Donghae sits her in his comfiest armchair at the corner of his living room. His house is empty, rightfully so – his whole family decided that he should learn how to be independent, and thus, he’s now living alone in Seoul. In a huge house that’s much too big for his liking. One day he’ll marry Jessica and this big house will become their house, and things will be happy and sweet and blissful and he will spend ten weeks trying to cover up his wall of Jessica—

“You live alone?”

“Uh—yeah—I do.”

“Awesome. I’ll come over here next time I get kicked out from my house.”

“Kicked—kicked out?”

“I’m not on very good terms with my family, because I’m not like Jess who is able to withstand living in that hole for more than two weeks—wait, too much information. Basically, do allow me to come over if I need some shelter for a night or two.”

“…okay…” What was he doing, agreeing so easily to a request from an underage girl he barely knows?

He never knows what he’s doing around the Jungs.

“So anyway. I’m Krystal, and I just got back from America. Abandoned that country with tears in my eyes because I had to ditch the guys who kept bugging me, begging me to be their girlfriends—now I’m back in Seoul, not happily so, but yeah, I’m back in Seoul.”

“…I see…”

“You like my sister, don’t you?”

Donghae chokes on the air he was trying to inhale.

“I mean, if you didn’t like that , you wouldn’t listen to me rant about my life without yawning halfway through.”

“Your—your life’s interesting.”

“Sure it is. Not to worry, I’ll put in a few good words about you to her.”

“I don’t think her… issue is about that. She barely knows me.”

“Oh! You mean her and her tendency to forget people who don’t leave impressions on her?”

“I… think so.”

“Well, don’t worry. I’ll make sure to leave an impression on her for you.”

“Th—thank you.”

Minutes of numbing silence later, the lights come on outside. Jessica is back.

“Ah. They’re back. I’ll go now.”

=

Jessica almost falls flat on the ground when she sees Krystal trailing behind her.

“Soojung?!”

Through the translucent curtains Donghae had for his windows, he tried his best to get a lowdown on what was going on.

He saw Krystal give the sweetest smile he’s ever seen on a Jung – well, Jessica could definitely smile brighter than that though.

“Please, call me Krystal,” she responded, a hint of sweet venom on her tongue. “Mom! Dad! I’m home!”

Jessica and Krystal’s parents had made their ways into the house before Krystal went tailgating at Jessica’s behind, and he knows that they didn’t quite take the news well when he heard a loud crash of some sort at Krystal’s greeting.

Donghae decides that this was the furthest he could go with the invasion of privacy, and retreats back to his armchair.

He knew the Jungs weren’t just somebodies, especially when Jessica is the love of his life, and probably the next few lives as well, and Krystal is the baby sister of the love of his life and probably a lifeline when it came to getting Jessica to remember him.

Hopefully his future parents-in-law takes Krystal’s return well, or he may just lose his final call for help, and Jessica will fly back to America and lead her Broadway life with a chihuahua and a hot Hollywood model as boyfriend-and-would-be-husband—

Go to sleep, for God’s sake.

He crashes into his bed and wills himself to dream of a happy future with Jessica.

=

The next day, early morning, too early for Hyukjae’s liking, in school – Hyukjae is delivered some news by Siwon that there is a pizza gathering next Friday with the girls. His face lights up and crumples all in a second, and Siwon’s curiosity is piqued.

Kyuhyun cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you – the loser of the year, Lee Hyukjae, who cannot remember his own girlfriend when he’s drunk and is now going through a tight spot with her. Wow, and new year’s day just passed like a week ago.”

Siwon sighs. “Hyuk, you have to come. It’s Donghae’s one shot at love, and you’re his best buddy. It’s good if you come along, and give him some moral support. Besides, avoiding Hyoyeon isn’t your best shot at the relationship, too.”

“Not to be mean, Siwon, but you do know that Donghae’s lacking some balls that we can’t give to him, right?” Kyuhyun sneered. “Oh, and – Hyoyeon can be pretty scary when she’s peeved, so I say, think before you push any buttons, Hyukjae.”

“Fine, I stand corrected. But no more mind games, Kyu. Hyukjae’s coming with us.”

“If he does, and if Hyoyeon does too, you do know that we may get blacklisted from the pizza parlor forever, right?”

“Kyuhyun, shut up! He’s coming and it’s final!”

“Guys! Last time I checked, I’m Hyukjae, not the two of you! I’ll make this decision in due time.”

Siwon and Kyuhyun shrugged.

=

“Okay, guys, next Friday – who’s coming?”

Taeyeon’s hand shoots out from nowhere with a sharp squeal. “Me! Me, me, me!”

“I think this is the fiftieth time you’ve told me that you wanted to join us.”

“But this is the first time I’m responding to your question about that!” she whined.

Hyoyeon grimaced. “Can I not go?”

“Oh, sweetie, you know it’ll be fine. It’s not like anything could happen. I mean, we’re just eating some pizza, and hopefully make Jessica remember Donghae, and, yeah. You won’t even have to talk to Hyukjae!”

“No, you see, that’s the problem. I want to talk to him, but I don’t want to. I want things to be okay, but things just don’t seem like they can calm their and be okay.”

Taeyeon scoffed. “Hyoyeon, all he does is forget you when he’s drunk! That’s nothing much for you to fret about!”

Taeyeon could really be a prick sometimes.

“You do know that a lot of things could happen when one is drunk, right? He could kill a man, steal a car, have a one night stand with some girl he thought was pretty and impregnate her and get himself embroiled in some teen pregnancy scandal and marry that girl whom he doesn’t even love and spend the rest of his life as a poor little loser!”

The speech put Taeyeon in deep thought, and the other two basked in the silence that followed. Stephanie flashed a sneaky thumbs-up sign to Hyoyeon.

“Come on, Hyoyeon, I promise – nothing will happen. And if anything does happen, well, we have your back.”

“I guess I can’t say no to pizza now that I’ve gotten your word for it,” Hyoyeon replied jadedly, but good-naturedly.

=

Siwon extended the invitation to Jungsoo as well, who declined because he scored with a few girls from the school down the street and decided that he would spend his time on them instead.

“Should we invite Jongwoon?” Siwon asked.

Hyukjae stared at him with incredulous eyes. “Really?”

“Well, Kyuhyun’s in special math right now, so I can talk about this with you, right?”

“Well, but, yeah, you sure you want to do that?”

“The more the merrier.”

“Not if they don’t see eye to eye!”

“I don’t think Jongwoon’s a prick. He’ll forget about it. Besides, hasn’t everything died down by then? His turtle’s well and alive.”

“No, I don’t think Jongwoon’s the prick…”

Siwon mulled over it for a second and finally realized what Hyukjae was driving at.

“Oh.”

“So?”

“I know Kyuhyun’s a prick, but he’ll be fine. We’ll just… not let him know. He can’t do anything on the day itself. Besides, he’d just mind his own business and enjoy the pizza. Right?”

“He’d better.”

“Plus, I really think asking Jongwoon out is a good thing. I mean, we can make a new friend and perhaps things can get better with this.”

“I guess.”

“But what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, are you coming?”

“Well… I guess I’d never say no to pizza. I’ll steer clear of trouble.”

=

Jongwoon received the news when he bumped into Siwon outside the restroom. He agreed to it in less than a second.

As he waltzed away, a voice called out from the other end of the hallway.

“Honey!”

Jongwoon’s face lit up and he turned. There she was.

“Sweetie!”

The two of them ran towards each other as the whole hallway stared, and he picked her up and spun her in a circle.

“What are you doing here?”

“I missed you too much!”

“I missed you more.” Jongwoon hugged her.

Kyuhyun, who’d just left his classroom, sees the scene in its entirety and sighed. “Oh, even weird tortoise boy gets PDA in the hallway, and I get tutoring sessions in the library with the dwarf.”

=

Stephanie’s new partner in mathematics class was a new student, a bubbly and cheerful girl who couldn’t possibly be friendlier than she was at that moment, a certain Kwon Yuri.

She can’t wait to show off her newfound friend to her other friends.

But when she left the classroom with Yuri, she just had to wait.

Apparently Yuri transferred here as a surprise for her boyfriend. That was what Stephanie inferred from the little conversation Yuri had with another male in the hallway.

She cooed and squealed inwardly. It was so sweet to see two people so in love.

Now, when would her chance come?

=

“Hey, Siwon!”

Siwon stopped his conversation with Hyukjae and Jungsoo as he turned to see Jongwoon strutting down the hallway with a way too attractive girl.

“Hey, Jongwoon. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to check with you if I could bring her along next Friday,” he responded, giving the sweetest silly grin.

“Not gonna introduce her to us?” Jungsoo started towards her, until Jongwoon cut his path.

“I probably should. She’s Kwon Yuri, my girlfriend.”

Siwon could see Jungsoo’s sky falling down. He got back to the main conversation with Jongwoon and smiled. “Of course you may! Is she a transfer student like you too?”

“Yeah, she is,” Jongwoon responded, again the sweet silly grin and all. “Transferred here to surprise me, this little sweetheart,” he teased, poking Yuri gently in the forehead.

Yuri grinned. “It’s worth it if I could be with you,” she replied.

Siwon could feel his inner girl squeal at the scene. Smiling, he gave a playful flick of the hand. “Alright, alright, get a room, you lovebirds. And you’re welcome, Yuri, definitely welcome. Besides, there are girls coming too, and you can befriend them.”

“Speaking of girls, I befriended someone called Stephanie just now. She’s really sweet, just like all of you I’ve met so far.”

“Stephanie? She’s coming too, you know.”

“Great!”

“This means so much to the both of us, Siwon. It’s so great to find a bunch of good people to hang with,” Jongwoon added.

=

Donghae slumped himself against the wall as he retreated from the medicine cabinet. What a splendid day to fall sick on.

His sudden fever had attacked like a ninja. And thus he wasted a day at home, trying to nurse himself to perfect health. Evidently, it didn’t work, as he tried his best to crawl back to his room.

Then the doorbell rung.

Donghae was already at the foot of the staircase when it did. He gave it a good thought to just ignore the doorbell, but stopped short when he heard Krystal’s voice.

“Hey, Donghae! Are you at home? We ran out of milk.”

Krystal waited patiently – well, as patiently as she could, anyway – until the door finally creaked open in the fashion of a horror film.

“The milk’s in the—“

Donghae couldn’t finish the sentence, because he went down like a potato sack. Krystal stared dumbly at the fainted Donghae, and sighed.

“And I didn’t even get to find out where the milk was.”