If you’re so used to having a jam-packed schedule every day, a day off will be something you dread for, but when you finally get it, you probably won’t know what to do.

That’s exactly what happens to Soojung now that she doesn’t have anything to do and is bored as hell at home. She doesn’t have any photo-shoot for the day and she isn’t attending any summer school either. Well, what’s the use when you’re already one of the smartest students in your entire batch? Completely bored, Soojung decides to be a couch potato for a day… well, until she’s interrupted by none other than her beloved sister, Jessica.

“Yah, Soojung! Get off the ing couch you lazy bum!” the older Jung’s high-pitched voice rings in Soojung’s ears like a destructive scream usually produced by a dolphin, and it doesn’t help that the brunette hates annoying noise. “Shut up, Sooyeon-unnie! God, my ears! My poor ears!” the taller girl whines, “what have you done to my precious hearing you-”

“Whatever, just go away!” Jessica lazily counters as she forcefully rolls her sister’s body off the couch before she slumps her back on top of it comfortably, “Ah, bliss!”

“Yah!” Soojung’s annoyance just gets to the next level, “I was here first!”

“I’m older than you, have some respect!”

“Don’t use the ‘I’m older than you’ card! I’m so reporting you to the police for authority abuse!”

Jessica makes a face, “go ahead and try! I dare you!”

But of course, that is just a lie… then again, Soojung isn’t one to give up, “fine, no police. But I’m telling dad on you!”

The blonde stares at her younger sister for a while before she smirks, “doesn’t matter to me. You know mom has a soft spot for me.”

Well, Mrs. Jung always wins over her husband anyway… so Jessica still gets the couch.

Soojung glares at her sister angrily before a brilliant idea struck her mind, “I’m telling Summer-unnie that you have a crush on her- mmph!” her words get muffled as Jessica covers in an urgent manner.

“Fine, fine! There, have your stupid couch for all that I care of!” the shorter girl hisses in defeat and stands up from the comfortable couch. How the does she know that!? Jessica wonders.

Soojung smirks in victory as she reclaims what’s hers, but right after she rests her back, the TV shows a furniture commercial of… a meat-shaped plushy.

Oh, how weak our Soojung is when it comes to anything related to meat. “GODDAMNIT!” she squeals, “I’M SO BUYING THAT CUTE PLUSHY!”

And in an instant, Soojung runs away from the living room, all the way up the spiral stairs, straight to her bedroom, immediately to her closet, and thirty seconds later… voila! A chic, gorgeous looking Soojung comes out with her Gucci wallet inside her duffel bag and her car key dangling on her index finger, a wide, happy grin decorating her beautiful face which is now smeared with light and natural make-up. Those things meat can do to her…

“Unnie, I’m going out!” she shouts and, without waiting for her sister’s delayed response, runs out of their house.

Jessica who has been staring at her sister’s retreating back can only gape in bewilderment. Poor, poor Jessica. But then again, she gets the couch for herself just like what she wants.

“… I don’t want to know anymore.”

Soojung doesn’t always whistle, or the correct term is ‘never’, but you know she’s really, really happy when she actually does it.

Riding along the lenient road beside Han River while blasting her favorite group, f(x)’s new track from their latest album, ‘Red Light’, Soojung whistles along while grinning like an asylum patient on the run whenever she does actually encounter a red light. Coincidence much.

Speaking of coincidence, her feline-like pair of eyes accidentally sees a familiar figure walking lightly on the pedestrian side of the road. She has her doubts, but pulls her car to the closest cemented road to the pedestrian’s pathway, and decelerates her car’s speed to match the girl’s. As her car finally lines beside the tall girl, the smile on her face intensifies, well if that’s even possible since her smile actually threatens to split her face into half.

“Ssul!” she calls out, ignoring the curious stares from other people who looks at her car like it’s coming straight out from a luxurious car’s magazine. The taller girl jolts slightly before she turns her head to her side, smiling at the sight that meets her eyes.

“Jungie!” Jinri shouts back, beaming the brunette her infamous eyesmile, “where are you going to?”

Soojung doesn’t listen, however, because she’s in a trance as the bright sunlight hits her mock girlfriend’s pale white face making it glows even brighter than it normally does. It’s so bright the Jung might lose her sight anytime soon if she keeps on staring, but her eyes perhaps have a mind on its own, seeing as how she can’t look away no matter how hard she tries.

Is it possible for a human being to have such a radiating beauty like that? This girl is definitely heaven-sent, period.

“Jungieee! Heeeyyy!” the Busan girl waves her hands repeatedly, but she doesn’t get any reaction. Slightly annoyed, she leans into the car from the opened window and stops just in front of the entranced girl, close enough for her to notice every single detail of Soojung’s flawless face, from the way she dons her makeups to the way her lips quiver slightly. Jinri puffs her cheeks as she’s still blatantly ignored by the slightly younger girl and snaps her long, slender fingers in front of the Jung’s face.

It works in getting the other girl out of her stupor, but upon seeing the absurdly close proximity between their faces, Soojung blushed madly and starts losing her senses bit by bit, again. She can faintly smell the girl’s shampoo; vanilla taste lingers on her taste buds right away. Her nose accidentally whiffs in the fragrances of heliotrope and lavender, a weird but surprisingly perfect combination of perfumes, and Soojung almost passes out if not for the little self-control she has left. But oh no, even those little thing she has might evaporates into nothingness as the way Jinri leans makes her cleavage partly visible, just enough to show some skins from her melons.

God, should I go to heaven after all this tortures you’re giving to me, please tell my parents that I hope I make them proud with my achievements and tell Jessica how sorry I am for always waking her up with cucumbers and-

“Jungieee! Seriously, snap out of it!” Jinri shakes the brunette’s body almost violently, finally getting Soojung out of her stupor, this time for real. The shorter girl struggles to regain her composure, “y-yes!? What is i-i-it?”

“You’ve been spacing out for quite a long time… are you okay?” the Choi asks, but once again Soojung doesn’t listen as her eyes dart away past Jinri, all the way to a erted-looking man who’s been standing there for quite some time while looking at something…

Soojung looks at her mock lover’s attire and realizes what the man’s looking at. Jinri is wearing a one-piece peach dress with a strap handbag hanging on her right side and a matching light pink beret on top of her head.

“Ssul!” Soojung screams urgently, “Get in the car, now!”

“Huh?”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me! Just get in the car!”

The confused Jinri can only follow in bewilderment. One moment the Jung is spacing out like no tomorrow and then suddenly she’s being forced to get into the luxurious sports car. Jungie is weird, she concludes while getting her upper body out of the car’s window and opens the door to get inside. Once she buckles her seatbelt, she voices her question, “what’s wrong with you, Jungie? Suddenly telling me to get into the car…”

Soojung answers without words as she points at the suspicious man who looks surprised at Jinri’s sudden action earlier. “I think,” She starts, not knowing why she suddenly feels embarrassed, “he… he was staring at something that he shouldn’t have seen…”

“And that would be…?”

The Jung’s face reddens while she points at Jinri’s bottom section of her dress, “well, whatever that dress is trying to cover…”

Jinri scrunches her eyebrows but soon as the realization dawn on her, she lets out a hearty laugh, “oh!” she breaths out, “don’t worry, I’m wearing shorts underneath!”

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Soojung whines, “I don’t want people like him looking at my girlfriend like a erted predator!”

“‘Girlfriend’?” a grin creeps out of Jinri’s angelic face, and she chuckles when she sees her pretend-girlfriend’s face which is now tainted with fifty shades of red, “I’m just kidding, Jungie! No need to get so flustered!”

“I-I-I-I-I-I’m n-n-n-not!”

“Yeah, sure… like the color of the sea is orange. Sure, sure,” Jinri rolls her eyes playfully, ignoring the embarrassed glare she receives from the other girl.

“L-L-Let’s just g-go a-already!” Soojung exhales and starts revving her car’s engines. The taller girl shoots her a glance, “where to?”

“T-The mall,” the brunette answers curtly, of which Jinri only nods and lets her drag her anywhere she wants.

“Excuse me, where can I find the ‘bedroom section’?” Soojung asks, dragging the powerless Jinri by the wrist. The moment they arrived, Soojung had dragged her to the furniture store in a rush like no tomorrow.

The store worker points to his left, “go straight from here and go left on the second turn- wait, where’d she go to?” he wonders as the two girls are no longer in sight. He then turns his head to the left and sees the supposedly shorter girl rushing quickly with the taller one following closely behind her in a dragged fashion. The brunette is definitely in a rush, but for whatever reason, the worker doesn’t know.

Soojung’s exasperated face is quickly replaced with an impossibly wide grin when her eyes catch the sight of a cute meat-shaped plushy, but just as she is about to grab it, someone else beat her to it. “YAH!” she screams, “it’s mine!”

The other customer winces at the loudness of the brunette’s voice and counters back, “it’s not yours! I see it first and grab it first, so it’s mine!”

“Why you-”

“Alright, alright!” Jinri thinks she has to interrupt the two before a fight erupts in freaking furniture shop, “Jungie, look, there’s another identical plushy behind it. Let her take this one and we will take that one, okay?”

Soojung pouts, “But I saw it first…”

“Jungie.”

“Fine, fine!” the shorter girl stomps her foot grumpily while giving Jinri a sullen look, “just because there’s another plushy…”

“Thank you, Jungie!” Jinri beams her eyesmile again, making the Jung’s face beet red. The other person looks at the two girls weirdly and asks, “Are you two dating?”

The Choi diverts her attention back to the woman who’s giving them a look and smiles, “no, but it’s quite complicated. Ever heard of ‘summer lover agency’?”

“Oh, I know that!” another voice exclaims from their right and the three turns their head to see a tanned woman smiling at them, “my friend used to work at that agency, though she quitted last year…”

“Yul!” the woman grins widely and tackles the intruder into a hug, almost causing both of them to fall. “Careful, Yoong! You could get hurt!” ‘Yul’ scolds, but her expression and voice are too soft to be considered angry. “I’m so sorry. My girlfriend is a choding,” she laughs, “I’m Kwon Yuri and this girl is Im Yoona. Nice to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you too! I’m Choi Jinri, but people call me Sulli,” Jinri answers and looks at the sulking girl next to her, “and this is-”

“Krystal,” Soojung answers curtly with a cold tone. Yuri stares at the brunette before she snaps her fingers, “Krystal as in Krystal Jung? Jessica Jung’s sister?”

“Wow, Jungie, you’re really famous,” the tall girl whispers. “I know,” the girl replies with an equal level of noise, which causes the Kwon to laugh, “it’s not nice to whisper in front of someone else, kids!” she breathes out before looking at Yoona lovingly, “so, got what you’re looking for, Yoong?”

“Yup yup!” Yoona chirped while showing her girlfriend the meat plushy she fought for with Soojung earlier, “isn’t it a cutie?”

The Jung scoffs and grumbles under her breath, “but I saw it first…”

Jinri chuckles at her mock girlfriend’s behavior and rubs her back gently, “patience, Jungie. Look at that smile, isn’t it beautiful?”

Soojung glances at the Im and it’s clearly evident that she’s really happy and satisfied with the plushy. The shorter girl decides to just let her be; besides, she also gets her own plushy and Jinri rubbing her back in a soothing manner.

“Well, we’ll just go on ahead then…” Yuri suddenly says to the two youngest, “See you two later!”

“See you!” Jinri says happily while Soojung just waves at the two people. “So, are we also done here?” the Choi asks. The brunette nods slightly, a bit guilty that she dragged her pretend girlfriend for something she can do on her own. “How about,” she pauses, “I treat you lunch?”

“Oh no, it’s okay! You already treat me last time, Jungie! I can’t ask for something like that again!”

“I insist, Ssul. Aren’t you hungry? It’s almost lunch time!”

“But I’m not-”

*stomach growling sounds*

Jinri holds her belly in embarrassment while Soojung tries her best not to laugh at the cute scene, “not hungry, huh?”

“S-Shut up…”

“Yah, I thought you said no to my offer?” Soojung asks teasingly while eyeing the two empty plates in front of her. Jinri shoots her a glare and giggles shyly, “I can’t help it… you were the one insisting that I should eat more.”

“That’s because you’re so skinny!” the brunette defends herself, “you really should eat more, Ssul! What if you get sick?”

“Nah, my immune system is really strong,” the Choi laughs, “you know, judging by Yoona-ssi’s question earlier, it seems like to other people, we’re going on a date today.”

Good thing Soojung isn’t drinking anything at that moment; else she might choke herself to death. “W-We what?”

“Don’t look so surprised, Jungie~” Jinri coos, “This is, like, our first ‘official’ date, you know? Since I’ve been so busy with my part-time jobs and all… I feel like such a bad lover…”

“Y-You’re not that bad!” Soojung splutters in panic, “If anything, you’re absolutely amazing, really!”

The taller of the two girls smiles genuinely, “thank you, but amazing is a bit of an exaggeration…” she says, “I’d say decent but you’re a stubborn cat so I’ll let this one pass-”

“Decent doesn’t do you justice!”

“See?”

Soojung realizes she has fallen into Jinri’s trap and groans, “conceited kid…”

“Hey, I’m older than you!” the jet black-haired girl giggles, which only makes Soojung more annoyed, “you remind me of Sooyeon-unnie. She said the exact same thing this morning.”

“Sooyeon-unnie?” Jinri asks, confused. The brunette wants to pinch Jinri’s cheeks for being so cute but holds the urge in, “I mean my sister, Jessica. Her Korean name is Jung Sooyeon, not that many people use it anyway.”

“Oh,” the Choi’s mouth forms an ‘o’ shape, “must be so nice, right? Having a sister like Jessica-ssi, I mean.”

“Nice? What nice?” Soojung makes a face which successfully makes Jinri laughs, “I’d rather use the term ‘annoying’. She’s really bossy, lazy, authoritative… Geez, just this morning she rolls me off my comfy sofa.”

The taller girl’s laugh subsides into a fit of giggles, “but, you love her don’t you?”

“Well…” the slightly younger girl smiles a bit, “yeah, of course… she’s my sister, after all. She’s the only family I have in Seoul.”

Jinri stops giggling entirely, “the only one? What about your parents?”

“They’re in USA. Only Jessica and I live in South Korea,” Soojung sighs, “not that it matters, though. We still video-call them twice a month, no matter how busy we are. I guess this is one of the disadvantages of being a celebrity’s sister. She gets famous, I get famous, we get busy, and voila! Stuffs like this happen.”

The Choi quietly listens.

“But honestly speaking,” the brunette lets out a laugh, “I don’t hate this one bit. In fact, I’ve gotten so used to it that it will feel weird if one day I stop doing what I usually do, just like today.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“On normal occasion, yes,” she pauses, “but there are times when I just get fed up, you know… People expect so much, but I’m only human too. Well, sometimes I even forget that fact.”

“We’re human, yes,” Jinri nods as she sips her cola, “if you forget about it, I’ll remind you.”

It’s just a simple statement, really, but it makes Soojung feel better than everything she has ever head from her friends and family.

Since the sun is still brightly shining on top of their head, the pretend lovers decide to stroll around the mall or, as we call it, ‘window shopping’.

“Jungie, look at that shop!” is what Jinri will exclaim happily each time a shop catches her attention. Even though Soojung is obviously the more fashionable of the two, she isn’t exactly keen of shopping, hence why she willingly allows Jinri to drag her from shop to shop.

“Isn’t this dress cute?”

“Look, Jungie, that cardigan looks so pretty!”

“Jungie, Jungie! That hat looks so cute, don’t you think?”

For a girl who’s strict with her spending, this girl is noisy when it comes to shopping… Soojung thought. Not that she minds, though. Seeing Jinri’s happy smile throughout the entire way is enough reward for the Jung even though her legs now hurt like hell.

The only annoying thing is, Jinri only says this and that, but she doesn’t buy anything. Like really, she just gets into a shop, pulls out a very pretty article of clothing, praises it’s appealing visual, puts it back in its place, and then leaves the goddamn shop. Every. Single. ing. Time.

Suddenly the taller girl stops walking, which inadvertently makes her back crashes with Soojung’s face. “Yah!” the brunette whines, “Why do you stop?”

“Look, Jungie!” the Choi points at an accessories shop, “let’s go there!”

“Why asking for my permission when you’re just going to drag me there anyway?” Soojung deadpans, of which the slightly older girl only laughs dismissively and pulls the obviously tired girl along.

The moment they enters the shop, Soojung regrets not preparing her eyes for what is awaiting her. Pink, pink everywhere. Pink floors, pink walls, pink shelves, pink counters, pink cabinets, pink workers… oh wait, it’s just the attire. Maybe the only things that aren’t colored pink are the accessories they sell, but even then the Jung catches sights of some of them being colored as such. Oh, my poor, poor eyes, she wails inside her mind.

When her eyes finally adjust to the bright surroundings, Soojung realizes that Jinri isn’t next to her anymore. “Ssul?” she calls out, feeling slightly afraid that she has lost her summer lover.

“Right here, Jungie~” comes an answer from the deeper part of the shop. Soojung scurries to her pretend girlfriend and gives her a weird look as Jinri shows her a couple bracelets. “Aren’t this cute?” the taller girl says, a grin plastered on her face, “these kind of stuffs can make us look like a real couple!”

“C-Couple?” Soojung stammers, the words leaving sounds so foreign yet so familiar, like it’s a word she can say every day without getting bored of it. “Yeah, couple,” Jinri laughs, “but let’s just forget about it for now. Let’s take things slowly but surely… like, I know you’re not entirely sure whether this is the right thing to do, right? Us being a couple and all that, when we’ve only just met two days ago…”

She understands…

“… let’s just look around a bit longer… I can afford at least these kind of things, don’t worry,” the jet black haired girl smiles before walking past the awestruck Soojung, looking around once more. The brunette casts the taller girl a glance and she can feel the corner of her lips curling upwards. She then looks back at the dangling bracelets and bites her lower lips. Should I?

The sun has set and now the two are inside Soojung’s car which is parked in front of Jinri’s apartment building.

“Well, thank you so much for today’s ‘makeshift date’, Jungie,” the passenger smiles warmly, “I have lots of fun today.”

“Me too,” the shorter girl smiles back, “thank you for accompanying me to buy that meat plushy.”

“The one you and Yoona-ssi were fighting for?” Jinri wiggles her eyebrows teasingly, and the brunette laughs it off despite finding it quite suggestive and y, “don’t remind me of that incident again! I almost lash out at her, really!”

“You really shouldn’t, you bad girl!” the Choi laughs along.

“But, I’m serious,” Soojung says, suddenly looking serious, “If you weren’t there, there might have been a commotion there. You… you calmed me down, something that even my family finds it hard to do. I don’t know why, but your presence… was enough to keep me sane…”

Seeing as how the slightly older girl keeps quiet, the driver takes it as a sign for her to continue, “It’s true, the idea of being a couple with someone is something that I never thought would happen to me… In fact, if three days ago, someone told me that I’ll be in a mock relationship with someone, I’d probably just laugh it off and said that it’ll only happen in their dreams,” she pauses, “but here am I… sitting beside my pretend girlfriend after a ‘makeshift date’ after driving her back home.”

“I hope you won’t take it badly, but I wish for us to keep this thing in a slow pace…” Soojung smiles at the girl while her right hand is busy fiddling inside her jeans pocket, “Vic-unnie said that I might be attracted to you… but I honestly don’t know what kind of signs gives away that fact… until then, will you help me realizes what relationship is?”

Jinri is at a loss of words, but she beams her eyesmile at the Jung, her warm and gentle eyesmile that radiates brighter than the sun and calms more than the sound of ocean waves, “of course,” she finally says, “of course, Jungie.”

“Thank you so much, Ssul…” the brunette has never smiles as brightly as she is right now, but she’s sure this is only one of many more to come in future days, “is it okay if I… ugh, I know this is childish but still…”

“What?”

“T-This bracelet…” Soojung fishes out a familiar bracelet from her pocket, “take this as a sign of our… our… uhm, I don’t know how to call our ‘relationship’. I mean, this isn’t exactly a relationship but more like-”

“Jungie, calm down,” Jinri holds the shorter girl’s shoulders to stop her, “I understand. I’ll take it, okay? Stop stuttering.”

The Jung’s face flushes into many hues of red, “o-okay…”

“Hey, isn’t this the bracelet I showed you before?” the Choi asks, amused. She notices an inscription that wasn’t there when she first saw it, “what is this?”

“Oh… you know how many idols have pairing names?” the shorter girl asks sheepishly, “well, I thought that maybe we could have one on our own, too… b-but, f-forget it if you think it’s childish because-”

“It’s a cute idea, actually! I like it!” Jinri gleefully says as she traces the engraving with her index finger, “so, what did you write? I can’t see it; it’s quite dark in here.”

“Well,” Soojung grins, “I took Jung from ‘Soojung’ and Li from ‘Sulli’… JungLi, do you like it?”

“Like it?” Jinri smiles, “I love it.”