It struck her, as she was whipping away cream to coat the cake, that what she was doing had a sense of déjà vu.

The past brought a smile onto her face, even though in that time, the cake never made it to the right hands, given away while she was still in tears. She hoped the same fate would not befall this one, to be handed to the same person, but this time, as an intended gift. Not as an exchange. Not as a trinket of commiseration.

She’d taken extra care in baking this cake. It’s the same as before: chocolate, but with a swirl of strawberry on top for flavour and a sincere heart for sweetness. It was Jongin’s favourite flavour, but her heart still shrunk in thoughts of his reaction.

She was gambling, just as how she was gambling with the outcome when she thought to confess to Baekhyun. Only that with Jongin, she knew the stakes.

She knew that he was single, no girl to interfere, to throw her arms around him at the last minute and to plead against Gayoon for his undying love. She also knew that his heart may or may not have been returned, that there was a chance it lingered on Yeonjoo, whom he might have loved for quite a length of his life.

But she would try. The words of love and passion wouldn’t come easy and weren’t what she’d rely on. Instead of storming her way through Jongin’s heart, she’d do it slowly, gradually; she’d give him room to back away and herself to retreat. She would try to save herself from heartbreak and their friendship from damage.

She thought of Jongin’s tenderness to her, figured it must have accounted for something. His words of consolation and his resentment, one so wretched and agonising that he’d withdrew into himself, without smile or laughter, of which she was sure had something to do with Baekhyun –it all had to mean something.

And trying couldn’t help. To lose him knowing that she’d never given herself to the fight might even be more painful than the knowledge that she’d never had his heart.

So the next time he came to the bakery, hale and hearty, cheeks flushed from the wind, she greeted him with possibly the brightest smile she’d ever given anyone.

He was surprised, but it lapped away easily by the gentle tides that took the pools of his eyes. He smiled at her softly, kept it on his throughout the time he unwound his scarf, shrugged off his coat.

“Someone’s in a good mood today. Not too much work?”

She tapped the table, beats staccato, like rain. “Not really. I’m just glad to see you’re okay again.”

“You concern yourself too much about me.” His smile spread into a grin. “I’m flattered.”

She threw an apron at his face. “Just get to work, Kkamjong.”

She’d never used his nickname. At the sound of it, he laughed, brushing gentle fingers against hers, outstretched on the table, as he slipped through the kitchen door.

Jongin was getting so good at baking bread, kneading to almost Kyungsoo’s professional perfection, that she spent a good majority of the evening trying not to stare at his arms. It didn’t help that he’d rolled his shirtsleeves up, toned muscles immodestly bared.

“Sehun fell flat on his face today,” he chortled, sounding more gleeful than concerned. “Straight from a tree.”

Her jaw dropped. “Is he okay?”

Jongin was laughing loudly now. “He was fine. It was a short branch, not far form the ground, thin and weak too. I told him not to do it, but he was hell bent on catching a glimpse of her –the girl he’s crushed on since middle school.”

He shook his head, grinning from ear to ear. “He’s a fool for love.”

“And you aren’t?”

“I’m of the opinion that stalking is best done on the ground, where you don’t run the risk of breaking a limb. Better where excuses are concerned too. At least I won’t have to lie that I was scoping out trees suitable for the placement of a treehouse.”

She laughed so hard she almost choked.

Time spent with Jongin was like fine sand slipping through her fingers –the beginning a promising mound, but when it started falling, it fell too fast. Toiling away in the kitchens never seemed like work with Jongin. Things got done, but in the midst of stories and jokes. Weights were lighter, anything that came out of a whisk and a bowl creamier and sweeter.

The last of the tins and bowls made their way to the drying rack in the light of the falling sun, against shadows slanted and stretching. Their hands were soaked with suds and most of their apron was covered with flour. She watched Jongin dry his fingers with a towel, thinking, wondering how wrongly things could end up going.

 She hauled out the cake from the fridge anyway, hid it safely from view under the counter. He emerged from the changing room dressed in a dark red sweater and jeans, simplistic, though elegant on his lean frame. He was in the midst of running his fingers through his hair, and they parted like frays of gold silk.

She swallowed her anxiety and tried not to make a voice shake. “Hey, Jongin?”

“Yeah?”

“Come here a sec.”

He did so slowly. She studied his eyes and saw more amusement than reluctance, also, a little bit of something else, something she’d never been able to tell for the longest time. He stood patiently in front of her, his gaze softening inquisitively.

She didn’t know if she could keep hold of her nerves for long; she found the box under the counter and it at his chest, avoiding those depthless eyes.

It was a while before he responded. Her hands were shaking by the time he took it.

“And what did I do that was special enough to warrant a gift?” he said, playfully so.

“Just take it.”

“I can’t ask what it’s for?” He bent, searched her face. She stepped back, sure that it was red.

Tantalizing amusement lighted those irises.

“I’m just in the mood for giving,” she lied.

 “Can I open it here?”

“What? Wait, don’t!” She grabbed his wrists before he could undo the bow. He stopped, tilted his head at her, smile going crooked. “Do it at home,” she begged.

She didn’t think she had that much gut left. The thought of seeing Jongin opening the box to a cake that was much too beautiful to have been a casual gift was making her feel faint.

“It’s just cake,” she told him, hoping it would be enough to sate his curiosity.

“Cake,” he repeated. “The first time I received cake from you, you were crying in the middle of a park for a love you can’t have.” His voice dropped low, a smooth caress. “I didn’t bring flowers this time, Yoon.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “This isn’t an exchange. It’s for you.”

His eyes didn’t leave her face. Twin oceans leagues deep, an impossible escape. “Why?”

It wasn’t a question preceding rejection. He really wanted to know.

“Because you’re a special person.” She attempted a half smile. “And because –if possible –if you can find it in your heart to make a little room –I’d like a date with you.”

Jongin blinked at her, startled to the core. He was gaping, speechless, but his stupefaction was quick to break into a smile, face washed aglow. He brushed a hand against his mouth, fingers a loose cage that teased glimpses of the smile he tried to hide underneath.

“You can say no.” She fixed her eyes resolutely on the wall. “I promise, there’ll be no hard feelings.”

“What if I say yes? What’ll you do then?”

Her eyes whipped to him, saw his lithe figure now closer to her than before.

“It’s something I’ve been dying to ask you for ages,” he continued softly. “Look.” He fumbled with his pockets, fishing, frowning, before clumsily pulling out a battered wallet and from within, two cut rectangles stamped across with words. “The pathetic fool I am, I even bought movie tickets.”

Now it was her jaw that dropped. “What…?”

“It worked as something of a deadline,” he said, scuffing his sneakers against the floor. “I knew I was going to chicken out, so I bought tickets so I could remind myself I have to ask you before the day of the showing.”

It all sounded ridiculously sweet.

He broke into a wide grin. “How does Saturday sound?”

“Absolutely perfect,” she said, still a little dazed.

He sobered, growing solemn. “But you have to promise something though.”

“I buy popcorn?”

He pulled her to his chest, laughter a low rumble, and bent to whisper, “That it’ll just be you and me.”

“I regret saying that.”

Chanyeol’s reply wasn’t the least bit sympathetic. “Then you shouldn’t have said it.”

“Then what was I supposed to say?” Baekhyun said heatedly, pathetic even to his ears. “‘No, you’re more than a friend, but no matter how much you mean to me, I can’t do anything to prove it’?”

“That’s the general gist of the problem, so yes.”

Baekhyun scowled at him viciously.

“Look, Baek.” The coffee shop was quiet, so Chanyeol had to lean, rest his arms over the tabletop so he wouldn’t risk his words falling to ears elsewhere. “You’re dating Yeonjoo, but you’re falling for Gayoon. You can’t have them both, but at least you know you’ve been honest with her.”

Baekhyun gritted his teeth and stared into his coffee cup. His world now is its depthless, endless black, too many beyond sight and reach.

“Unless, of course, you want to try dating them both.”

Baekhyun gave him a withering look. “Gayoon doesn’t deserve that.”

“You’re confused and torn,” Chanyeol said as he sloshed the latte in his cup. Baekhyun would have chosen another person for advice (Chanyeol’s reputation with females was never the most favourable), but in terms of perceiving he was objective. “Ask yourself what you actually want.”

“Once, Yeonjoo was my entire world. Now, Gayoon keeps sneaking into my head. When I fought with Yeonjoo once, in the midst of the screams, I saw her in between the cracks, like a view behind a shattered window.”

Chanyeol whistled a low note. “Did it get that bad between you and Yeonjoo?”

Baekhyun scowled, frustrated. “It was once. I don’t know how we got to it but at some point I just started raising my voice. She responded in kind.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I came to you for advice. Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?”

“I can only give you opinions. I can’t make your decisions and feed words into your mouth for you to say.”

Baekhyun threw a napkin at him half-heartedly. “You’re a useless relationship counsellor.”

Chanyeol grinned and caught it as it fell down his shirt. “Yeah? You’re pretty much useless at relationships in general.”

“You should tell her, Kyungsoo!”

Seungsoo’s voice, even through layers of static, was piercing to Kyungsoo’s ears, even more so in the silence, in the oppressive gloom of the falling sun.

“I will,” he insisted, piling his clothes onto the bed to arrange into his suitcase. “Just… not now.”

“Yes, now. It should be done now.” He heard soft music in the background from the stereo in his brother’s car, but the nature of this argument far trumped its ability to soothe. “It’s poor gratitude to a girl who wanted to be your best friend when the rest ostracized you.”

“That was in middle school,” Kyungsoo argued, wounded. “I’m not as pathetic as you think. People talk to me now.”

“A good thing, too. I think my ears would have bled if they’d been subjected to your woes for the past three years.” Kyungsoo knew his brother well enough to tell that he was grinning. But then he grew sober, returned to the topic at hand. “It’s not fair if you don’t tell her.”

“My reason for not saying anything now is the same reason why I don’t want either you, mom or dad seeing me off at the airport.” He zipped up his bag decisively, but his voice dropped, a secret uttered. “It eases the pain for me.”

“Yes, but it won’t ease anything for her.”

“I can’t take it if she cries, Hyung,” Kyungsoo yelled, harrowed and bitter.

“Better tears of sadness than tears of anger. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Remember that.”

Kyungsoo bit his lip, refusing to let any sound escape his lips.

“Tell her, Kyungsoo,” his brother said, note of finality ringing clear.

The dial tone dragged on and Kyungsoo pulled his cell phone off his ear to frown at the picture of his brother’s cheery smile. He threw it over his bed; the frown stayed over his lips all the while he looked for more things to throw into his suitcase.