Krystal looked at the photograph she just printed out. It was a duplicate of the one she gave to Donghae earlier on. Now, she sat on her bed, thinking of the best way to give this to Jessica without arousing her suspicion.

Though Jessica was stupid, she was still prone to suspecting, since she was a girl after all…

Krystal thought long and hard about it, until Jessica popped in from behind the door. She threw the photograph behind her on the bed and Jessica stared at her intently. She definitely had a question for her.

“Yes, what could bring you here at this weird timing?” Krystal started.

“I’m just curious,” she responded. “Are you sure nothing is going on between you and Donghae?”

Krystal scoffed, knowing that the truth couldn’t be any further from that. “Yes, Jessica. Absolutely nothing. I don't dig his style. Why, do you?” she countered, a mischievous edge to her voice.

Jessica spluttered. “Of—of course not. Not at all.”

“Whatever you say, dear sister. And please knock before you come in next time.”

=

Kyuhyun and Taeyeon were doing graphs (again) when Taeyeon stopped and looked up.

“Yes, what is it now?” Kyuhyun enquired, his jaded tone a little too audible for her liking.

“I’m just curious,” she mumbled, “if it was right to tell someone who liked him or her.”

Kyuhyun dropped the pencil he was spinning. It couldn’t be that Taeyeon could read his mind!

“I—I—what? Get back to your graphs!”

“No, no, look at it this way for me, Kyuhyun. I told someone who liked him or her. And I don’t know if it’s right. That I revealed it.”

Was Taeyeon trying to confess to him? Kyuhyun arched a brow. “I’m not sure I get you.”

“Like, I revealed to person A that person B likes person A. I don’t know if it’s right. I feel like I’m revealing a secret for a good cause, but then again… It doesn’t seem like it’s good since person B trusted me with the secret.”

Kyuhyun sighed in relief. So she wasn’t talking about him, or herself, for that matter. “Who’s A and B?”

“I… Can’t say.”

Kyuhyun picked his pencil back up, started mulling over it for a few moments, and snapped his fingers. “Siwon and Fany?”

Taeyeon cursed. “Damn it! How did you know?”

Kyuhyun smiled, a little bitterly. “They don’t call me the know-it-all for nothing.”

=

Hyukjae waited for Hyoyeon to finish her extra class after his own had ended. As he paced back and forth along the empty hallway, someone sidled up to him from nowhere. “Hey, Hyukjae!”

He looked up from his pacing to find Jongwoon sneaking up. “Hey, man, what are you doing?”

“I figured that I’m not supposed to be here, so I had to sneak around.”

“Jongwoon… Students are allowed to be here on weekends.”

He stopped with the sneaking the moment he let that sink on. “Oh. Well, I learnt something new today.”

Hyukjae grinned at his optimism, and watched as he held out a slip of paper from inside his jacket. “What’s that?”

Jongwoon smashed it into Hyukjae’s chest, and gave him a wink. “Look at it when you’re out of the school.” Jongwoon ran off after that, leaving Hyukjae alone in the hallway again.

Hyukjae’s first guess was . He couldn’t be more wrong.

Hyoyeon exited the classroom with her fastest speed ever and found Hyukjae standing there, waiting for him. “Hey, Hyuk!” She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and stared at the paper Jongwoon had stuffed into his grasp earlier on. “What’s that?”

“Jongwoon gave it to me. He told me to look at it when I’m out of here.”

So later on, as they strolled along the pavement outside school, Hyukjae smoothened the now-crumpled piece of paper and read through it with Hyoyeon.

Hey there, whoever you are! This is Jongwoon and Yuri. We are holding a party at my house this Sunday, which is coincidentally tomorrow, and we would like you to be there! My address is on the back of this invite.

P.S. Hyukjae, this is the only invite Yuri and I prepared. Do invite your friends along for us! I guess this could be a good housewarming party for me and Yuri, plus we could make up for the failed pizza outing yesterday. So whaddaya say? It’s going to be fun! We have pepperoni pizzas, with and without anchovies!

P.P.S. I won’t ban anyone from coming, but that prickly nerd doesn’t seem like he’d want to be there. So…

P.P.P.S. This is Yuri! This is going to be so fun! Do come, alright? Yay! Fun!

=

Siwon reclined in his leather armchair when a call came in from Hyukjae. He got the lowdown of the party going on tomorrow and sighed, giving his affirmation of attendance in a very direct ‘yes’.

He said yes, but he felt no. He didn’t exactly want to be there. He was never a party person; not since the new year countdown, and not since ever. He leaned back further in his armchair and relaxed his stiff muscles away.

Maybe tomorrow will be different, who knows?

=

Stephanie was trying to channel all her thoughts about Taeyeon and Kyuhyun aside as she retouched on the manicure that she destroyed while biting her nails earlier on.

As she laid down the final of color on her thumb nail, the phone rang and oh, look, there goes the nail polish.

Letting loose a barrage of curse words, she picked up the phone and swore that she would kill whoever was on the phone.

“Hello? Wait, before you tell me who you are, I just want to let you know that you’ve ruined my manually-done manicure and if I know you in real life… I will find you, and I will kill you.”

She heard a very familiar scoff over the line but couldn’t pinpoint who it was. Then a snort came through and she immediately heard her. “Hyoyeon?”

“Yes, it’s me. And you should just give up on that manicure. You at that.”

“Hey!”

“You always go to a manicurist, anyway!”

“Alright, fine. What’s the call for?”

“There’s a party tomorrow at Jongwoon and Yuri’s. They invited Hyukjae and I, and told us to invite the others. So I’ll be inviting the girls.”

“Like… Me? And… And Taeyeon?”

“And Jessica, actually.”

“I… I can ask Jessica for you but… I’m not sure if I can make it.”

Hyoyeon did her scoff-and-snort routine again. “What, you’re going to stay in on a Sunday night and study for midterms?”

Stephanie frowned. “What do you mean by that? And yes, I… I actually would, this time round. Change is good.”

“I’m betting you my head that you’re not going to get anything done.”

“Hey!” Stephanie protested. “I will finish up my long overdue science project by Monday, and I will show you that I am capable of studying!”

Hyoyeon repeated the scoff-and-snort routine. “Alright, see you on Sunday.”

=

Hyukjae stopped by Donghae’s on his way home, just to drop an invite and to steal some of Donghae’s snacks.

But as he arrived, he saw Jessica and an unknown girl leaving his house. He grinned mischievously and pressed the doorbell, waiting for an unsuspecting Donghae to come to the door.

“Jess—Hyukjae?” His disappointment couldn’t be more evident than that. Hyukjae chuckled.

“So, two girls in your house, eh? What’s going on in there?”

Donghae shoved Hyukjae away. “If you’ve come to visit me just to give me several innuendos, then no, thank you. Bye-bye.”

Hyukjae shook his head. “Actually, I also came by to drop an invite for tomorrow’s party held by Jongwoon and Yuri. And steal some of your snacks.”

“Party? What party?”

“There’s a party tomorrow. Jongwoon and Yuri are holding it. Apparently they call it a housewarming party or something.”

“They live together?!” Donghae’s eyes glowed with curiosity and amazement and Hyukjae suddenly realized that yes, they did. “That’s so cool,” Donghae gushed.

Hyukjae nodded, suddenly impressed. “Guess Jongwoon was the only person here Yuri’s family trusted her with.”

“I want to do that in the future, too,” Donghae gushed again.

“Uh, yeah, not to be mean but—You need a girl to do that.”

Donghae frowned. “Shut up.”

“So are you coming?”

“Well, I, uh… It depends. I—I might want to stay in and…”

Hyukjae rolled his eyes and flicked him in the forehead. “Hyo said she’d ask Stephanie to ask Jessica along.”

Donghae’s eyes lit up. “Alright, I’m in.”

=

Hyoyeon called on Taeyeon next. Taeyeon was packing up after her tuition with Kyuhyun, and her ringtone disrupted the silence in the library a little too badly. She got glares shot at her by the librarian, Kyuhyun, and the neighboring students. She scurried off outside the library and picked up the call.

“Hello?”

“Tae, this is Hyo. There’s a party tomorrow at Jongwoon and Yuri’s, and they got me and Hyukjae to invite others along. You in?”

Taeyeon turned when she heard footsteps, and saw Kyuhyun walking up to join her. “I, uh, I’m not sure… Is Fany going?”

“Why? Well, she said she’d study, but I’m betting my head that she’ll be there.”

Taeyeon sighed and scratched her head, almost scratching her scalp off. Finally, when Kyuhyun tapped her on the head, she stopped, and reached a decision. “Alright, I’ll go.”

“Oh, and, uh, if Kyuhyun’s with you… I doubt he’d go, so don’t bother asking.”

Taeyeon looked up at Kyuhyun and then back to the ground. “Got it. Bye.”

When her call ended, Kyuhyun swooped in next to get her attention. “Who was that?”

“Hyoyeon. She said there’s a party tomorrow.”

Kyuhyun folded his arms. “From the looks of it, I bet weird tortoise boy is hosting it with his chick.”

“He has a chick?”

“…never mind. Anyway, I won’t be going, so you have fun there. And remember our appointment next Monday.”

=

When Jessica went into the bathroom for her shower, Krystal snuck out of her room for the perfect chance to plant her photograph. She heard a shrill ringtone coming from Jessica’s room.

“What’s the point of having such a loud ringtone if you can’t hear it anyway?”

Krystal stalked into her room and took her phone into her hands, noticing that the caller ID read ‘Fany’. Ah, so it was Jessica’s longtime friend, Stephanie. It had been ages since Krystal last saw her. She kind of missed her, too.

Deciding that Jessica wouldn’t be able to take this call, and that Jessica wouldn’t mind if she had taken the call, Krystal picked up. “Hey.”

“Jess—Wait. You sound familiar… You’re Jessica’s…”

“Daughter,” Krystal announced, recalling when she had done the same to Donghae. After hearing Stephanie’s gasp of shock over the line, Krystal facepalmed and sighed. “I’m Krystal. Her sister. Remember me?”

“Oh! You’re back in Seoul? Weren’t you in LA?”

“Well, yeah, I’m back in Seoul. I was in LA. But I’m back in Seoul.”

“We really need to meet up soon! I haven’t seen you in ages, I can’t wait to see how hot you’ve gotten.”

Krystal cringed and gave an awkward chuckle.

“Alright, anyway, case in point: there’s a party tomorrow held by my friends, so can you help—Wait, why are you taking this call?”

“She’s in the shower. If you want to wait for another three hours, go ahead.”

“Alright, then you take this message to her, okay? There’s a party tomorrow held by my friends and I guess I’ll be going, so do let her know that she has to come!”

Krystal pursed her lips, deep in thought. “Just curious; is Donghae going?”

“You know Donghae? Oh, wait, silly me—you guys are neighbors. Yeah, I suppose he is. Why would he say no?”

She smiled. “Alrighty, then. Bye.”

She put Jessica’s phone down, then set the photograph in her pocket carefully beside the phone.

“I’m really shaping up to be a good Cupid.”

=

“Did you answer my call?!”

“Well, if I wasn’t the one who did, then you ought to be very, very scared.” Krystal walked out of the kitchen downing another bottle of milk.

Jessica was standing by the foot of the staircase, holding her phone out tightly with one hand. Krystal saw the photograph she held gently in her other hand, though, and suppressed a smile.

“There’s something called ‘permission’ in this world, darling, and I’m afraid you have to actually ask for it.”

“Fany was on the line. Do you really want her to get pissed when you call her back three hours later?”

“I do not use three hours on showering—“ Quick check at the clock, and she trailed off. “Fine. But I’m not thanking you for this.” She stormed off upstairs, and as she left Krystal’s line of vision, she slowly lifted the photograph up for her own admiration.

Krystal smirked and took her milk along to her couch. “But you should thank me for that, though.”