Gary was scheduled to come back today. Before their breakup, Ji Hyo promised him that she, along with the other Running Man members,  would be there to pick him up on the day of his arrival in Korea. But now...what was she supposed to do? Her oppas would definitely find it weird if she doesn't show her happiness upon her boyfriend's arrival.

"What am I going to do?!?" Ji Hyo murmured as she banged her head against the table.

Haha, who was chatting with one his restaurant's employee, turned around to look from where the weird sound was coming from. As soon as he laid his eyes on the Ace, he pointed to her and yelled.

"YAH! SONG JI HYO! Are you okay?!?" he asked worriedly.

"Yeah oppa, I'm fine..." she replied as she rubbed the sore spot on her forehead.

"I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about my expensive table!" he shouted as he caressed his precious table.

"Your head is hard as rock! You could leave a dent!" he shouted.

She hit his arm playfully and smiled forcefully.

"But seriously, what's going on with you?" Haha said as he pulled out a chair and sat next to her. 

During almost one year and a half, Haha had liked Ji Hyo. He would look forward to mondays, which he never thought he would, just to be able to be in her company. During this time, he had noticed a lot about Mong Ji; she sniffles often even when it's not cold, she grabs on to others arms when she's laughing really hard, etc. Ever since Byul entered his life, the memories he had of Ji Hyo started slowly fading away.Though, the one thing that he would always remember was that Ji Hyo was pretty bad at hiding her emotions despite her amazing acting skills.

"What do you mean? There's nothing wrong." she answered, still forcing an unconvincing smile.

Haha pointed to her face and poked her cheek.

"That is the fakest smile in the history of fake smiles!" Haha snortled.

Normally, Ji Hyo would've twisted Haha's arm before he even got the time to say sorry because she hated getting poked in the cheeks. But today, she did nothing, which surprised Haha.

"Something is definitely wrong! You're not even fighting back!" Haha exclaimed.

She ignored his words and stared outside of the window. It was a very sunny autumn day, although a bit chilly. If she hadn't been so troubled by Gary's return, she would be outside, enjoying the beautiful weather Mother Nature gifted them.

"Aren't you excited that Gary hyung is finally coming back? You missed him like crazy...no?" Haha asked.

"Ah...well...yeah." the reluctance in Ji Hyo's voice could be heard from a mile away.

"Yeah?" Haha repeated.

"...yeah." Ji Hyo replied, while flipping through a magazine.

"Okay then. If you don't want to talk about it, it's fine, I respect your decision." he sighed.

"Thank you opp-" Ji Hyo started.

"Just know that you can trust me with your secrets; I won't tell anyone, not even Byul or my mom, and you know how close I'm with both of them! I'm very trustworthy. In the entertainment industry, I'm known as the impenetrable lock. Even if it was a matter of life or death, your secret would still be safe with me. Okay?" Haha cut her off, insisting on his trustworthiness.

"...Okay." Ji Hyo replied.

Despite his humongous effort to try to convince her, it looks like Haha's plan failed.

"...If you need me, I'll be at the cash register, right in front. Right here. A mere 30 seconds of walking and you'll be there." Haha pointed.

"If you will please excuse me, I'm reading this very interesting article about cactuses. You constant nagging is distracting me." a slightly annoyed Ji Hyo looked up for about 2 seconds to say what she wanted to say and immediately went back to her magazine.

"Fine. Oh...And by the way, your magazine is upside down." he sniggered, as he walked away.

"...I'm trying to develop a new skill, okay? You got something against that?" she rised up from her seat and shouted across the restaurant. 

Luckily, there were only a few customers since it was only 10 in the morning.

Ji Hyo spent the whole day at Haha's restaurant learning her script and surfing the internet. Haha would occasionally glance in her direction to see if she was acting strange again. In less than two hours, Gary's plane would in land in Korea. Mong Ji was still pondering on whether to go fetch him with the others or come up with an excuse and stay home. 

"Ah, dilemma!" she cried out loud, earning herself a few stares from the employees nearby.

She decided to text Mr. Capable and the Betrayer, hoping they would be able to give her an answer.

Just as she hit "send", she felt a presence above her and saw a shadow in front of her.

"Yah! Ha Dong Hoon! I said I didn't want to talk about it. Stop peeking!" she said, while simultanously elbowing the person's stomach.

"Ji Hyo-ah! It hurts!"

"Jae Suk oppa! Sorry, I didn't know it was you!" she stood up and held onto his hand to apologize.

"It's fine, it's fine, it doesn't hurt that much." he chuckled, still clutching his stomach.

The night before, Jae Suk texted the Running Man members to meet up at Haha's restaurant at 4 o'clock so they can all go pick up Gary together. Since he was free today, which was a rare thing given his popularity, he arrived earlier than everyone else. 

"You don't look as ecstatic as I thought you'd be." he said as he took off his jacket.

"Not that again..." Ji Hyo thought, exasperated.

"I can't wait for Gary to come back, it's just that I'm very tired these days because I have so many photoshoots..." Ji Hyo explained, even though it wasn't exactly the truth.

"Ahh, I see now. Well, I don't want to bother you any longer, go ahead and do what you were doing." Jae Suk said, taking a sip of coffee.

"Neh, oppa." Ji Hyo replied, while reading the same page from her script for the third time, still not understanding a thing.

10 minutes and one empty cup of coffee later, Jae Suk left his seat and walked over to Haha. 

"You're right, I think something happened between Gary and Ji Hyo." Jae Suk lowered his voice as he eyed Ji Hyo.

"Right? I don't want to jinx it, but...what if they broke up?" Haha asked Jae Suk, scared that the dynamics of their gang would become awkward.

That was something no one had ever thought of; what would happen if the Monday Couple broke up in real life? Would it affect their show? Would it affect the friendship between all the members?

"We can't predict what will happen later." Jae Suk said, talking about their breakup.

"We can prevent it from happening, but what makes us believe that Ji Hyo and Gary would be happy with the ending we created for them?" he asked Haha.

Haha shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea how to answer the Grasshopper's question.

"Exactly. That's why we have to let life take its course." Jae Suk concluded.

Haha was speechless, his hyung was just so wise! It sounded like he had a vast range of life experiences. Everytime Jae Suk acted his age, which rarely happened, Haroro was glad he had met such an amazing person.

"Wah...Hyung, what you just said was so beautiful!" Haha was in awe.

"Now you finally realize what a wonderful person I am, hmm?", Jae Suk scoffed.

"Neh hyung. I'm thinking about making you "uri hyung" instead of Jong Kook hyung!" Haha said, joking.