Synopsis: Lee Hayi and Kim Hanbin have been dating for six months. As he gets assigned to tutor Lisa, Hayi is left to herself for the afternoon and jealousy gets the best of her. Hanbin is clueless about Hayi's feelings and with Lisa's flirting then ends up messing up along the way. 

Hayi huffed to herself as she glared at her reflection in the mirror. With her cheeks puffed out slightly, she crossed her right leg over her left and tapped her fingers impatiently on her knee. The scent of hairspray was causing her to slightly get dizzy as she leaned against the chair she was sitting in and let out a groan. What the hell is wrong with me?! Her eyebrows furrowed, with her eyes closed she bit her lip and curled her hands into fists as she tried to calm herself. This is one of the reasons why I question my relationship with that guy…

“Lee Hayi, can you please stop fidgeting?”

She glared at the person that was currently working on yet, another hairstyle on her. He smiled amusedly as he grabbed the parting comb that was clenched in between his teeth and used it to separate another section of her hair to add towards the braid he was working on.  Hayi rolled her eyes and hopelessly tossed her phone onto the small vanity right in front of her. The guy readjusted the cover around her and lightly poked her cheek.

“What’s gotten you all riled up, little one?”

“Tell your friend to stop being so oblivious, Song Minho.” Hayi muttered as she looked at her phone in defeat.

“Why, what did that brat do this time? And…I’m finally done with this one.”

She smiled as Mino stepped away from her and they both looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes raked over the elegant hairstyle that her friend had done on her. Her hair was done into a low, messy bun with a Dutch braid crown around her head. Staying still, Hayi waited for him to finish up with taking pictures of the final product. Holding out her hand, Mino high fived her before she shrugged and pouted. He met her gaze and sat in the empty styling chair next to her.

“He never notices when a girl flirts with him! It’s like he’s oblivious to the fact that all the girls in our class are trying to get at him.”

Mino smiled amusedly as he watched Hayi spin her chair around while swinging her legs back in forth childishly. It reminded him of his younger sister when they were younger and he always had to take her to get her haircuts. The image of Hayi in front of him that moment was a spitting image of his younger sister throwing a tantrum.

“I’m pretty much helpless in that department, Hayi-ah. I can’t do anything because Hanbin’s the slowest one out of all of us when it comes to the romance department. Even if I do tell him that he’s going along with the way girls flirt with him, we both know he’s just going to say that he’s being nice to her.”

She rolled her eyes in agreement as the two chuckled at his statement. He was so on point with his answer that Hayi had nothing else to say. It was true that Hanbin was as naïve as a child when it came to love and flirting. If she had a dollar for every time Hanbin was just “being nice” to a girl, Hayi would be much richer than she was at the moment. Shaking her head at the many times her clueless boyfriend led other girls on for the six months they’ve been dating, Hayi could only let out a sigh and turn herself back towards the mirror. She needed to get her mind off of things and Mino was always the best at distracting her.

“So what’s this other hairstyle you have in mind, oppa?”

Mino smiled widely as he jumped up from his seat. She chuckled as she took note of the childish glint in his eyes as he directed his cart of hair supplies right next to her.

“I’ll be right back, there are some other things I need to get!”

Hayi smiled to herself as she watched Mino hurriedly go off towards the back and looked back at her reflection. Thoughts filled her mind as she looked back at the scene she came across before she had left campus that day. Her annoyance came back as she recalled the way that woman was standing to close to her boyfriend. It irked her to no end how Hanbin didn’t even push her or take a step back as she had trailed her hand up and down his arm as they talked. She could easily tell from the look on her face that she wanted Hanbin to be hers and all Hayi wanted to do was to take that woman’s eyeballs out with a fork.

“Stop frowning like that, baby girl. It’ll cause you to have wrinkles.”

Turning to her right, she found Jinwoo occupying the chair that Mino was sitting in before he disappeared. He was casually spinning a pair of scissors on his index finger and smiled at her. She gave him a smile as he tossed the tool onto the cart.

“You should just tell him how this situation is affecting you.”

She pouted and began to undo the braid as Mino approached them with a carton full of bottles in his hands.

“I’ve been trying to, but he always brushes me off saying that they’re just friends!”

Mino clicked his tongue as he ran his fingers through her hair and shared a look with Jinwoo.

“I pity Hanbin, really. He has you as an amazing girlfriend and yet he’s clueless of how his actions are affecting you.”

Jinwoo nodded in agreement as he stood up and began to snoop through the bottles of hair dye.

“What did he do anyways?”

Hayi huffed as she crossed her arms underneath her cover and glared at her phone.

“He blew me off because that woman, needed help with her math homework. That idiot was supposed to help me with my homework tonight but nooo, he just had to pick her over me.”

They both let out a low whistle as Mino stared at her reflection before taking out a couple of bottles and began to pour its contents into a bowl.

“He even continued saying that it was their teacher that assigned him as her tutor. But why him?! He isn’t even the top of the class. The top student in our class is Lee freaking Chanhyuk and even he told me that he was supposed to be her tutor. The teacher just had to comply with her requests of having Hanbin as her tutor.”

Jinwoo rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms and leaned against the vanity. Swiping his fringe away from his face, he let out a huff before greeting Seunghoon who had just walked in.

“I swear that Lisa chick is a snake.”

Seunghoon greeted the three and tilted his head to the side as he heard Jinwoo’s statement.

“Lisa? Oh I heard about her from Jiwon. He was telling me that she was one their annoying fan girls that’s always attaching herself to Hanbin at the high school.”

“See? What did I tell you?” Hayi groaned and gave them an exasperated look.

“Where’s Seungyoon and Taehyun? And you don’t need to waste your energy on a pest like her Hayi-ah.”

“They’re parking the van and bringing down the restock we ordered.”

“Oh yeah, Hayi-ah I’m going to bleach and lighten your hair a bit, okay?”

Hayi waved her hand dismissively as Mino began to apply strips of foil and the hair dye into her black hair. She was used to having Mino experiment on her ever since he and his group of friends graduated university, thus opening up their joint hair salon and café. The two were childhood friends along with his sister and she always looked up at him as the older brother she’s always wanted. He always had a thing for hairstyles ever since he had to look after her and Dana when they were younger. If their parents were busy, he was the one that took care of him and he had a knack for braiding hair.

“Yah, yah, yah Hayi-ah! Is it true that Hanbin picked Lisa over you?!” Taehyun asked as he and Seungyoon came walking in while rolling in huge boxes of supplies.

“We passed by a couple of girls from school and they were gossiping how they saw the two of them studying at the café together. It seemed like the two girls thought they were on a date behind your back.” Seungyoon mentioned.

Hayi could feel the imaginary vein pop out of her head as her annoyance reached its maximum level. Her face grew warm as possible scenarios entered her mind. She imagined Hanbin doing the cliché thing of wiping the whipped cream off of Lisa’s face if she took a sip out of her cappuccino. The next image that popped into her mind was them sitting side by side and Lisa having the nerve to set her head against his shoulder while he taught her a math problem. Jealousy surged through her as her expression turned stoic and her facial features turned blank.

Mino could only sigh to himself as he finished up with her hair and rolled over a dryer behind her before turning it on. He sent a glare towards the younger two when he noticed her mentally breaking down inside. Meeting eyes with Seunghoon and Jinwoo, he motioned for the four boys to leave them alone for a while. He knew better than anyone that although she had that strong, snarky attitude towards other people, inside Hayi was still the self-conscious little girl he grew up with. Once his friends were out of earshot and on their way towards the connected café, he resumed his position in the chair next to her.

“Hayi-ah.” He called out when she didn’t say anything for a while.

She snapped out of her daze and met his gaze out of the corner of her eyes.

“You’re not thinking that she’s better than you right now, right?”

Her expression betrayed her as he noticed the way she sulked and the light that was in her eyes could not be seen. As much as she tried to not let it get the best of her, the insecurities kept coming. Lisa was the head of the cheer team while Hanbin was the captain of the school’s dance team. The two were an expected pair to get together, but everyone was surprised to find him and Hayi dating. Compared to the outgoing Lisa, Hayi was shyer towards people. She was the head of the Yearbook Committee and preferred to hide behind the camera lenses. Hanbin crossed her path by chance when she bumped into him after concluding an interview with the school’s dance coach. He helped her gather the papers that she used to conduct the interview and from then on he had made it a mission of his to get close to her. From that point on, their story was history.

When they got together, Hayi didn’t want to seem like the clingy type whenever she noticed that Hanbin would go along with girls that flirted with him. Since she only had short term relationships in the past due to her many insecurities, she didn’t history to repeat itself with Hanbin. Now that people are assuming the end of their relationship, Hayi couldn’t help but think worse of herself. Her previous relationships always told her that she was either too clingy or too cold with them. She didn’t know how to properly express herself with others and Hanbin was the only one that understood how she felt. He had the patience with her but now after hearing what Seungyoon and Taehyun said, she began to think that Hanbin was slowly growing tired of her.

“I can’t help it…” she murmured after a short silence.

“You know you’re better than that, Hayi-ah. Look at how beautiful you’ve become.”

“You’re only saying that because we grew up together.”

“Oh Hayi-ah, if only you knew how many boys would come up to me after your visits here. Did you know that even Taehyun grew a little crush on you when I first introduced you to each other?”

Hayi’s eyes widened and looked at Mino through the mirror. “You’re lying.”

“Nope, the kid wouldn’t stop pestering me about bringing you here more often because of how easily you two click and have many similar tastes in music. You were literally his ideal type for a while.”

Her jaw dropped in disbelief and Mino chuckled in amusement.

“He was crushed when you introduced Hanbin to all of us. But hey, what can he do? He wasn’t man enough to do anything since he was busy with his freshman year of college and you were barely a sophomore in high school. But my point is, Hanbin chose you. He may be oblivious, but he chose you to be with.”

Hayi rolled her eyes as the hair dryer automatically turned itself off and Mino gestured her to get up so he could wash the dye out. The two were left in a comfortable silence as he began to gently wash away the dye and massage her scalp in a comforting way. He left her to her thoughts as she pondered on his words. She knew perfectly well that she was overreacting over this whole situation, but she couldn’t help it. It’s been a while since she’s felt so strongly about someone and she didn’t want her happiness to be taken away from her so quickly. Hanbin was the one that helped her when the stress of the yearbook was getting to her. Since it was their senior year, she wanted to make sure that the yearbook she put together was absolutely perfect. Whenever she was stressing over interviews and unfinished sections of the book, he was the one that managed to divert her attention for a while to relax.

She let her mind wander as Mino blow dried her hair. The whole ordeal had taken much of her strength since school ended and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and ignore Hanbin until he figured out what was wrong. But even so, she couldn’t go long for ignoring him. She liked him too much to give him the cold shoulder. Being jealous is an ugly thing, but it showed just how much she cared about him.

“And I’m done.”

Her eyes opened as she was taken out of her stupor and a gasp left her lips. Light auburn hair now crowned her face as Mino finished up her hair with a few scrunches of hair serum.  Now that winter was over, the lighter color on her head complimented the spring weather. She smiled widely as he ruffled her hair slightly. Taking off the cover, Hayi set it onto her chair before standing up and stretched her back. She had been in that chair since school ended and the sun was already setting. As she gathered her things, Mino waited for her by the entrance. Giving a goodbye hug, he promised to stop by her place to say hi to her parents after work and check up on her.

Hayi sighed to herself as she exited the salon and played with her newly dyed hair. Now what should I do? Hanbin still hasn’t texted me all afternoon and from what I remember he won’t be done for another ten minutes… She leaned against the empty space of wall between the entrance and window of the salon. Since the café was on the other side, she debated whether or not she should just crash their study session. She scrunched her nose at the thought and immediately shook it off. As much as she was jealous, she wasn’t that mean to do something as rude as that.

“Hayi-ah?”

She looked to her right to find Jaewon standing a couple steps away from her. He smiled at he