Jung Yonghwa hit the end button of his mobile phone and let himself fall back down on his bed. He stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. He didn't know what to think, he didn't know how he felt at the moment. She's back in Korea. Finally, after ten years or so, she had come home. It was what Lee Jonghyun, his band mate and more importantly his friend had told him over the phone a while ago.

“Guess who's back from the US of A?” Jonghyun had immediately said when Yonghwa had answered his call, not even bothering to say “hello.”

Yonghwa, having just woken up had still been semi-conscious, gathering his thoughts and Jonghyun, receiving no reply from the other end of line, had blurted out, “It's my long lost sister-in-law! Surprise!”

“Wait, what? What are you talking about, Jonghyun-ah? What sister-in-law?” he asked, finally regaining consciousness.

“My sister-in-law, Seohyun,” Jonghyun stated smugly. “We fetched her from the airport yesterday afternoon.”

His heart skipped a beat. He didn’t answer right away. Right. Seohyun is already Jonghyun's sister-in-law since he had married her elder sister Yoona four years ago.

“Hey, are you all right?” Jonghyun asked. “You're shocked, aren't you?”

The news wasn't really unexpected. He knew she'd be coming back sometime soon but still, shock is an understatement.

“You woke me up just to tell me that?” he said after a few seconds of silence, trying to sound annoyed when in truth he was not. He was anxious, excited and…he couldn’t explain how he felt. It wouldn't be long until they would see each other again and he doesn't know what to do when that time comes.

“Sure, you’re not interested with anything concerning her anymore. Sorry, man, I forgot,” Jonghyun teased, for he knew the truth.

There was silence at Yonghwa’s end of the line.

“Oh, she came home to get married, by the way,” Jonghyun added. “But you’re not interested in hearing that, right? Sorry, I forgot again. Yah, I gotta go. See you later.”

The line went dead.

Yonghwa listened for a moment to the dial tone, as if he could hear answers to his questions there.

Seohyun is getting married? But to whom? He hit the end call button of his phone and let himself fall back down on his bed. His head began to ache. He got out of the bed, went to the bathroom and stood before the sink, looking at his pale face and bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Was the call real? Or did he just have a nightmare? He the faucet and splashed cold water on his face. Seohyun is getting married. He stared into the mirror again. His face turned grim. As if he would allow it. He went out of the bathroom and punched some numbers on the phone and held the phone against his ear, listening to the ringing at the other end of the line.

“Yah! You told that friend of yours that Seohyun has arrived, didn’t you?” Yoona said, poking Jonghyun with the ladle she was holding.

Jonghyun tried to hide the phone he was holding but it was too late. He grinned sheepishly at his wife. “Don’t you think he has the right to know?”

“Anything about Seohyun is none of his business!” Yoona scoffed, rubbing her lower back.

“Take it easy, yeobo,” Jonghyun rubbed Yoona’s huge tummy. She was seven months pregnant with their second child. “It’s not as if I’m matchmaking sister-in-law to Yonghwa.”

Yoona swatted his arm with the ladle. “But you’re planning to! I know you too well, Lee Jonghyun! I know how that mind of yours works!”

He stepped around his wife and hugged her from behind. “Babe, believe me. Yonghwa is still in love with Seohyun. I know it. Even if he doesn’t say it, I just know that he never got over her. It’s such a waste of feelings if he won’t be able to express it.”

Yoona stepped out of her husband’s embrace. “He already wasted everything years ago, when he left her hanging,” she turned her flashing eyes to Jonghyun. “Stop meddling with my sister’s affairs if you don’t want to sleep outside of our room,” she threatened.

Jonghyun scratched his head and mumbled an “okay.”

Over the years, Yoona’s personal feelings toward his friend and band mate Yonghwa hadn’t really come between them although sometimes, it becomes the root of a few arguments. Jonghyun could understand where his wife is coming from. Yonghwa had hurt her sister whom she loves so much. On the other hand, Jonghyun knew why Yonghwa had to do what he did to Seohyun, and as much as he disliked his friend’s method, he could see Yonghwa’s point. Well, a bit. But really, he pitied and admired Yonghwa for his strength in enduring such pain. Were it to happen to him and Yoona, he would have gone crazy. He wouldn’t have known what to do.

Many times, whenever Yoona berates Yonghwa, Jonghyun really wanted to tell her everything he knew, but he was afraid she would tell Seohyun. After all, it wasn’t his secret to tell. If he is to be asked though, he really thinks it’s better for Seohyun to know the truth. Yonghwa just seemed to have other plans.

Jonghyun’s thoughts were brought back to the present when he smelled something burning and he heard Yoona scream.

He hurriedly ran to the kitchen.

“Aaah! The kimchi jjigae I’m making! It’s burned!” Yoona shrieked.

Jonghyun quickly turned off the stove.

Yoona began to punch his shoulder. “This is your entire fault!”

“Me? Why me?” he asked.

“If you didn’t call Yonghwa and told him about Seohyun, I wouldn’t have gotten mad! And if I didn’t get mad I wouldn’t have forgotten the food I was cooking,” Yoona wailed.

Jonghyun sighed at his wife’s logic. “Fine, it’s my fault. Calm down, now, okay?” he began to rub Yoona’s back.

Yoona kept on punching his shoulder and now his chest. “I told you not to bring anything about Yonghwa and my sister up because it upsets me,” she continued, sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” he embraced Yoona and started shushing her. He understands it now, with his wife in her second pregnancy; pregnant women can really be emotional because of the hormones.

“Unnie? What happened here?” Seohyun appeared on the entrance to the kitchen, carrying her two-year old niece Hyun Jae, Jonghyun’s and Yoona’s firstborn. Her pretty face suddenly began to be filled with concern when she saw her elder sister crying.

“Nothing, Hyun,” Jonghyun answered. “We just had a little misunderstanding but we’re okay now,” he kissed the top of Yoona’s head. “Aren’t we, yeobo?”

Yoona sniffed and frantically wiped her tears. “Yes, Hyunnie. We’re okay. Now, why don’t you go and play with Hyun Jae?”

Seohyun smiled, happy to see the couple so in love with each other. “Okay,” she turned to go but suddenly Hyun Jae squirmed in her arms and screamed, “Appaaa!” reaching out to Jonghyun.

Yoona took off her apron and handed it to Jonghyun. She then took the twisting toddler from Seohyun. “Appa will play with you later,” she told her daughter. “Right now, he has to fix the food he burned,” Yoona turned to Jonghyun and knowing Seohyun couldn’t see her face, she glared at her husband, as if saying “You better do it, or else…”

“Yes, Yoona, yeobo-yah, I’ll do as you say,” he said, then muttering under his breath, he added, “If only I didn’t love you so much…”

“Umma…”

Seohyun watched as Hyun Jae toddled toward Yoona, a DVD in her small hand. The little girl handed the DVD to her mother.

“Hyun Jae watch!”

Yoona rolled her eyes. It was a DVD of CNBlue’s concert in Japan.

Despite how her heart began to feel like something was pricking it upon seeing Yonghwa’s picture, Seohyun laughed at her niece. “I can see she very much looks up to Jonghyun oppa,” she reached out and ruffled the toddler’s hair. “Baby, is appa your idol, huh?”

Yoona’s brows furrowed. “If only that’s the case…” she said as she waddled to the player and popped the disc into it.

“What does that mean?” Seohyun asked as her sister sat on the couch beside her and hit the play button on the remote control.  

“You’ll see.”

Seohyun averted her eyes from the television screen as the show started and stared at her niece instead. Hyun Jae sat on the floor, her back to them, watching the show silently like an adult. She giggled when Jonghyun’s face was focused. “Appa!” she pointed at the screen with her tiny forefinger. Just then, Hyun Jae screamed, stood up and kissed the screen as Yonghwa’s face came into view.

“Yooong!” Yoona’s daughter squealed. She looked back to Seohyun and pointed on the screen. “Hyun Jae boyfriend.”

“Goodness, what?!” Seohyun exclaimed, suddenly standing up. She didn’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed. “She has a crush on…on him?”

Twenty year-old Krystal Jung awoke to a beautiful morning. She stretched and smiled. Today is her first day as an intern for the famous fashion designer Lee Yoona. She went out of her bed and ran to the bathroom. She must hurry. She should not be late. She wanted to prove to everyone that she is worth this job, that she has what it takes, and that she didn’t get in just because Lee Yoona and her elder sister Jessica are friends since their high school days.

She sang “Hello” by SHINee as she was under the shower, as she got dressed, and as she carefully applied light make up to her smooth face.

There was a knock on her bedroom door. “Yah, are you up?” Jessica’s voice sounded from the other side.

Yonghwa looked up as the door to the recording studio opened and Jonghyun walked in.

“Yah!” Jonghyun started, throwing a newspaper on Yonghwa’s lap. “What’s that all about?”

Yonghwa held the paper and stared at it. It was already opened on the entertainment section and there, a title screamed in bold letters: CNBLUE LEADER TO GET MARRIED. A picture of him was posted beside it. Yonghwa started reading the article. “Jung Yonghwa of CNBlue has announced in his radio interview with Kim Heechul yesterday that he is getting married soon. The identity of his fiancée is yet to be known as he left her unnamed.”

“Is this some kind of publicity or what?” Jonghyun asked. He very much knew they don’t need such publicity, popular as they are.

Yonghwa shrugged then he looked up to Jonghyun. “I’m running out of time. Where is she, Jonghyun-ah? I’ll ask her to marry me once I see her. She just might change her mind. Who is this goddamned man she’s marrying, anyway?”

Jonghyun laughed. “I knew it! Yonghwa, I was just kidding!”

“What!?” Yonghwa stood up, picked up his guitar and aimed it at Jonghyun.

“Hey, easy,” Jonghyun held up his hands, palms facing front as if to shield himself from Yonghwa’s attack.

Yonghwa put the guitar back down and sat back on the chair. “I have to win her back.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you,” his friend said, patting his shoulder.

“Does she still hate me?” he asked.

Jonghyun shrugged. “We’ll soon find out. I think you should do it slowly. Send her gifts first before you see or meet her. Let’s see how she reacts.”

“I think you’re right,” Yonghwa sighed. For years he hadn’t really forgotten Seohyun. He squeezed his eyes shut. He can’t even make himself think of the events that led to his heartbreak…and hers, too, he guessed. When she left, he thought he would soon forget how he felt. But for him the saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” has its truth. He can never get her out of his mind. Finally, when he can’t take it any longer, he had asked for Jonghyun’s help to get Yoona to tell him Seohyun’s address in the US, or her contact number, or even just her email address. He even asked Yoona himself. But Seohyun’s sisters, and even her best friend, Sue-ji wouldn’t give him any information about Seohyun.

“I won’t ever allow you to play with her feelings and hurt her again!” Sue-ji had screamed at him.

Seohyun sat on a chair, her elbows propped on the dining table, looking at the bouquet of red roses she had put on the table before her.

“No matter how hard you stare at it, it won’t disappear,” her mother just entered the dining room. She was the one who accepted the flowers from the delivery man.

“What’s with you? You receive flowers and all sorts of gifts from your fans and suitors since you got here. What’s special about this bouquet? You seemed to fall into a deep thought when you received this,” the elder woman reached out and took the bouquet, examining it. “Where is this from? No card? I thought I saw one when I accepted this from the delivery boy.”

Seohyun sighed. “You must have imagined it,” the truth was that she had the card tucked in the pocket of her shorts.

Her mother shrugged and opened the refrigerator. “Is Yoona and Jonghyun visiting today? I’m going to make lunch now.”

“Yoona unnie did say they will visit today.”

“How about your Yuri unnie? Will she join us for lunch today?”

“I don’t know,” Seohyun watched as her mother took out a variety of vegetables from the refrigerator and brought it to the sink. “She’s with Ah-In oppa just this morning,” she said, referring to Yuri’s fiancé.

Her mother began humming and didn’t say anything anymore. Seohyun stood up and went to the sink to help prepare lunch, all the while thinking of the roses she just received.

They were from Yonghwa. His card had simply said, “Welcome back.” Maybe he was just being friendly. But why red roses? Maybe he doesn’t know that colors have meaning. She bit her lower lip. What is he trying to tell her? That he wants her now? Now that she is beautiful and famous? Now that he had already lost his precious Jiyeon? She had heard from Sue-ji six years after she went to America that Jiyeon had married a politician’s son. It served him right. He played with her feelings along with the other girls, and Jiyeon had toyed with his feelings too. In a way, she had gotten back at him. But the truth was that she was never happy that Jiyeon had hurt him. She hated her all the more for it.

Her life in New Haven was all right. At first she always cried herself to sleep, thinking of home and how her life would be different if Yonghwa didn’t hurt her so much. It was lonely there, and almost everything is not the same. But she had to get away.   

Months passed and just as she thought she could no longer take the sadness, she began to realize things became easier. Gradually, she had grown accustomed to the Western lifestyle. She gained friends and somehow, she had healed, though not totally, for painful memories had left stains in her heart.

A year before her time as a foreign exchange student in Yale ended, she decided to continue studying there and not come back to Korea. She had made good with her vow. She didn’t go home, not even to attend Yoona’s wedding to Jonghyun.

Seohyun had planned to take Medicine but during her second year in college, a talent scout spotted her and offered her a part time modeling job. Why not? She had thought back then. It’s not actually her dream but the pay would help her make ends meet. But she became a favorite and she grew popular, until the time came when she did full time modeling. She had her diploma in BS Biology, but she didn’t anymore pursue her original plan of becoming a doctor.

Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her shorts and she wiped her wet hands on a towel and fished the phone out. She stared at the screen. It was Kyuhyun. They’re friends until now. He was there for her when Yonghwa had broken her heart, and when she left Korea, their communication continued. On her last year as a foreign exchange student, Kyuhyun suddenly told her he was also going to Yale for his college degree. He also took up Medicine and he was now a physician, specializing on cardiology.

Seohyun held the phone against her ear. “Hello? Yes, oppa?”

“Where are you?” Kyuhyun asked.

“I’m at home.”

“May I see you? We haven’t seen each other since you arrived.”

Seohyun knew Kyuhyun’s feelings for her. It went beyond friendship. He had made it known and he never failed showing it to her. She admired him a lot. But she had always wondered why she never felt anything more than a platonic kind of love considering the two of them had always been together in the US.

“Now?” she asked.

“If it’s okay with you. Let’s have lunch at Baedongbaji Restaurant.”

“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you come here and have lunch with us?”

“Oh, I…” he hesitated. “Is it okay with your family?”

“Of course it is! They like you, you know,” she laughed.

“Really? I’m coming there, then. See you,” he said, sounding enthusiastic.

“Bye.”

“Bye,” he waited for her to hang up first.

“It’s almost lunch time, guys,” Jonghyun looked at his wristwatch. CNBlue had been rehearsing since morning for their performance in SBS Inkigayo which is to be held that evening.

“Let’s just have takeout,” Yonghwa suggested.

“I can’t join you for lunch. I promised Yoona I’ll go with her and Hyun Jae to her parents’ house,” Jonghyun told the guys.

“Hyung, why don’t we go with you?” Jungshin asked, glancing at Yonghwa and grinning.

“That’s a good idea, Jungshin-ah,” Minhyuk agreed. “We’ll just bring food,” he turned to Yonghwa. “What do you say, hyung?”

Yonghwa thought for a moment. “I don’t know, you guys. Will Seohyun be there?”

Jonghyun nodded as Jungshin and Minhyuk exchanged knowing glances.

“Come on, hyung. Geez, it’s been years and you’ve both matured. I’m sure she’s not mad at you anymore. She might already have forgotten it,” Jungshin said.

“I’m gonna leave if she gets mad when she sees me,” Yonghwa told them.