The days passed and the exams were coming up in a few weeks’ time. Dara was struggling with her mathematics and asked Jiyong over to her place to tutor her. Although Jiyong was also busy with revision, he agreed readily and dropped by her place the following evening. As he reached her place, he rang the doorbell and waited patiently. The door opened and before Jiyong saw who it was, he said, “Hey baby girl, I’m here. So what do you need help with?”

“Well, I could do with someone to help me vacuum the floor and do the dishes, if you feel up to it. But I’d prefer it if you called me eommoni instead of baby girl,” said Mrs. Park.

Jiyong turned scarlet at the sight of Mrs. Park and replied, “Mianhe, eommoni. Bab- Dara asked me to come over and help me with her mathematics.”

“I know,” replied Mrs. Park with an amused look on her face. “Now are you going to keep standing at the door or do you want to come in?”

Jiyong bowed and stepped into the house. “Now, I’m going shopping with a friend today,” said Mrs. Park, before lowering her voice. “No funny business, you hear me?” Mrs. Park teased Jiyong with a mock-threatening look at Jiyong before giving him a motherly smile. Jiyong smiled, bowed and watched Mrs. Park leave. Dara was in the living room poring over her mathematics notes and trying to make sense of them. Dara noticed Jiyong entering and whined, “Jiyong~~~ Help… I can’t make ANY sense of calculus, especially the applications part. How can a graph move about an axis and expect me to find the volume it generates?”

Jiyong smiled and started looking through Dara’s notes. “It’s really quite easy, baby girl. Just think of it this way…” explained Jiyong.

Without realising, Jiyong had spent 2 hours explaining all that Dara needed to know for calculus and watching Dara as she tried out question after question in a desperate attempt to understand the topic sufficiently well to handle her examinations. After 2 hours, Dara took a glance at the clock and exclaimed, “Omo! It’s already 9pm! Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’ve been doing calculus for 2 hours.”

“Haha, I think you should take a break now, baby girl. Don’t burn out,” said Jiyong.

“All right. I need a drink anyway. Do you want one?” asked Dara.

“Yeah, sure! Anything is good for me, as long as it’s cold,” replied Jiyong.

Dara trudged over to the kitchen and poured two drinks out, before walking over to Jiyong.

“Here you go,” said Dara, as she handed him the drink.

“Thanks!” replied Jiyong. He took a big gulp before something occurred to him.

“Hey, have you bought the tickets for “Wicked” yet?” asked Jiyong.

“No, I haven’t. I asked Chaerin to come along, so I thought I would wait till she replied on her available dates before I confirmed the total number of tickets,” replied Dara.

“Moragu?!” asked Jiyong in a sharp tone.

“I said I asked Chaerin to come…” mumbled Dara in a trembling voice.

“Why would you do that?” asked Jiyong, in a steadily louder voice, making Dara cower. “You know she has feelings for me! I told you I can never accept her! WHY WOULD YOU INVITE HER TO SOMETHING THAT WE WERE GOING FOR?!”

“I-I-I just…” stuttered Dara, tearing up at Jiyong’s voice.

“You just what? YOU JUST WHAT? ANSWER ME!” shouted Jiyong, as he flung his cup on the floor, where it shattered and made Dara flinch again. This was the first time Dara was witnessing Jiyong morphing into the dragon that she had heard about but had never seen.

“Why did you even invite her? You think she’ll be happy being there with me? You think she’ll be happy when eventually she realises that I can never accept her? Do you know how much pain you’ll cause her? DO YOU? Did you consider how I would feel?” shouted Jiyong. Don’t you know it’ll cause me even more pain? More pain than you know!

“Ji-jiyong… P-please calm d-down… I’m sorry, I…” mumbled Dara but Jiyong had stormed out of her house before she could finish. Dara sat down on the couch and buried her face in her hands. “Jiyong… I’m s-s-sorry…”

…

“Jiyong-ah, stop drinking. What’s wrong with you?” asked Youngbae. Youngbae had received a call from Jiyong asking him to go to the bar with him. Youngbae didn’t object, seeing that they were both legal now but Youngbae knew that Jiyong’s tone when he called him didn’t bode well. Jiyong was already on his fifth shot when Youngbae arrived.

“Oh good! You’re here! Drink up!” mumbled Jiyong.

“I said stop drinking! What’s wrong bro? What’s gotten into you?” asked Youngbae.

“What’s wrong? What’s WRONG?! What’s wrong is that the girl I love is best friends with the girl who loves me! That’s what’s wrong!” spat Jiyong.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you sure it’s not just your over-inflated ego at work? How do you a girl likes you? And who is it?” asked Youngbae.

“Dara told me herself! She said Chaerin likes me. That can’t be a lie. They’re like sisters!” replied Jiyong, as he downed another shot before Youngbae could stop him.

“Chaerin? Then does Dara know you like her?” asked Youngbae.

“No. She’ll never accept me now! And the best thing is, I lost my temper with Dara just now. I even wrecked a cup in front of her,” said Jiyong miserably, as he recalled the events that happened.

“You became the dragon in front of her?” said Youngbae disbelievingly. “At Dara, of all people?”

“I know I know! I’m stupid! I just lost it when she said she invited Chaerin to watch Wicked with us,” said Jiyong. “I thought I had finally succeeded in getting her to go out on a date with me. But she had to go and invite her best friend to go along.”

As Jiyong said this, pain shot through his head and made it throb, causing