“So you’re a girl with daddy issues.” Such a conclusion is made easily and with certainty. She answers with more than I had expected but I hadn’t expected much to begin with. For a girl who seemed as if she not wanted to talk, with her headphones over her ears, she talks a lot. I zone out halfway through her monologue, nodding my head at random intervals and a murmur of acknowledgement. It works well up until the point where she aims a question in my direction. “Yonsei?” It takes me a while to decipher her through her accent and my inattentiveness. “No, I don’t. My sister does though. Maybe you’ve seen her.” The thing is though, my sister and I look nothing alike. “I went to SNU.” Past tense. “I graduated last year. What do you study?”
Irene rolled her eyes at his statement, deciding to dismiss the matter with just that; it wasn’t a topic that she’d like to discuss any further. The young woman would like to think that she couldn’t care less about her father; and at the same time, she’s a prideful person. Even if her so called “daddy issues” existed, she wouldn’t admit it; especially not in the face of some one she’s just met.
If there’s one thing Irene has learned from quietly observing her surroundings, it’s how to fairly accurately read people. It’s not difficult to see the man wasn’t at all interested in anything that she was saying - this was off putting for the young woman. Suddenly, the situation became so much more awkward for her. Tapping her the dining table as she listened to the man, she silently wished her food would arrive sooner so she could leave.
It wasn’t until she was asked another question that Irene spoke again. “Business Admin,” she kept her answer short this time, and it was only half true. Technically speaking, the student was studying computer science at her home university, but her focus was more on the business side of the spectrum. When she was applying for study abroad, however, Yonsei did not have courses that accommodated her major perfectly. So Irene opted to take some of her required business classes at the Korean university instead. But, these were details that her new acquaintance did not need to know.











