I gulped seeing the glorious golden maple syrup poured on the double-decker pancakes. My eyes were glued on the pancakes as they were cut.

Oh how good and sweet they must've tasted! If only I can taste it just one bit-

"Youngie? Hwayoung? Lee Hwayoung!" My mom's voice snapped me out of my daydream.

"H-huh?" I blinked and my mom sighed.

"I was talking to you, young lady."

"Sorry, Mom." I lowered my head looking at the bowl of greens and stabbed some before putting it in my mouth.

Sadly, my love for pancake had to come to an end. (Noooo! *Insert dramatic music* Sigh.) Pathetic right? We were forcefully separated as I was forced into a relationship with this salad. Yay healthy life - throw confetti and sprinkles everywhere! NOT.

Am I a goat? I pouted.

As much as I didn't like it, I had to embrace this so-called healthy lifestyle. You couldn't have a fat ballerina or dancer on stage. Well, actually, you could, but imagine dancing with a guy who was required to lift your overweight body. No offense to chubby girls around the world, kay? Because frankly, I envy you. You got to enjoy life and the sweetness it offered - literally and figuratively - while I was stuck with being a goat.

Sometimes, I wished I were Jumie. That girl could just stuff her face with snacks and sweets while she had to stay up late doing her assignments. Not only that, despite being conserved and shy, she was also very smart. I wondered why she didn't just take medical or law or something, rather than design and media. Not that she wasn't good with her major now- heck! She was really good at it. If only she opened up to people more and just be brave in speaking her thoughts for once, she might be more popular than me in the campus.

"You were not listening again, were you?" Mom rolled her eyes.

"I was," I defended. Mom crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow as if challenging me to tell her what she was talking about. "Bring Jongin to our family dinner tomorrow right?"

A satisfied smile crossed Mom's face. "So you were listening." She nodded.

One of the few things I was grateful for in my life was Kim Jongin - or Kai as everyone else in the campus would call him. My boyfriend, love of my life! Gosh! I could talk all day about him. The truth was we were actually forced into this relationship. You know~ arranged marriage. Meh. But I didn't dislike it for one bit because I had already liked him since the start. And I was lucky our parents didn't rush us to tie the knot because I knew that although I loved him, Jongin didn't.

He never said he didn't love me and he never opposed to the arranged marriage thing either. I just knew. Girl's instinct, I guess? And so, I made it my mission to make him fall for me. Though we would end up marrying each other anyway, I didn't want to have a marriage full of fake feelings. I had to make him see what other guys see in me and more.
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After having a quick lunch with Mom, I went back to the university and headed for the cafeteria since it was still lunch period, I want to meet Jumie and I didn't have any more class for the day.

I saw Jumie sitting at one of the tables with her "friend", Lay. It was pretty clear to me that they were more than just friends. The silly girl was just in denial.

"Hey!" I plopped down on a seat beside Jumie.

"Oh! Hi, Hwayoung!" She greeted me with a smile.

"Hi," I turned to Lay in front of me and he greeted me back with a dimpled smile.

Something must seriously be wrong with her head if Jumie wouldn't claim this guy as her boyfriend any time soon. The guy was cute. Not as y shmexy or handsome as Jongin (my biased opinion, by the way), but he was cute.

Jumie introduced both of us to each other. It was actually weird that we never officially met each other despite the fact that I had been friends with Jumie for the freaking TWO years. Turned out Lay found it funny too because he had heard a lot about me from Jumie. I told him I had heard a lot about him too.

As we were conversing, Jumie casually snatched a bread from Lay's tray. The girl had a habit of taking a bite of someone else's food if she was already comfortable with that person. She often did that to me too. Yeah, and by my food I meant the salad. I didn't think she even realized it because who would want to take a bite of veggies, right?

She was just going to bite the bread when Lay stopped her by pulling her wrist. I was of course surprised by his action and the look on his face as he did so. Was he that mad?

"Ya! Are you crazy?!" He raised his voice a bit and slowly took the bread from her hand with a sigh.

"What?" Jumie asked, blinking her rounded eyes.

"It has raisins in it," he explained.

"Oh!" Jumie lowered her head and pouted.

"Here," Lay gave her another bread. "I knew you would take mine, so I bought another. That's a chocolate bread."

"Thanks," she grinned at him, biting the given bread.

I was just looking back and forth between them.

"What's with raisins anyway?" I finally asked, not being able to hold back my curiosity.

"She's allergic to it," Lay answered.

"Really?!" My eyes were widened and I turned to her. "I thought you're only allergic to nuts!"

"She's allergic to cinnamon too," Lay added.

"Whoa! We seriously have different tastebuds!" I chuckled.

"You like 'em?" Lay asked me.

"She LOVES them," Jumie answered in my stead. "So take note, Lay," she grinned at the guy.

Huh? Take note? Why? I wondered to myself.

Seeing how caring Lay was toward Jumie made me envy her again. Though she was currently in denial, if they actually got together in the near future, she wouldn't need to worry over Lay loving her or not. It was clear as day that the guy loved her. I wished Jongin loved me the same way too.

My phone rang and seeing the caller ID, I immediately picked it up.

"Jongin-ah!" I greeted cheerfully.

"You're at the cafeteria right? Look behind you."

I looked back and saw Jongin standing feet away. I immediately beamed and waved at him.

"Hey! Just come here. Let me introduce you to my friends," I told him over the phone.

While Jumie never introduced Lay to me until today, I never officially introduced Kai to her either.

"Let's go home. I'll just grab a lunch on the way. Drive thru maybe," he coldly answer. As always.

"Why? Let's just eat here."

"If you're not coming in 10 seconds I'll leave you," he threatened. "One..,"

"Okay, okay!" I abruptly stood up and he hung up the phone. Jongin was not a guy who liked to tease. He meant every words he said. "Sorry, I gotta go," I apologized to them whom I just noticed were looking Jongin's way too before turning to me.

"Sure," Jumie smiled. Something was different with her smile. "See you tomorrow."

"See ya!" I waved at both and ran up to Jongin.

"Why don't you just eat here?" I whined when I reached him.

"Let's go," he simply said with an uninterested look.

Before he turned his back around, I saw his eyes lingering on something over my shoulder for a second. When he had turned around, I followed his initial gaze and saw Jumie and Lay conversing and laughing.

One more reason why I envy - or probably in this case jealous of - Jumie: no matter how hard I tried to make Jongin fall for me, I had known for a long time that even though he never made a move, he had his eyes on someone else. And that someone else just had to be my own best friend, Jumie.