chapter TWELVE.

I hate to admit it, but this is good," I say, taking another bite of the bacon truffle. Changmin had a batch of bacon truffles put together and chilling in the deep frezer as soon as the bacon arrived. He insisted we try one as soon as they were ready.

"Baekhyun, that is some serious praise comment from a girl who doesn't like candy," Changmin says. We've been taking turns eating our sandwiches and boxing up truffles.

"Another thing I hate to admit," I say, looking at my half eaten veggie sub sitting on the desk, "is that Mike's can make a mean sandwich."

"Why do you hate to admit that?" Changmin asks. I tell him about my mom and how Jersey Mike's is making her plans for explansion impossible.

"The only option is if Artie's closes," I say, mentioning the shop on the other side of hers. Changmin smirks at me. "And as much as I love my mom, the thought of a world without Artie's Pizza is too horrible to consider." This makes Sulli laugh. I am a well-known Artie's junky. They even gave me one of their tie-dyed staff shirts last year for free.

Taeyeon looks up from where she's adding raspberries to the freshly made batch of truffle base. "It's not the best location for a high-end flower shop, wedged between a pizza parlor and a sandwich shop. She should relocate." I nod, remembering that I recently said almost the exact same thing to my mother.

"Speaking of expansions..." I say.

Changmin sighs. He's been talking about knocking down the wall between his shop and the empty one next door ever since the bookstore moved down to the end of the strip. "Maybe when things slow down," he says. He's been saying that for months, and every time he does, I point out that things are doing the opposite of slowing down. Changmin's is more popular all the time. "Maybe now that I have all this extra help," he says, smiling at us. Then his face gets serious. "Listen," he says. "I really do appreciate it."

"We know!" Taeyeon says, then laughs. It's the seventeenth time in the last hour that Changmin has told us how much he appreciates our help. "You couldn't do this without us, blah, blah, blah."

"You're welcome," Sulli says. "But it's no big dea. It's not like I had any other plans." She sounds a little wistful when she says it and I know she's thinking of how she used to spend every Friday night with Daehyun. She looks over at me for a moment and I can see the sadness in her eyes.

"I didn't have anything else to do either," Baekhyun says before taking a bite of his sandwich.

"Duh," Taeyeon says. I cringe a little, but Baekhyun starts laughing.

I look at my watch. Almost eleven. "I've got to get home," I say. I called my mom earlier, telling her where I was. "I have to get some sleep or I'm going to be a mess at the meet tomorrow."

"Meet schmeet," Taeyeon says. "You should be much more worried about your date with Kim Jong In."

"You're going out with Kim Jong In?" Baekhyun asks. His voice is incredulous.

"Is it so out of the realm of possibility?" I ask.

"Well yeah," Baekhyun answers, earning him three dirty looks, but he seems oblivious. "Why in the world would you want to go out with him?" Sulli and Taeyeon both roll their eyes and look at me. I don't know what to say. I guess I'd never thought about it all that hard. I mean, Kim Jong In asks you out and you say yes, like Pavlov's dog and the ringing bell. It's just the automatic response.

"It's Kim Jong In," Sulli says, voicing my thoughts.

Baekhyun looks at me for a long moment. I can tell that reason doesn't float with him. "It's your heart," he says, lifting a tray of truffles and sliding them into the open refrigerator. I don't know what to say. It's as if the whole world just flipped. Here I am actually giving a second thought to what Byun Baekhyun thinks about me going out with Kim Jong In. I shake my head, forgetting that I'm still wearing the blinking hearts headband. They start clacking together like mad, making everyone laugh.

"Okay," Changmin says, clapping his hands together. "This can all wait until tomorrow. Let's get you kiddos home before your parents wonder if I've spirited you all away."

"But what about..." I gesture to the empty boxes meant to hold truffles and the ones for the Consternation Hearts. They still need to be filled.

"Tomorrow," Changin says, attempting to herd us toward the door and his car that's parked out back.

"But I have the meet and then..." I trail off, not wanting to talk about Kim Jong In again. At least not in front of Baekhyun. Taeyeon and Sulli are also busy, Taeyeon with some family thing that she won't elaborate on and Sulli at my mom's shop.

"I'll be here," Baekhyun says. "I don't have anything to do."

"Again. Duh," Taeyeon say. This time we all laugh.

"I can't believe your car is a hearse," Taeyeon says as we all pile into Changmin's car. I notice that Baekhyun works it so he's right next to Taeyeon. Changmin just laughs. He told me once that he bought it from a funeral home that was closing down, and that it's perfect for hauling big candy orders. He's right, you can just slide the boxes into the back along the rails mounted there. creepy, but true.

Changmin drops me off first. As I climb out, Sulli and Taeyeon extract a promise that I will call them immediately after the date. Baekhyun rolls his eyes. I wave as they pull away from the curb. I turn and start toward my house, where my mother has left the front porch light on. I look up at Sehun's window. I can't shake the feeling that there is something Sehun isn't telling me, something that he's hiding. I sigh and look away from his darkened window and walk inside. I peek in my mom's room and whisper good night. The light from the hall falls across her face. She smiles at me, but doesn't open her eyes.

I don't bother showering, reasoning that in less than eight hours I'll be in the pool. I lie awake staring at my ceiling, trying to force myself to sleep. But even when I finally start to drift off, I'm still listening for the loud thump above me that never comes.

It feels like I've only been asleep for five minutes when my alarm rings. I'm still half-asleep as I pull on my suit. then my warm-ups, and heft my bag from where I left it by the door. Sehun is just backing his car out when I walk outside. I climb into the passenger side, resisting the urge to lie down in the backseat and get some more sleep. I don't tell Sehun what I'm doing after the meet, just that I don't need a ride home. He nods, not taking his eyes off the road. He doesn't say anything in the whole ride over to the pool. He's still silent as we walk into the Natatorium. We enter the building and he turns toward the guys' locker room.

I grab the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "Sehun," I say. He looks at my hand on his arm, like he's not sure how it got there, then at my face. "I want—" I pause, seeing the look in his eyes. He's standing right there only a couple of feet from me, but the look in his eyes is far away.

"What is it, Soo Rin?" he asks. His voice is flat.

"I just wanted—" Sehun keeps looking at me and as he does I can kind of see him in there. Kind of see the Sehun I know.

"Hey, Sehun!" A guy yells from the other end of the hallway. "Get your in the pool."

Sehun doesn't turn. He just keeps looking at me. "I just wanted to say good luck," I say finally.

"You too," he says. He smiles slightly and then turns to walk away, but not before I see the look in his eyes. He's pulled back again. I start to call out to him, to ask him something, anything. To ask him where he is and how can I get there? But he's walking into the locker room and before I can say anything the door whooshes closed behind him and he's gone.

The good thing about going out with Kim Jong In right after the swim meet is, I'm so nervous about not making a fool of myself in the pool that I don't have time to be nervous about our date. On the downside, the news of our date has gotten around to everyone on the swim team. I feel like in addition to being slightly freaked out at the notion of actually being alone with Kim Jong In, there's extra pressure for me to be smart and funny and beautiful. Otherwise, everyone is going to assume that Kim Jong In was suffering from temporary insanity when he asked me out and therefore cannot be held responsible for his poor judgement. Girls I barely know keep coming up to me in the locker room and telling me good luck. A few of them are excited, like maybe I'm some kind of hero, but mostly them seem sort of scared for me. Those girls freak me out—it's like they are whispering good luck with my upcoming open-heart surgery.

The pool deck is a madhouse like it always is during meets. The Natatorium has four competition pools. It's huge—part of the olympic complex. Since it's so much better than any of the pools the city schools have, or even the private schools, all the teams within driving distance have all their meets here. Sehun likes to tease me about how my team's slumming it when we compete against the public schools.

I step out onto the deck. I'm always surprised at how big everything is. Rows of empty seats climb up toward the ceiling on all sides, making me feel like I'm in the middle of a huge bowl. I drop my bag on one of the benches and slip out of my sweats. Taeyeon made me promise that I would not under any circumstances wear anything made out of sweatshirt material on my date. Even I could figure that one out. I assured her that I would wear something nice. She wanted specifics. I described my outfit: a pair of my nicer jeans, a long-sleeved thermal with rhinestone buttons, and my purple flats. I pull my swim cap on and shove my hair up into it. I adjust my goggles, pushing them hard into my eye sockets to make sure they won't leak.

"Hey, Soo Rin!" I turn and see Chanyeol waving at me from the water a couple of lanes away. He hangs from the diving blobk and makes monkey noises. Several girls around me laugh. I just shake my head. It hasn't gotten any funnier after the three hundredth time. Another swimmer pulls up next to him and yanks him down. Chanyeol says something to him and he turns my way. I feel a flutter in my stomach as he smiles at me. Kim Jong In. Well, Baekhyun, I think as I prepare to dive in. There's your answer. But all through my warm-up. I can't shake the question that floats through my brain. That flutter. Is that enough? Is that all there is?

Artie's packed when we get there. The line to order snakes away from the counter and out the door.

"Why don't you see if you can find us a table and I'll order," Kim Jong In tells me. I start over to where I see one of the Artie's worker wiping down a booth. "Soo Rin!" I turn around. "What do you like on your pizza?" I tell him anything except olives. Olives freak me out. They look like eyeballs and taste like fish. Yuck. Someone snags the booth I was heading toward., but I grab a table near the front window when it's free.

A boy, not much older that Minseok, keeps feeding quarters into the claw machine behind me. He's on his last quarter and still hasn't won anything. I decide to tell him the trick that Sehun figured out.

"If you wait until that claw stops swinging, you'll have a better chance of getting that dog," I say. The boy looks over at me, trying to figure out if I'm just messing with him. "Seriously," I say, standing up and walking over behind him. "Better yet, go for that bear." I point to a brown bear with a propeller hat near the back. "The ones that are lying down are easier to pick up." The boy nods and feeds his last quarter to the slot and starts the claw moving toward the back. "That's it," I say, leaning around to look in the side window. "A little more." He taps the joystick. "Perfect," I say. "Now, you wait." The timer above the claw counts down slowly.

The boy is getting antsy, but he doesn't push the button to lower the claw. I'm hoping Sehun's techniques will work. They don't always, but I have a shelf full of cheap stuffed animals to prove that they do more often than not. The claw drops and slowly lowers around the bear and lifts it.

"Woo!" the boy yells. He reaches into the trap door and pulls out the stuffed bear. "Thanks," he says to me. I smile as he starts toward the back of Artie's with the bear held high over his head. I sit back down at out table just as Kim Jong In finishes ordering and starts making his way over to where I'm sitting. The boy with the bear nearly collides with him as he races past.

"Hey," Kim Jong In says, sitting down across from me. "It's busy," he says, stating the obvious. I nod, agreeing to the obvious. "Those things are a scam," he says. "I never win." I think about telling him Sehun's techniques, but someone calls his name from the order line. I look up and spot Chanyeol and Yuri, standing waiting to order.

Chanyeol presses something into Yuri's hand and walks over to us. He pulls a chair out, flips it around, and sits so he's riding it like a horse. "Can we join you?" he asks. It's not really a question, but I say sure anyway. Secretly I'm grateful. I know Chanyeol will dominate the conversation as he always does. Which in this case is a good thing. Even though Kim Jong In and I have been together less than half an hour, we've already run out of things to talk about, having covered the usual; swimming, school, HSM gossip, and even the Braves' prospects for this year. I introduced that last topic, showing how desperate I was.

Yuri joins us a few minutes later. She hands Chanyeol some change. I shake my head. I guess she should be glad that in addtion to  making her wait in line, he didn't make her pay. L deliver's our pizzas to our table himself. He barely has time to say hello before someone in the kitchen starts yelling his name. He waves and hurries back into the kitchen, where I can see the orders stacked up two and three deep on clips.

"That Oh kid is a machine," Kim Jong In says, taking a slice of pizza. I nod. He's right. Sehun won every event he swam, even the 800IM, which he entered last minute because one of his teammate cramped up during the thousand and had to drop out.

"With him swimming against us, we don't stand a chance at state this year," Chanyeol says, already making short work of his second piece of pizza. "I say we take him out."

"On a date?" Yuri asks, confused. I make big eyes at Chanyeol, but he just laughs.

"No, as in you know, whack him." Yuri still seems confused so I help out.

"Apparently, Chanyeol is aware that the only way he has a chance to beat Oh Sehun is if he puts Sehun out of comission." I turn to Chanyeol. "Is that right?"

"Exactly," Chanyeol says. He takes a drink of his soda. "I've got it," he says. "You're friends with him, right, Soo Rin?" I nod slowly, wondering where this is going. "What if you put something in some of those truffles you make? You know, something that alters him in some way." I feel my cheeks flush.

"Soo Rin would never do that," Kim Jong In says, glancing over at me.

"How would you know?" Chanyeol asks, rolling his eyes. I look over at him too, wondering how exactly he would know what I would or wouldn't do.

Kim Jong In shrugs. "Just a feeling," he says. He smiles at me and I can't help but smile back.

I look over at Yuri, who seems contented nibbling on her one piece of pizza and just listen to the guys talk about every minute detail of the meet. When Chanyeol starts analyzing Sehun' flip turn, I decide to make a break for it. "Listen, my mom's shop is right next door," I say, standing up. "Thank you for lunch." Kim Jong In stands up and pushes his chair in.

"You sure?" he asks. I nod smile. He takes my arm and walks me out onto the sidewalk. "Listen Soo Rin, I'm sorry. I didn't know Chanyeol was going to show up and—"

"It's fine," I say. "I had fun." I feel a fluttery feeling in my stomach, but I can't tell if it's because I'm not exactly being truthful or because Kim Jong In is holding my hand.

"Really?" he asks. I nod. "Well maybe we could go out again sometime?" he asks.

"Oh!" I say. "I almost forgot." And Taeyeon would kill me if I had. I tell him about the Umlaut event. I start to apologize for the lameness of it, but he smiles.

"Sounds fun," he says. He leans toward me and brushes my cheek with his, like he was going to kiss me, but changed his mind at the last minute. He pulls back when the door behing us opens behind us and Chanyeol and Yuri walk out.

"Whoops. Sorry," Chanyeol says in an anything but an apologetic tone. I smile and shake my head at him.

"Thanks again," I say. I turn to walk down the sidewalk to my mom's shop. Before I reach the door, I hear my name behind me.

"Soo Rin!" Kim Jong In calls from where he's unlocking his car. "I'll call you tonight." I smile and wave. My cheeks burning. I feel like everyone on the sidewalk is looking at me. I pull the door of my mom's shop open, pausing a moment before going in, trying to figure out how I feel about that. I'm the girl who Kim Jong In is going to call tonight. I don't have long to think about it before Sulli and Taeyeon spill out of the back of the shop, demanding details. My mom follows them, drying her hands on the towel.

"Did you have fun?" she asks.

I shrug. "It was good," I say.

"Just good?" Taeyeon shrieks. "You just went out with Kim Jong In. How can a date with Kim Jong In be just good?"

"Okay," I say. "It was great. Stupendous. Awesome." Taeyeon seems pleased by this response. But saying it out loud only makes it clearer that it's not the truth. Being with Kim Jong In was good. Saying anything else is a lie.

"I was going to have you order pizza for dinner tonight," Mom says. "But I guess you just had pizza."

"Oh, don't let that stop you," I say. "I can always eat pizza." Mom smiles and goes to the back. She returns with her wallet and hands it to me.

"If you girls are coming over, get enough for everyone," Mom says to Taeyeon and Sulli. They both call home on the way over to Artie's. Taeyeon tells me her mom is just happy to have her out of her hair for the evening.

"She gets majorly stressed about these events," she says.

"Just about anything can set her off. Last night she freaked when she realised we were out of milk."

Sulli has to plead with her mother to let her come over. She sighs when she hangs up the phone. "She said she misses me." Sulli rolls her eyes.

"Would you rather she didn't?" I ask.

"No, but I'd rather she tell me the truth. She doesn't miss me. She misses having free childcare so she can go play tennis."

I smirk at her. "Now, who's cynical?" Sulli swats at my arm, making me smile. It's great to see the real Sulli. I was starting to wonder if she was permanently gone. Even before Daehyun officially broke it off with her, that relationship was stealing something from her. Some of her light, I guess. Seeing her smile and joke with me and Taeyeon makes me remember how she used to be.

While we wait in line, we try to decide what we want to order. I vote for veggie. Taeyeon wants Hawaiian.

"How come Hawaii is the only state with any official pizza?" Taeyeon asks. "Why not Georgia?"

"Because no one wantes to eat peanuts and peach pizza," I say, making Sulli laugh.

We agree on two large pizzas, one half veggie, half Hawaiian, the other plain cheese. I step up to the counter and accept the ribbing from the owner that I knew was coming.

"We should rename this place Soo Rin's," L says.

"Would I get a free pizza?" I ask.

L lays. " That would probably put me out of business."

"It might," I say. I give him our order, telling him we'll pick it up at six when my mom's shop closes. He hands it off to one of the guys working the ovens. I start to walk over to where Taeyeon and Sulli are playing the claw machine, but L stops me.

"So, do you want to just take your other order with you when you come get these?" he asks.

"What other order?" I ask.

L walks over to a long metal strip that they hang the orders on. He pulls a slip down and reads from it. "One heart-shaped Vegetarian's Delight," he says. "Absolutely no olives." He looks up at me. "I've never done a heart-shaped pizza before, but it's a great idea. I might steal it."

"I didn't order that," I say.

L shrugs. "Well, someone did. It's all paid for." He looks at the order slip. I look over to where Sulli is pulling a red and white monkey out of the prize door. She holds is up toward me and smiles. She was also a member of Sehun's Brotherhood of the Claw. He named it that, saying it sounded mysterious.

"I guess we'll just pick it up with the others," I tell L. "Thanks."

"No problem," L says, relaying the message to one of the guys making the pizzas. I walk over to where Taeyeon is trying her hand at the claw.

"Dang," she says when the pink dog she managed to pick up drops before it reaches the chute.

"So guess what?" I ask.

"What?" Taeyeon asks, feeding another quarter into the machine. I tell them about the heart-shaped pizza. Taeyeon forgets the claw, still hanging over a pile of stuffed animals. She puts her hands over her heart. "That is one of the most romantic things I have ever heard." Then she looks at me with big eyes. "It has to be Kim Jong In," she says.

"Maybe," I say.

"Who else could it be?" Taeyeon asks. I raise one eyebrow. "I don't mean it like that. I mean, it could be anyone. My money's on Kim Jong In."

"It has to be him," Sulli says.

"Maybe," I say again, but I just can't picture Kim Jong In going to all that trouble. The more I know of him, the more I'm convinced that very little concerns Kin Jong In outside of Kim Jong In. "Maybe it was you," I say, narrowing my eyes at Taeyeon.

Taeyeon rolls her eyes. "What edvidence do you have of that?"

"Well, you have been leaving all that stuff in my locker," I say.

"Nail polish, fig-coloured Burt's Bees, and that cute clip with cherries on it?"

"And the banana and the peanut butter and the pin and the cockroach," I say, ticking them off on my fingers. I watch the claw drop behind Taeyeon and retract, a pink snake clutched to its grip. Taeyeon starts looking wildly at the floor around us. "What are you doing?" I ask.

"I'm looking for your marbles. The ones you've obviously lost." I look over at Sulli who is smiling and shaking her head.

"Taeyeon, have you or have you not been leaving paper bags with gifts in them in my locker?"

"What are you talking about?" Taeyeon says. The claw drops the snake down the chute. "I haven't left anything in your locker in paper bags."

I look at her, trying to figure out if she's lying. She's not. She seems genuinely baffled by my question. I tell Sulli and Taeyeon about the gifts. Sulli smiles and Taeyeon actually starts bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"It has to be someone with access to your locker," Taeyeon says. I reach around her, grab the snake and hand it to her. She smiles at it. "So romantic." I shake my head.

"All three of those people who can get in my locker are right here," I say. Taeyeon frowns for a moment, thinking. Then she smiles at me. "The only thing better than a Valentine is a secret Valentine," she says. I roll my eyes. I'm pretty sure if I told Taeyeon someone was leaving rolls of toilet paper and bags of ABC gum in my locker she'd find it romantic.

I wave at L as we leave, telling him we'll be back to pick up the pizzas in a few hours. We spend the rest of the afternoon helping my mom organize the coolers and pulling the wilted stock from the bins to make room for the big shipment arriving in a few days. We wear flannel shirts and fleece coats that my mom keeps for working in the cooler, though really I don't mind the cold. The best part is the noise of the fans as they crank out cold air. It makes talking nearly impossible, so Taeyeon can't continue her nonstop chatter about my secret Valentine.

"Let's call it a day," Mom says from the doorway. We step back into the workroom, shedding our coats and hats. Taeyeon's lips are slightly blue and Sulli's teeth are chattering. My fingers fell numb. "If you'll go pick up dinner, I'll pull the car around." The three of us walk back to Artie's.

"Order up!" L yells when he sees us. The three of us crowd the counter to take a look at the heart-shaped pizza.

"Ooh," Taeyeon squeals. "This is so cool," I can feel my cheeks getting pink. Sulli is smiling too.

"It's great," I say to L.

"Was it a guy who called?" Taeyon asks him.

L holds up his hand. "That is strictly on a need-to-know basis," he says.

"We need to know," Sulli says.

"No, you want to know," L says. "And I'm not going to spill the beans." He winks at me as he closes the box. "Whoever it is sure knows you," he says. I nod and thank him for the pizza. As we walk to the car, I try to figure that one out. A lot of people sort of know me, but know me? I don't think anyone really does.

author's note. 

Yes finally after being away for a week or so I am finally back! And with a super long update for you hungry people./ gives you pizza /

And yes another reason why May 6th is a special day to me insmainly because of this guy here.

You've got it right. It's my wonderful husband's 22nd birthday. And I'm not done posting yet.

And I'm still in love with this pabo. Happy birthday to you too.