BGM: Anyband - Promise U

"So, I have a new list..."

It was already 11:06 in the evening, but you were still talking on the phone with your best friend, Jihye. She only called in to check whether the pseudo-twins were able to keep their promise of making sure that you arrived home safely, but of course, between the two of you, there's no such thing as a 5-minute call. So after talking about the most random things for the past hour, your conversation finally moved on to the topic of her latest list.

"Another list? But Ji, we're not even done with the last one yet!" you complained.

Over at the other end of the line, Jihye explained that her latest masterpiece had nothing to do with missions at all. "No! No! This is different!" she insisted.

"Fine. What is it this time?" you asked.

Clearing like she always does when she's about to reveal the title of a newly-finished list, Jihye read, "The 12 Reasons Why Jihye and Jaemi Have Non-Existent Love Lives,"

"Geez. Thanks a lot. I really need to be reminded of that, you know," you reacted sarcastically, before shifting your attention to one of the wooden drawers in your bedside table.

Jihye rolled her eyes. "Can you please wait 'til I finish before you voice out your violent reactions? Please?"

While rummaging through the random things in your drawer, you found an orange V-line face roller so you started massaging your chin with it. "Fine. Go ahead. What's number one?" you gave in, urging her to continue.

Your best friend let out a squeal and did a little victory dance before reading the first item on her list. "Number one... we came from normal families,"

You were about to comment on how ridiculous the first reason was when Jihye immediately asked you to wait for her explanation first. "Let me explain first, okay?" she requested. "See... the two of us... we came from normal families. Our parents are still together. We're neither adopted nor orphaned. And although we have some complaints about them from time to time - I mean, who doesn't? - our parents are great. They're amazing. They're really nice people who always try their best just to make sure we live well..."

Still clueless about its relation to a person's love life, you asked, "And the point is...?"

"The point is," Jihye started, "our parents are sane enough to let us make our own decisions and they don't manipulate our lives like a pair of puppets on a string..."

"That's a marionette, actually," you pointed out. "Puppets are the dolls you control with your hands or your fingers, but once you put on wires or strings to help you manipulate them, then they're already considered marionettes,"

Ignoring your little lecture about puppets and marionettes, Jihye continued, "... which brings me to number two: We are not arranged to be married to any-"

Furrowing your eyebrows, you quickly interjected, "Of course, we're not arranged to be married to anyone! Ji, this is the 21st Century! We're not from the Joseon era!"

"See? A lot of couples get together after being blindly set-up with the children of their parents' or grandparents' friends. They may hate- no, they may loathe each other at first, but since their parents always get the last say when it comes to such decisions, they will reluctantly accept their fate and end up falling in love with each other anyway,"

What Jihye said was a bit familiar. Too familiar. So you asked your best friend if she has been going through her secret stash of K-drama DVDs again. "Ji, have you been re-watching Goong?!?"

"What? No!" she quickly denied, although if she's being honest, Jihye has really been thinking about re-watching the popular K-drama series just to see that cheesy beach montage again. You know, the one with the dried cuttlefish and stuff?

"Fine. What's number three, then?"

Checking with her list, Jihye read, "Number three is that we are too normal looking,"

"What do you mean by 'we are too normal looking'?" you asked, still rolling the orange thingamajig up and down your jaw.

"Normal looking!" Jihye repeated. "I mean, we're not, by all means, Song Hyekyo or Kim Yoojin-pretty, but we're not that bad-looking either,"

Song Hyekyo and Kim Yoojin

Briefly pausing from your V-line face rolling activity, you pondered, "So what you're saying is that you have to either be Disney princess-pretty or -ugly in order to have a K-drama-worthy romance? Am I right?"

"Oh, that's not all! We're also average when it comes to body type, so there really isn't any opportunity for us to partake in any form of drastic makeovers that will turn the course of the story around," Jihye pointed out.

Getting ahead of yourself, you were already chortling before you even managed to say, "Like a montage of your colorful journey from being a 200-pound ramen monster to being a borderline anorexic!"

"Which brings me to number four... oh~ you're going to love this!" Jihye excitedly assumed. "Number four is because we don't disguise ourselves as boys,"

"Is this list really about our non-existent love lives or K-drama cliches?"

"Hmm... both," Jihye decided. She then went on to further explain why this reason is a part of the list. "Anyway, boys find it easier to interact with, well, their fellow men, so if you're dressed up like a boy, you have a higher chance of getting close to them, you know, like Go Minam from Minami Shineyo or that girl from Coffee Prince," 

"Or Mulan!" you excitedly added.

"Yeah! See? If you're dressed like a dude, you'll have extremely good-looking men falling at your feet in no time! It's sad, really," Jihye concluded.

Putting the face roller down, you got off your seat to lie on your bed. "Yeah, even Yoochun oppa's upcoming drama is rumored to use the same love story formula... it's said to be about a girl who disguises herself as a boy so she could study in one of those all-boys schools. I bet all the male characters would eventually fall in love with her or something,"

"Can you imagine how scandalous it would be if a boy dressed up as a girl just to attend our school?" Jihye wondered.

Staring at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers plastered all over the ceiling, you were kinda surprised when, for some reason, an image of Luhan dressed in your school uniform suddenly crossed your mind. He looked so pretty that if he ever decides to attend Sookmyung Girl's High School with you and Jihye, you knew that if he played his cards right, he would never ever be suspected of being a boy.

Let alone be caught for being one.

In a dormitory somewhere in the heart of Sinsa-dong, three Chinese boys also seemed preoccupied by the sight of the white-painted ceiling in their bedroom. Although there were no star stickers in sight, they were staring at it with an intensity that rivaled that of a student looking up to ask for some divine intervention that will magically provide him with the correct test answers.

"Are we doing the right thing?"

Luhan was lying on his stomach in the left-most bed in the room. He was having one of those nights again, the ones which made him contemplate whether he made the right decision to put his college education aside so he could concentrate on becoming an idol.

Without looking away from the ceiling, Yixing asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, did we make the right decision to pursue this?" Luhan asked.

The honest answer, Yixing thought, was that he also wasn't sure. When he left Changsha almost two years ago to pursue his dream of becoming a singer in South Korea, he had no reassurance whatsoever that all the sacrifices he made would eventually be worth it. 

"It's still too early to tell, I guess. All I know is... if we give up now, then it would all be over. Everything we've worked hard on until now would all be wasted," he said. 

"But what if it's time we're really wasting? What if we were actually meant to do something else with our lives? I mean, we can't bring back all the time we've spent here," Luhan wondered. 

Unlike Yixing, who always knew that he was meant to be on stage, the idea of becoming a professiona