chapter TEN.

I watch Taeyeon and Sehun the whole time they're together, trying to see Sehun the way she sees him. Taeyeon's pretty much the same, only intensified. She tosses her hair around so much, I'm afraid she's going to get whiplash. Sehun is like he always is too: nice and vaguely oblivious.

Taeyeon and Sulli leave pretty much as soon as Hyoyeon and Minseok arrive. Not that I blame them. Those two know how to clear a room. Sehun asks if he can stay.

"Of course you can. I figured your dad was in the middle of something big," I say.

"Sort of," Sehun answers, not looking at me.

I start to ask what "sort of" means, but Minseok starts yelling from the other room that he's starving. I take a package of spaghetti from the pantry. Thinking about how much Sehun usually eats, I grab two.

Sehun sneaks a handful of baby carrots from the bag on the counter and starts munching on them. While I put a pot of water on to boil, I tell him about barfing in the pool and about how Chanyeol had to buy me breakfast.

"You break up with him and then you make him buy you breakfast?" Sehun laughs. "Classic. I would have given a lot to see that." Sehun doesn't hide the fact that he's not a big fan of the guys on the swim team at my school. I always tell him that he'd probably like them if he got to know them individually, but all he knows of them is when they are all together. It's like one big testosterone fest. It's not pretty. I start to tell him about Kim Jong In, but he's not listening anymore. He's staring out the window towards his house. "Sehun?"

"What?"

I tilt my head at him, but he just looks away. There is a big crash upstairs, then Miss Kitty shoots through the room like she has a string of firecrackers tied to her tail, which thankfully she does not. "Would you mind?" I ask, pointing at the ceiling where I can hear Minseok and Hyoyeon stomping around.

"No problem," Sehun says. He grabs another handful of carrots and heads upstairs.

I smirk. "So he says."

About halfway through boiling the pasta, I hear loud music upstairs. I shake my head and finish setting the table. I call my mother at the shop, but it clicks over to voice mail. Either she's too busy to pick up the phone or she's on her way home. I set a fifth place for her, hoping for the latter. After draining the pasta, I go to the bottom of the stairs and yell that dinner is ready, but the music is too loud for me to be heard. I climb up the stairs, unsure of what I'm going to find. I round the corner toward Minseok and Hyoyeon's room and stop, just watching. I smile, but it quickly becomes laughter. And it's not Minseok's wild jumping or Hyoyeon's imitation of whirling dervish that makes me laugh, but Sehun's strange gyrations that make him look like a cross between a salmon swimming upstream and a scarecrow with its head on fire.

Minseok sees me first and waves. Hyoyeon collapses on the floor and starts giggling, leaving Sehun to dance alone. I can't stop laughing and it's not just Sehun's weird dancing, it's him, how he always is with my little brother and sister. Sehun never bolts when they're around. In fact, it's the opposite. He actually seems genuinely bummed when they're gone. I watch him for several more moments before taking pity on him.

"Hey!" I yell. He stops mid-twirl and looks over to where I'm standing. His face turns as red as the tomato sauce I was heating up.

"Not a word," he says, pointing towards me. I start laughing again, so hard this time that tears spring to my eyes. He walks over to the stereo and turns the music way down.

"Isn't Sehun a great dancer?" Hyoyeon asks.

I nod, trying to catch my breath. Sehun shakes his head and smiles at me, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "He is a very interesting dancer," I say. Hyoyeon nods, smiling. Hyoyeon has a crush on Sehun. She frequently tells me that she is going to marry him. When she gets old, like eighteen. I don't have the heart to remind her that when she's eighteen, Sehun would be really old. Over thirty.

"Dinner is ready," I say. "Unless you guys want to keep dancing."

"Sehun loves to dance," Hyoyeon says, walking over to take his hand. She looks up at him expectantly.

"I love to dance with you, Hyoyeonnie," he says. He throws her over his shoulders, making her squeal. Then he goes for Minseok, who bolts out from  under his grasp and heads for the stairs and freedom. Sehun walks downstairs carrying Hyoyeon over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

"Thanks," I say, and I don't mean just for the dancing. It's bigger than that. Sehun's had dozens of tea parties with Hyoyeon and played hours of LEGOs with Minseok. He has no idea what that means to them. To Mom. To me.

"They're fun," Sehun says. "Course now I think I need to take a nap."

I smirk. "He can bust out a three-hour workout in the pool, but fifteen minutes with these two and he's down for the count."

"They have a lot of energy."

I laugh. "If that's code for they are the spawn of the devil, then yes, they have a lot of energy."

"I"m not the debil," Hyoyeon says, her voice nasally from hanging upside down.

I ruffle her hair. "No," I say. "You're not the debil."

Mom arrives just as I'm dishing up the plates. She sinks into one of the chairs and sighs. "Long day?" I ask. She nods and accepts a plate of pasta with a smile. We eat as she tells us about this woman who came into the shop demanding blue roses.

"I just kept telling her there's no such thing, but she refused to believe me. She said she saw a painting of one." Mom shales her head. Hyoyeon tells us she's going to grow blue roses. "Do you think you can do that before Valentine's Day?" my mother asks, smiling.

Hyoyeon looks serious for a moment. "If I do, will you be home more?" she asks. Mom smiles at her, but her eyes are sad. She opens her arms toward Hyoyeon, who climbs into her lap. I can tell mom doesn't know what to say. I mean, I hate it that she's gone all the time too, but I can understand why. Supporting three kids on your own is hard, especially when all your money comes from flowers. I start clearing the table. Sehun helps by finishing the rest of the pasta, eating it straight out of the strainer in the sink.

"So how's the training going?" Mom asks Sehun.

He shrugs. "Good." I shake my head as I rinse off the dishes. Even when Sehun broke three state records his sophomore year, he still said "good." I'll bet he could make the Olympic team and still he'd keep it to himself. Mom smiles too but doesn't press him. Sehun always seems so embarrassed when he has to talk about himself.

"Are you still seeing Seulgi?" Mom asks. I look over at Sehun.

"We decided that we make better friends," he says.

"So she dumped you?" I ask.

"No, Soo Rin. Unlike when you say it, sometimes people actually mean it." I flick some bubbles at him. "Is it okay if I just hang here for a while?"

"Of course, Sehun. You are always welcome here," she answers. "Sure your dad won't want you home?" Sehun looks over the direction of his house for a long moment, then shakes his head.

"He's busy," he says. He slides a box of chocolates out of the cabinet over the fridge and sits at the table. He rummages in his backpack and pulls out his notebook and a textbook that has Organic Chemistry printed on the spine.

I resolve to ask him why he's acting so weird about his father the next time we're alone. I'm scrubbing the pot I heated the sauce in when I start hearing seagulls and the crashing of ocean waves. I look up, trying to figure out where the noise is coming from, but then I see Sehun grinning. I look at my cell, which is peeking out of the front pocket of my backpack.

"I'll get it," says Minseok, sliding down from the table.

"No, just—" I begin, but it's too late. Minseok already has my phone to his ear.

"What do you want?" he asks. Someone needs to work on his phone manners. My mother tries to take the phone from him, but he scoots out of her reach. Finally Minseok extends the phone toward me. "It's for you." I smirk and resist the urge to say duh. "It's a boy."

"Ooooo," Hyoyeon says from my mother's lap out loud enough for the person on the phone to hear. I quickly dry my hands and reach for the phone, looking at the screen. I don't recognize the number. Instantly I feel sort of wobbly. I try to remember the number printed on the slip of paper still sitting on my desk, but I can't.

"Hello?" I say, hesitantly. I avoid looking at anyone else in the room, expecially my mother.

"Hello?" the voice on the other end says. "Soo Rin?" It's not my father, which makes my heart start thudding a little less.

"Yes," I say. "Who's this?"

"It's Jong In," the voice says, which of course makes my heart start up again. "Is this a bad time? I mean I can—"

"No," I say, turning to walk into the living room where I can maybe have a tiny bit of privacy. "It's fine."

"Chanyeol gave me your number," Kim Jong In says. "I hope you don't mind."

Don't mind? I think. I can't imagine anyone minding if Kim Jong In called. "No," I say. "I don't mind."

"I just wanted to call and see if you wanted to hang out this weekend."

I start to say no, because even if Kim Jong In is my ideal, I just don't date. But then I remember Sehun calling me cynical and Sulli begging me to go along with The Plan. I take a breath. "Sure," I say all casual, like getting asked out by someone like Kim Jong In happens all the time to someone like me.

"Cool," Kim Jong In says. "After the meet then," he says.

I nod, but then remember that this is a phone and he can't see my head move. "Yeah," I reply.

"Cool," Kim Jong In says again. "See you tomorrow then," he says. All I can do is keep nodding, but that's okay this time because he's already hung up. I stare at the phone in my hand and then tap "save number" and type in K-i-m-J-o-n-g-I-n. I look at my phone until the screen goes dark. I am now a girl who is going on a date with Kim Jong In. I feel disconnected from myself. It's like I'm watching myself to see what I'll do next.

"Soo Rin?" my mother says. I look up and see her looking at me from the doorway. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes," I say. "Everything is fine."

"I'm going to get the kids to bed," she says. I hear her shepherding Minseok and Hyoyeon up the stairs.

I walk out to the kitchen and slide my books from my backpack. I sit across the table from Sehun and open my notebook. Sehun looks at me, his eyebrows raised, but I just give him a big smile. I try to make it through the reading for Brit Lit, but I'm so distracted that I give up and slide out my biology book and a box of coloured pencils. We have to colour in the digestive system. Colouring I can do. I'm trying to figure out how I feel about agreeing to go out with Kim Jong In. Any other girl at HSM would be dancing through her house, having already called her friends and told them. Me? I'm doing homework.

"So, who's the new guy?" Sehun asks, without looking up from his homework.

"No one you know," I say. It's a tiny lie. Sehun knows how Kim Jong In is.

Sehun looks up at me. "Just be careful," he reminds me.

"Always," I say, sliding a blue pencil out of the box.

"I mean it," Sehun says.

"You can stop with the big brother stuff," I say. "I'm good."

"I'm not trying to be your big brother, Soo Rin," Sehun says. I look back at him, but he's staring down at his textbook. Even though he's not looking at me, I can tell that he's blushing. I shake my head and start outlining the pulmonary veins in blue. Sehun is definitely acting weird. I switch to red to colour the arteries.

"Hush," Sehun says from the other side of the table.

"What?" I ask, looking up.

"You're humming." He shakes his head and looks back at his textbook.

"Sorry," I say. I stop humming aloud, but I can't sop the song from sliding around the inside of my brain. I don't recognize the tune, but I'm sure Changmin would. I'm pretty sure it's Sinatra.

The next few days run one into another. Swim practice, homework, working at Changmin's. Mom is home more thanks to Sulli's help. And Sulli seems way better. I've only seen her tear up once and that was when we saw Daehyun holding Suzy's hand on the front lawn. Taeyeon's new idea has been to teach Sulli and me how to flirt. She forced me to give my second box of chocolates to Xi Luhan ( my plan B ) in person. I tried eye gazing, the giggle, the arm touching. I tried to do the hair toss thing that Taeyeon taught me, but all I did was whack my head on the edge of his locker door. I got out there as fast as I could after that. I'm pretty sure the impression I left on Luhan was a less cute girl who might make a good Valentine and more irrational mental patient who could possibly be dangerous. I told Taeyeon that I wasn't going to participate in any more of her flirting seminars.

Taeyeon has been going into overdrive, living little presents in my locker almost every day. I guess the gifts are just Taeyeon's way of trying to get me into the spirit. Tuesday's bag contained a jar of peanut butter and a plastic spoon. Then there was a pin that read BE QUIET. I CAN'T HEAR THE VOICES IN MY HEAD. I actually laughed out loud when I read it, making people in the hall look at me funny. Then there's a windup toy cockroach that I can't wait to show Minseok.

The closer we get to the weekend, the more Sulli and Taeyeon want to talk about my date with Kim Jong In. I'm trying to match their enthusiasm by imagining how other girls would be acting if they were going out with him. Taeyeon tells me I'm the ultimate average girl hero . I'm not sure if I like being called a hero and even less an average girl.

Changmin texts me to say that my Consternation Hearts are selling so well he decided we need to order more. I drop by the shop after school to help box open all the stock we have left.

"I'm just not sure how I feel about this," Changmin says, after the door closes behind a woman who just bought two dozen boxes of them. I brace myself for another one of Changmin's fatherly moments. Sometimes his whole paternal thing makes me crazy, but I know he means well.

"What do you mean?" I ask. "I thought you'd be psyched."

"I don't know," Changmin says, straightening the boxes of taffy on top of the glass case. "I mean, I'm really happy that your candy is selling so well, but it just seems sort of—" He leaves off and looks out the window for a moment. "Cynical," he finishes qickly.

"Cynical?" I ask, bristling at the word being tossed in my direction again. "I just thought they were funny."

"Oh, they are," Changmin says, smiling at me. "It's just that...I don't know...Valentine's Day is suppose to be hopeful, you know? Love and romance and all that." He takes off his glasses and polishes them with a handkerchief he takes from his pocket. He puts them back on and look at me. "I just don't want you to be cynical about love," he says.

"I'm not cynical," I say. "I'm just realistic."

"You want to make sure it's a safe but before you put your heart on the table."

"Okay, other than that being the world's worst metaphor, yes. Exactly."

"Soo Rin—" Changmin begins.

I hold my hand up. "Before you start, you should know that I have a date this weekend."

That makes Changmin smile. "Tell me," he says, so I do. In between customers I tell him all about Kim Jong In. "Well, Soo Rin. There might just be some hope for you yet."

"Gee thanks," I say, rolling my eyes. "But what about you? You're single. Youngish. And you're not ugly—"

"Nice," Changmin says, shaking his head at me.

Changmin takes a deep breath and looks back out the window. "I guess I'm just not—" he pauses to polish his glasses again. I don't know anything about Changmin's past, other than the fact that he used to be married and he has a daughter a little older that me who is in college in Japan. He looks back at me. "I guess I'm just not quite ready," he says. I wait for him to say more, but he just nods as if that settles it and walks over to the jukebox and selects another song. "Crazy" by Patsy Cline. I smile at him as he waltzes toward the back of the store, pushes through the swinging doors, and disappears.

author's note. 

Yes people, another update. I'v been getting so emotional lately. Especially when I went to watch  the movie SON OF GOD yesterday. I think it was the first time I ever cried so much in any movie. It was so good, and definitely enlighting. I recommend you to go watch it when you have time, it really teaches you about how forgiveness is really one of the strongest things in the world.

Back on the track, I'm so excited to watch SBS's new show Roommate. I'm so excited. HUEHUEHUE. Park Chanyeol, I'm waiting.