Joy held her fingers up to her nose and took a quick whiff. It didn’t smell like anything in particular, but she could sense a faint cherry blossom fragrance that Wendy usually wore. Wendy’s scared expression in the restaurant creeped back into her head. What’s going on? Why was she acting so weird? She hasn’t been answering my calls either. Joy whipped out her phone and pressed on Wendy’s icon in the messaging tab. Joy had spammed her for the past few days, but there was still no reply.

“You know Wendy?” Sungjae asked, surprised.

“Yeah, she’s my best friend. Why?” Joy said.

“She’s my friend, too. Have you seen her recently? It seems like she’s been avoiding me.”

“I have. She’s been acting really strange, but I’m still not sure why. I was going to walk to her house. Since you know her, too, would you like to come along?”

“Why is that even a question? Let’s go.” Sungjae subconsciously grabbed Joy’s hand and started walking down the hill, towards the street.

They had reached Wendy’s house by walking. It was about 10:10 p.m. when they walked up to her door. As Joy was going to ring the doorbell, a frantic Wendy suddenly opened the door. Inside of the house, there were colorful balloons and banners across the walls. There were several people inside, some drinking water while others were decorating walls. They all looked at Joy in horror as they froze. Was she having a party and didn’t invite ME? Joy placed her hands on her hips and looked at Wendy in the eye.

“What is going on, Wendy? I’ve been worried for these past few days and here I see you hosting a party without inviting me? A call to tell me you were fine would’ve been perfectly alright! At least I knew you weren’t dead somewhere, geez.” Joy let out a breath of frustration and frowned. Instead of answering, however, Wendy opened the door wider and moved aside.

‘Happy Birthday, Joy!’ was written across the red banner in white. Suddenly, Joy felt guilty about her outburst towards Wendy. Wendy sighed and looked slightly disappointed.

“Well...I was planning a surprise birthday party for you. I was the one who started this whole mysterious planner mess. Actually, I was hoping to get at least five clues to you before we actually held it. Except I planned it badly...sorry.” her shoulder slumped and another sigh left her lips. “I mean, technically, I DID tell you. In clue number two, the letter. It’s written in the code of [ROT1]. I really wanted to plan a cool birthday party for you, since logic and puzzles are your kind of thing.” she scratched the back of her head and had a small smile.

“Where do I come in for this?” Sungjae suddenly asked. Everyone looked at him.

“Right. Um, Joy, remember when you said that you’d let me set you up with your blind date? And Sungjae, remember when you told me you wish you had a girlfriend?” Wendy smiled nervously. “You guys had several “dates” now...so..” she trailed off and she backed up a step.

“Oh.” Sungjae and Joy said at the same time. They looked at each other and laughed a little. Suddenly, they were both too shy to look at each other’s faces.

“Wait, so, on the day we were at that restaurant together. What was the thing you wanted to tell me? Why did you look so scared after the phone call?” Joy asked Wendy.

“I was going to tell you that the earphone-jack-plug-cat thing that you really wanted just came in, but I realized that was my birthday present for you. For the reason why I got scared...my friend had accidentally delivered the party supplies box to your house instead of mine. Since you’re already here, want to decorate your own surprise birthday party?” Wendy giggled. “There’s no point in hiding anymore.”

Both Joy and Sungjae started walking in at the same time then stopped at the same time, which made Wendy laughed because it was so adorable that they were suddenly so timid. They both blushed and avoided each other’s gaze as Joy walked in first. For the rest of the night, Sungjae and Joy decorated the house for the birthday party, which was in the next day. Wendy was planning to host it at around 5 o’clock p.m. With this information, Sungjae slowly built up the courage to talk to Joy in private. He took her out to the porch. This made everyone ooh-ahh and giggly.

“Hey, uh..” his voice cracked. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat and started again. “Since the party won’t be going on for the entire day...I uh…” he trailed off.

“Let’s go on a date.” Joy blurted out, blushing madly. They were both shocked as Joy placed her hand over , just realizing what she had said. Sungjae broke out laughing. Slowly, she did, too.

“How does 12 sound?” he tried, feeling more carefree since Joy initiated the question.

“Sounds great.” Joy had the biggest smile on her face as they held hands, walking back to the living room.