I was settled in the kitchen eating dinner while I watched Hyejung meticulously get ready for her classes. She occasionally darted in the living room to pick up a supply she left behind, and then the kitchen for a granola bar that she stuffed in her shoulder bag. Hyejung’s face told me that she was still angry and bothered—that her brief sleep hadn’t done her any good in terms of helping her feel better.

I asked her anyway. “So are you okay?”

“I’m pissed off actually.” Hyejung got on her knees to sort through the closet by the front door to pick out her shoes. “I’ve been trying on Luhan for so long but then out of the blue I find out he has this random girlfriend. Maybe it wasn’t even his girlfriend—just some girl.”

Just some girl. Those words hit something in me.

“Like he didn’t even tell me he had a girlfriend. That would at least make me feel a little better, you know? But I guess...” She stood and shrugged on a jacket. “Whatever. I don’t know who she is, but I hate her.”

Her gaze held with mine. Suddenly I had no appetite anymore. Hyejung was talking about me. This girl she hates—it was me. Hyejung looked at me like a friend, but underneath that I saw the layer of furiousness that was meant for me as well. When I answered her with silence, she misunderstood me.

“I know what you’re thinking. ‘You don’t even know her. How could you hate her?’ But I just do. I feel pathetic.”

“I get why you’re mad,” was all I could say.

Leaving with a goodbye, she shut the door behind her and left me to myself and my thoughts. I stared down at the remaining food in my plate, watching my hand languidly move the rice back and forth with a spoon. The clench I felt in my stomach told me that I had enough to eat. I stood to store the plate in the fridge and tossed my utensils in the sink. Picking up a rag, I began to clean the table and made sure to take my time. My thoughts would keep throbbing in my head and wouldn’t allow me a wink of sleep anyway.

Next I washed the dishes and then changed my bottoms into pajama pants. I wondered what was supposed to happen now as I brushed my teeth in front of the mirror. Was I supposed to keep going like nothing had happened? Hyejung didn’t know I was with Luhan that day. Even if she asked Jinri for a description of the girl, there wasn’t anything about my appearance that significantly stood out that could reveal my identity.

When the doorbell rung, I wondered what Hyejung had left behind by accident for her to drive back. She wasn’t exactly in the right mind when she left anyway. Though when I opened the door, it was Luhan standing at the other side.

“What are you doing here?” I asked almost breathlessly.

Stepping inside, he dramatically slapped a hand on his chest in pain. “Ow, you’re kicking me out already?”

“I’m just asking!”

“What, I couldn’t spontaneously visit you? I just missed you.”

When I turned to shut the door behind him, Luhan already had me in a hug by the time I spun around to face him. I allowed myself to wallow in his familiar warmth, even closing my eyes and returning the gesture. For a moment, I let all the tension in my body dissolve... just for now. I locked away all my fretting and concern behind a door in my head.

“Hyejung left for school, right?” he questioned me with his lips at the top of my head.

I nodded against his chest.

Luhan pulled back to inspect me once. “Were you about to go to sleep? Sorry.”

“No,” I denied it weakly, hoping that he’d forget that I was wearing pajama pants.

He sneered. “Yes you were. C’mon, let’s get to bed.”

By the time it was a quarter after midnight, we were settled underneath my blanket and huddled to share the pillows. The lamp at the desk beside my bed dimly illuminated the room and left a dark eeriness to the corners. The glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the walls appeared to be blinking, as if they were real. Sitting up slightly, I had a book propped in my hand. The silence between us allowed me to read. Luhan turned 90 degrees to place his head near my shoulder. With one arm sloppily laid across my stomach, he peeked at the book I read.

When he frowned, I couldn’t help but laugh while he tried to decipher the mess of foreign letters on the pages. “It’s English.”

“You still understand English?”

“Yes, thanks to this.” I shook the book. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be as fluent anymore. I read this when I can.”

Luhan looked at me with childish eyes, seemingly intrigued with his steady breath blowing at my skin. “Did you have to read Korean books when you lived in America then?”

“Not really. My mom’s boyfriend was Korean and he didn’t speak much English. I talked to him a lot.” My gaze was casted against the ceiling at some memories—memories of home, waiting for my mother to come home when she’d be gone for work during the day, how they’d both show up to every one of my recitals because it was my mother’s boyfriend who got me into playing the flute.

“Do you miss home?” Luhan asked me quietly, as if knowing where my thoughts have lapsed into. There was something in the way he said it that I couldn’t describe. When I turned my head slightly to lock eyes with him, he smiled at me sadly. “It’s almost April.”

I recalled the day before winter even began where I had told him about my mother’s offer. We were walking through the school’s parking lot, I remembered, while I was trying to insist that I couldn’t like him. I told him that my mother had asked if I would want to return to our suburban house in San Francisco after I graduated during April.

It occurred to me that that was why it seemed like Luhan missed me twenty-four hours of the day and seven days a week lately. Why he had made it into my apartment room even after telling him I was going to study. Why he was there at that moment even if we saw each other merely a few hours ago as he told me he missed me at the door. He was always here even if all we could do was nothing.

Because he feared our time together was limited.

I reached to put away the book on top of the nightstand, dog-earing the page where I left off. Turning my attention back to Luhan and shifting my position to face his side, I lowered myself to kiss him. With calm hand on his cheek, I made sure to put reassurance into the kiss—that were was no need for him to feel concerned.

“I’m staying right here. No one’s leaving.”

Luhan’s gaze flickered to the side, embarrassed that he was caught. Chuckling, I squirmed around until I was lying comfortably in a way that allowed him to wrap both of his arms around me protectively.

“Are you… Are you sure?” he stuttered, speaking quietly. “I’m not trying to force you to stay. If you want to go back to your mother, I’d understand. She’s your family, after all. I’m not trying to say that you can’t—”

“No, I want to stay here,” I squeezed my eyes shut, interrupting his rambling. “With you.”

“Jinah...” he sighed my name heavily against my hair.  He patted my back comfortingly, pressing me against him until I could feel his chest heave as he breathed. He left me with a fond kiss on my forehead at hearing my words. Luhan killed the mood in the next minute, saying, “You still have that poster of Jensen Ackles on your wall.”

“Don’t be jealous.”

He scoffed at the accusation. “But hey, want to tell me something?” When Luhan grinned, I knew he was up to trouble. “Remember at the mall when I was working that free-sample gig? You kept coming around to see me again because it was love at first sight at the library, right?”

“No way! I was waiting for Hyejung to come and pick me up so I was walking around.” I languidly slapped his side. “But you kept giving me free samples. There should have been a limit to a person, right? Did you already like me since then?”

“You looked thirsty. I wanted to help.” He rolled his eyes with exaggeration. “But seriously, you’ve always had a lasting impression on me.”

I expected him to deny it playfully, though hearing Luhan say that, I was caught off guard. If there was no bet from the start, Luhan and I could’ve found each other one way or another. If I kept running into him at the places he worked, some force in the universe would have kept repeating that. We could have arrived at this same exact moment (cocooned in blankets and talking through the dim lighting) one way or another. There didn’t have to be a bet.

But then as I recalled Hyejung, I slowly realized what I was doing. Behind her back, I went as far as to hide Luhan in my room. My moment of bliss was crushed bitterly and I involuntarily hugged Luhan tighter even though I knew I shouldn’t. I wasn’t meant to be this attached to him. Because of the bet, it had never meant to lead this way at all. But I loved him and I was selfish. I wanted to tell Luhan about the bet... If he was so angry with me after hearing the truth, then maybe he’d be stirred back to Hyejung.

It would be the right thing, but why was the right thing so painful?

“Hyejung... she’s pretty, right?” I quietly said, not meeting his gaze.

“Hm?”

“And smart too.”

Luhan shifted slightly underneath the sheets, perhaps wondering what I was trying to get at. “But Jinah, she’s not you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to tell him, Don’t say that.

“You feel guilty,” he said gently. It wasn’t a question so I didn’t respond.

Luhan understood why I would feel guilty, but he didn’t know the exact reasons. He believed it was because Hyejung was my best friend and I wouldn’t want to strain our friendship because of my relationship with the boy she liked. But there was so much more than just that.

He spoke again when I kept the silence. “I know what we’re doing... is bad, but I’ll tell her myself if you want. She can’t be that hung up on me. She’ll move on faster if she knew, right?”

But Hyejung wouldn’t move on so easily. She already hated me, although she didn’t know. I wondered briefly if I should tell Luhan that she knew he was keeping a girlfriend somewhere. “It’s not the right time.”

Luhan thankfully left the topic at that with a firm kiss on my forehead. “Sleep.”

I nodded, settling more comfortably beside him. He reached across me to turn the lights off, illuminating the stars.

I woke the next morning to the sound of my name being called. I’ve barely pulled myself out of my dream when the doorknob to my room rattled. For a moment, my heart had stopped. It was definitely Hyejung who had just come back. Seeing her rattle the doorknob without any success, I had fortunately remembered to lock the door the night before.

“Jinah? Are you okay?” I heard her ask. I never locked my door and she probably found it odd that I suddenly did.

“Y-Yeah.” My voice was still groggy.

“Did you want me to pick up breakfast or are the leftovers from last night okay?”

Her kind treatment to me only made me feel worse. “The leftovers are fine, thanks.”

Luhan stirred from beside me at all the noise. Rolling himself to my direction, he let out a loud yawn before almost squishing me underneath his weight. My hands balled into fists, praying that Hyejung didn’t just hear him.

But of course she did. Hyejung laughed at the other side of the door. “Go back to sleep! Sorry I woke you.”

I barely said an audible response before I heard her feet pad away from the door. Turning my attention back to Luhan who had his head at the crook of my neck with his stomach pressing against the side of my hip, I had the urge to scold him for yawing like some caveman. Seeing him sleep away every bit of the exhaustion from yesterday softened me. Instead I lifted a hand to pat his messy hair down with his steady breath near my neck.

“Five more minutes,” I heard him mumble. “It’s too early.” If he was talking in his sleep or not—I didn’t know.

Agreeing, I yanked the blanket closer to us. “Five more.”

Hyejung was tidying up in her room when I tried to stand under her doorframe inc