Jongin and I were walking around Hongdae, checking out the shops and restaurants. The moon was up high in the sky, bright. Jongin was wearing a hat, pulled down low. I’d tied my hair up in a bun and was wearing a warm hoodie. People recognized me less when my long hair was tied up.

            We stopped by a tofu house for dinner, but ended up running into Myungsoo and Doyeon.

            “Hey!” Myungsoo said. “Funny running into you guys here.”

            I laughed. “Hilarious. Myungsoo, this is Jongin. Jongin, Myungsoo.”

            The two of them shook hands, although I could sense tension between them. Myungsoo looked at me, seemingly staring into my eyes.

            Doyeon cleared . “Oh,” Myungsoo said, snapping out of it. I snapped out of it too. Jongin tensed up beside me. “Doyeon, Naeun. You guys have met.”

            “Yeah,” Doyeon said, lips pursed. “We did.”

            “This tofu house seems really good,” I said, changing the subject. “Lots of people are here. Looks like there’s some sort of special.”

            Myungsoo peered at the sign at the front counter. “’25% discount for parties of four or more’,” he read. “Sounds like an awesome deal.”

            “It does,” I agreed.    

            And that was probably how Myungsoo, Doyeon, Jongin, and I all ended up seated at the same table. Jongin and I sat next to each other, with Myungsoo and Doyeon on the other side. I looked at the menu with Jongin, wondering which type of tofu soup I wanted.

            “Oppa,” Doyeon was saying to Myungsoo, “we should split a combo.”

            “Not a good idea.”

            I’d said it before I even had time to speak. Doyeon and Myungsoo both looked at me. “I-I mean,” I said, “you see, Myungsoo eats a lot. Like, a lot a lot. The combo would be way too small to split.”

            Doyeon glared at me. “Was I asking for your input?”

            “No.” I shouldn’t have said anything. “It’s just a suggestion.”

            “I think I know my own boyfriend well enough to order his food for him,” Doyeon snapped. “Oppa. We share a combo, yes?”

            Myungsoo scratched his head, uncertain. “Actually…I am pretty hungry. One combo between the two of us might not cut it.”

            I snorted, although unintentionally.

            “Naeun,” Jongin hissed. “C’mon. Be nice.”

            “Sorry,” I mumbled. I looked up at Myungsoo, who was giving me an admiring grin. I grinned back at him, because we were just like that.

 I was too caught up on how I’d won Doyeon that I’d completely neglected Jongin, failing to make conversation with him at all since the dinner started. I tried making some small talk but he was being quite stubborn, and unusually quiet. All he did during that entire dinner was eat without saying a word to me. I felt pretty neglected but decided that perhaps he was only having an off night.

            Things were obviously wrong, though. When dinner ended, Jongin pulled me over to the side of the street.

            “Naeun, what was that back there?” he asked me.

            “What was what?”

            “Don’t act like you don’t know,” Jongin said. “You and Myungsoo. The way you acted towards each other didn’t look like ‘just friends’ to me.” He ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated. I stayed quiet, suddenly wishing that I’d done things differently. “I thought you were over him, Naeun. I really thought you were. I believed you when you said that I was the only one for you.”

            “You are,” I said, hoping that by saying so I would believe it too. “You are the only one for me.”

            Jongin looked at me right in the eye, still. “No,” he said. “I’m not. As much as I’d like to be, I’m not the one for you.”

            I stared at him with hurt eyes, knowing that I was breaking his heart but that there was nothing I could do. I knew I couldn’t force my feelings onto him. He probably knew that too.

            “You never replied to me, you know,” he then said quietly.

            What do you mean? I wanted to ask him. But then I thought back and realized what he was talking about: the day he told me loved me. I still haven’t replied to him.

            “I-I’m…” I bit my lip. “I’m so sorry, Jongin. It must have slipped my mind.”

            “Well now here’s your chance,” Jongin said. “Give me your response.”

            “Huh?”

            “Tell me. Do you love me, too?”

            “I-I…” I paused. Did I love him? I hated hesitating because it seemed like my hesitation automatically translated to my answer: No Jongin. I don’t love you. I wish I did because if it was you, things would be so much easier. There would be less pain. But I guess that isn’t love, then. Love isn’t supposed to be easy.

           Jongin slid his hands into his pockets and took a deep sigh, already knowing my answer. “I’ll see you around, okay?” He kissed me one last time on the forehead, then walked away. I watched as his back got farther and farther away from me, until he was gone. Gone.

            When I got back to the dorm, I was in low spirits. I’d just gotten dumped by a great guy, who was practically accusing me that I was still in love with my freaking stepbrother. “That’s preposterous,” I said to myself. “He and I were over a long time ago.”

            I was feeling terribly sad and the empty dorm room wasn’t making me feel any better. So I grabbed my jacket and headed down to the lobby, where I coincidentally ran into Myungsoo.

            “Hey,” he said.

            I nodded at him. “Hey,” I said dryly.

            His eyebrows furrowed. He had nice eyebrows. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You seem sad.”

            I looked down at the ground. “Don’t really want to talk about it. See ya.”

            “Wait,” Myungsoo said. “I hate seeing you leave with such a sad face. Let me cheer you up.”

            “Are you serious?”

            “Yeah,” Myungsoo said. “The worst thing to do when you’re sad is be alone. The night’s still young. I’ll take you out to ice cream.”

            I grinned, remembering the memories. “I get strawberry?”

            “And I’ll get chocolate.”

            “Sounds like a plan.”

            “So,” Myungsoo said, taking a bite of his ice cream, “want to tell me what this is all about?”

            I my ice cream cone, feeling a lot better now that I had Myungsoo’s company, along with something to eat. He and I were sitting at a bench in the park. It was late at night, with the crickets chirping around us. “Well basically, I got dumped.”

            Myungsoo took this news with silence, as if soaking it in. “Wow,” he finally said. “That’s harsh.”

            I nodded. “Yeah. It is. It stinks.”

            “Well he’s crazy to dump you,” Myungsoo said.

            I shook my head. “Naw. He actually had a really good reason to. I’m a horrible person.”

            “You’re not a horrible person.”

            “And your judgment is accurate because…?”

            Myungsoo brought his eyes to mine. His eyes looked really pretty in the moonlight. “Because,” he said, “you told me that it was. Remember?”

“You know,” he said, “he had you in the palm of his hand and he screws up. Yeah this is why I hate him.”

            “I thought you hated him because he’s soccer captain and you’re not,” I said.

            “Yeah. That too.”

            “You seem to have pretty good judgment,” I commented. “I always thought that you calling Taemin ‘Mr. Goody-two-shoes’ was a complete joke but it seems very plausible at the moment. In addition to your hatred for him.”

            Myungsoo smirked. “Told you.”

            I bit my lip and hesitated before asking, “What is…what is your judgment about me?”

            “Judgment?”

            “Yeah,” I said. “What did you think of me when you first met me? A total huh.” I thought back to the day we bumped into each other that one fateful morning.

            Myungsoo shook his head, which surprised me. “No,” he said. “Not at all.”

            “Wow,” I said. “That’s right. I did say that.”

            “Yup. So enough with the put-downs.” He stared off into the distance.

            I looked down at my ice cream cone. “You know what’s weird?”

            “What?”

            “We’re naturally two people who don’t talk much. But we seem to talk quite a lot to each other,” I said.

            Myungsoo considered this. “Maybe it’s because we just have too many things in common. Like each other’s counterparts.”

            “Or soul mates.”

            I’d said that without thinking, once again. But Myungsoo didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he just nodded, as if accepting this theory as well. We couldn’t deny it. We knew how we felt. Or, once felt for each other.

            “Soul mates who are related. What a plot twist.”

            “Tell me about it.”

            Suddenly, a raindrop fell onto my forehead. I wiped it off and looked up at the sky, seeing the black clouds in the sky now releasing their tears.

            “,” Myungsoo said as the rain started to come down, pulling his hood up over his head. I put up my hood as well, although I was too mesmerized by how this rain seemed all too familiar.

            “C’mon, let’s go.” He grabbed my hand and the two of us ran through the downpour, looking for a place to take cover. We found solace by a huge tree, its branches big enough to give us enough shelter to dry. I stayed close to Myungsoo, still holding his hand. Actually, I was practically pressed against his chest as I wiped the raindrops off of my face.

            Then the two of us took notice of how we were just so close to one another. My face stayed close to his chest, unsure whether to look up or not. But in the end I did, and there he was, staring down back right at me. Looking into his eyes, so brown and bright, that was when I knew the reason why I couldn’t bear to say those three words to Jongin. It was because I knew that deep down inside, I would always only be able to say it to one boy and one boy only.

            Myungsoo reached out to touch my face, to brush a strand of hair away. Then before I knew it the both of us were leaning our faces into each others, closer and closer, and our lips would’ve touched right then and there…

            If it weren’t for a certain headlight shining right on us as the car passed by. Blinded by the light, we both awkwardly broke away from each other.

            But the thing was, we ended up just smiling to each other about it, even laughing, no awkwardness whatsoever. As Myungsoo and I walked back to the dorm together, I caught a glimpse of who was in the car that passed by: Kim Doyeon.

            Maybe, I should’ve been a bit scared. I mean, my stepbrother’s girlfriend just basically saw me and him pressed against a tree, just about ready to make out with each other.

            But I wasn’t scared. Not one bit. Because I had Myungsoo by my side. That feeling of safety was back and working. I didn’t need to worry about anybody else.            

            The next morning, I found a CD case lying on the front doorstep. There was a little post-it on the very top.

Napoop,

          Just a little something for you when you’re feeling down. Hope you like it.

          -Myungsoo

            I looked at the CD, puzzled, but then decided to give it a try.

            I recognized the music immediately: acoustic, indie, alternative. These were Myungsoo’s favorite tracks. And as I lied there on my bed, listening to the CD that he made especially for me, I couldn’t help but feel grateful for him. As expected, I fell in love with his music as well. His taste was also my taste. That was how similar we were. Amazingly, I feel like he knew that too.