“Who?” I query, “You mean Daehyunnie?”

Seyong gives me a weird look, “Daewhat?”

I laugh a little at how I manage to slip out my familiarity with the blonde boy. “Sorry, Daehyun use to be my neighbour,” I explain. “We would play together a lot, since there weren’t many other children our age in the neighbourhood. It’s funny when I think about it, because I remember how umma use to tease me about him liking me.”

“He what?!” says Seyong, with wide eyes.

I wave off his dramatic reaction with a chortle; “I know, isn’t that funny?”

“No, not by one bit!” he replies in horror.

“Really?” I nonchalantly say, “I thought it was pretty entertaining, actually, but now I just think that it’s kind of cute.” I shrug my shoulders, and then add; “Oh, and by the way, we’re older than him by two years.”

“Great, so not only do I have to worry about cat boy, but now I have this ice cream guy, to deal with, too?” grumbles Seyong.

“Oh geez, what are you muttering about?” I say, with half of my attention on the menu. “You’re from Busan as well, so I think you and Daehyun will get along just fine.”

“No,” says Seyong, while crossing his arms. “We can’t be friends, because I don’t like him.”

This makes me give him my full attention. “And how did you even come to that conclusion, when you haven’t even said a single word to him, huh?” I sceptically say, with flatten eyes.

“Exactly!” exclaims Seyong, which just makes me so much more confused. “He’s just been oogling you, so how am I supposed to get involved? And besides, it’s weird.”

“What’s weird?” I probe.

“With how he’s flirting with you,” answers Seyong.

A loud laugh slips out of me, as I shake my head, and then go back to looking at the menu. “Daehyun’s not flirting with me,” I calmly state.

“Excuse me, but I’ve read enough books to know what flirting looks like,” replies Seyong, and because of his tone of voice, I can feel him roll his eyes at me. “And it is definitely oozing out of him.”

“Ew, you read books about how to flirt?” I ask.

Seyong just stares at me for a bit, “What, don’t judge me!”

“I’m not…” I slowly say, “Sort of—”

He cuts me off with a pout, “Hey! You said you wouldn’t judge!”

I jerk up my shoulders, “Well I lied.”

Seyong frowns, feigning disappointment; “Hyeri-yah, how could you?”

“Oh my God,” I mutter to myself, as my hand meets my forehead.

We're getting too easily side-tracked!

“Anyway, Mr Flirting Expert,” I begin, “Daehyun doesn’t like me like that, so what is wrong with you?”

“Because I feel like I’m the third wheel!” he huffs, “Do you have any idea how awkward that feels?”

I blink at him for a bit, but don’t say anything, because I can imagine the uncomfortable and weird feeling that he’s trying to clarify.

“Alright, fine,” says Seyong. “If he asked you out right here and now, then what would you say?”

“—hey, sorry to keep you both waiting,” speaks up Daehyun’s voice, from out of the blue.

I perk up, “Yes?”

He gives us both a sheepish smile, “But I’m ready to take your orders now, so what would you like?”

“Oh, I’ll have—”

I am suddenly interrupted by Seyong’s outburst. “‘Yes’?” he blurts out, and then hisses to me; “What do you mean you’ll say ‘yes’?!”

Daehyun just blinks at him, utterly confused as to what he’s talking about, as I ignore him.

You know, now that I think of it, the name of some of these ice cream desserts are so—

“Why do these ice creams have such suggestive names?” I point out. “I mean, ‘Gold Digger’, ‘Fill me in’, ‘Sugar Mama’, it’s just…what?”

I feel a sudden nudge from Seyong. “Hey; ‘Playmate’ looks pretty good, yeah?” he loudly whispers.

Daehyun hears this and agrees. “It is,” he says, and then adds; “But ‘Final Fantasy’ is really good, too.”

With knitted eyebrows, I continue to sit there, and watch as these two males talk about the list of desserts.

And if you had no idea that everything being said was just about ice cream, then you would have thought that they were speaking in some kind of ‘code’.

Seyong eventually decides; “Yeah okay, I’ll get the ‘Sugar Mama’.”

Hearing this snaps me out of my thoughts. “I want that one too,” I add in.

Daehyun nods, “Okay, so just two ‘Sugar Mama’s, yeah?”

“Actually,” Seyong holds up a hand to grab Daehyun’s attention. “Can you just turn that into a really big serving, so that we can just share?”

I frown, “Hey, get your own ‘Sugar Mama’!”

Daehyun seems conflicted by the two of us. “Uh, so do I get two regular sizes, or a really big one…?” he asks, looking a little perplexed.

“Just one big one,” replies Seyong.

“But I—”

Seyong’s hand flies towards my mouth, clamping it shut. “Just ignore your silly noona here, and get us the big serving, please,” he says, with a bright smile.

Daehyun looks at my struggling for a bit, but nods at Seyong’s order anyway; “Okay then, I’ll be right back.”

And once he disappears behind the counter, and begins making our order with another worker there, Seyong removes his hand from me.

“Why didn’t you just get your own ice cream?” Is the first thing I ask.

“At first, I was going to, since I thought we were just going to get it in a cone and then leave,” Seyong explains. “But since you want to eat here, I thought ‘why not?’” He then grins at me and adds; “And you know what they say about sharing being caring, so yeah.”

I shake my head at him, muttering to myself.

He better not eat all of the strawberries, but knowing him, he so would, just to spite me.

A while later on, Daehyun approaches our table with this huge glass, and my eyes twinkle at the delicacy in his hold; it’s so pretty, I don’t know if I have the heart to ruin it, by eating it now!

“Here,” he says, as he sets down the pink dessert.

Two giant scoops of strawberry ice cream sit together, as a tall swirl of vanilla whipped cream, rests next to them. Millions of pieces of cut up strawberries surrounds them with some little jelly pieces, and underneath everything, in the elegant-looking glass, is some shaved ice.

I take the spoon, and scoop up some strawberries, to put into my mouth. It’s sweet, and my tastebuds is in bliss, as I chew, being able to taste a slight hint of a milky coating. Ah, so that was probably making the fruit have an unusual sweet taste. But the combination is nice though, I really like it. With the expected look on his face, Daehyun seems to be waiting for a response, so I give him a satisfied nod, all while happily pointing to the dessert, to show him that I’m content.

I then see Seyong dig his spoon in, so I wait for him to taste it as well.

And as he chews, I ask him; “It’s good, huh?”

He swallows it, and then nods. “Yeah, really good,” he replies, sounding somewhat surprised.

I smile, and then go back to trying the rest of the dessert. After convincing the other blonde worker there, (whose name I've managed to pick up as Himchan) Daehyun was able to sit here with us, and I think Seyong was doing most of the eating, since I was too busy chatting away.

“So noona, tell me,” begins Daehyun. “How did you become so pretty?”

Amused, I let out a laugh. “Oh geez, and when did you become such a -up?” I muse.

“You really want to know how she became so pretty?” pipes up Seyong, rather smugly; “By hanging out with me.”

The smile disappears from my face, as I turn to flatten my eyes at the red-head; “What the heck are you on about?”

“Hyeri-yah, admit it; as soon as I entered your life, your appearance just escalated like no tomorrow,” says Seyong, rather dramatically.

Daehyun's expression is unreadable, and I begin to feel slightly embarrassed for Seyong's behaviour. "Ignore him," I say, with a shake of my head, and then add with a slight cringe; "He's always like this."

Taking that in, Daehyun gives me a slow nod; "So, does that mean—"

"Yep!" interjects Seyong, in a chirpy voice. "We are."

"Oh?" Surprise is evident in Daehyun's voice, "How long have—"

"Three years!" Seyong announces, rather proudly.

"T-Three years?!" repeats Daehyun, sounding quite shocked. "Wow, that's a really long time to be—"

"I know," cuts in Seyong, with a victorious smirk. "So don't even think about it, okay?"

Daehyun blinks at him, looking at a loss of words. Becoming aware of how deep this 'code talk' has become, I put down my spoon, and give my two friends a suspicious look. "What the heck was that all about?" I question.

"Guy talk," answers Seyong.

"Guy talk?" I question, not believing him.

As if.

He nods, and then lets out chuckle, that just sounded way too happy to be normal. "Don't worry, just go back to eating," he coos, and then gives my cheek a soft pat.

I give him a queer look, but he just pretends not to notice. Turning my gaze over to Daehyun, he quickly avoids my eyes, looking a little squirm-ish. I can feel a somewhat awkward vibe coming from him, and this causes me to raise an eyebrow at him. What happened to the playful atmosphere two seconds ago? And more importantly, what did Seyong say to make him look a little embarrassed?

My thoughts are suddenly broken, as Daehyun gets up from his seat. "Anyway, I think I should go back and help Himchan hyung now," he announces, from out of the blue.

I'm surprised, as my mouth forms a small circle. "Oh?" is the first thing that comes out of me, as my shoulders deflate a little, "You're going already?"

Daehyun nods, looking apologetic. "Yeah, sorry noona," he says. "But I'm really glad to finally see you again, after all this time."

"Me too!" I agree, "We should meet up again on another day. When are you free?"

He looks taken aback by this, but by the time he can open his mouth, I take out my phone, and hand it over to him. "Actually, just give me your number, and we'll talk about it later, yeah?"

Maybe I must have loaded this all onto him a bit too quickly, because he appears to be a little frozen by it. And it must have been my imagination or something, because I feel as though he's trying to avoid looking over at Seyong. "Uh, sure, I guess," he eventually says, sounding somewhat wary.  

Daehyun quickly enters in his contact number, and then returns back my phone. I give him a friendly smile, and then thank him, voicing out my delight to reunite with him. He returns my warm gesture, and tells me that it's fine, but something about his body language, says that it's not exactly ‘okay’.

When Daehyun disappears off towards the counter, I see his co-worker approach him, in an excited manner. They stand there for a bit, exchanging inaudible words, until Himchan is seen to tilt his head in confusion. More talking is done, where Daehyun's head can now be seen slightly lowered, and as a response, Himchan reaches out his hand to give the younger boy’s shoulder a couple of sympathetic-looking pats.

The two soon go back to doing their own thing, and this is when I turn my attention back over to Seyong.

"What did you say to him?" I demand.