Jongdae placed the grande latte above Choa’s crinkled sheets of music. He glanced at the high key the song began with. Choa felt the coffee’s temperature with her hands, tossing her pen on her music carelessly, stretching her arms out behind her. The weather was warm; sunlight caught in Choa’s hair.

“Where did you meet her again?”

“The art gallery showing last weekend. She said she was there to see her friend’s work, but she didn’t know anything about art.”

“So you guys talked, and she gave you her number?”

Jongdae nodded.

“Kim Jongdae, I’m impressed."

Choa turned Jongdae’s laptop from across their round table to look at the photos he’d taken at the gallery. A painting of a woman with flowers growing from her hair, green tinted skin.

“I suggested we go see a movie, and she picked the movie herself. That horror movie, Marionette, or something like that? A horror movie for a first date, eccentric, huh? So if we’re seeing that, what do you think we should do afterward?”

Jongdae watched Choa sip her coffee and reached for his own Americano, burning his bottom lip with the steaming drink as a result. “Ow!” He ended up startling a circle of people around him, students walking through the neat outdoor study area to get to class or occupying the tables and brick ledges. A few girls giggled at him.

“Wait for it to cool down a bit!”

“I did! How come yours cooled faster than mine!”

Choa winked, returning his laptop screen toward him.

“Ugh, I would never be able to stand a horror movie on a first date. I can’t believe horror movies don’t scare you, you soulless child. Well, I guess, whether this girl gets scared of horror movies or not, isn’t cold ice cream best to close off a first date? Especially in this weather.”

Jongdae scratched his chin. From a first encounter point of view, the girl he’d met at the gallery seemed like a romantic comedy er more than a horror movie mania. The irony was a plus, he guessed.

“Ice cream. Good call. And she doesn’t look like one of those dieting girls.”

Choa picked up her sheet music, tucking them into a neat folder.

“A junior named Jisook? Her name sounds really familiar. I’ve probably heard of her before.”

She gingerly fixed her bangs, getting up with her things, sipping her coffee tiredly.

“It’s only a few weeks into the semester. Why are rehearsals so tight? You know you get huge dark circles when you’re tired like that.” Jongdae quickly stuffed his laptop in his bag.

“Junior year, I guess. This coffee better keep me going. Maybe I should’ve asked you to get me a venti, Jongdae.”

Seeing Choa off in the opposite direction to the main auditorium, Jongdae waved, walking backward.

“At least you get to rehearse with that sunbae you’re crushing on, right?”

Choa grinned, waving back.

“Good luck with the date tonight! Be cute and gentle!” 

“Gotcha!”

Jongdae knew there was more coming.

“Oh! And make sure you take her to a place with non-fat smoothies! In case she is one of those dieting girls!”

Jisook turned out to be the kind of girl who talked just the right amount at a movie. From Jongdae striding up to her at the entrance, to both of them waving off popcorn to just enjoy the movie, and even during the horror movie itself. She matched codes with Jongdae. She dressed casually, jeans and a loose top. Loose, light brown hair. Bubbly voice, and light, candy-ish perfume.

Jongdae had offered his arm for their walk to the ice cream shop. Jisook had nice, fair, soft skin. Evening air blew warm on his face. A lot of things felt right.

“The ending did give me goosebumps. I didn’t expect this movie to have so much mindplay.”

She had a building excitement in her voice when she talked. They walked close, but not the type of clutching, like Choa would require after a horror movie, complaining about nightmares. Jisook and Jongdae had both agreed immediately after the initial credits. They had liked the movie and the thrill.

“These kinds of horror movies are the more well-made ones, I think. When a greater percentage of the thrill relies on the characters’ minds and thoughts, instead of gore or ghosts or cheap effects.” Jongdae remarked.

“Exactly!”

He gently slid his arm out of hers to open the ice cream shop door, letting her in first. The menu was huge. Bright blue walls, tables and chairs white with multicolored polka dots.

If Jisook was a dieting girl, she’d let it slide for the evening. She seemed happy, enjoying her cup of green tea ice cream. Jongdae even liked the way their ice cream choices were matching in a way. His chocolate chip mint derived a lighter, warmer green than the green tea.

“We match codes pretty well, don’t you think? For people who casually met up at an art gallery, this date worked out. What about you, noona?”

She laughed, eyes thinning. “You’re really cute when you use noona, Jongdae. And I agree. Today was really fun. Just curious, do you have noona siblings? Or you have close noonas around you, don’t you? The way you use it is so natural.”

Jongdae and Jisook were the only customers in the shop. For a moderately late Friday evening, Jongdae found it odd, not seeing pools of college students out and about. Only theater major upperclassmen like Choa sat in confining rehearsals on Friday nights.

“Seriously?” He found Jisook watching him carefully, with a light, comfortable gaze. “I actually only have an older brother in the family. But you’re right, I’ve been doing theater since elementary school, so I always had a lot of noonas, really different ages, looking after me and stuff. It’s a rare skill I’ve only perfected over years of practice, okay? Other people can’t do it like me.”

By this point in the date, Jisook was prepared for Jongdae’s superfluous jokes, he could tell. She laughed at them, not too obnoxiously and not too uncomfortably either, genuinely, because she either thought he was funny, or cute, or both. Jongdae decided to go for the cute, not to flatter himself too much.

“Theater noonas taking care of you. That’s gotta mean some relationship experience from at least some of those well-off noonas, right?”

Jongdae held his spoon up defensively. “Wait, one question at a time, each! It’s not fair if you get to bomb me with all the questions. What about you and your siblings, noona?”

Jisook raised an eyebrow, a scoop of green disappearing into her smile. “There you go with that noona again!”

She was good at directing the questions toward what she wanted to know about Jongdae, playing it fair still, letting Jongdae find out similar facts about her. They let their empty ice cream cups sit for a while before Jongdae walked her to her car. A Hyundai Accent her dad had handed down after meeting his grades and exam score standards her whole sophomore year.

Laughing with light, personal talk and jokes in between. Politely declining Jisook’s offer to drive him home, a kiss on her cheek and a squeeze on her shoulder. Making plans for a small date on campus the next day.

Jongdae wanted to admit, strongly, that it had been the most perfect first date he’d ever successfully carried out. He’d tell Choa all about it.

“Whatcha studying?”

“Gene mutation. What about you?”

Jongdae flapped the few pages of his stapled lines pack, biting his tongue. “Just lines for class.”

He let Jisook go back to studying after a few minutes of light talk. She seemed tired, in need of caffeine. He’d offered to make a coffee run for the both of them, but she’d had enough for the day, she said. She’d made camp at such a remote corner of the library, one of those sections where you had to whisper and eventually leave if you talk too much.

It felt out of place. Jisook’s major was clinical lab, so naturally, she sat in private corners in the library for hours, studying, writing, reading. Several times a week, Jongdae joined her in her corners, striking up simple conversations like asking how her day was, offering to run coffee or food. When he had to let her get back to studying, he would sit with her for a while, memorizing his lines for class and practice. Eventually, he’d have to run off to a rehearsal, or just run out of lines to memorize. She always sent him off with a warm smile before burying her head in her books again.

“Don’t study yourself to death, noona, okay? You have to play with me sometimes too.”

She was beautiful when she smiled. “What, so I’m you babysitter now, huh?”

Jongdae appreciated that Jisook knew to go along with his over the top humor. “Maybe?”

Singing was the main reason Jongdae had pursued theater all his life. Performing. It was paradise. That’s why he was a theater major. He could never make it in a major like clinical lab. He had barely bothered to study in the science field during high school, focusing more on the general math, Korean, and English for college entrance exams. So then, why did things feel out of place?

“You memorize your lines so quickly, Jongdae.”

Jisook never expressed it, but Jongdae always felt the slight envy. She had dictionary sized books of biology to embed in her brain. Jongdae’s lines never got longer than three to four pages per week.

A warm kiss always did seem to make her feel a lot better, though. Jongdae disliked public displays of affection, but Jisook was always in such remote corners of the library anyway. Her lips usually tasted like green mint, with a tinge of black coffee. The scent he always remembered her with, though, was of course, the mild candy-ish perfume.

The strange feeling of things being out of place - his days skipping by in an uneven rhythm - kept on. Jongdae’s professors assigned him to non-musical theater pieces, claiming he didn’t need more singing and musical training for the time being. The most important aspect of theater was acting, they told him.

“You’ll be able to concentrate on musical theater once you get out of your freshman year. The professors just try to get freshman on an even level with each other in the beginning.”

He hadn’t had it in him to tell Jisook about his complaints, which seemed insignificant compared to the amount of workload and stress she put up with in her world of clinical lab. Choa, having been through virtually the same experiences Jongdae was having, knew without Jongdae even voicing it. Maybe she just knew him well, too.

“I know you don’t really get deep into acting by itself, Jongdae. But you are a theater major, so maybe you should really try to get into it some more? I’ll help you with it.” Choa said, rustling ice in her drink.

“You have your upcoming show to worry about, sunbae.” Jongdae replied, shoulders sinking into the booth seat. He reached for Choa’s fries and ketchup. Choa hated cold fries; he always got to finish them. “Plus, that sunbae you’re performing with again. You haven’t told me anything about him in a while, noona.”

Choa crinkled her nose. “I was going to get you into coach mode, if you hadn’t been so down about the acting thing.” Her sunglasses drooped from above her head, so she slid them off and put them on the table. Jongdae grabbed them and tried them on, seeing Choa shrouded in dark brown. He’d noticed the light pink dress when they’d met up for lunch. He hadn’t realized it was for rehearsal with her show cast later, prominently the all-important Yonghwa sunbae.

“Okay, so what happened?”

“Tuesday night. After we all finished rehearsal and went out for chicken. He walked with me to my bus stop. And he kept telling me things he thought I could improve on in the show. I mean, is that really necessary right then? Why couldn’t he have mentioned all that during rehearsal?”

Jongdae nodded, munching fries.

“So then we get there, and I swear, Jongdae, he was trying to close in for a kiss. Not like a Ppoppo or anything. A real kiss!”

“And then what?”

“And then! Nothing! He just like, mentally stopped himself, and then petted my hair! Petted my hair!”

She slammed her palms on the table.

“He must have said something after that. What did he say?”

“Nothing much, just like, how I was a good hoobae, and he liked working with me and stuff.”

Jongdae shook his head, earning a confused look from Choa.

“That doesn’t sound like nothing to me. It seems pretty clear to me, he likes you.” 

“Then why doesn’t he just say so?”

“Sunbae! Chill! Just give him some time! You’ll see him at rehearsal tonight, right?”

Choa nodded, setting her chin on her palm.

“Try to keep a distance with him during the rehearsal. Don’t get too close and alone, just focus on rehearsing, okay? And wait. He’ll want to talk to you alone. Maybe after rehearsal.”

Choa mentally noted Jongdae’s directions. Whether they worked or not, she always strictly followed Jongdae’s coaching, which always made Jongdae a little proud.

“How do you know this stuff?”

It was the first time she’d asked in a while. He still remembered the very first time vividly, after he’d told her to strike out the cheating hog back in high school.

“I’m a guy.”

(The part I left off last update starts HERE!)

Jongdae’s phone trumpeted Maroon 5’s 'Sunday Morning', drowning the Emcee’s comment on the tv, causing Junghwan to wave his hand in front of Jongdae for him to hurry and answer the thing.

To: Jong Coach

From: Cho Coach

Guess what Jongdae~? I got kissed today!

Jongdae zoned out until Junghwan broke out into an obnoxious snorting session beside him. He didn’t remember doing so, but on his reply screen he’d typed in, ‘Good for you.’ Chuckling it off, he quickly deleted the previous words, and sent out a fresh reply.

To: Cho Coach

From: Jong Coach

All thanks to the most prestigious dating Coach in Korea. Kim! Jong! Dae! I deserve a sushi dinner treat.

To: Jong Coach

From: Cho Coach

Shut up and be man enough to take Jisook out for sushi some time.

Jongdae pulled up his message thread with Jisook. He’d last wished her good luck on a deadweight exam she’d had that morning. If she lived through the exam, she’d said, she’d finally have time she’d wanted to spend with him.