When she was a little, many people used to tell her that it would be easy for her to find love because of her look. Irene Bae grew up holding onto those words. She did found a perfect, kind man. They were engaged and Irene couldn’t get any happier; she would go around and showed off her ring to a couple of her friends.

It was until she came home from work and saw her said fiancé with a girl on a sidewalk, eating each other’s faces. Irene got off her car and gave him a wipe to clean the girl’s bright red lipstick on his lips—actually it was all over his face. She tried so hard to keep her face straight and cold when he begged for her forgiveness, but Irene knew better. If someone had cheated once, they would eventually do it again. She had been trying to ignore him for weeks now.

And there she was, alone; inside her room surrounded by crumbled tissues on the floor. Her eyes were puffy as she was staring at the television. She took a big scoop of ice cream while watching cartoon. She chuckled in between whenever the characters did something silly. She diverted her attention to the door when she heard her front door of her apartment clicked. She shrugged it off, at that point she did not care if there was an intruder. She had nothing to lose anyway. The knob on the door to her bedroom twisted open slowly.

“Ire- What on earth are you doing?!”

Irene whined when she saw the familiar figure. She put aside her ice cream tub and plopped herself onto the bed.

“Jisoo, please leave. Let me die and rot here, alone!” She threw her arms up.

Jisoo—her very caring cousin—scrunched her face as she tried to not step on the trash on the ground. When she finally made it to the side of Irene’s bed, she took the older girl’s arm and pulled her down.

“So, you’re not going to attend Wendy and Joy’s wedding?” the younger asked.

“Jisoo! Do I look like a person who wants to attend a wedding right now?”

“Well, so you just want to sit here and wallow?!” Jisoo fought back.

“Yes!” Irene whined once again.

Jisoo cupped Irene’s cheeks. They were staring at each other’s eyes for a couple minutes until Jisoo slapped her cheeks.

“Ouch! What the hell—“

Jisoo did not let Irene finished her whine.

“Repeat after me!” She said. “I’m a strong independent woman!”

“Jisoo!”

And she was slapped again.

“Repeat after me, soldier!”

“Sir, yes, sir! I’m a strong independent woman!”

“I don’t need nobody ‘cuz I am Irene Bae!”

“I don’t need nobody ‘cuz I am Irene Bae!”

“Alright, good.” Jisoo pat the older girl’s cheeks.

“Now go shower! You smell like a barn!”

“We’re here!”

Irene’s eyes jolted open as they finally reached the destination after went through two hours of driving from Losville town to Mardwall Beach. Well, Jisoo was driving. Irene wiped a bit of saliva around , she was about to close her eyes again when Jisoo opened her door; causing her to fall—but luckily Jisoo was fast enough to hold Irene.

“Jisoo, I don’t want to do this…” Irene said as she was holding onto Jisoo; not to mention she had her eyes big and the cute pout.

Jisoo rolled her eyes.

“Oh, come on, Irene.” She dragged the older girl.

Sometimes Jisoo wondered if Irene is really older than her by four years. The latter kept latching onto her until they finally arrived in front of their assigned cottage. Jisoo was busy shuffling around her bag for the key. Irene was standing there quietly like an obedient kid.

“Jisoo!”

Jisoo looked up when someone was calling her name cheerfully. She smiled and greeted the person.

“Seulgi!”

Irene took a step away as the two girls were hugging; did not know what to do since she had no idea who that was. She froze when the stranger—Seulgi—looked at her with a smile; confused smile.

“Oh! This is my cousin! Irene!”

Irene mumbled a very awkward greeting as she felt even more awkward when the strange girl smiled from ear to ear—not that it wasn’t cute, though. It was so cute that made Irene became shy.

“Hi,” the girl said. “Kang Seulgi.” She reached out her hand, waiting for Irene to take it. It took a couple of seconds and Jisoo to nudge her until she finally took the taller girl’s hand.

“I-Irene Bae.” She stuttered.

Seulgi smiled once again.

“Alright, I’ll be going now. I need to prepare a few things for rehearsal dinner tonight.”

Jisoo waved her hand to the latter, and Irene, once again just stood there.

“Who’s that?” Irene finally spoke.

“Oh, that’s Kang Seu