wistfully at the picture.

I inched a little away, noticing a string of drool start to form in the corner of his lips.  "As big of a chance of me getting a new game system." I glumly replied, leaning my chin on top of my knapsack.

Max pried his eyes away from his magazine and gave me a small pat on my shoulder.

"It's okay, Joo-Eun." he said, looking sympathetically at me.  "You're always borrowing Alex's anyways.  You might as well consider it your own."

Alex is my other best friend.  His real name is Kim Jiwoo but, like Max, prefers an alter ego.  

Pshaw, talk about identity crisis.  

Anyways, I met Max when my family moved to Seoul and I was the new girl in high school.  He was the only one nice enough to help me out when I started bleeding all over the place from the nervousness of new surroundings. 

Alex, on the other hand, I met at a video arcade.  

I previously mentioned I was a video game addict, right?  Well, I was wandering in the mall, trying to find any sign of video games.  I left my sister to her shopping marathon and used the trusty nose to sniff out a video arcade.  

You should have seen my face when I stood in front of the most glorious part of the mall.  

I was practically drooling, my eyes shining so fruity and bright at the sight of video game machines lined up inside the place.  I was so excited to get my grubby paws on a joystick that I immediately raced forward.  

Poor Alex had to pick that moment to stop in the middle of my path and tie his shoe.

Bam!  

We knocked heads, his cup of coins spilled all over the place and we were both smothered in the boba that flew out of my hands.

You'd think a sweet, faced guy like Alex would be all gentleman-like and let the whole matter go and help me up but noooooo, he's just as, ahem, bad tempered as I am.  

We were yelling at each other and trying to strangle each other but kept slipping on the boba (I ordered extra, extra, humongous sized bubble tea with extra pearls) the whole time.

Turns out that dork worked there and when his manager found out about the commotion, he made Alex apologize to me and I got to have complementary game coins for the trouble.  

Muahaha, sucks to be Alex.

And that concludes the tour of Joo-Eun's circle of friends.  It's just Alex, Max and I.  Three kooky best friends.  

I like to think of us as like the Three Muskateers since you know, there's three of us and we're always hanging out doing whatever best friends do.  

My sister, on the other hand, decided to dub us, The Threesome instead since there are three of us, two guys and a girl.  

Grrr.  

Just for that, I think I won't tell you anything else about my annoying sister until way later.