Yongsun came home one day to find something unfamiliar tucked into a corner of the living room.

Byulyi, who was walking past Yongsun in the hallway, took one look at Yongsun’s face and said, “Ask Hyejin” before scurrying away into her shared bedroom with Wheein.

As if on cue, Hyejin appeared, humming something under her breath. She stopped when she noticed Yongsun and her face broke into a smile, causing her eyes to disappear, not noticing the frown on Yongsun’s face.

“Unnie, you’re back!”

Usually, the sight of Hyejin smiling like this was enough to appease her, but today Yongsun was too pre-occupied with the thing standing in their living room.

“What is that?” Yongsun asked, pointing at the purple box that she vaguely recognized from her childhood.

“It’s an arcade game machine,” Hyejin’s eyes lit up with child-like excitement, “it was just sitting there in the antique shop and no one was buying it even though it works just fine and-”

“So you bought it…and brought it back here.”

“Yes…” Hyejin noticed the edge in Yongsun’s voice and warily reached out to touch Yongsun’s arm, “…are you angry with me, unnie?”

Yongsun was about to snap at Hyejin because of course she was angry – seeing an arcade game machine, even a mini one, in their living room without so much as a warning beforehand would do that to someone – but confronted with Hyejin’s pleading eyes, Yongsun swallowed down her biting words.

“I am a bit upset,” Yongsun wrapped her arms around Hyejin and sighed into Hyejin’s hair, “but only because you didn’t tell me about it first.”

“I bought the machine with my own money,” Hyejin stubbornly pointed out even as her arms tightened around Yongsun’s waist and her face buried in Yongsun’s neck, “I don’t need to ask for your permission, unnie…”

“But this house is shared between the four of us. You need to consider what we-”

“Please,” Hyejin’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter, “Byulyi-unnie and Wheein are both as excited as I am about having the machine in this house.”

Yongsun groaned. “I guess it’s three against one as usual...”

Hyejin stepped out of Yongsun’s arms and guided a pouting Yongsun towards the game machine. “Try it once and see if you don’t find it fun too.”

Yongsun rolled her eyes. “I’m not a kid anymore,” she scoffed as she sat on the small stool in front of the purple box, hands awkwardly poised over the joysticks, “I doubt it’s still fun.”

A week later, it was Hyejin’s turn to get upset with the game machine.

Despite what Yongsun said about not finding the game fun, Hyejin would always find Yongsun sitting in front of the purple box every day after work – sometimes with Byulyi, sometimes with Wheein. Even Hyejin’s attempts to distract Yongsun – from using Yongsun’s favourite snack to blatantly seducing Yongsun – went unnoticed. It was simply mortifying for Hyejin.

When Yongsun continued to ignore her even on weekends, Hyejin had had enough.

“That game machine is evil,” Hyejin whined, tears in her eyes as she unceremoniously dumped her body on Byulyi and Wheein’s bed, “no wonder no one wanted to buy it.”

Byulyi and Wheein who had been practicing their duet, abruptly stopped the moment Hyejin entered the room. Byulyi quietly told Wheein that she would go and play with Yongsun while Wheein try to find out what was going on with her best friend.

“What are you talking about?” Wheein sighed as she sat next to Hyejin. “How can that machine be evil?”

“It’s taking Yongsun-unnie away from me!”

Wheein rolled her eyes. “Are you telling me you’re jealous of a machine?”

Hyejin chewed on her bottom lip. “Maybe…?”

“Hyejin-ah,” Wheein’s voice softened as she ran a hand through Hyejin’s dark hair, “you know how ridiculous that sounds, right?”

“Yes,” Hyejin sighed, covering her face with her arms, “but it’s a fact that Yongsun-unnie hasn’t been paying much attention to me lately...”

Wheein chuckled. “I’m sure she’ll come ar-”

The door suddenly swung open and Yongsun appeared with a pout on her face.

Hyejin and Wheein looked at each other and then at Yongsun, wondering what had happened between her and Byulyi.

“Byul beat me at the game and I had to give up my spot to her,” Yongsun said.

“Oh my god, no,” Wheein grunted as she jumped off the bed and breezed past Yongsun, “we’re not going to finish practicing like this, Moon Byulyi!”

“I told you that thing is evil!” Hyejin called out and chuckled when she received a middle finger in reply.

“What thing is evil?”

Hyejin noticed that Yongsun was already sitting on the bed, smiling curiously down at her. Hyejin realized that it had been a while since Yongsun had smiled at her like that. She wasn’t ready not to have that smile all to herself again.

“Unnie,” Hyejin growled as she moved to position herself on Yongsun’s lap, straddling her, and held Yongsun’s chubby cheeks in her hands as if they were the most precious things in the world, “tomorrow, I’m sending that machine back to where it came from.”

Yongsun’s eyes widened. “Wh-wha-”

Hyejin silenced Yongsun’s protests with her lips.

Yongsun was predictably sad about the game machine going away, but Hyejin was able to distract her with tteokbokki and chocolates.

“It’s weird,” Yongsun said as she chewed on her tteokbokki, “you’re the one who wanted the game machine and now you don’t want it anymore?”

“I don’t want evil things in this house,” Hyejin replied nonchalantly, wiping the tteokbokki sauce from the corner of Yongsun’s mouth, “that machine is evil and it had to go.”

Yongsun tilted her head, chewing thoughtfully. “Why is it evil though?”

“Because it took your attention away from me.”

Yongsun quickly swallowed the snack before she choked. “Hyejin-ah…” she eyed Hyejin, uncertain whether to laugh or cry, “…you got jealous of a machine?”

Hyejin pouted. “I know it’s silly, okay? But you haven’t kissed me for a week and-”

Yongsun kissed her then, catching Hyejin off guard. Hyejin could taste tteokbokki and chocolate in the kiss, but she didn’t mind because it was Yongsun and tasting Yongsun always made her heady.

“So cute,” Yongsun murmured in between kisses, “my cute, jealous baby Hyegi…”

Hyejin felt her cheeks warmed, but she refused to surrender to Yongsun’s teasing. “Shut up and just kiss me, unnie.”

Yongsun laughed and complied, making sure that she kissed every exposed part of Hyejin to make up for her lack of attention the past week.

Wheein and Byulyi who had just come home, let out a collective groan when they see their housemates making out in the living room.

“Oh my god,” Wheein cried out, eyes tight shut while her hands clumsily covered Byulyi’s face, “go and each other in your own room!”

Hyejin answered with a middle finger, eyes shut tight while her head was thrown back against the sofa, thoroughly enjoying Yongsun’s mouth on her neck and Yongsun’s hands on her body, determined to ignore the other two.

“Let’s go, Wheein-ah,” Byulyi who saw everything through the cracks of Wheein’s fingers, let out an amused chuckle as she took Wheein’s hand and led her out of the house again, “I’ll buy you a drink. Or two.”

“Make that three,” Wheein grunted as she intertwined her fingers with Byulyi’s, “I refuse to be sober when I come back here.”

Byulyi let out a hearty laugh at that.