When it came to you and your eyebrows, you were in a love-hate relationship. Being teased when you were younger for having brows that were a little thicker than usual compared to your classmates’ ‘normal’ ones weren’t exactly a part of your fond childhood memories.

But gone were the days of being an awkward seventh grader. Now, you were in senior year – you were practically a grown up, and as a grown up, you had already taken care of those caterpillar demons resting above your eyes.

Though you’d gotten them professionally tended to, it was always those boring Sunday mornings when you’d walk into a washroom and slowly raise hell. Stage one was always scrutinizing yourself in the mirror, thinking you should clean up some stray hairs, and wishing for those pesky brows to look… well, better.

Stage two was either being too lazy or too cheap to go get them waxed or threaded, which almost always led to stage three – picking up the tweezers and scissors and taking matters into your own hands.

They usually came out okay, but today – well… today, you had gone a bit too far.

“Oh crap,” you whispered as you took a step back, brown eyes pinned to your reflection in the bathroom mirror. Seeing yourself made you almost want to cry.

There they were – raggedy, almost hairless, and obviously uneven. Your left was longer than your right, and you’d gone a bit too tweezer-crazy. Hold on a second… was your left one less arched?

All this irritation took you to the final stage – stage four, which involved a whole lot of ‘freaking out’ and googling ways to get your eyebrows to grow back faster.

“Olive oil,” you murmured, fingers quivering as you scrolled through your phone. “Olive oil, olive oil….”

The frantic pitter-patters of your feet echoed through your home as you checked all your kitchen cabinets. In the back of your mind, you thanked your lucky stars that your parents were at work. It was at these times that you loved being an only child, with no bratty siblings to make fun of your now ruined brows.

“Dammit!” you slumped against the counter. “No olive oil, and I can’t go out looking like this!”

Man, did your situation make you feel more pathetic than ever. You felt self-conscious without any bangs to cover up your mess - bangs made you look even younger than you already looked - and you hated yourself for it. You hated that you even thought of touching up just a ‘few loose strands.’ That same decision landed you in this rut right now.

What a stupid society we live in, you let out a defeated sigh. I mean, why does society judge people based on their eyebrows anyway?

Suddenly, you heard your ringtone blast from the bathroom. Dragging your feet there, you checked to see who it was and almost cried for the second time when you saw your boyfriend’s contact picture pop up.

“Jaehyuuuun!”

From the other line, there was a pause of surprised silence before his familiar voice soothed your ears.

“Baby? What’s wrong?”

“I—” you stopped yourself before you could spill the beans and shook that thought out of your head. “Never mind, listen, are you still at work?”

“Yeah, I just finished my shift.”

“Perfect! Listen, while you’re there, can you pick something up for me?”

*

Half an hour had passed, and thanks to Yoo Jaesuk cheering you up with his stunts on Running Man on television, you were finally starting to forget about your eyebrows. After all, you were saved now. Having a boyfriend who worked part-time at a grocery store really did have its perks.

Your doorbell rang and you immediately straightened up, peering through the door monitor, “Jaehyun?”

“Yep, open up!”

Sure enough, your boyfriend was there within a swing of the door. Jaehyun’s face lit up with his signature charming grin and dimples, tousled brown hair and something new – a plastic bag.

“I brought your stu—”

At once, you dug into the bag and pulled out a shiny bottle, almost hungrily.

“—ff like you asked me to…” Jaehyun’s brow raised in bafflement.

“It’s extra , right?”

“What?”

“Extra olive oil has better effects, it said—” your mouth closed as soon as you saw Jaehyun’s incredulous expression. His eyes probed your tattered eyebrows, and your heart stopped. You’d forgotten to cover them up!

Quicker than a bullet, you slapped a hand over your brows. “DON’T!”

“Huh?”

“DON’T LOOK AT ME!” Ashamed and very much abhorred, you fled into your bathroom and locked the door, slumping against it. You could already hear footsteps approaching the door.

“Baby…” you could hear the empathy in his voice.

“I’m not opening up. Not until my eyebrows grow back. Not in a million years.”

“Come on,” he chuckled. “They’re not that bad.”

“Ha! So you admit that they’re a little bad!”

“No – I… well, er… they’re not…”

There was a pause as you sulked. “Jung Jaehyun, until I can walk around in public again, you’d best be finding another girlfriend who has… who has better eyebrows…”

And then, the unthinkable happened. He laughed. He actually laughed – a full out chortle, which was as good as a slap in the face.

Annoyance welled up inside you as you flung the door wide open, “Listen, mister – are you finding delight in your girlfriend’s sorrows—”

Jaehyun was reading the article she had popped up on her cellphone and smirked, showing off his dimples. “’How to Make your Eyebrows Grow Faster: 10 Easy Home Remedies’... Is this why you wanted me to get olive oil? To coat your brows?”

Red-faced, you tried to snatch your phone back, but he was too tall. “Don’t go through my—WHOA!”

Your legs fumbled around his and you tripped, toppling over Jaehyun’s chest. You took the opportunity and snatched your phone away with a teasing look, “Hah!”

Your brain didn’t register that you were pressed against his chest until a moment later. Jaehyun amusedly watched as you pried yourself away from his body with red cheeks, his minty scent still distracting you.

You sighed and gazed at his perfectly-shaped, dark eyebrows. “Damn it, Jung Jaehyun.”

“What’d I do now?” He blinked innocently.

“Give your eyebrows to me. They’re too perfect.”

“Aw, baby, I wish I could,” Jaehyun chuckled and opened his arms wide. You willingly leaned into them, still sulky.

“It’s not fair,” you mumbled into his shirt. “Guys don’t have to worry about their eyebrows while us girls have to tend to them all the time.”

“Now that’s not true. I had a unibrow back in elementary. Kids used to call me Bushy-Brows.”

That made you laugh. “That’s the first time I heard that.”

“And hopefully, the last time,” he shivered. “I stole my dad’s shaving razor and tried to shave the middle off. Thankfully, mom caught me before I could do it, but I nearly gave her a heart attack.”

Now you were full-out giggling. Jaehyun smiled and smoothed back a few flyaway strands of hair.

The faintest of suspicions made your laughter die down though as you stared up at him and met his eyes. It didn’t seem like the logical, coolheaded Jung Jaehyun would do that at any point of his life.

“Wait… did that really happen to you?”

“…No, but it happened to Doyoung, so it’s not a complete lie.”

That made sense. The thought of Jaehyun’s zany best friend, Doyoung, doing that instead of him was a scene that you could envision all too well. You snickered, despite his blatant fib.

“Bushy-Brows,” you wiped a tear away, “I feel for Doyoung. Thanks for trying to cheer me up though… despite it being at your best friend’s expense.”

“People think he’s a little weird,” he honestly said, “he could stand to be a little weirder.”

A few more laughs made you see how Jaehyun was trying his best to calm you down, and you let a small grin replace your frown.

“Think you can handle a girlfriend with wonky eyebrows?”

“I thought you said I had to find a new girlfriend until they grow back.”

“Hey!”

“Just joking,” he winked, “you don’t have to worry, baby. They’ll grow right back before you know it… Two bottles worth of olive oil should do the trick, don’t you think?”

“JUNG JAEHYUN!”