Noona was busy in the kitchen with Dorine, preparing for their picnic. Dorine allowed her to use the oven, and she baked some cupcakes to take with them to the picnic. Lately, she was into baking. When it was done, she made Dorine taste the first one.

"That's good, wow," Dorine said. "I shouldn't eat more of that."

They put everything in the basket and then prepared to leave. While waiting for them, the Tuan brothers were in the living room, watching TV. Noona fed the remaining cupcake to Mark and sat beside him, starting to check out her phone.

"Solma," Mark heard Noona say. She was scrolling down on her phone, checking her IG account. "Taylor Swift is having a concert in the Philippines." She showed him the photo. "When I'm in America, she goes to the Philippines. Pffft."

"You want a concert?" Mark asked. "Naega neoege concert-uel haejulkke. I'll give you one."

"Twaesseo. Forget it." She made a face at him and went on looking at her phone. The doorbell rang and Joey stood up to open the door. He came back with a girl Noona recognized on Twitter. She immediately got up from the floor and stood up, greeting her. Mark stayed seated, still watching the tv, not noticing the newcomer.

"You're here!" the girl squealed and ran to give Mark a big hug and pecked him on the cheeks.

"Jessica?!"

"Mom! Jessica's here!" Joey called to the other end of the house.

"God, I missed you!" Jessica said, still hugging Mark.

Jessica Koh. Mark's friend from highschool. There had been rumors about the two of them, that they were dating or that they used to date, but nothing was clear. Noona personally thought she was cute, and she had always been a er for cute girls. She never asked Mark about her, though. The subject never came up, and Mark didn't volunteer to tell. But seeing her in the flesh, and how close she was to Mark, Noona was suddenly curious. And yeah, a tad jealous. Just a tiny bit. Maybe because she knew a lot about Mark that Noona didn't.

"This is Grace," Mark said, introducing her. "She's my girlfriend."

"It's about time!" Jessica said and went to shake Noona's hand. "It's nice to finally meet you. Mark's talked so much about you, I'm already dying to see you in person."

Funny, he never mentioned you, she almost said. "Yeah, nice to meet you, too! ^___^ I hope he didn't say anything weird about me."

"Don't worry, if there's anything weird to tell, it's about Mark."

"You came!" Dorine came to the living room and hugged Jessica. "You never come to visit nowadays! I missed you. I though you're going to New York?"

"I'm going tomorrow," Jessica said, arms still around the older woman. "Mark's only here for a few days so I thought I should come by and visit."

"Tomorrow? That's so soon! You won't see Tammy and the kids, then."

"I'll just visit them when I get back," Jessica answered.

"You timed it pretty well. You're coming with us to the picnic."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Yeah, he used to be like that," Jessica was saying, and all of them were laughing.

"Stop it!" Mark begged.

Of course, they had to embarrass Mark in front of Noona. They had to tell all the things he wanted to forget when he was younger. His mother already planned to show Noona their old home videos and photo albums when they got back home.

"Was that Christmas?" Joey asked.

"No it was Easter," Jessica said, her eyes watery from laughing too much. "Remember? He went to that house and when he saw that..." she went into another fits of laughter, and she didn't even finish her sentence.

"Stop!"

"Why? You don't want me to know about your deepest secrets?" Noona was in on bullying Mark.

"There's more where that came from," Jessica told her, wiping the tears from her eyes. "By the way, these cupcakes are very good. If you'd run for prom queen, I'd vote for you, just because of these."

"Have another one and shut up." Mark said, picking one up and shoving it on Jessica's face.

"Oh! I won't say no to good food!"

The family bonded more and Noona got to know them a lot. Jessica kept telling her stories that made her know more about Mark when he was living here. It was a fun day, but somehow she felt like she was intruding something. Seeing Mark laugh with them, she thought he should spend the time with his family, and not worry about her. He rarely comes home whereas he could spend a lot of time back in Korea with her.

"Wanna go for a walk?" Jessica whisperred to her, seeing she'd gone quiet. "I know a good coffee place. Mark said you loved coffee."

"Sure, let's go."

The girls stood up and excused themselves. They thought they should leave them to their own family time.

"So, Grace," Jessica started when they were walking. "How do you find the family so far?"

"They're nice. I could tell he grew up in a loving family."

"You should meet Grace, his sister. She's hilarious. And Tammy's kids? You'll love them so much. I wish I could stay longer."

"Forget about New York and stay, then," she said. "It's nice to have a girl around sometimes."

"Wish I could. How does it feel to live alone? I'm going to get my own place soon, and I'm a bit scared."

"It gets lonely." (But