Day 237

 

With the chill of early spring having dissipated, Key happily drew shorts from his closet, but put them back immediately. They were the wrong color. Dressing for spring was so difficult lately. He found some black shorts buried way in the back and settled on those.

 

The music from his radio app on his phone was interrupted by the momentary chime of a text message alert.

 

“I have a favor to ask of you.” - Hyerin

 

“You know, my time is in very high demand these days. ㅎㅎ”

 

“Don’t forget I have access to your schedule in the office. I know you are free after 4:00.”

 

“I have a social life too, you know.”

 

“Can I impose upon it? It’s important.”

 

“OK. What’s the problem?”

 

“My parents. They set me up on a second date with that guy from last month. I need an excuse to get out of it.”

 

“OK. Here’s an excuse for you: Just say you don’t want to.” Key replied dryly.

 

“I wouldn’t be asking for your help if it were that easy.”

 

“Okay, okay fine. What do you need me to do?” he conceded.

 

“I need you to come up with some kind of idol urgent matter and then call me while I am at my parents’ house. If they see it’s you calling for a work matter, they will let me off the hook and go to help you.”

 

“Your plan is weird, noona.”

 

“Just go with it? Please? It’s important.”

 

Key video called at 4:30 from the lobby of a hotel that he wasn’t actually staying in. He made up some story about reservations being switched and pleading with her to come get him and find him some place to go. Her parents, upon seeing his distress call, agreed to cancel the date they had set up. Good thing they didn’t know that this kind of issue wasn't normally part of her job.

 

She ended up meeting Key in the bar of that hotel only 20 minutes later. “Thanks so much for doing that,” she breathed after plopping into the chair across from him.

 

“Why did we have to meet? Wasn’t the call enough?” he asked.

 

She responded with a sad pout, which Key didn’t really understand. It was gone just a moment later, though.

 

“This isn’t the first time I’ve used work to get out of a date. They hardly believe me anymore. That’s why I needed a video call from you while they were there to see. Just watch, they’ll call to check on me and see if I am free yet in about an hour.” She didn’t even try to hide her embarrassment as she busied herself with looking over the cocktail menu. “As a thank you I’ll buy you whatever you want here.”

 

“Your parents really want to marry you off, don’t they?” he asked, his voice tinged with pity.

 

“Yeah. They think I’ll never find what I want so they are intervening, even though I don’t want them to.”

 

“I’m starting to see why you smash pots over this.”

 

“I’ve only scratched the surface. Anyway, order whatever you want. I owe you for this.”

 

Two hours later they were still at the bar, about three beers in. Key joked that he needed his time’s worth in alcohol payment but he didn’t really mind. He didn’t have plans that night anyway. It was refreshing hanging out with her. Maybe it was because all his friends knew him too well and he just wanted to hang out with a blank slate. She had very few expectations of him. But most of all she didn’t pity him and didn’t try to offer him emotional support all the time. In front of her, he felt normal and not so… broken.

 

Just as she had said, her parents video-called to see if she could perhaps meet her suitor late and salvage the date night. But she showed them that she was clearly busy trying to manage a displaced idol while they were waiting on the hotel to negotiate on arrangements. Her parents resigned and told her good luck.

 

Key usually tried not to pry, but he was just so curious. “So who did they set you up with tonight?”

 

“The sweetest guy ever. He really likes me too. He is their friend’s son. He graduated the same university as me. We are the same age. He works for an international telecommunications company in management somewhere. This would have been our second date.” Hyerin sounded like she really liked him, but the regret was also very evident in her voice.

 

“He sounds like a winner.” Kibum couldn’t understand why she talked like this.

 

“He is a winner. But not for me. I told him I didn’t want to date, but my parents contacted him independently and told him I would come around. They are really pushing this one on me. I hate it. They got his hopes back up after I went to all that trouble of letting him down gently.” She leaned forward and held her head in her hands. Apparently the blind dates had been forced on her for quite a while now.

 

“Noona, are you sure your standards aren’t too high?” he tried to cover the seriousness of his suggestion by casually sipping down the rest of his beer.

 

“It’s not about standards. If you can’t love a person, you can’t be so selfish as to keep dating him.”

 

To break up the solemn atmosphere, Key excused himself to the bar and returned swiftly with two more beers for each of them. But his curiosity bubbled over and he brought up the topic again.

 

“So I’m guessing just being honest with your parents doesn’t work?” Key inquired.

 

“In the beginning they respected my wishes, but now they feel they have to intervene. I am running out of ways to get out of these second dates.” She sunk her head in her hands again. Key felt sorry for her. She was trying to deal honestly but her parents had backed her into a corner. Nonetheless he still didn’t understand why she couldn’t just be content and date one of them.

 

“So how many blind dates have your parents forced you into?”

 

“In the past two years…” she paused to calculate them all on her fingers. “Ten. They were all really great guys.”

 

“Oh my god, noona. Out of ten great guys, you didn’t want to see any of them?” Key said, maybe a little too loudly in a public place, but it was only because it was getting so noisy and crowded in that bar… and because he was getting drunk. “What was the matter with them? Why are they so unacceptable?”

 

Hyerin probably shouldn’t have replied with what she said next, but that fourth beer was getting to her. Thankfully Key didn’t hear because he suddenly got distracted by the crowd and forgot about his question anyway.

 

“Because they’re not you.”