Silence erupted around Jessica’s living room. Three person were speechless, while the other three was nonchalant about the matter. Jessica and Yuri had known about the guy’s real gender preference since long ago. They both also knew that the guy’s father is very homophobic, hence, he had to pretend to be the straight-every-girl’s-dream-man in front of him. This kind of act had managed to keep things at bay, until his father started to set him up in dates and it didn’t help his father from wondering on why he kept on rejecting. Tiffany was one of the few girls his father had set-up for him, as the girl was the daughter of one of his father’s trusted business partner. Hence, Minho just decided to pick her and his father was very happy of his choice. Besides, the girl was extremely pretty and maybe could turn him straight.

Things didn’t go well as planned though, and so, it “ended up like this”.

“You’re… you’re what..?” Tiffany’s voice faded to a whisper at the end.

“Fany-ah,” Minho sighed for the nth time. “I know there isn’t an excuse for me anymore… I’m really, really sorry. I apologize for putting you all through these things, but… but you know how much of a homophobic my father is… so, yeah.”

“But that doesn’t give you an excuse to use my best friend!” Sunny fumed, standing up whilst clenching her fists.

Tiffany held Sunny’s hand and settled her down back the sofa. “It’s okay, Sunny-ah. I can manage.”

“But,” the girl wanted to defy, but backed down to Tiffany’s light smile that says, I-can-handle-this. “… Fine.”

Meanwhile, on the other side, Minho was terribly shaking on the inside, ready to break down into a guilty-crying fit any moment. Jessica took pity at the shaken guy and patted his knee.

“You’ll be okay –,”

“I think… you’re gonna get slapped.” Yuri whispered at the guy, earning a glare from Jessica.

“Really, Yul? Really?” Jessica deadpanned. “Here I am trying to console our friend and you go saying things like that.”

“Oh. I’m sorry –,”

““Sica?” Fearful eyes sought the blonde’s. “Did it hurt?”

Jessica took heed of the question and nodded solemnly in reply. “Sorry to say, but it did hurt like a .”

“What should I –,”

“Minho-yah,” Tiffany spoke so suddenly and scared the living day lights from the three.

“What the hell?” Yuri rubbed her chest. “Since when did you get so close?”

“Ninja.” Jessica muttered under her breath.

Tiffany smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Minho watched as Tiffany’s right arm rise into eye-level and closed his eyes, waiting for the slap to happen, but flinched, when he felt a gentle hand placed on his shoulder. Eyes slowly opened and he saw Tiffany giving him a forgiving smile.

“It’s okay, Minho-yah.” Tiffany spoke in a voice that made Minho want to cry in shame. “But, you should’ve told me about it. Maybe, it wouldn’t turn out like this.”

And Minho did just that; he cried as Tiffany console him like she always did when they were still together. They were in an awkward position, as Minho had his head buried on Tiffany’s stomach while the latter was his hair. Soon, Tiffany sat down between him and Jessica and rested his head on her shoulder. She was cooing comforting words at the apologetic guy’s ears, but it just made him cry more. He was really sorry and that was more than enough for Tiffany to forgive him. Besides, holding on to anger doesn’t do much.

______________________

A few hours passed by and Jessica, Tiffany and a slumbering Minho was left in the blonde’s house. The other three had went to buy groceries and ingredients for dinner – Jessica pushed Yuri to join them and help them with the carrying of the goods, not wanting to be teased any more. (“So, Tiffany Hwang, eh? Is there a particular reason why you were waiting for her call – urk!” Jessica lodged a piece of bread into Yuri’s mouth. “Shut up.”) The six of them had made pretty much good acquaintances with one another, hence, resulting into hours of talks, altogether with laughter and jokes here and there.

At the moment, Jessica was staring at the snoozing person stretched-out on the sofa in front of theirs. The two girls were sitting side-by-side, not talking, but the silence was much appreciated. Until Tiffany decided to break the comfortable silence with a question in mind.

“Jessica-ssi?” Tiffany called out to the blonde beside her.

The aforementioned girl faced her and smiled wryly. “Please drop the honorifics. We need not to be so formal with each other after everything that happened.”

Tiffany chuckled, somewhat apologetic about ‘everything that happened’. “Of course. I just want to ask you about the incident back at the… bar? The day of his birthday? I’ve been very curious on… you know..?”

“Hm,” Jessica hummed understandingly. “You see, this friend of mine have been wanting to tell you about his real interests, but it seems like you can’t catch the meaning behind his hints and he’s too coward to tell you about it directly.”

“Oh,” Tiffany nodded, slowly getting enlightened about it. “So, that night at the bar… he planned that?”

“Yeah.” Jessica glared at the sleeping figure. “He begged me to help him with that. I just couldn’t say no when he