Secret Admirers No. 05: The Perfect Size
The Perfect Size
Secret Admirers
A Wonder Girls/Big Bang Drabble
Sunmi / Seungri
Sunmi sat with her long slender legs sprawled out in front of her and with her chin resting on one hand and the other hand waving her panda fan at her bangs damp with sweat. It was absolutely sweltering and the hanbok store was in an outdoor market - there was no air conditioning to be had.
Business was slow - money was tight everywhere and the store carried hanboks of the finest silk. Sunmi didn’t know much about money, but she had no idea how her family was keeping the store afloat when the times were so tough.
But regardless, it was afloat somehow, and so, Sunmi was stuck in this disgustingly steaming weather, leaning on the counter and being sweaty and gross. The TV was broken and it would take too much energy to turn the pages of a book or magazine. So Sunmi sat there, doing nothing but lazily fanning herself and listening to the soft strains of the radio from next door.
Oof. She was hungry.
And, as if by magic, Seunghyun appeared with food, glorious food!
“Gah, it’s ridiculously hot out here,” Sunmi complained as Seunghyun set out the kimbap and ddukbokki.
“You’re telling me! At least hanboks don’t give off heat! I have to be cooking this ddukbokki all day and I can barely breathe from the heat! I was so glad for that break from being at the stall for a week, but now that I’m back, it’s worse than ever!”
Seunghyun’s family owned one of the food stalls in the market - he, too, had to fulfill his familial duties by manning the stand. He and Sunmi were great friends as there were no other kids their age around and so they spent a lot of time together.
The two munched on their lunches and Sunmi said thoughtfully, “It’s nice to be surrounded by all of these nice things, I suppose...But it’s hard when you know that you can’t have them for yourself and you want them real bad. I wish I had my own decent hanbok, but there’s no way we could afford that right now...” She suddenly turned her attention to Seunghyun. Sunmi scolded him, “You look so tired now. Ever since you got back from wherever you were during that week off, you look awful! Those dark circles under your eyes are worse than the ones under the eyes of the panda on my fan! Have you not been sleeping?!”
“No,” Seunghyun admitted, “I really haven’t been sleeping much.”
“WHY?!”
Seunghyun shrugged, turning away. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Well, you need to sleep! It can’t be healthy!”
“Alright, alright.”
Sunmi was about to launch into another lecture, when her mother flew in.
Looking frenzied, her mom commanded, “Sunmi, clean things up. We’re closing for the day.”
“What? Mom, but why?” Sunmi’s huge eyes widened even more, as Seunghyun greeted Sunmi’s mom, though it went unnoticed.
“Don’t ask, just do! Sorry, Seunghyun-ah, you’re going to have to go back to the food stall.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Seunghyun bowed deeply to Sunmi’s mom. “Bye, Sunmi-yah. See you later!”
“Bye!” Darn, Sunmi would much rather hang out with Seunghyun than clean up shop with her mom. But alas, Seunghyun was gone.
What was the deal, anyway?
“What’s wrong, umma?”
“We need to have a family meeting.”
Uh oh. Never a good sign. Sunmi hoped she wasn’t in trouble.
A feeling of dread took up residence in her stomach. Sunmi managed to get up and hastily put things away and locked things up. Soon, everything was put away, except for her panda fan. Sunmi reached out for the fan and her hand found instead a round, bumpy thing - what?
Sunmi turned her head to look. Oh, she was holding onto a clementine. Sunmi smiled. Seunghyun must have left it for her.
“Sunmi-yah, hurry!”
“Coming!” Sunmi grabbed the clementine and her fan and ran out.
Sunmi and her mom went home in silence, and when they arrived home, they gathered in the living room.
Sunmi sat primly on the floor with her legs curled underneath her. She looked from one parent’s face to the other. They didn’t look angry so she must not have done anything wrong. Or at least, she didn’t think so…
“Mimi-yah…”
Uh oh. That was their nickname for her when she was, like, two. This meant they were in full parent mode - wanting to take care of her and protect her from something. This was bad.
“Mimi-yah, we have something to tell you.”
What is it? Jeez, just say it already! It’s not as if Sunmi didn’t know it was something bad. They should just tell her and get it over with.
“We don’t ourselves own the hanbok store. And well, the people who backed us are not happy with the sales of the store…and if business doesn’t go up, they’re going to take the store away from us. And your father might soon lose his job…So we just wanted to warn you that we might have hard times ahead of us.”
“...Oh...” How was Sunmi supposed to react to that? Finding out that her dad might lose his job? That the hanbok store could be gone, too? That, perhaps in the near future, her family would be broke?
“But don’t worry, honey, these are just possibilities and it is altogether likely that everything will work out fine and we’ll keep the hanbok store and your dad’s job.”
Don’t worry? Ha, that was a lie. Clearly they were worrying if they pulled her out of the hanbok store and closed it early. As if Sunmi couldn’t see through the brave masks that her parents were wearing.
And though she chided herself for this, Sunmi couldn’t help being more scared about the possibility that she wouldn’t see Seunghyun as much anymore...
*~*~*
“So, what was that all about?” Seunghyun cocked his head, his panda eyes quizzical as his hands played with his chopsticks.
“Oh, nothing big. Just the fact that my family might soon be bankrupt.” Sunmi said nonchalantly, waiting expectantly for the shocked reaction Seunghyun was bound to have.
“Oh.”
What? Just an ‘oh’?!?! Heck, Seunghyun had freaked out more when she had told him that she had lost her favorite teddy bear.
“You seem awfully calm about it.”
“Ah,” Seunghyun ducked his head a bit and let his bangs cover his eyes. “Your mom told my mom a while ago.”
“AND SHE DIDN’T TELL ME EARLIER?!?! Wow, this betrayal is just awesome. Just. Awesome.”
“Bitter doesn’t suit you, Sunmi. Go back to being happy, will you? You’re so much prettier that way.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t care so much about pretty right now, okay? My heart’s just been dashed to pieces.”
“Sunmi-yah...you’re being overdramatic...”
“No, I’m not. There’s no way that people are going to all of a sudden start buying hanboks from our store. It’s doomed to fail.”
“Actually...” Seunghyun brought an envelope out from his pocket.
“What’s this?”
Seunghyun shrugged. “I’m just supposed to deliver it.”
Sunmi opened the envelope. Inside was a typewritten letter explaining that the customer wanted a new hanbok for a girl that he really cared about (She assumed that it was his daughter) but it was a surprise and he was too busy to come in...so to just make estimates of the measurements using any 17-year-old girl. As for money, the store was to make a hanbok as great as possible using the money enclosed.
And in the envelope was one hundred 10,000 won bills, all wrapped together in nice stacks.
Sunmi gaped; that was a LOT of money for one hanbok...
“Wow, somebody’s rich!” Seunghyun used the stack of bills as a flipbook.
“Or somebody’s grandfather just died and left them a fortune or something...This is ridiculous...I need to call my mom!”
Sunmi pushed Seunghyun aside as she flapped past to the phone.
“Umma! Umma!”
Seunghyun heard a moment of Sunmi just breathing heavily as Sunmi’s mom must have been answering.
“We just got an order - it’s crazy! It’s for one million won! A hanbok! For one million won! I know it won’t save us, but it’ll show that our store can keep going, and that’s all we need right?”
Seunghyun could just imagine Sunmi’s mom saying calmly, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, dear.”
“I’m not getting ahead of myself!”
Seunghyun laughed to himself. He knew this family too well.
“Well, I just wanted to let you know! Bye!”
Oh Sunmi. She was so strange sometimes. If it was any other girl, Seunghyun would have been so baffled at the sudden end to the conversation. But Sunmi was...well, he liked to call her four-dimensional.
“Seunghyun-ah! It says measurements of a 17-year-old girl! I’m 17! Let’s do this!”
“Let me just finish my clementine!”
“NO!” And Sunmi latched onto Seunghyun’s wrist and yanked him along.
Here we go...
Sunmi hurled a clump of balled-up measuring tape at him. “Alrighty, first measure how tall I am.”
Seunghyun got to the ground and then slowly stood up, helping himself to the nice close view of Sunmi’s figure.
“165 centimeters.”
“Alrighty, waist.”
“53 centimeters. Dang, you’re skinny, Sunmi!”
“I know, I can’t help it! You know how much I eat, but I still can’t gain anything! Now chest.”
“What?”
“You heard me!”
“Uh...”
Seunghyun’s hands trembled as he put his hands way closer to that special area than he had ever dreamed they would be. He was bowled over by how awkward and wrong but how exciting it was...
“Oh for goodness sakes, just hand it over!”
And Sunmi snatched the measuring tape from Seunghyun and poor Seunghyun lost his opportunity to satiate his energetic hormones.
*~*~*
And so meticulously, Sunmi and her family worked on the hanbok for the mysterious customer. Just brushing the expensive silks with the tips of her fingers made Sunmi tingle with excitement - and because the mysterious customer never appeared in the shop, Sunmi got to be the model and wear the hanbok. It felt like a cooling river was resting on her skin and she had never felt so beautiful in her life.
And Sunmi’s parents realized that she WAS especially beautiful in that hanbok and they took advantage of the great opportunity for promotion and so, luckily for Sunmi, she wore the hanbok quite a lot. As people passed by the store, they would see the wonder that was the hanbok and couldn’t help but be drawn into the store.
Seunghyun found that he couldn’t help being drawn to the store, either - or was it something (or someone) else that he was drawn to?
Seunghyun was munching on a clementine again and tried to keep from staring at Sunmi in the hanbok.
“So, is that hanbok done yet?”
“Basically. Hey, give me some clementine.”
“Nuh-uh. You’ll spill on the hanbok and you’ll get in trouble!”
“No, I won’t!”
“Yes, you will!”
“Okay, fine, I will. So then just drop it in my mouth. Aaaahhhh!”
Seunghyun sighed. “Fine.” He got up and popped it into her mouth. Sunmi closed her mouth too quickly, though, and ended up doing some odd kissing-like brushing of Seunghyun’s fingers.
“Uhh...” Awkward awkward awkward.
“Oh, I forgot - I think there was another letter from your mystery benefactor.” Seunghyun rapidly turned away and grabbed the letter from the countertop. Sunmi took off the hanbok so that she was comfortable in her tank top and shorts.
“Ah. Yeah. Let’s, uh, let’s read it!”
Seunghyun opened the letter and Sunmi got in close, real close, so that she could read it, too.
“I plan to give the hanbok to the girl I love today, my Clementine. Thank you so much. I know it will be a perfect fit.” Seunghyun read it aloud.
“What? This is silly. We still don’t know his name, nor do we know when he’s coming or anything. I knew this was sketchy! And what’s this about clementines? And how does he know it will be a perfect fit anyway?”
“Because it’s meant for you.”
“...I’m pretty darn skinny for my age and kinda on the tall side, and what?”
Sunmi whipped her head around and opened her already huge eyes even huger.
Seunghyun cleared his throat. “Uhh... Yeah.”
Then it all just spewed out. “The reason why I had been on that week-long break was because my grandpa had passed away...And he left me a bunch of money and I know you wanted a hanbok and I love you and I wrote my Clementine because I know you like clementines and I always give you clementines and the hanbok’s the perfect size because it’s meant for you.”
Sunmi just stared at him with those big eyes of hers. Then she smiled that little mischievous smile.
“Well. I think I’m the perfect size for your arms, so I must be meant for you”
And she wrapped his arms around her and he was so so terrified, but she tasted like clementine and indeed, she was the perfect size for him.