Each time she got that text, the reaction she made changed a little bit. At first it was nothing but slumping her shoulders and a tiny little sigh a minute later. Then it turned into a whine and a faceplant into whatever soft object was closest. Then an eyeroll and a toss of the phone onto the couch with a muttered curse. Once, she yelled out obscenities and calmed herself down with a bath and booze. Today, she picked up her cell to look at the screen and just sat there looking at it with her face as blank as the whiteboard in the kitchen.

“Hm.”

She was sitting like one of those statues of people they put on random benches in parks, if someone had decided to dress one in Gucci and pearls. Except she was wiggling her foot slightly on the stiletto of one of her Loboutin heels as an indication she was actually a person. With emotions and stuff. And after a minute, she made a few taps on her phone and put it to her ear.

“Yeah. Take me out for bibimbap. He forgot.”

She left the prime rib and the vintage cabernet sitting untouched, didn't even bother blowing out the candles. And she definitely didn't return that infernal text.

“Are you okay?” Chaerin looked worried, with reason, when Dara sat down across from her without a hello, really with no more reaction than the whiteboard face which had not changed since she picked up her phone at the house. The blonde was familiar with what blank silence and calm meant when it came to her friend. And it wasn't apathy, that was for sure.

Her eyes traveled quickly up and down Dara's figure in the seat, and she tried hiding a smile while her cheeks tinged a little. “You look really nice.”

“I know,” she replied with as monotone a voice as Chaerin had ever heard before flipping open a menu at random. “Uselessly nice.”

Dara kept her answers to fewer than three words, like if she said more she'd set off a bomb, until after the arrival and draining of the first bottle of soju, which defused the short-answer trap that scared the hell out of Chaerin, and loosened up Dara's tongue a bit. Well, more than a bit.

“Unnie, you know, this time, this is really over the edge. I know you want to fix things, but... maybe he's just not fixable. I mean, this is how many times now? And today is your –”

“Our anniversary, yes, Chae, he's the one who forgot it, not me,” she snapped and threw back the last drops of her glass. “Happy day! Happy three stinking years with 'oh-so-charming and handsome and oh my god sooo talented and don't they make an adorable couple him and Dara' Kwon Jiyong! Have a fantastic date with that recording studio you can't seem to make yourself leave, honey bun! You know she doesn't know how to cook like I do!”

Chaerin snickered a bit in commiseration... and relief, since Dara was now at the lower threat-level stage of sarcastic ranting. “Yeah, he must be crazy to miss a meal that you cooked. Like I was saying, maybe it's just time to kill the switch already.”

Dara glowered while her dongsaeng poured her another shot. “We'll see what kind of bull comes out that mouth of his when he gets home. I swear to god, I don't know why I've stayed with him this long. I don't know. Am I nuts? Is that it?”

Chaerin bit her lip to avoid answering that. Dara was one of the sweetest and most patient people she knew. It took a lot to push this girl over any sort of edge. But when she hit it... the rest of the neighborhood ran for cover. Angry Dara was pretty much synonymous with psycho Dara. Why on earth did Jiyong keep teasing at the line of her sanity like this when it was so dangerous for him? It was totally baffling to her. Maybe he really was just that much of an idiot. It wasn't as though Dara hadn't said as much multiple times during the course of their relationship.

Dara sat there playing with her couple ring, spinning it around on her finger and pouting, contemplating, while the waiter brought over their bibimbap crackling deliciously in the hot stone bowls. She picked up the egg sitting on top of the rice and everything else and scrutinized it just a little longer than Chaerin thought seemed normal. Dara was imagining Jiyong's goofy smile on the face of that egg, those glittery eyes and too-perfect white teeth. Whether she wanted to kiss it or break it into little itty bitty bits, she couldn't quite decide. That was life with him by this point. A stalemate of emotions. She wrinkled her nose at it in defeat.

“Damn. Now I can't do anything with this freaking egg. That face! Why do I love that stupid face?” She didn't catch the disappointment in Chaerin's expression at the word 'love' that the younger girl hid behind a mouthful of her already-mixed bibimbap. The egg was keeping Dara's gaze on it. It was challenging her. She started to press her fingers a little harder on each end, just trying to figure out how she'd feel if it cracked.

“What the fu...!!” Chaerin clapped a hand over to stop herself, but it wasn't like Dara didn't know what she was blurting out. She followed her bug-eyed stare to the window, and getting a view of the scene beyond it was like sticking a hose in her and filling up her limbs with fast-drying cement.

His mouth, the one that spouted out all those bull excuses every time he missed their dates, nights in, nights out, every time she was ually frustrated and he was 'too tired,' was all over this anonymous chick's neck and clavicles. He was kissing her like a fish, in that gross way he'd kissed Dara when they first dated, before she got over the politeness factor and told him to quit covering her in slime every time they made out. She was disappointed to see he had not gotten rid of that. But this girl even seemed to like it. She was giggling and , and they were on a public street where he was getting his spit all over her. Ew. Just ew.

Dara's evaluative train of thought screeched to a halt. Why the hell was this the first thing going through her head?! That was her boyfriend, making out with a chick WHO WAS NOT HER.

Her name must be 'recording studio.'

Chaerin tried to set her spoon into her bibimbap without any additional noise while she was staring at this scene wordlessly, but it didn't matter anyway because it was overtaken by the soft, squelchy crackling sound she heard between them over the table. She looked down and gulped, heart jumping like a jackrabbit – Dara's hand was clenched and covered in raw egg, dripping onto the table in globs of sunny yellow and missing the bowl completely while the rest of her sat like for a painting, eyes glued on her boyfriend and his reason for sending that text to her all these times.

“...Unnie...” It came out in a squeak.

Dara's head slowly swiveled back toward the table, and her eyes fell on the egg and eggshell mess squeezing out between her fingers. She blinked, not seeming surprised. Well, there was her answer. Jiyong's crunched head, and his eggy brains squishing out on the table.

She looked up at Chaerin, who looked terrified for her life, and suddenly smiled with her characteristic brightness. “Whoops. Clumsy me. Need a new egg. Waiter, over here!” Waving over the waiter, she all of a sudden looked her completely normal and cheerful self, totally easygoing, while she wiped her hand and the mess off the table and thanked him for the conveyance of another egg. Chaerin didn't say a word, didn't even move, until Dara cracked the second one neatly over her rice and started mixing her bibimbap casually.

“Unnie... I...” Her words stuck in like audible rice cakes as Dara glanced up at her, smiling.

“What's up?”

“A-are you okay?” She tried to hide her trembling hands, but it only got worse as she saw Dara's smile spread under her cheeks. Behind that cheerfulness there was a glint of something mad... something that reminded her of a slasher. Oh lord, don't kill me. Not here. Should I like... go home?! What if she really snapped this time??

“I'm great! Never better,” Dara answered her before stuffing a spoonful of bibimbap in . Chaerin just stared at her for a few minutes, watching her every move while she ate. But she was baffled by how casual and relaxed Dara seemed. Her eyes flickered over toward the window again... Jiyong and his chick were gone now.

“You're not mad?”

A pitchy giggle rose out of Dara as she set her spoon down, and Chaerin felt like she was going to lose her skin at any second. “Mad? I don't get mad.”

“Um, actually you get mad all the t– ”

“I get revenge,” Dara growled with just a little too much glee in her voice and flames in her eyes. Chaerin made a sound like a scared puppy, that 'r' word being exactly what she was afraid of. She was already planning Jiyong's funeral in her head from that moment.

“Please don't do anything stupid, okay?” she begged Dara as the elder girl hopped out of her car at her and Jiyong's condo a while later and a while fuller. Dara whipped her head around in what seemed like the iest way she could manage to smile over her shoulder at Chaerin, and she laughed. A little too loud and a little too long.

Black dress. Need a black dress and waterproof mascara, and I should find her a really good lawyer and probably some good reading material for when she's in prison? Oh god.

“I won't do anything too illegal, shall we leave it at that?” Dara winked – why'd she wink? – before bidding goodbye to an only slightly more relieved Chaerin and closing the door.

She heard Chaerin drive off as she ambled slowly across the street, fiddling with her keys nonchalantly. Then without her even looking over as she walked through the slowly opening garage door and started her way past his beautiful, beloved pearlescent red Skyline GTR that he'd left behind that day, the ends of her keys found their ways between her fingers in a spiky fist, and then they somehow found their way onto the surface of his car and somehow, gosh, she wasn't sure how, they made this sharp screeching sound and left these long, white scratches along the entire length of his driver's side. How mysterious and how unfortunate, she thought to herself.

There was a stack of metal pipes by the doorway. For some building project or other that he'd talked about but never did. “Well it'd be a real shame to just let them all go to waste like you were going to, Jiyong,” Dara sighed with a pronounced pout as she looked them over. Before she knew it, the perfect one seemed to just jump out at her, and then it was in her hand and the rest of them were scattering and clanging over the garage floor and the hood of the Skyline. They hit with a chunk and the alarm set off whining.

Dara faced down that squalling car, her boyfriend's baby, which now she thought about it he spent more love on than he'd ever spent on her, and shook her head in disapproval as she smacked her perfect pipe in her palm. “You little ,” she muttered. “You sound just like your owner.” She smacked one of the headlights, leaving a giant crack across the surface like a cataract. She could have sworn the car's screaming changed from needy to pissed when she did. But it wasn't like it was going to go Kristine on her. She shrugged and walked through the door, pipe at the ready.

So... much... stuff. So many luxuries in the condo that Jiyong had blown his money on. And honestly, Dara had always known him to have some of the stupidest taste. On the entryway table, sitting cheerfully oblivious, were two ugly ceramic folktale figurines he'd gotten on a trip to China. They were two old guys, laughing it up, but looking so empty in the eyes that Dara could tell they were begging for someone to be merciful and end their sad porcelain existence. Well, it would be a shame to deny them.

So she did it oh-so-gently: Dara laid the pipe at one end of the table, and she walked, and then she all but ignored ignored the two earsplitting crashes on the floor that came one after the other. Then she dragged it on the wall, and could she help it if there were pictures in the way? Well, deliverance at last! Now Jiyong could make room for something nice, like bunnies and puppies, or maybe the postmodern artwork she was about to do in the remainder of the house. Dara was feeling very cheerful indeed; she hadn't known till now what a knack she had for interior design.

“Since I know you like it well-done, honey bear,” she uttered oh so sweetly as she tossed the pipe aside – into some photos of them on a side table, but oh well – and slipped Jiyong's cold steak back onto the skillet, pouring his wine in after it for some 'bold', 'original' flavor, then setting the stove to medium high. But – oops! - she managed to drop the wine glass in there too. “Oh well,” she shrugged. “A little fiber never hurt anyone.”

On the way toward the stairs to redesign the bedroom, Dara caught the eye of their beta fish, Sven. Yes, like the reindeer. She had named him because he seemed to have an affinity with her, like she was Kristoff, but less smelly or antisocial. Jiyong kept complaining that he “didn't know why she was so obsessed with that fish.” But Dara got it, and so did Sven. And now he was looking at her with a sad sort of frown, like he knew what was happening. Of course, Sven was always frowning. That was just his face.

“Svennie,” Dara sighed as she came eye to eye with him. “I have to apologize to you. I am sorry I compared Jiyong's fish lips with yours. You're probably a much better kisser than he is.” Sven stared at her and floated there for a second with what Dara thought looked like a mix of understanding and affection, and she smiled back. “Thanks, I knew you'd get it. Muah!” She left a smack right next to him on his fishbowl and skipped merrily up the stairs, skittering the pipe against the banister as she went... well, more like smacking it, honestly... let's just say it wasn't in all that good of shape when she finally got to the top.

“Feathers!!!” Dara squealed as she snatched a pair of scissors out of a drawer, diving onto the bed and scoring through the middle of the duvet with the blades. “Feathers, feathers, feathers; thank you, ducks! Your sacrifice of winter down shall not have been made in vain!!!” She gleefully ripped open the fabric and tossed handfuls of tiny white feathers into the air, over and over until it was like angels smashing each other in MMA on a cloud over her head. Dara flumped into the mass of white, and surrounded by all those baby duck pickins, she couldn't even. She just couldn't even.

She decided now was the perfect time to send a snapchat to Chaerin. “So... many... feathers,” she typed out after snapping a pic of her blowing white down at the camera. But she decided quickly that it just wasn't enough. “Pillows must... GO!” she grunted as she smacked Jiyong's pillow onto the sharp end of the bedpost, where it caught until she ripped it off and brought another whole chicken's worth of feathers tumbling out. “I hope you love white, Jiyong... oh, wait, you could never keep it that way with your sweat all over your shirts that I end up having to bleach out!” And on the word 'sweat' she gutted the other pillow the same way. Now the angels were having a free-for-all in the sky and it was kinda like an avalanche on and around the bed.

Somehow she managed to find her phone when it vibrated on the mattress, probably because the feathers on top of it got tickled and went poof. Chaerin had sent back her face, looking sorta horrified, with the words “Are you okay?” and a bottle of soju on standby.

“Never... better!” Dara typed as she grinned and then threw her phone back into one of the piles, slithering off the bed to race into the closet where they kept random supplies. For some incomprehensible reason, Dara remembered, Jiyong had decided to buy like 20 cans of spray paint and said he was going to join Xin tagging buildings and doing street art and stuff. But he chickened out. Now all these fluorescent spray paints were sitting in a pretty little row on the bottom shelf, collecting dust, and Dara was more than happy to give them some good use.

“I am such a good decorator,” Dara remarked to herself as she took two in her hands and shook them enough for the marbles inside to clatter with the noise of a two year old playing with all his toys at once. “Jiyong should hire me after this...if, if his new chick doesn't do it herself one day!” she burst into uncontrollable laughter, nearly spray-painting her hair green until she got a hold of herself. Instead, she flung open the door to Jiyong's walk-in closet, and examined the rows and rows of designer freebies he'd managed to snag over the past year (the boy was too much of a prissy fashion to wear last year's clothes, aw hell no). She frowned, squinting her eyes at the monotony of it all.

“Too much black.”

And by the end of ten minutes, Jiyong was free from the haute prison of black on black on black that Dara had never realized was so friggin' asive. She stepped back proudly to look at her work, and beamed. “Perfect. It will never go out of style for you again, Jiyong.” Looking from one end of the closet to the other, she nodded in approval at the giant “ YOU” sprayed across one row of his shirts, and “FISH LIPS” adorned on the jackets side. And hey, if he really hated it, he could just spray it black again and actually make good on those street art dreams.

“Oh, these little sons of es...” Dara sneered at the cologne bottles lining the shelves of the bathroom as she peered around in the master bath. He never wore her favorite anymore; it was like he was actively trying to put her off his scent by making himself smell like bad aftershave every time he went out now. And again, they were all freebies or promotional material. She only had a quarter as many perfumes as he did colognes. “Spoiled rich boy,” she grumbled, just before going to grab a trash bag from the kitchen.

The steak was smoking like crazy; she the vent fan and dumped in the rest of the wine bottle. It wasn't hers anyhow. And Jiyong “loved” when she used wine in her cooking. Half the time he didn't even know if she had or not. But let bygones be bygones, she thought. Dara had other plans as she hustled up the stairs again.

Sven floated patiently in his bowl.

And then, CRASH!!! went all of Jiyong's oils and scents and hair products and other things that Dara knew he would hate to lose, down the stairs in a trash bag like a couture-filled boulder. Dara let out a yell of triumph as it all came slumping lazily down to the first floor. She doubted he would be able to tell which stinks had spilled into which in the end, honestly. And she JUST DIDN'T CARE.

Let's see what that egghead has to say now.

Two hours later, Jiyong walked in the door, and the stench that assaulted his nostrils – a mix of pungent alcohol, smoke, and paint fumes – was enough to knock him back two steps. “What the...?!” His mouth dropped open as he looked around, dazed... everything was knocked off the walls, off the tables... some psycho had broken into his house.

But marching into the living room, all he found was Dara, sitting dressed up on the sofa with a suitcase and a glass of red wine, and looking more calm than he thought it possible to be while in a house that looks like it's been run through by a tornado.

“Dara, oh my god! Are you okay?!” He rushed to her side, trying to look her over for signs of struggle. But there were... none. She hadn't even a hair out of place. He squinted like an owl who was suspicious of something. Or some other animal with eyelids. “You look fine...”

She laughed lightly. “I am fine, Jiyong! I was just enjoying the atmosphere of the house. It really suits the occasion.”

“O...occasion?” She could see he was starting to look afraid. Good, good, she thought.

“Our anniversary, of course,” she smirked, taking another sip of the wine. “Damn, this is a good cab.”

“Anni... oh my god,” Jiyong murmured, pinching his temples. “Oh my god, I completely forgot. Why didn't you remind me yesterday?”

“I shouldn't have to remind you,” Dara said crisply, cutting a glare in his direction. “Any decent boyfriend would know. Except it seems like you were too busy making a spit sandwich out of your new floozy to think of that, eh?” As Jiyong's expression grew more and more quietly terrified, Dara swigged the rest of her wine and smacked the glass down on the table, eyeing him like he might have been a three-eyed giraffe. “Does she like it when you slobber on her like that? Honestly?! Just... ew! It's like you're a frog; thank god she wasn't actually the recording studio you claimed to be going to, cause you would've ruined the equipment drooling on it like that. Your album would sound like... like... fllllfsgbllllllh,” she finished with making slurpy noises that Jiyong can't even comprehend how she could make so gross a sound come out of .

“Dara, this is crazy...”

“Nah, what's crazy is that you thought I'd keep waiting for you when you just really in every single way,” she replied with an air of morbid delight in her voice. “So I'm out! And this,” she gestured grandly at the house, “is my gift to you. Why don't you go explore? There's a steak on the stove you might like too; I know how much you looove wine in the cooking.” She poured herself another glass of cabernet and began sipping nonchalantly again as Jiyong, like an NPC trapped in a labyrinth of existential horror, slowly got up and started to explore. Dara listened. Dara waited.

“What the... there's glass in this steak. It's carbon! Dara, are you nuts; what if I'd eaten this?”

.

.

“The two Chinese guys? Really, Dara?”

.

.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY COLOGNES? AND MY CLOTHES?!”

.

.

.

“You keyed my car?! Are you ing insane, you ?!”

Dara simply checked her watch, and she shrugged like he just asked her what time his favorite show was on tonight. That was what made Jiyong explode like a piñata full of sputtery words. “You... I can't believe you'd do th...!! You...!!! I'm gonna go to the media with this! You'll never see another acting job, you spiteful hag!”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Dara chided him like a schoolteacher, waving her finger as he steamed like a hot dumpling. “Not if you don't want the world to know about your illicit affair. Or the fact that you kiss your car goodnight, and never actually gave that money to Nepal like you said you did.” She raised an eyebrow, feeling giddy inside at how much she felt like a boss- . “Are we clear?”

Jiyong looked like a petulant schoolchild who had been berated for bad behavior, and he flumped down on the armchair just the same. “Just go. I don't care. Nobody's going to want your dead , anyway. Don't know why you're still here.”

Dara shrugged again. “Cause I wanted to present you with my parting gift, and make sure you wouldn't pull any on me like you've been trying to do this whole time.” As she gulped the last of her wine, her phone buzzed again and she stood up looking perky. “That's my ride. There may be one more thing you wanna see before I leave...”

Chaerin entered the house with much the same reaction as Jiyong, but even more aghast as she knew precisely who had done it all. “Oh... my... god...” Dara could hear her muttering.

“Chaerinnie! You're here!” Dara greeted her cheerfully, hefting her suitcase to trot over to her friend. She took a last look at Jiyong and set her bag down. “You were saying how no one was going to want me?” She chuckled a little bit darkly. “You can keep that thought, fish lips.” And then with Jiyong watching, to pretty much everyone's surprise except hers, she grabbed Chaerin and started to make out with her. Properly, without or any of that . She kissed her like the girl in a movie who reunites with her girlfriend after tons of angst and drama. And Jiyong watched like a dumb, straight turtle.

“Newsflash to you, anti-gaydar boy: Chaerin has been wanting me for ages...” Dara looked at her dazed and confused bff and her lips naughtily. “I have to say the feeling is mutual.”

“Are you kidding?” Jiyong said flatly. He was really feeling the NPC-ness now, watching his girlfriend snog another woman in front of him.

“Are you sure?” Chaerin said around the same time, though she looked way more hopeful than confused now.

“Let's get out of this dump,” Dara told her with a half-psychotic smirk. “Just need one more thing.”

As she grabbed a plastic bag out of the drawer in the kitchen and returned to scoop out Sven, Jiyong finally lost it. “Really, Dara?! You keep the stupid fish over me??” he wailed like a lost child. “That fish doesn't even know who you are!”

“He does!!” Dara raged back, pointing her hand hard at him as Sven floated admiringly. “His name is Sven, I'm his Kristoff, and he understands me more than you ever did! And I'm taking him with me!!!” She stomped toward the front door, followed by a bewildered Chaerin. “Good riddance, boy!”

Chaerin kept looking back at the house like Jiyong might follow them while they went back to the car, but Dara was too wrapped up in the single word that kept ululating through her brain - FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE – to pay any attention. She plopped her bag in the backseat, nestled Sven in a roll-free zone, and climbed in the passenger side, smiling like a goon. Chaerin was already in the driver's seat, still watching the house, but after a few seconds she let out all her air and deflated into the seat. “You trashed Kwon Jiyong's house.”

“Yup,” Dara replied, looking a little chastened now that her anger had gone to the wayside. She looked up at Chaerin like a daughter in trouble. “Did I go too far?”

“I don't know,” Chaerin shifts uncomfortably in her seat, glancing at the house one more time. When she bites her lips Dara can tell what's on her mind. “Did you really mean it when you kissed me or was it just reven–?”

So Dara kissed her again, because she didn't want to hear the 'r' word anymore, and also because damn, Chaerin was a good kisser, and Dara liked her, and felt like she had little jumping beans inside when she did it... which was as good an indication as any that, “No,” she said as she her face. “This isn't about revenge. I really do want you too.”

Chaerin smiled like she'd just gotten a lifetime supply of candy. “Yay me,” she squeaked, planting her lips on Dara one more time. The brunette girl giggled – things were really looking up, and they hadn't even left the block. “Oh yeah,” she prodded her new girlfriend. “Let's get the hell out of here.”

As they drove away, Dara felt so clear-headed and fresh, everything looked a few shades nicer. She glanced at Sven in the backseat and found him swimming happy circles. That fish was so low-key, seriously.

“Dara?”

“Hmm?”

“I promise I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever cheat on you.”

Dara grinned widely... a little too widely. “Oh, I know.”