Jin hurries down the street, brushing by strangers while attempting to keep everything she’s holding in her hands. Her cousin, JinYoung, is proposing to his girlfriend today at the Valentine’s Day party and Jin is in charge of decorating. She has countless bags filled to the brim with reds, pinks and whites; streamers, bags of glittery confetti, tablecloths, forks, spoons, napkins, plates and even balloons that are to be blown up later.

The strong February winds rip around Jin, threatening to take her party supplies onto the dance floor of the sky. Jin struggles to keep her things from getting lost on the current of the wind, and she does a pretty good job—except for her scarf that was tied loosely around her neck. The scarf is flying in the air now and Jin desperately chases after it, running as best as she can with the bags in her hands and pausing for only a millisecond to apologize every time she bumps into someone. Her scarf dances around, almost as if it is teasing her. It jerks this way and that and Jin grows frustrated. She watches in relief as her scarf comes to a stop; she watches in embarrassment as it lands on top of some poor guy’s head. As he is riding a skateboard. Which causes him to ride that skateboard right into the side of a building. Whoops.

“Oh my gosh! Sorry, um, that’s my scarf,” Jin explains awkwardly, pointing at the scarf that the guy now has in his hands. The guy rubs his forehead, mumbling under his breath about his sore nose. He shifts his gaze from the scarf to look at Jin for the first time and his eyes grow wide. He stands there, frozen, Jin’s scarf in his hands and his eyes zeroed-in on Jin’s face. “Um, can I have it back?”

“Ah, yeah, yeah, here ya go.” The guy hands the scarf to Jin, and Jin swears she sees him try to hide a smile when their fingers touch. Weird guy. He goes back to prodding his nose, checking to see if anything is broken.

“Oh, geez…I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I dunno…I can’t afford to be injured, it’ll make my job harder,” the guy mutters, casting a side glance at Jin. Jin sighs; he’s trying to guilt-trip her, isn’t he?

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Well, I’m gonna have to get your number so I can reference you—if I need to—when I mention this to my coach.” Jin panics; she doesn’t exactly want to be held accountable for ruining this guy’s career in whatever it is he does, mainly because she doesn’t have the money to be held accountable. She sighs again, deciding that she might as well give him her number. She doesn’t think he’s hurt too badly, so she might not even be called by lawyers or doctors at all.

“Okay, here, give me your phone.” Jin enters her number into the guy’s phone and hands it back to him. He looks it over and then looks at her quizzically.

“Ha Jin?”

“That’s my name.”

“Just…Jin?”

“Just Jin.”

The guy pauses for a moment and then his face erupts into a goofy grin. “Cool. I’ll see you later, ‘just Jin’.”

As the guy picks himself off the ground and rides his skateboard away, Jin passionately hopes that they never, ever meet again.

--

Jin lets out a sigh of relief as she finally sits down; she’s been decorating for the past two hours for the Valentine’s Day party. Her phone buzzes and she’s reminded that she should probably check and see if anything important is happening. She flips through her messages, chuckling when she sees she has seven from JinYoung.

02:36 P.M. // From: JinYoung

>> JinJin! Are you there yet? <<

02:40 P.M. // From: JinYoung

>> Are you decorating now, JinJin? <<

02:55 P.M. // From: JinYoung

>> Are you sure she’ll be surprised? My jagiya is smart, you know. She probably knows that I’m proposing today…oh, what do I do? ;~; <<

03:30 P.M. // From: JinYoung

>> What if she says no? JIN WHAT IF SHE REJECTS ME?! T^T <<

04:00 P.M. // From: JinYoung

>> Never mind. She would never reject me; I’m amazing :D <<

04:15 P.M. // From: JinYoung

>> OH MY GOD BUT WHAT IF SHE DOES SAY NO? <<

04:20 P.M. // From: JinYoung

>> I have been informed that she will definitely not say no. Also, my friend will be there around 5 to bring the food. <<

Jin smiles, playfully rolling her eyes. Her cousin can be pretty eccentric at times. She sends him a quick, reassuring text and then scrolls through the rest of her messages. Most of them are ones regarding the party, but she stops when she sees an unknown number catch her eye.

03:28 P.M. // From: xxxx-xxxxx

>> Hi Jin, just Jin~ so I really only got your number because I thought you were cute, but it turns out I do have to mention you to my coach >.< also my name is Wang JaeGeun, but you can call me oppa kekekekeke <<

Jin wants to slam her head against a wall; she fell for it. This idiotic Wang JaeGeun guy used a cheesy pick-up line—albeit a very convincing variation of it—on her and she fell for it. She saves his number as ‘Idiot’ and texts him back.

04.50 P.M. // To: Idiot

>> You’re terrible. And why does your coach have to know who I am? You didn’t hit your face that bad. <<

04.52 P.M. // From: Idiot

>> My training rounds were my lowest performance since my mind wasn’t on the match…all I was thinking about was you~~ <<

04:53 P.M. // To: Idiot

>> You’re gross. Stop before I notify the police. <<

04:55 P.M. // From: Idiot

>> You wouldn’t do that to oppa, would you? Kekekeke <<

04:56 P.M. // From: Idiot

>> I’m serious, you know. <<

04:58 P.M. // To: Idiot

>> About what? <<

04:59 P.M. // From: Idiot

>> About you <<

Before Jin has a chance to respond, she hears the door open. JinYoung’s friend must be here with the food.

“Yo, I brought the goods! There’s lots of sundubu and budae jigae!”

Jin freezes; she knows that voice. She prays and prays that she’s just hearing things, but when she turns around her hopes shatter into a million pieces. It’s that idiot.

“Hey! I didn’t know you and JinYoung were cousins.”

“I didn’t know JinYoung had such terrible friends, Wang-ssi.”

“Call me Jackson, oppa, or Jackson-oppa~”

“Your name is JaeGeun.”

“Ah, crap, did it say JaeGeun? Stupid Korean auto-correct…It’s Jackson. My name is Jackson.” Jackson has that stupid grin on his face again. Jin has a sudden urge to slap it off of him.

“Whatever. Just go set the food up.”

“Hey, did you decorate? It looks awesome!” Jin ignores him. “Do you like sundubu?” Jin ignores him. “Hey, did you get my last text?” Jackson’s voice is softer now.

“Yeah.” Jin purposely doesn’t look at him.

“So…”

“You’re weird. And creepy.”

“So I’ve got a chance? Sweet!” Jackson laughs, and for some odd reason that laugh gives Jin a warm feeling in her chest. Weird. It’s a good thing she won’t see Jackson after this party, because she is growing tired of the weird feeling that envelopes her whenever that idiot is around.

--

Jin thinks she has bad luck. It’s been three weeks since the Valentine’s Day party and, much to her disappointment, she’s seen Jackson a total of 28 times since then. She wants to believe that he’s just being creepy and stalking her, but every time they met it was just too coincidental. That or her mischievous cousin planned them to be at certain events at the same time.

One time, Jin was walking out of her taekwondo dojang after an intense training session and she saw Jackson happily conversing with her instructor. She tried to pass by them, hoping that Jackson wouldn’t notice her, but, of course, he did.

Another time, JinYoung invited her to go watch a movie with him and his fiancée; however, JinYoung failed to mention the fact that it was, technically, a double date, and that she would be stuck entertaining a love-struck Jackson all evening.

Every time they saw each other, Jin was surprised and annoyed, yet Jackson seemed unfazed, as though he expected her to show up.

But everything was purely coincidental.

--

Jin strolls down the streets of Myeongdong, enjoying some well-deserved free time. It’s been almost a month since she’s seen Jackson and—though she’ll never admit it to anyone but herself—she finds that she kind of misses his silly grin and his adorably accented Korean. Well, she thinks she misses that idiot, until she sees him sitting on a bench (cutely) with an ice pop in both hands. She thinks she will try to avoid him like usual but then she realizes that they’ll eventually end up talking anyway, so she approaches him.

“Hey, Jackson.”

“Jin? Hey, how’re you? I haven’t seen you in a while.” Jackson smiles up at Jin and she has to sneakily pinch herself to make sure she isn’t dreaming; for once she wants to keep that stupid smile on Jackson’s face rather than hook-kicking it off of his face.

“I’ve been busy, ya know, college stuff.” Jin sits down next to Jackson, ignoring the way he seems to get ten times more bright and bubbly when she does.

“Hey, do you want an ice pop? I only asked for one, but the lady gave me a second one for free. She said I was so cute that she just had to give it to me.”

“Oh, really? Thank you…wow, it’s my favorite flavor! What a coincidence…” Jin trails off, quietly eating her ice pop. Jackson stares at her with a look that is strangely serious and deep for such a clown.

“You really like using the word ‘coincidence’, don’t you?” Jackson asks quietly, still staring at her. Jin raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah? I’ve had a lot of those when it comes to you.”

“Mmm…I like the word ‘fate’. Or maybe even ‘destiny’.”

“You’re weird.”

“No, think about it. Your scarf could’ve fallen on any idiot’s face that day, but it fell on mine.  And JinYoung could’ve picked any one of his friends to bring the food to the party, but it was me. And all those other times, and even just now, it could’ve been any guy in the world—but it was always me.”

“I seem to have bad luck.” Jin sees the hurt look on Jackson’s face and she laughs, reassuringly patting him on the shoulder. “C’mon JaeGeun, I’m joking. You make a pretty good point, but I’m just not one to believe in that, just because of a few weird incidences.” Jackson stays quiet for a while, solemnly finishing his ice pop. He stares at the stick for a while and Jin thinks she might’ve broken the wacky guy.

“I like the word ‘fate’ a lot better…because it makes what I feel for you a lot more special,” Jackson mumbles, but Jin still hears him.

“What?”

“When I first saw you I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. And in that moment I felt like I couldn’t be happier with anyone in my life except for you. It’s weird to think like that before I knew your name or before I even spoke to you, but I did. And I couldn’t stop thinking about you. During my fencing tournament practice later that day I was still thinking about you. And the day after that, and the day after that, and just now when I was sitting alone on this bench, I was thinking about you.”

Jin sits still. She has nothing to say and she can’t really think of anything to say. She always thought that she would have no problem rejecting Jackson the day he finally came out and confessed, but now that the time has come, all she wants to do is kiss him silly. Weird.

“Your ice pop is melting,” Jackson mentions weakly.

“This is weird,” Jin says in frustration, quickly finishing what is left of her ice pop.

“What’s weird?”

“You being so…quiet. And not energetic. It’s weird and I don’t like it.”

“Oh…”

“Seriously! Do I have to kiss you or what? Stop being so not Jackson.” Jin avoids looking at Jackson’s face. “I don’t like it…” she adds softly. Jackson is still sitting there, eyes fixed on the ground, hands awkwardly placed on his lap. Jin boldly reaches for his hand, pulling it towards her and linking their fingers.

“Our fingers fit together nicely,” Jackson murmurs.

“It’s such a—” Jin pauses when she sees Jackson mentally preparing himself for the disappointment of the word ‘coincidence’. She sighs and smiles fondly at him. “It’s such an act of fate in action.”

That idiotic grin is back on Jackson’s face and Jin finds her smile grow wider. “I know you’re smart enough to figure this out, but I still wanna say that I love you.”

“Mm, I guess I love you too.”

“You guess?”

“You’re stupid, Wang JaeGeun.” Jin leans her head on Jackson’s shoulder, shuffling closer to his side and smiling. She can feel Jackson’s muscles relax and he pulls their hands apart, only to wrap his arm around Jin’s shoulders. And, in that moment, Jin can’t think of any place she’d rather be.

Weird.