chapter SEVEN.

Most Saturdays I help out in Changmin's. It's easily my favourite place in all of Seoul for many reasons. First, working at Changmin's gets me out of watching Minseok and Hyoyeon and helping Mom at the flower shop. Second, Changmin finally talked me into making candy this year, and although I grumble about it, I secretly really love it. Third, what Sulli told Taeyeon is true. Changmin is sort of eccentric and a terrible businessman. He's always giving out free stuff. If it weren't for my help with the books, half of me wonders if he wouldn't have already gone out of business. Helping Changmin makes me feel like I'm actually making a difference, even if it's a small one. And fourth, Changmin is about the best listener I know. He doesn't say that much, but when he does, he's all deep and mystical.

Changmin and I are restocking the Valentine's Day corner. "I told Sulli she just needs to forget Daehyun." I straighten the sign advertising my Consternation Hearts, which go on sale Monday. "But she can't. It's like her whole world ended." I fill a glass vase with a dozen heart-shaped lollipops. "And Taeyeon," I say, standing up to look at Changmin, who is stacking box after box of gummy hearts, "she is driving me nuts with The Plan." So far The Plan seems to consist of makeovers and a love potion, but I have a feeling there's a lot more to this than Taeyeon is letting on. I bend and plug in the twinkling pink and red lights around the window. I take my banana out from under the counter and peel it. I love bananas, but only if they are completely yellow. No brown and definitely no bruised parts. I take a few bites and study the candy case. There are a lot of empty plates that need to be filled.

"What about you?" Changmin asks.

"What about me what?" I ask around my mouthful of banana.

"You talk a lot about what Sulli and Taeyeon think about love. What about you?"

"Love? No thank you." I take my last bite of banana and toss the peel into the trash.

"I don't know," Changmin says. He pauses so long I think he's finished, but then he takes a deep breath. "I think love is like candy."

"I don't like candy, either," I say. I pick up a rag and wipe off the menu board on the wall and start listing the new flavours.

He smiles at me and shakes his head. "I think anyone who says they don't like candy just hasn't found the right flavour."

I roll my eyes at him. "Thank you, Master Yoda."

"See the wisdom of my words one day you will." I shake my head and add a sketch of a coconut kissing a pineapple beside Island Paradise. Changmin plugs in the jukebox and punches a button. He starts singing along with some song about a guy trying to place a call to someone who break his heart. He moves chairs, stools, and various other seats around as he sings. He has a little cafe set up in the middle of the store. For seats there's a saddle mounted on a sawhorse, one of those huge exercise balls glued to a platform, and a throne fit for a king—all for customers to sit on. He had a toilet seat for one day, but everyone was pretty grossed out by it.

I fix my ponytail, pulling my freshly-coloured hair through my pink elastic. Honestly I can't tell the difference, but Taeyeon said it looks a thousand times better.

"You ready?" Changmin asks, flipping the sign. I nod and climb down off the stool. From the moment Changmin turns the lock on the front door, we're slammed. Everyone keeps asking about my Consternation Hearts. There was a write-up in the paper along with all the other Valentine's Day hoopla coming up. I had originally wanted to start selling them mid-January, but getting the packaging together so they look like the original conversation hearts was trickier than I thought.

The big seller for the day is one of Changmin's inventions: Fortune Hearts. I'm pretty sure he works all year on the little sayings he has printed on the foil wrappers of the tiny chocolate hearts. He's been selling them since he started this shop and he sells out every year; usually way before Valentine's Day. People actually start calling in with orders for them right after Christmas.

Baekhyun comes in mid-afternoon. He barely looks at me, but makes a beeline for Changmin. He and Changmin spend several moments deep in conversation. Then Baekhyun leaves, still without making eye contact with me.

"What was that all about?' I ask Changmin when he comes back around the corner. Either he ignores me or he just doesn't hear me because it's so noisy, but either way he doesn't answer.

Taeyeon and Sulli arrive just as we're about to close up. They help mop the floor and wipe down tables while I fill napkin holders and replenish the jar of fortune hearts Changmin keeps by the register.

When we are finally finished, Changmin corners me in the kitchen. "Okay," he says, holding up his key ring. "Do not turn on the stove or lock yourselves in the walk-in." He starts to hand the key to me, but yanks it back at the last moment. "Do not set your heads on fire or cut off any digits or otherwise maim, injure, or damage yourselves."

"We promise," I say, putting my hand over my heart. Changmin looks over at Sulli and Taeyeon, who quickly do the same.

"I'm locking the door on the way out." He pulls his denim jacket off one of the pegs on the back wall. "I'll be back in two hours," he says. We begged him to let us have the kitchen to ourselves. We told him we wanted it to try to create a truffle ( which is true ) and that we wanted it to be a surprise. He pushes the back door open and steps out into the alley behind the shop. I start to pull the door closed, but he stops me. "Don't answer the door or the phone."

"You worry too much," I say. "We'll be fine." He lets the door shut and I hear him lock it from the outside. We can still get out, but no one without a key can get in. I gently push the door open to make sure he's gone. I watch him climb into his car. I shut the door and walk back into the kitchen. Sulli and Taeyeon are already unpacking the backpack that Taeyeon brought with her. A dozen baggies soon litter the counter. I pick up the nearest, a bright gold one, and read the label: Tumeric. I scan the others : crystalized ginger, curry, cat's claw, fenugreek, burdock root, and several I can't even pronounce. Along with the bags, there are several plastic tubs: raw honey, acai extract, rose water. "Promise me we aren't going to poison anyone."

"I promise," Taeyeon says, putting her hand over her heart just like I did with Changmin. Hopefully I was a little more convincing.

I pull two big bowls of truffle base out of the refrigerator. Changmin left us some of both vanilla base and the chocolate base. He was really excited when I told him I wanted to try and develop a new flavour of truffles. Of course, developing the chocolates for Changmin is just a cover. All we needed was private access to a kitchen. Somewhere away from the prying eyes of parents and the two munchkins who live at my house.

Taeyeon has the spell book on the counter in front of her. "There's not much in the way of directions here," she says. "I guess we just mix it all together?" She looks at Sulli and me and we both shrug. She nods to herself like that settles it. Sulli retrieves a big metal bowl from under the counter and we start adding all of the ingredients. A soft pattering sounds on the roof above us. Rain.

"How much?" I ask, holding a bag full of dried raspberry leaf.

Taeyeon shrugs. "All of it, I guess." Once we've dumped everythng in, Sulli mixes it all with a long metal spoon.

"It's potent," I say, catching a whiff of the mixture.

Sulli sneezes. I notice her eyes are watering. "It smells like Pit Pot, the Indian restaurant my parents always take me to."

"Maybe we added too much curry," I say.

Taeyeon bends and sniffs the mixture. "It's perfect," she says. I want to ask her how she knows, seeing as this is the first time any of us has ever done this, but I just let it go. Her confidence seems to bolster Sulli, making her smile. "We're supposed to let it harmonize  for ten minutes," she says, reading from the spell book again.

"So, Soo Rin?" Sulli says. "When are you going to show us?"

"Show you what?" I ask, smiling. Sulli tosses a towel at my head, making me duck. I was just waiting for them to ask. I walk over to the storage shelves and pull down a huge bin filled almost to the brim with candy. I set it on the counter and open it. Sulli and Taeyeon come over immediately and peer over my shoulder.

"They're exactly like the real ones," Sulli says, reaching into the bin and plucking a pink heart from the big mass. I nod. They came out amazing. I didn't actually manufacture all the candy myself this time. I made a prototype and Changmin found a confectionary company with the right equipment to churn them out way faster than we could have.

Taeyeon leans over and reads the heart Sulli is holding. "Not likely". She nods and leans over the bin, reading some of the others aloud. "Yuck, Go away, U stink." She looks over at me. "Harsh," she says.

I laugh and look into the bin. "These are pretty tame. You should have heard some of the ones—" I stop and look over at Sulli. She gives me a small smile.

''Daehyun had some harsh ones," she agrees. "Take off, You're lame, Seriously?"

"They're cool, Soo Rin," Taeyeon says, but her voice sounds unsure.

"What?" I ask.

Taeyeon looks at me for a long moment then just shakes her head. "They're cool. Just sort of—" She shakes her head again. "Nothing." I start to tell her to say it, but she's already walking back toward where the mixture has apparently finished harmonizing.

"I think we have to do chocolate," she says, sniffing the mixture again. "Maybe it will hide some of the strong flavours." Whatever Taeyeon was going to say is gone now. We scoop some of the chocolate base into a small bowl, spinkle it with a few spoonfuls of the mixture and stir. We each dip our fingers in and taste it.

"Not bad," Sulli says. The rain intensifies, becoming an insistent thrumming on the roof above us.

"Okay," Taeyeon says. "Now the second part of the spell. Repeat after me—"

"Wait," Sulli says. "What if Changmin wants to use this?" She looks from me to Taeyeon. "I mean, what if he does it and it works?"

I start to say something about the likelihood of the spell working being about the same as the likelihood of cupid flying out of my nose, but Taeyeon, sensing I'm about to say something sarcastic, elbows me.

"More love to go around, I guess," I say. Sulli seems unconvinced. "What's the worst that could happen?" I ask. I realize I sound like the heroine of nearly every monster movie ever made. Right before the tomatoes turn from harmless salad additions to giant mutant man-eaters. Right before they figure out the green slime is really alien snot that has mind-controlling capability. I shake the thoughts from my head. This is real life, not Hollywood. Taeyeon and Sulli are both staring at me. "It'll be fine," I say. Both of them seem way more caught up in this whole thing than I am. I think about Sehul calling me cynical.

"Okay then," Sulli says. "What are we waiting for?" She reaches over and squeezes my hand.

"Repeat after me," Taeyeon says. I hope the fact that she's getting seriously impatient doesn't ruin the spell. I think about telling her that, but decide that impatient is better than ticked off, which is what she'll be if I interrupt her again. "Elduanai Islandera pulatera. Let my love come to me." Just as we finish, a huge crash sounds and all the lights in the kitchen blink out at once, pitching us into total darkness.

Taeyeon screams. Sulli, who is standing closest to me, clutches my arm. My heart is thudding hard in my chest, but I'm the first to start laughing. Sulli joins me and soon all three of us are laughing. "Do you think it was magic?" Taeyeon asks in the darkness.

"More like power outage," I say. I walk carefully over to the desk, hitting my hip once at the edge of the counter. I retrieve the flashlight that Changmin keeps in the top drawer. I snap it on and point it toward where Sulli and Taeyeon are standing. They squint against the light. There is a scrabbling at the back door.

"Don't answer it," Taeyeon says. I turn the beam of light on the door. There's more noise, then knocking. Suddenly, all of the moster movies I have ever seen converge and I envision a huge lizard/tomato/zombie creature on the other side of the door. I walk toward the door on rubbery legs. Just as I reach it, there is more knocking, and then I hear my name.

"Don't," Sulli says from behind me. I push the door open. The person standing there is just a shadow against the lights in the parking lot. Then the person speaks.

"I told you not to open the door," Changmin says, walking in. He has keys in his hand.

"But you knocked," I say. My voice becomes squeakier than normal. "Why didn't you just let yourself in? You have the keys."

"I couldn't see the lock in the dark." He props the door open with an empty crate to let a little light into the dark kitchen. "I heard screaming," he says. He must have been hanging out in his car this whole time. He really does worry too much. "Why are all the lights out?" he asks. He reaches for the light switch beside the door and toggles it once. Nothing. He walks over to the desk and reaches behind it where a small metal door is hidden. We hear a click, then the lights snap on. "You tripped a breaker somehow." I look over at Sulli and Taeyeon, who both look a little sheepish. Although I have to admit, for a moment I got caught up in the whole idea of magic too.

"Hmm, something smells good," Changmin says. He walks over to where our concoction is still steeping in its bowl. Changmin slides a spoon from the drawer and dips it into our potion. He puts it in his mouth and tilts his head to the side. "Good," he comments. He coughs once. "Spicy." He laughs. "I think we have a winner," Changmin says. We help him mix a batch of the new flavour and pour it into the moulds. We slide the full trays into the refrigerator.

Taeyeon scoops what's left of our potion into a large glass jar, which Changmin caps and slides into the refrigerator. He runs water into the bowl and adds a squirt of soap. "So, how's The Plan going?" Changmin asks. Sulli's cheeks go pink and my heart starts beating too fast. Only Taeyeon seems calm.

"Right on track," she says, smiling. Changmin looks at me, one of his eyebrows raised. I look away, pretending to be intent in untying the strings of my apron.

"Hey," Changmin says, turning off the water. "I almost forgot." He walks out the back door and comes back in carrying a big box. He puts it on the counter next to the bin of Consternation Hearts and uses a knife to slice open the tape. The three of us crowd around Changmin and try to peer over his shoulders. Inside are hundreds of flattened pink boxes, each with a heart-shaped window convered in plastic on the front.

"Perfect!" Taeyeon says, pulling one out and folding it. She holds it up.

"It looks really good, Soo Rin," Sulli says.

"They do," I say. I didn't really think they'd look this good, this much like the real thing.

"Okay, now we just have to fill them all," Changmin says. I take a deep breath and look at the thousands of pastel hearts jumbled together in the bin. That is going to be a huge job. A horn beeps out front.

"That's my mom," Taeyeon says.

"I'll come back tomorrow and fill boxes," I say.

"We'll help," Sulli says. I look over at Taeyeon, who nods, although with slightly less enthusiasm than Sulli.

"Okay then," Changmin says, putting the top back on the bin of Consternation Hearts. "Until tomorrow." We gather our backpacks and coats and follow Changmin through the darkened store at the front, where Taeyeon's mother's car is idling. "Thank you for the new flavour," Changmin says, unlocking the front door and following us out onto the sidewalk. "It's going to be huge!" He's exuberance makes us laugh. He waves at Taeyeon's mom as we get into the car. She waves back, smiling more than I've ever seen her smile. You can't not smile around Changmin. All three of us push into the backseat, despite protestations from Taeyeon's mom that it makes her feel like our chauffeur. Just as I'm about to close the door, I hear Changmin call my name. I peer out.

"What should we call the new flavour?" he asks. I don't even pause.

"Love Potion Number Nine," I say. Changmin laughs.

"Perfect," he says. If only he knew. I wave again and pull the car door shut.

The three of us are so quiet that Taeyeon's mother tells us it's making her nervous. I wonder if Sulli and Taeyeon are wondering the same things as I am. What if the blackout wasn't an overloaded fuse as Changmin suggested? What if it really was magic? What if our potion does work? I smirk at the ridiculousness of what I'm thinking. No way, I think. But then why does my heart do a little bump when I think of what might happen when I give Kim Jong In some of our chocolates? Thank goodness the backseat is so dark. At least no one can see me blushing.

author's note. 

Ehehehehehe. Love potion has been activated. Let's hope it works out for you guys. I've been dying to write this chapter. MAGIC. I sarang it so much. And I hope you guys do too. 

Toddles~