CHAPTER THREE

It was only ten in the morning, but YoonA had already been busy hurling all of her clothes out her closet onto the floor, only to put them back inside as she couldn’t find the right outfit for Jessica’s birthday party tonight. She already tried to mix-match every single clothes she had, but the result was a big zero. She observed her closet one more time and had just realized that she didn’t own any decent clothes that could be used for a formal party; most of her clothes were tattered jeans and white or gray or black T-shirts or tank tops (and some casual denim skirts). Tonight’s party’s theme was a masquerade and its well-known fact that most of the female guests would put on fantastic, glimmering, and fabulous dresses with stylish, elegant, and chic masks plus shiny accessories as the obligatory complement, made Im YoonA groaned in frustration. There were two main reasons why she was in a black mood like this; first, there was only this one seductive dress with holes here and there in her closet –just for your information, if it weren’t for her sister who forced her to buy this dress, she would never ever purchase it-. Second, and if she did wear this revealing dress to the party, she was two hundred percent sure that those four guys would make fun of her. And she wasn’t ready to see her best friends laughing their head off at her misery.

Sitting on the edge of her bed while staring lifelessly at her wide-opened closet, she let out a heavy sigh whilst ruffling her hair in frustration as she laid her eyes on that dress once again. She shuddered with horror as the vision of her wearing that dress and her best friends were laughing at her, crossed her mind. She hurriedly shook her head several times to cast that thought out. Then, she raised from her seat, pacing back and forth while biting her own fingernails in anxiety. She took her phone out of her pocket and began to scroll down the contact list, searching for a name that could pull her out of this misery. She scrolled down again and again, passed over Jonghyun, Kris, Lu Han and Xiumin’s name when they popped out on its screen –she acknowledged that they would most likely put her on a deeper suffering instead of helping; Jonghyun would push her to wear that dress instead of course, for he liked anything related to provocative and appealing things, Kris was a fashion terrorist in the group, so asking him for help was basically throwing herself into an embarrassing runway, Lu Han maybe could help her for a little, but she was in a cold war with him, so asking for help was forbidden, and Xiumin would more concern in comforting her instead of searching for a solution– and she finally decided to stop her pursuit when she found Yuri’s name. She pressed the call button right away and waiting for her answer.

/Hey, Babe. What’s up?/ Yuri’s voice could be heard on the other line.

/I need your help. And it’s very urgent/

/What kind of help?/

/You do know that I don’t have any decent dress and whatever they call it, right? Can you help me to prepare everything for tonight? Please?/

/Of course, I can. I’ll be there in three. Wait for me, okay?/

‘Thanks God, I found Yuri’ She said to herself. She ended the call as she stopped walking back and forth and plopped her body down on the bed.

”Let me have some sleep.”

“Hey. Sweety Yoong.” Yuri’s loud voice resonated all over the place as soon as she barged into YoonA’s room. YoonA was not astonished to see Yuri was already in her room since she had been visiting her house so many times without her had to open the front door. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Yuri, who bent down to pick up her remaining clothes that scattered around the floor.  She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock. It was a quarter past fifteen. She had slept for almost two hours.

“You are here?” She asked as she lifted both of her arms up in the air. She yawned.

"Did aliens come in and mess up your closet to search for their missing ? Your room is a total mess." Yuri averted her gaze to look at YoonA, still with piles of clothes on her left arm.

She sat up and leaned against the headboard of the bed. She just grinned while scratching the back of her head at Yuri's sarcastic comments. "Yes, but unfortunately they couldn't find it because the one they were looking for is the one I am wearing right now."

"Glad to know it's safe." Yuri responded her jokes. Then she put YoonA's clothes on the bed and began to check what YoonA had in her closet. She observed YoonA’s clothes one by one, did not miss any details in commenting every single clothes, and kept grumbling why YoonA still had the clothes that were in during 90s. She did not expect YoonA to be so old-fashioned like this. And so, it made her to remind herself that she had to  engage YoonA in every her once-in-a-week shopping and midnight sale.

YoonA just watched her from the back and said casually, "So, that’s why you won't find anything in there, Madam.”

Yuri just ignored what YoonA said and continued her tiring mission to discover at least one proper attire. And her efforts were paid off, she turned around with the revealing dress in her hand. "I found this eye-catching dress. You can wear this." She placed the dress on top of her own body without wearing it and looking at the mirror.

"Oh, yea. It's super duper eye-catching and because of that, I can't and I won't wear it." YoonA said sternly.

Yuri turned her body at YoonA's direction and looked at her in disbelief. "Why not? It will be perfect on you."

"It's too y. So, no."

"That's why you have to put this on. Show the world your curvy body." She said dramatically as she ran her slender fingers from upper to her lower body, following her body curvature. "Let them know that behind your usual boring, unappealing look, there is one hot body."

YoonA just rolled her eyes. "How about you wear my dress and I wear yours?" She proposed an idea. She was more than happy if Yuri agreed to exchange.

"It's okay for me. For your information, mine is a see-through dress." Yuri kind of teasing her.  She believed that YoonA would not want to wear hers either. It made no difference.

"I won't come then." YoonA pretended to be cranky. She did not mind if she was absent to go to the party tonight. It was only one of her best friends' girl friend's birthday party, not themselves, after all. So it did not matter if she attended it or not. Besides, her appearance was not needed by anyone either.

"Hey, easy Yoong. I brought more than one dress, so you can choose. I know your taste, so I brought the most normal ones." She put the air quotation with her two fingers on the word 'normal'. Then she took the dresses, that she put aside a while ago, from the small sofa. "-Now, choose." She tossed them in YoonA's direction and landed right on top of YoonA's head one, and the other two on her lap.

“By the way, what did you buy for Jess? You don’t have a good taste in fashion, so you won’t buy her clothes or shoes or accessories. So, what did you buy?”

“A book. I heard from Kris that she likes to read a novel.” YoonA answered simply.

“Oh. I thought you would give her a bouquet filled with cucumbers. It would be epic.” Yuri laughed at her own jokes.

“Yeah. And it would be more epic for you to see me scorched when that dragon Kris spout fire at me.”

It was eighteen ten when YoonA went out of her room. She carefully climbed down the stairs and could hear a clear tok-tok sound, outcome from the friction of her high heels and wooden stairs, every time she took a step. She straightly made her way to the big mirror in the living room after the last stair, and looked at her own reflection. She was wearing a knee-length black dress with simple black pumps, complete with some fun blings and an elaborate feathered mask, and suede chunky high heels in the same color. She parted her hair in the middle, brushed bottom half, and added loose curls. After admiring herself for about two minutes, she made some different poses, tilting her body to the left and right to see what she looked like from the back. And then, she put on her mask and took one commemorative photo before she finally said, “I look okay, I guess. Thanks to Yuri and her exceptional make-up skills.”

Hearing a sound from her phone that indicated an incoming message, she took her phone out of her purse. She opened the message and it was from Jonghyun.

/We are on the way, two blocks from your house. Do not run away!!/

Okay, it was actually creepy because she had just thought to go to Jessi’s party by herself without those four guys had to pick her up (she originally planned to go there early, congratulated Jessi for her birthday, and went home right away; the point was she wanted to avoid those four guys), but it turned out they could read her mind before she could execute her mission. She sighed in defeat as she wrote a reply for Jonghyun.

/Are you Edward? I am already on my way, by the way./ She attempted to fool them.

/Nice try. We are already outside. Go out of your house now!!/

‘What’s with these exclamation marks?’ She mumbled to herself.

And right after she finished reading the message, an annoying car horn sound could be heard outside. It was not just once, not twice, but thrice in a row. She hastily put on her mask, briefly looking at the mirror, and stomped out of the house, did not bother to say goodbye to anyone. There was no one except the housemaid, anyway.

“Hey, what do you think Yoong would wear tonight?” Jonghyun asked the other guys as he looked at himself at the camera phone, st