Chapter 1: Denial

To say that I have a perfect life was an understatement. What does perfect exhibit as? But, there were moments where I used to think my life was at its peak, where I felt like I’m on cloud nine, flying with the love of my life.

Used to.

Who said you need to have a love life to be happy? I am happy. My life may not be perfect, it was never perfect anyway, I was just blinded by love that made me think of it that way. Now, I am the epitome of independent woman with a stable career, single, wild and free, my life is pretty wonderful.

“Get your budget right again.” And maybe a tiny bit stressful. “A carpet imported from Turkey? Really?”

I rolled my eyes. “She loves Middle East.”

“It’s ing expensive. It’s out of our budget. A lot actually, can’t you see?”

I stopped working on my drawings and got out of my desk instead, landing my at the edge of it. “Jinae,’ I sighed. “It’s important to please our customer with the best outcomes we could bring. It’s part of the marketing strategy.” I reasoned.

“We might end up shutting down the company if you keep being this way.” Jinae retorted angrily. She sure got no chills that I decided it was not a good idea to fight back. “We have rent to pay, Hana. We have bills to make up to. We can’t always be on the edge with financial. We might be safe for one or two months, but we could probably doom next month.”

She was right. “I’m not good at accounting.” I sheepishly admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“Accounting? You can’t even get the basic mathematics right.” Jinae mocked with much less tension than she was before.

Jinae has been with me since forever. She was the one who hear me ranting with all the bulls I’ve faced, the one who shared the same favourite movies, loving the same styles of clothing, love the same ice cream flavour, to say everything in short, we were pretty much soulmate.

We had so many things in common except, his boyfriend hadn’t dumped her yet.

Putting business aside, Jinae got out of her ‘business in partner’ mode and instead seep the ‘best friend’ Jinae in as she sat on the edge of the desk next to me. “You know there’s this one friend of Kyungsoo’s we’ve been hanging out with. Hm, he’s a barista, a famous one really, he has won an international competition before.”

I think I know where this is going.

“He’s 27 this year, a really cute petite guy but super charismatic.”

“No, Jinae.” I rejected before she could’ve finished her long list of description.

“He’s single and I would like to introduce him to you.” She insisted.

“I said I don’t want to.”

“Why? He’s such a sweetheart.”

“I like tall guys. He’s not my type.”

“No, you don’t specifically like tall guys. You just like Jongin.” Jinae corrected.

“I’ve moved on, Jinae.”

“Whatever you want to believe on, honey.” She replied with brows raising, shoulder shrugging. She can be a sometimes and sometimes I did wonder how do I manage to stand this girl all this while. Needless to say, she was more than just being a that we managed to be here today.

We’ve dreamed of being business partners for as long as we’ve been friends. We used to talk about it along the hallway, giggling at our imaginations, not bothering what was going on around us. It had always been two of us, we didn’t need more companions. Not until, when one day, Jinae brought another topic into our conversation.

We do talk about boys. Good looking ones. There were everywhere in our university, walking around the university with us oogling over them, only to find out later that they were taken, which was pretty disappointing.

Things slowly change and I found out that Jinae made an acquaintance with Kyungsoo, which pretty much unexpected because he was one of the cute guys in school. But not until when Jinae told me a cuter, cooler, taller and hotter friend of Kyungsoo had a crush on me.

“Really.” Jinae pressed on her words when I told her that it was not funny to be pranking on me.

Things between us elevated quite quickly and look where that brought me to.

Heartbroken and single. Sigh.

“I tell you this Kim Minseok is a great catch.” Jinae pursed her lips when she saw me ignoring her purposely, didn’t acknowledged her presence anymore. “Hana.” She whined.

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care if he’s a great catch or not. I said I don’t want to. Would you and Kyungsoo stop bothering me with this matchmaking scheme if I stop stealing you away from him? Fine, after this I’ll go have lunch by myself, shopping all on my own, so would you please stop?”

“Hey, I didn’t say that.” She defended herself.

“That’s what it seems to me.”

~~~

Honk. Jinae smiled when she recognized the sound of the familiar honk. Through the huge glass wall, she saw the car her boyfriend owned and she glanced towards upstairs where Hana’s office was, contemplating she should bid her goodbye or not.

Guess, not today.

She grabbed the handbag on the desk and smiled to the few staffs they have before darting out towards the car with an enthusiastic smile on her face as she got in. Being the sweet boyfriend Kyungsoo had always been, he leaned to buckle the seatbelt for her, never missed to steal her lips for a kiss. 

“Tiring day, huh?” he asked as he drove out of the compound.

“Not really. Does my face look otherwise?” she questioned with wide eyes, wondering if she really did look exhausted.

Nonchalantly, Kyungsoo merely answered “Kind of.”, with eyes focusing on the road.

Jinae took the beige invitation card that was placed under the radio player and flipped it open mindlessly. “How am I going to tell her? I feel like I’m betraying her you know, if I go.” her eyes were droopy, feeling conflicted.

Of course she had to go. She can’t let her boyfriend go alone without her while others would probably trying to get to know with each others’ partners and her boyfriend had to be like “My girlfriend couldn’t come because apparently she’s afraid her friend who can’t get over her ex of one year going to be a about it if she found out. Well, apparently her best friend is more important than me.”

Poor her baby had to go through all that.

“Well, you don’t have to be so upset because I can’t go so you don’t have to.” Kyungsoo spoke u