Paper plate

"Boss..." Jaeneung is standing at a public bus stop with this old phone up to his ears. The screen was heavily cracked and bits on the outside was completely gone, part of the phone had been chipped off. "I think I might be a little late to work, I think the bus got delayed."

"That's alright, just remember to show up today." The boss was female and spoke to Jaeneung in a snarky manner. Jaeneung saw the bus arrive and stopped at his stop, he boarded and walked to the back of the bus.

"I'll see you there." Jaeneung sat down on the furthest bus seat away from the driver all the way at the back. He sat down and placed his bag over his lap before pressing the 'Hang Up' button on his phone. He sighed heavily as he placed his phone into this pocket.

He looked around the bus and realised he was the only person in here, excluding the bus captain. All the seats were unoccupied and empty, except for a piece of chewing gum that had been stuck on onto one of the seats.

Jaeneung looked out of the window to view central New York, a hustling and bustling cityscape with hundreds of thousands of people walking around, fulfilling their own errands and duties. Yet Jaeneung looked at them no more like a swarm of ants, running around to collect food and expand their nest.

"You look familiar." A female voice spoke into his right ear, someone had taken the very seat next to him. Jaeneung had his head tilted to the left, laying on the glass window and looking out, thus he wasn't paying very close attention to his surroundings inside the bus. "It's me, Ms Kylie!" She smiled as she placed her fingers up to the side of her cheeks and pushed up, creating an exaggerated smiley face.

Jaeneung was confused for a slight moment, before doing a double take and realising who was seated next to him. "How long has it been? Nearly seven years? I still remember when you were ten! You had the cutest face, the cutest laugh and the cutest voice! Now you're all grown up!"

"Ms Kylie?" Jaeneung was taken aback. "What are you doing in New York?"

"Just meeting some old friends." Ms Kylie smiled and pushed her hair back to behind her ear, her dark brown skin glowed in the light that shined through from the tinted window. She had a small mole on the side of her chin that made her easily recognisable, but even with a birthmark, Jaeneung was barely able to remember who she was.

"Ms Kylie, yo- you sound so different!" Jaeneung stuttered as he smelled her wonderful perfume, radiating off her person.

"By all means, call me Kylie." Kylie placed her hand on her skirt. "Remeber that orange dress and that hideous black apron I always wore? It got real boring fast." She wore a dark black dress that barely reached her knees.

Jaeneung laughed awkwardly as he tried to bury his face into his hands next to the window, turning away shyly. "I think it... looks good... on you..." He said awkwardly.

"Hah!" Kylie slapped Jaeneung on his back, laughing loudly. "Even when you were young I knew you had no chance with the ladies!" She said loudly, filling the entire bus with her booming voice. "Say..." She stopped laughing immediately and lowered her head down, to look at Jaeneung. Jaeneung was trying to avoid her but she could tell he was blushing. "Do you have a girlfriend yet?"

Jaeneung's face nearly turned brighr red. "No! It's still only my first week of school, I'm not that attractive!" Jaeneung blushes as he tries to play it cool, folding his arms.

"That's where you're dead wrong." Kylie placed her hand on Jaeneung's shoulder and wrapped it tightly around him. She got up close and next to Jaeneung's ear.

Jaeneung was sweating and felt extremely uncomfortable. He turned his head, expecting the worse, but when he slightly tilted his head to the left to face Kylie, he couldn't feel her breath.

"Got you!" Kylie was holding a paper plate up to her face an laughed at Jaeneung. Jaeneung laughed awkwardly too, trying to not feel uncomfortable. "Will you look at this?" Kylie removed the paper plate from her face and placed it on her lap.

She grabbed Jaeneung's hand out of her lap and placed it on the paper plate. Jaeneung was caught off guard as she did not give any warnings or even tell him she was going to grab his hand. "Do you feel it?"

Kylie grazed Jaeneung's hand over the rough surface of the paper plate. He could feel every individual brush stroke and accidental blotch of paint left behind accidentally. He could replay the entire art work in his own mind.

He could feel that with each brush stroke that was laid on this childish paper plate, he felt the passion and love this person had imparted onto this single paper plate. "It's a recreation of the Mona Lisa." He could feel with the ways the brush stroke collided with one another, creating a unique figure that stood in the middle of the frame. He could even feel the individual bumps of inconsistencies caused by the brush on her skin.

"I guess you haven't lost it yet." Kylie smiled as she placed the paper plate on Jaeneung's lap.

"It's a beautiful rendition of the art piece, it's childish yet so sophisticated. It captures the charm of the original art work and might I even say elevates it. With each brush stroke you could feel the story its trying to tell." Jaeneung ran his fingers over the artwork.

"This artwork was done by a student of mine." Kylie took something out of her pocket. "I gave up teaching long ago, about 6 months after you left. But then I met a kid, a real young one. The same age you were when you left, mind you, this was plenty of years ago." Kylie took out a envelope. "He told me to give you this letter if we ever met, I myself have never read it." She smiled and handed it to Jaeneung.

Jaeneung reached for the letter and took it. "Don't worry, it's in braille." Kylie reassured Jaeneung. "It's my stop, I'll be getting off now." The bus stops at a bus stop, right outside of a coffee shop. It was very busy and people flooded in from every direction. "Till next time." She left her seat and walked away.

Jaeneung held the later and paper plate in his hands, unsure of what had just happened. "A kid at 10 being able to paint this?" Jaeneung smirked. "Maybe he isn't so bad."