LOVE:ZERO

It’s May, halfway through the third semester of my junior year.

A mild spring breeze rustled the deep greenery of Central Park.

Languid sunlight slid across the surface of the quaint limestone building on Fifth Avenue facing the park.

Under her one-piece school uniform, Jiyu wore a short-sleeved undershirt for the first time this year.

Ae-Jeong had called Ms. Soon to tell her that she couldn’t pick her up today because she was volunteering as an organizer for the school’s charity bazaar.

Soon-Ye, who was well past her sixties, had been Jiyu’s frequent babysitter since she was a newborn.

Despite living in the United States for nearly 30 years, she didn’t speak much English.

She had a lot to do with Jiyu’s fluency in Korean.

In front of Soon-Ye, a warm and relaxed personality, Jiyu, who is very shy, chatted as easily as any other girl her age.

Holding Soon Ye’s hand, they walked toward Fifth Avenue, and out of nowhere, Hunter’s face popped up.

Hic!~

Jiyu stopped in her tracks, startled.

“Come to the tree house as soon as you get home.”

Hunter whispered in a low voice against Jiyu’s frozen ear, his shoulders hunched.

The eyes of the students around them snapped to them in unison.

Before she could answer, Hunter disappeared into the crowd on the descent, just as abruptly as he had appeared.

‘You want me to come to the tree house?’

There was a tree house with a slide in the courtyard of their apartment building, and it sounded like Hunter wanted Jiyu to come there.

It was the tree house in the courtyard where Jiyu and Hunter played in the playroom, and when he got tired of it, Rosa would take them both down.

Hunter was like a fireball, spewing fire in all directions.

While Jiyu went down the slide a couple times, sat on the swing, and swung her legs, he would crawl up to the roof of the tree house, unable to contain the explosive energy that was building up inside of him, and leap off with his arms outstretched as if he were going to fly away.

Jiyu felt so energized just watching Hunter that she would quickly duck into the tree house and sit there, reading quietly.

Hunter, for his part, preferred to run amok and wreak havoc on the playground than play with the annoying bookworm.

For that reason, they were in the same space but still played separately.

This was the first time Hunter had ever asked Jiyu to meet him in the tree house.

‘I wonder why he asked me to come to the tree house.’

Another face burst into Jiyu’s line of sight as she stood there bewildered.

“Olivia! Are you friends with Hunter Hamilton?”

Sienna asked, curiosity shining in her large light blue eyes, the most popular girl in the third grade.

Surprised, Jiyu hesitated before answering.

“…No.”

Usually, Sienna never spoke to her first, and it wasn’t because she had anything against her.

She just wasn’t interested in the bookworm who sat in the corner reading quietly.

She only played with the kids in the group her mother had carefully organized.

Sienna’s mom, Rebecca Reed, was famous among the third graders.

Last semester, as part of a project to research a female role model from history or celebrity, Sienna made a board about Rebecca and proudly presented it.

Rebecca was an Astor School alumna who went on to become an editor at a prominent fashion magazine and a womenswear designer.

With hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, she didn’t hesitate to put her lavish and colorful life on public display.

Sienna often appeared on her social media, too.

The mother-daughter duo were treated like celebrities at school.

Rebecca used to throw fancy parties for Sienna at their townhouse, and the girls in the third grade were eager to be invited to Sienna’s sleepovers.

She looked at Jiyu and scratched her head.

“I think I’ve seen you together sometimes. Aren’t you two friends?”

‘Is Hunter my friend?’

Jiyu couldn’t answer that question straightforwardly.

Hunter was the gatekeeper who held the key to the treasure island known as the library in the playroom, and she needed to be seen if she wanted to get inside.

But she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

They’d spent as much time together as any family, but when they saw each other at school, they’d go over each other’s heads like cows and chickens, never even pretending to know each other.

There was no particular reason. They’d been like that since they were in kindergarten, so it was weird to see them pretend to be friends now.

Crucially, Hunter didn’t like her.

Jiyu wasn’t scared of him like she used to be, but she didn’t like him either, so it was hard to answer Sienna’s question.

What should she call it if they weren’t friends when they saw each other so often?

Jiyu hesitated for a while, trying to think of an answer, and Sienna’s brow furrowed in frustration.

“Or whatever.”

She flicked her honey-blonde hair and turned away, muttering to herself as she walked away.

“She’s so shy, it’s frustrating.”

Jiyu bit her lip and lowered her head. I knew what the other kids were calling me.

‘Shy girl.’

Someone even used the phrase ‘painfully shy’ to describe what she heard.

Jiyu has been afraid of strangers since she was a child.

Even now, she hates being the center of attention more than anything.

This frustrated Ae-Jeong.

Ae-Jeong was frustrated with her personality and told her that if she lived like that in the United States, where extroverts were much more accepted, she would be judged for the rest of her life.

And she blamed her father, Alan Parker, for her personality.

Alan is a timid, introverted man who works in the back office of an investment bank, and Ae-Jeong been clinging to his love, who is twelve years younger than him.

When Ae-Jeong freaks out about the debate school, Alan tells her that he was like Jiyu when he was younger, and that she’ll get better with age.

Jiyu sincerely wished that she could be bright, cheerful, and confident, but she couldn’t help her natural personality.

When someone suddenly asked her a question, her brain would burn white and her words would get stuck in her throat.

In her stomach, ten bees would buzz and fly around, stinging her.

On the way home, Jiyu’s shoulders slumped dejectedly.

It wasn’t a hard question, so why couldn’t she answer it. She could have just said he wasn’t a friend.

She felt frustrated and stupid. And she resented Hunter.

‘For suddenly doing something he’s never done before.’

Hunter stood out no matter what he did.

Whenever he showed up, eyes would naturally turn to him. Even to the person next to him.

They probably didn’t care, but it made Jiyu uncomfortable.

It wasn’t just because his last name was Hamilton, but kids with famous last names were common at Manhattan’s top-tier private schools.

Lafayette, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Kennedy, and other ancestors featured prominently in textbooks, and Hunter was just one of them.

Being physically fit and athletic gave him an advantage in standing out from the crowd.

But Hunter wasn’t the only tall, athletic kid.

The difference was that Hunter acted like there was nothing scary in the world.

Everywhere he went, he kept his head up high and looked down his nose at his opponents.

He was unafraid and bold in everything he did.

If Hunter was asked the wrong question out of the blue, he wouldn’t be as flustered as Jiyu.

If he couldn’t answer a question, he’d ignore it, and if it was stupid, he’d laugh it off.

Despite being so selfish, the kids followed Hunter.

Jiyu had never seen him alone at school.

He had friends all around him, and if he walked away looking bored, they would call out after him.

Jiyu envied Hunter; she didn’t envy him being popular at all.

But she really wished she could have his nonchalant personality and unwavering self-esteem no matter what anyone said.

So when the “popular boy” from Alton School walked up to the “shy girl” from Astor School and suddenly whispered in her ear, it was no wonder the kids were puzzled.