“What the hell happened to you?”

 

I sniffed, holding the door even wider as I let Emi, a good friend of mine, into my apartment. She quickly entered, looking like a scarecrow balanced on a pole while she removed her shoes and struggled to hold on to the bags of food she picked up along the way. I didn’t even help her, too absorbed in my misery to even notice that I am being a bad host to the person who is supposed to be my savior in all this pandemonium.

 

I’m exaggerating. I know, but I’m not about to make things a small deal when they’re not. Not to me, they aren’t. I honestly feel like I’ve lost everything all in one night, and Emi asking me that very question upon seeing me is a testament of it. If it’s not, then I don’t know what is.

 

First of all, Emi isn’t the type of person who would ask that question, especially not to me, while looking like she’s seen a ghost. I mostly ask that question to her, not the other way around, cause hey, I need to be the big sister don’t I? She has this notion that I’ve got my life together and that her life compared to my perfect world. Not true at all. I’ve got complaints about mine just as much as she has, and if it were true that my life is better than hers, that’s because she’s still a student in the university while I’ve finished my third course ages ago. I’m that old.

 

Second, it’s weird that she immediately sensed something wrong when I sent my message to her, which says, “Something happened.”

 

She immediately began flood texting me. She went from, “What happened?” to “Who?” to “Are you okay?”

 

So to give her the gist, I told her I woke up in someone else’s room, and the reply I got back was a ton of HAHAHAHAHAHA, a bunch of gibberish and OMG in all caps. Trust her to treat things like a laughing matter when I feel like it’s inappropriate, but what the heck, she’s a kid after all, so I can’t blame her if she thinks my ordeal is giggle-worthy.

 

It came to the point when I had to ask her to come by even if she’s in the middle of class. I’m usually giving to her, but I don’t care about anything else. I just needed someone to talk to.

 

Emi breathed out noisily as she set down the bags on my kitchen island, drank half the water I offered her before looking at me with a wide smile. “So what happened?”

 

“I messed up.” I said too calmly, but in my head I was cowering in a corner with my hands covering my ears, trying to be as small as possible. In my head, I looked as pathetic as I could get. I still get chills when I see mental images of what transpired the previous night and the morning after. I thought I might be going nuts or something.

 

She sat herself down on one of the high chairs at the counter, already taking out utensils and poking at the foil covers of the food she brought. I joined in, setting a pitcher of lemonade on the counter. “Where do I start?”

 

“From the top.”

 

“Okay.” I sighed nervously. “I hung out with D.O. last night…”

 

She spazzed momentarily before eyeing me in confusion. She had a huge crush on D.O., like huge.  “Wait a sec, I thought you were with Mark.”

 

“Damn it, let me finish!” I almost screamed at her, and she nodded, fork in mouth. I calmed down after a second, not that it relieved me of the actual problem. I began explaining what happened the previous night from the point when Kyungsoo invited me out for tea and then later decided to have some drinks instead. The boy got drunk and I had to ask Sehun to come pick him up from the parking lot of their shared apartment.

 

“You met Sehun?” She said his name like it was taboo or something.

 

“Briefly, yeah.” I got confused. “Why?” Then I realized how stupid I am for even asking her why. I can talk about my ex for days on end without feeling anything despite of how bad I felt when we broke up. The people around me though, they think I’ll break if they as much as mention his name in my presence. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Long story short, Oh Sehun is my former boyfriend, two and a half years until we officially ended it. The end.

 

“So back to Mark.”

 

I met him late the previous evening after dropping the drunk boy off, even went to buy food for Mark and the rest of his groupmates. The food from the restaurant came with free soju bottles, and so we decided to drink when I got there. It was just me, Mark, JB and Jinyoung drinking while the kids pigged out on the food. Jackson’s parents were in town so he wasn’t around. I wasn’t fit to drive after that. I mean, I could have driven home anyway, but not without being stopped by a law enforcer and getting tested. Mark was worried so he made me stay. That’s when the sleepover turned into something else.

 

Emi squealed like an over-excited school girl. “How was it? Is he big?” I just blinked at her. Sometimes, I feel like she’s older than me with the way she talks. When I didn’t satisfy that with an answer, she asked another one. “Are you guys gonna do it again?”

 

“What the ?! I’m having a crisis here!” it, I made her buy food for me and I wasn’t even eating. I can’t get myself to do anything except worry.

 

She just laughed and asked what happened later and how it all started. “ if I know. We were talking about soaking gummy bears in vodka before we decided to head to bed to sleep. I had that very intention in mind but I guess he didn’t.”

 

“So he initiated it? How?”

 

“Yes. I don’t know really but he just started getting touchy.” I could clearly remember how I had my back to him, ready to sleep when he inched closer and started spooning me. I didn’t react at first. I mean, Mark’s usually touchy, nothing new about that, and , it’s not like it’s news when he suddenly have his hands on my waist and he’s this huggy guy so I thought it would stop there. Besides, it isn’t the first time I’ll be sleeping over at their place. Nothing happened on those occasions until last night.

 

I was facing the other way just pretending to be asleep and unaware of what was going on when I felt his hands wandering under my shirt. “It’s different this time though.”

 

“Maybe you were just thinking that,” Emi supplied.

 

“, I’m not a potato! I think I know what’s going on, precisely why I tried to stop him, but he’s like ‘good, you’re awake,’ and it just happened!” I’m freaking out at the thought of it. “God knows I tried to stop him. Several times!”

 

“But he’s just too good, huh?”

 

“Ye – Ugh!” I sniffled. “Not a potato.”

 

“How was he in bed?”

 

I shrugged, forking a piece of strawberry from the cheesecake she bought me. “Pretty good.”

 

“How good?”

 

“He let me finish.”

 

“Oh my god!” Emi nearly stabbed me with her fork. “You’re kidding!” I shook my head. “You’re totally ting me.”

 

“No.”

 

“Men like Mark are out of stock if what you’re saying is true.”

 

It figures why she would say that. When I was still with Sehun, she would ask about my life, too, and I think I’ve disillusioned her by saying that my ex was like a photographer taking the last shot in a photo shoot in bed. He’s literally like, “One, two, and that’s a wrap!” Well, most guys are pigs who didn’t concern themselves of whether women are enjoying themselves too or not as long as they get their own release.

 

“It’s true. That’s probably the best one I’ve had.” I chuckled. “I made it to finish line this time. He’s that good, but I’m not about to say that to him.”

 

Emi blinked, realizing something. “If you said you slept over at his place and texted me early in the morning…” Her eyes widened. “You didn’t! Holy , you did not!”

 

I was panicking again. “I did not what? What?!” We were speaking to each other as if the other one’s at the other building.

 

“You made it look like a one night stand, that’s what!”

 

I gulped. How the hell does she know that? “Well, I…”

 

“You snuck out!” she exclaimed.

 

“God, tone down will you? I snuck out, yes, cause he was still sleeping.”

 

“You didn’t go to the office today so there’s no reason for you not to have stayed with him this morning. Girl, I know you’re older than me, but if Mark is as good as what you said, you don’t ing run away from a guy like that. You just don’t!”

 

Now she’s freaking out.

 

“Where’s your phone?” she asked. I don’t know why, but I wish I didn’t tell her it was in my room. “You’re avoiding him! You always have your phone with you. You call it business. What other reason do you have not to have your phone with you?”

 

“Charging?”

 

“You have extra batteries. ‘I don’t know what low battery means’,” she quoted me. . This girl knows me too well. And she’s just being mean. “I can’t help it, okay. I just can’t face him after this.”

 

“Did you cuddle after?”

 

This is exasperating! “Why is cuddling important when we already had ?”

 

“It’s everything. Now answer my question.”

 

I threw my head back, staring at the ceiling and nodded, watching her reaction from my peripheries. Instead of the deafening scream I was waiting for, she faced the counter and began finishing her cheesecake slice, looking like she was critiquing it as she thought matters out.

 

Then her next words – worse than the scream I was expecting, worse than anything I’ve heard recently – spilled out of , scaring the living hell out of me. I felt like my soul just left my body in slow motion as she said those three words. “He’s in love with you.”

 

It rang in my head like an echo, bouncing back and forth within the corners of my head except that this echo didn’t fade but became louder and louder until I could not forget the sound of it, each letter etching themselves into my consciousness like a hot brand on a horse’s . There’s nothing I could say was good enough to undo what Emi’s words caused. It hotwired my brain.

 

“No…” I laughed hysterically. “No, he’s not. Cuddling after isn’t enough proof that he is in love with me. Seriously, it’s ridiculous. Tuan and I aren’t like that. We’re like buddies.”

 

“Ooh, denial!” she jeered. “What kind of buddies? buddies?”

 

“What the hell! Where are you basing all these things? Whatever you’re doing, stop it. It’s not gonna work, and damn him, if he’s in love with me he’d better stop right now. It’s not gonna happen. It’s a one-time thing! How dare you call us buddies, Emi!”

 

She pretended to examine her nails. “What are you mad about?”

 

I shook my head, thinking about what she said. “Nah, if he’s in love with me, give or take, he’ll say it. He’s always open to me, but that can’t be. Maybe if I show him that we’re better off as friends, he’ll back off.” My eyes widened, remembering how he went out of his way several times, including that time in Thailand, the daily bouquets he would send me at 9AM sharp, all those times he would go out to pick me up no matter how late or early it was in the day. Suddenly, they all made sense and it’s scary. “Oh no.”

 

Emi arched a brow at me. “Oh no what?”

 

“You don’t really think he’s…” I shook my head. But it made sense. “Is he really now? Oh , I don’t know how I would feel about that.”

 

“What do you think?”

 

I stared into space for a couple of moments before my upper body voluntarily moved forward, bending down. My forehead landed on the countertop, and suddenly, I felt like crying my eyes out. “Suddenly I’m just tired.”

 

Emi chuckled. “Do you even know wha