Two years had passed.

A master’s degree already in your hand. It’s to get a serious job now. Most importantly, you gonna be back to look for a promising job. Life in Japan was good, but you would never turn down the chance to be in the same place you were two years ago.

Again, you switched on your phone you last had an accidental conversation with Binnie, that day you were being careless and clumsy. You checked your missed calls and inbox messages. Who cared to reach to you when their attempts resulted to either unreachable calls or unread messages? No recent calls or messages from anyone accept from Binnie. His message was from two days back though.

 

“My birthday is coming”

“a present I anticipate from you is…”

“something given by hand to me”

“is that too much of a demand?”

“it’s ok even though you can’t give it perfectly on time ;)”

“miss you Jinoona!”

 

A smile formed on your face. That kid. He remembered you said you gonna come back exactly after two years. He predicted your arrival date excellently well. He even sent you the location of his birthday celebration.

 

On the plane back, Jiho said you looked like a kid who was excited to go to a toy shop.

“Jina-ya, will you be okay?”

“Why not?”

“You left everyone behind and stayed quiet in Japan. Won’t they resent you for not telling?”

“I told Jisoo, Binnie, and a few others too. Those who you probably don’t know since they never came to our house,”

“What about the others you didn’t tell?”

“I don’t think they’d make a big fuss about it. We weren’t close anyway,”

“Eunwoo. How about him? He’s close to you,”

“Eunwoo…”

You realized you had no valid excuse for not telling him.

 

“...he’s most probably fine. Hahahaha. With me around he couldn’t do many things, so I assume he’s thankful I wasn’t there to straighten up his sick manners,”

Your brother gave you a skeptical look and then shook his head.

 

“If that so, then you have no reasons not to help me clean the house,”

“Believe me, we two gonna sleep as soon as we are home later,”

“Nope. I’ll make you beat your desire to sleep,”

 

As he said while in the plane, he did make you beat your sleepiness and cleaned the house instead. He just knew you’d take the bait he had thrown. Certainly it was a big bait cause you easily gave up your sleep and promised to help him clean every corner of the house. Luck was on your side. The house wasn’t in bad condition since the person who rented it was hygienic and moved out a week before you and Jiho arrived.

 

The evening of the very next day, you went out to see Binnie. Yes. It was his birthday and you wanted to give a suprise to him. Not to forget, you were supposed to hand him his present by yourself. He had his birthday celebration at a restaurant and by a glimpse you spotted his group of friends. You didn’t see him with them, so you were sure he wasn’t there yet. Therefore, you waited for him outside.

Right on cue, you saw his figure walking towards the restaurant. You quickly lowered your head. Once he’s half a metar away from you, you blocked his path with your face still facing the floor. He’s shocked and you began to say something to him,

 

“OPPA! Please accept this.” you handed him his present suth your head still lowered.

 

“Miss,”

“I think you got the wrong person,”

“No, I’m not. This is your birthday present you wanted me to hand personally,”

 

He seemed to take time to brain the situation.

 

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY BINNIE!!!” this time you wished him loudly and clearly, facing him.

“Noona! Jina noona!” , he wasted no time and hugged you.

“It’s really you! You’re back!”

“Let us go inside now before we can further catch up with each other,”

 

When you aprroached the table set for Binnie, his friends who were already there welcomed him, probably you too, with ‘ooohs’ and ‘wahhhhhs’. Not long after that they shut themselves and apologized to you. Why? Because Binnie declared that you’re someone else’s.

You weren’t sure what made him said that. Maybe he wanted to avoid his friends from hitting on you since he admitted that you’re just a sister-like friend.

You usually didn’t give a damn about your surrounding, but that’s not the case for today. Binnie’s friends were all males, and being the only female among them, you felt a little bit awkward, plus you didn’t know what to talk to them. They were into drinking too. Although Binnie was there and tried his best to not make you feel left out, you really hoped someone would come as your saviour. Binnie told you someone else was coming and he would be a best talk-buddy for you.

 

“Binnie! Happy birthday dude! Sorry I’m late…”

 

You turned around to see the face of the familiar voice and that person stopped saying anything.

That person stunned looking at you.

It’s Eunwoo.

 

“Hi Eunwoo!” you started and a big smile plastered on your face.

“..Hi…”

“Hyung, have a seat,”

 

He sat at the opposite side of the table, facing you. You knew he’s the one Binnie mentioned before. You were glad to see him again. Excitedly, you asked him a lot of questions which only answered by him monotonously and depressingly short. He didn’t seem please to talk to you and kept himself busy with drinking. You thought he had changed. He treated you coldly, but still you gave your best attempt to engage conversation with him. At the end, you gave up. He was getting drunk and stopped responding to whatever you said to him. You decided to leave. It was already late too. Binnie thought it was a good idea if you went home with Eunwoo, only to had Eunwoo replied,

 

“I’m drunk… too drunk,”

 

“Right. Hyung probably will create mess in Jinoonim’s car. It’s ok noona! I’ll send him home letter. You can go now and drive safely kay! Thanks for coming too,” Binnie said to you with his cute smile.

 

By the time you left, you walked slowly to your car to enjoy the night breeze. You were not far from the restaurant, so you could hear the rastaurant door bell rang indicating someone passed through it. You felt like seeing who and caught the sight of him. Eunwoo. Definitely not as drunk as he claimed earlier. He walked the same direction as you, but he didn’t see you were ahead of him.

You knew something wasn’t right with him. You waited untill he’s near you and you stopped him.