"Whatcha doin babe?" Jugyeong asks me while we're at the park. We came here for a half an hour since the gym had to do some disinfecting. What a pandemic and world war does to sanitation policies.
"Making a 'Punch Me' sign. Why?"
"You gonna tack it on someone?"
"Nah I'm gonna wear it."
"For what?"
"I failed a challenge successfully."
"Huh?"
"Someone else made me a mission for my book, despite that person being technically me. Now I gotta do it."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"It's a social experiment."
"Still no idea why you're doing something this stupid, if you wanted me to hit you I'd do it."
"This is for mental science."
"I mean maso-"
"Children could hear that. Language!"
"Oh come on. You say worse."
"Yeah at home when no one but me is there."
"I'm there."
"You come in at the worst times sometimes."
"You come into my room at even worse times."
"Why can't you just lock the door when you're changing?"
"I forget. It's not gonna matter soon anyway."
"I need that in recording just to make sure you said that right."
"Okay I get your point, I won't question your social experiment. But the day we get mar-"
"Remember, CHILDREN."
"I was gonna say when we get married you owe me one command."
"I already know what that's gonna be."
"Yeah, it's pretty obvious at this point."
"Can we have dinner first?"
"Duh."
"No party right?"
"No we're just gonna have a lunch with our friends and parents."
"Okay."
"How did we get from a 'Punch Me' sign to something that should not be said around anyone under 13, to post-wedding plans?"
"It means we're looking forward to it."
"We haven't even announced our engagement yet."
"I want to announce it at the arcade we started dating at."
"Cheesy but inherently group related. Actually perfect."
"Back to the original topic. I won't question any further about the sign thing, but how many times do you gotta get punched?"
"6 times by 6 random strangers."
"Sounds like you."
"If it were me it would 6 times by 3 people I'm close to."
"Still sounds like you."
"Yeah...."
"Let's get to the gym- you're not gonna wear that at the gym right?"
"It's the best place to, I never go to fight on Mondays."
"It's kinda stupid that you fight at the mat, I mean we could tussle if you want in a few months if you know what I mean...."
"Say that again I need that recorded for future purposes."
She just licks her chops and looks at me in a way that I really wish I wore sweat pants to the gym instead because of this. I want to scream "children could hear and see this" with the way she's looking at me, but we're the only technical children here, even if we're not gonna be considered children in 4 months.
I go to the mat and wait for a fight.
We do MMA and all that here. Jugyeong doesn't do fights, but believe me, if she did, she'd win against anyone under 200 pounds, guaranteed unless she goes up against like a Dae Zhae Kuaun fighter that's mastered kick catching or something.
.
.
.
"Still no one that wants to punch you?" Jugyeong asks me.
"Nope, I think I'll just work out with ya."
"Oi, I'll punch ya fer free there mate." It is that time of year when the Aussies come to Asian countries on vacation..
"Wanna go at it?" I say to the Aussie dude.
"Awright let's see."
He throws a punch at me straight at my face.
{That's one}
This man hits hard, even with gloves.
I just run up to him and do the good ol' knee strike and powerbomb thing.
"Hell mate, that was nuts!"
"Dae Zhae Kuaun man."
"The hell is that?"
"You'll see. You live here?"
"Yeah, nice to meet ya, you half European? You're accent pronounces English better than most Koreans."
"Yeah, was born on my parent's vacation in Italy, dad's from there. Also my fiance's half Hongkonger and y'know they speak English and Cantonese, so the accent is mitigated a bit there too."
"Interesting."
We go at it for a bit and we had a fun spar, I kicked the guy's butt though.
"What's your name mate?" The Aussie asked.
"Hyun, how about ya?"
"Kangaroo Owens. Don't ask, my parents were drunk when they named me, they celebrated me being born with a couple coldies each. Call me Roo."
"How about K.O. since I almost knocked you out?"
"Sheeeesh mate that was a good one. Roo though."
"Nice to meet you. Oh look here's my fiance."
"I'm Jugyeong, nice to meet you." she says while going for a shake.
"Ah yeah you got yerself a keeper ah mate? Nice meetin ya. G'day, reckon I'm gonna take me a shower and then go on my 20th first date this year."
Roo leaves without a shirt. Man's absolutely jacked, he got a rough face, a beard, and long hair for a dude. Man's blonde and has dark brown eyes. He could pass as a halfbreed if he were shorter and if his cheekbones were higher. Eh, we're all Chinese at some point like I always say.
I look at my sign and realize I didn't put the Korean characters on the bottom.
.
.
.
No wonder the Aussie was the only guy able to read my sign.
"Babe can you be my bench spotter?" Jugyeong asks.
"Sure."
I get popped in the face out of nowhere by Sangah.
"Did I just hear fiance?! Y'all are engaged and haven't told me! Did y'all at least tell the guys?"
"We were but Suho started doing homework during lunch and Dowoon hangs mostly with Kiara now."
"That's funny because we just went on a double da- oh hell shouldn't have told you that."
"Exactly, I think Dowoon was jealous that I started spending so much time with Jugyeong. So now he's doing the same with Kiara. He'll be back to normal by February I guarantee it."
"Y'all sure you won't drift apart?"
"We didn't talk or hang more than 5 minutes for a year in 7th grade because of my depression crap. I guarantee you, he'll miss us."
"Whatever. But at least tell Suho."
"We were planning on it on a group date to the arcade. Don't let the cat out of the bag."
"Fine. You owe me."
"You wanna use me as a throwing bag in class today?"
"Yeah."
"Fine. Well love, I'll see you at tomorrow."
"Alright, love you babe." Jugyeong says to me as she leaves the gym all hot and sweaty. Four more months...
{CHILDREN. PG-10!}
"What's up with the 'Punch Me' sign?" Sangah asks me.
"Self-inflicted dare."
"I won't ask because I don't wanna know, well class starts in 15 minutes so get punched as much as possible."
{Time's a ticking.}
"Kay."
A 25 ish year old woman comes up and punches me and gives me her number.
"I'm engaged, give it to another halfbreed." I say.
"I tried." she replies.
{That's 2, 4 more to go.}
Grabbing a Diet Bluecow drink, I go outside to hopefully get more people hitting me.
A guy punches my shoulder on the way in.
{That's 3.}
.
.
.
After class, I walk around at the park hoping 3 more someones can punch me before the time limit runs out.
.
.
.
{Mission 31 failed. You're gonna get some dream torture tonight.}
HELL! OF COURSE THE ONE GOOD SKILL I HAVE GETS REVERTED TO LEVEL 1!
{That too}
Man, now I gotta start over with getting that skill maxed out to level 100 again and being able to completely control all my dreams about Jugyeong and I's wedding day if ya know what I mean. And us at the beach. And us in our honeymoon. And us moving out of country to somewhere cheaper. And us out in the woods. And in a wine cellar. And just a bunch of other stuff.
{Only one of those disturbed me. A horrible time to be an 8 month old baby.}
Yeah. Yeah. Whatever.
{It's been a while since you've failed a mission, this felt good.}
Wow.
{Because I'm a nice kid, your maxed out "Jugyeong Magnet" skill didn't get affected.}
Thank you.
{You're Welcome.}