LOVE:ZERO

Lauren Hamilton’s maiden name was Lauren Nayeon Han.

Her father, Dr. Jong-Koo Han, was a renowned neurosurgeon who served as the president’s personal physician.

He told her only in Korean that you can’t be a proper human being if you don’t know your roots. If she spoke to him in English, he wouldn’t speak back.

During summer vacations, instead of going to camp like her friends, she spent her summers in Korea.

Despite being born and raised in the United States, Lauren’s Korean was as fluent as any 1.5-year-old Korean-American.

But that didn’t mean she felt more comfortable in Korean.

Her first language was English, and she couldn’t force Hunter to speak Korean as rigorously as her father did.

As a result, Hunter struggled to communicate with his maternal grandfather.

Her stubborn father yelled at her every time he saw her, accusing her of not teaching Hunter a Korean language.

As a desperate measure, she brought in a Korean tutor once a week to teach him Hangul, but he didn’t show much interest.

Mirande de Lafayette, the Marquis de Lafayette, with whom he had a close relationship, was also Korean.

Whenever they met, she bragged about how well her son Rex spoke Korean, so Lauren decided to team up with Miran to put Rex and Hunter together for Korean lessons.

But Hunter and Rex, two of the Upper East Side’s worst troublemakers, bicker every time they meet.

On the rare occasions when they got into a fight, they’d team up to cause trouble, and this was the second time their hard-earned Korean tutor had to quit.

But today, when I saw Jiyu reading to Hunter, I had an idea.

When Jiyu told her that she was already reading chapter books, Lauren thought it was an exaggerated show of affection.

But when she saw Hunter’s attention to the book she was reading, she was shocked.

“I never knew my son could sit still like that.”

Lauren was hopeful that having such a calm, intelligent girl in her Korean class would improve the atmosphere.

The fact that Jiyu was also fluent in Korean was the icing on the cake. After all, children learn to speak from their peers.

Hunter can’t lose, so having a kid who speaks better Korean and is more well-read than he  was likely to push him to compete without much prompting.

Luckily, while Hunter and Rex may have been at each other’s throats, they didn’t touch the girl.

Fortinately, Hunter and Rex did not touch any girl, despite their heated argument.

It was more accurate to say they weren’t interested at all.

Lauren grinned at Ae-Jeong.

“So, Ms. Ae-Jeong, speaking of which… Hunter is learning Hangul with a kid named Rex. Would Olivia be interested? They have two-hour lessons every Saturday morning at my house.”

Ae-Jeong’s eyes widened at Lauren’s offer, and she answered without taking a breath.

“Sure, I’m interested! When do we start?”

ꕥ

What was supposed to be a one-time playdate turned into a series of playdates.

Because she lived in the same apartment, Hunter could easily summon Jiyu to play whenever she was free.

No matter how short notice it was, Ae-Jeong never once turned down Hunter’s offer to go on a playdate.

She even canceled a previously scheduled appointment.

They walked to school together when their mothers met in the lobby on the way to school, and shared Nanny when they had urgent matters.

Jiyu had math tutoring at Hunter’s house every Wednesday, and they also took Hangul lessons together every Saturday until Hunter dropped Hangul.

Hunter found Jiyu very annoying.

From the first day they met.

When he threw a ball at her as she stepped out of the elevator, it was purely to play with her.

He had no intention of hitting her in the forehead and knocking her out.

I didn’t think there could be a jerk who couldn’t catch an easy ball coming in a straight line.

When I voiced my opinion to my Mom that night, I only got yelled at.

The memory of Jiyu falling backwards in slow motion was still vivid. It even came up in my nightmares.

The small ball he threw would hit Jiyu on the forehead in her silly lace-covered dress, and she would suddenly swell up like a giant.

After towering over him until he couldn’t see her face, she would fall over Manhattan.

Just like in the movies, Manhattan shattered like crumbs in the apocalypse.

The Hamilton Residence disappeared without a trace.

I tried to pull Jiyu to stop her from falling, but she didn’t move, as if her body was tied down.

She didn’t even scream.

It was a horrible nightmare that made him shudder to think about.

For the first time in his life, Hunter was banned and deprived.

He was punished severely and had his freedom taken away as a result of something he didn’t intend to do.

He was banned from the playground and playroom for a week.

He might as well have gone without food for a week.

The culprit was that goody-two-shoes, Jiyu Parker.

I couldn’t understand why my mom kept inviting this little girl over to our house who got on my nerves at every turn.

The only thing she did was read aloud to him while he played. Strangely enough, the words fell into his ears.

But that was as good as it got. I wish I hadn’t been so useless.

Soon enough, Hunter discovered, to his dismay, that Jiyu was exactly what he needed.

It was a shocking realization.

ꕥ

A few months ago, on the day Jiyu came to watch his first tournament,

Hunter flattened his eleven-year-old opponent and became the tournament champion.

As a result of that match, his Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) finally broke into the four-digit range.

‘But that’s because I played well’

His victory had nothing to do with Jiyu coming to watch.

Just the other day, he’d invited the dirty bookworm and her mending mom to another tournament.

It was a futile endeavor.

The first round, the opponent was a head shorter than Hunter.

Intimidated, he dropped the first set in six loves, then cried and quit the match, claiming his stomach hurt.

He advanced to the second round, taking the first set 6:2 and the second 6:1.

The semi finals were not much different.

However, in the final, Hunter faced a pretty strong opponent.

Shawn Peterson, who has a 5.8 UTR, is twelve years old and a head taller than Hunter.

In fact, they had played a few times before.

The result was a straight-set loss.

Before the match started, I was standing across the net with Shawn tossing a coin to determine the serving order when I spotted Jiyu sitting in the audience.

She was there to watch, but she was reading a book open on her lap with her head down, which is pretty bad form.

The first set was won by Shawn, 3:6.

The second set was 7:5 in favor of Hunter.

The third set was a tightly contested affair, and with the score tied at 6-6, a tiebreaker was used to decide the winner.

The first player to score seven points was the winner.

“Go Hunter!”

Lauren and Ae-Jeong were cheering and being loud.

After dozens of rallies, the crowd grew noisy when Hunter scored a dramatic point, and Jiyu glanced up.

She looked around, clapped a couple of soulless hands, and then dropped his head back into her book.

I felt strangely bad.

‘You’re telling me you enjoy reading more than my game?’

Hunter couldn’t admit it, so he gritted his teeth and paced the court.

After a brief lapse in concentration, when he was being dominated and the outcome of the match was unpredictable,

Jiyu looked up from her book and watched him play.

That day, Hunter performed well above his usual level, defeating Shawn to become the tournament champion.

After the match, the four of them had dinner together at a Korean restaurant in Fort Lee, where Lauren said something to Jiyu that she shouldn’t have.

It was the beginning of an ominous sign.

“Thanks for coming, Jiyu, but now that I think about it, Hunter seems to win the tournament every time you come over. Maybe you’re Hunter’s lucky charm.” Lauren said.

Hunter looked like he’d chewed a worm and insisted that it couldn’t be true.

Jiyu didn’t show up for the next tournament; he was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

In the next tournament, he made it to the quarterfinals, only to lose to a player with a lower UTR than him.

That day, too, he didn’t feel good from the first serve.

As he analyzed why, he suddenly remembered what Lauren had said to Jiyu at the dinner table.

It felt like a slap in the back of the head.

The dirty bookworm couldn’t be his lucky charm.

‘Unless it’s a jinx.’

There was only one thing to do.

“Invite her to the tournament and see if she really is a jinx or not.”