Days turned to weeks and into months, Dong Wook still couldn’t find the right moment to talk to Ha In about her conditions. Deep down he knew something had to be done. She needed to talk to someone. And seeing as her family and friends weren’t able to bring it up till now, he had to be the one to do it.

Well, someday.

He understood why nobody had the heart to bring up the topic. She had been doing so well on the regular days. Nothing should ever happen as long as she was with someone. He didn’t want to imagine how she would react if he suddenly mentioned the incident. He feared for the worst.

While struggling to find the right words to say for when he got to say it, Dong Wook frowned as he looked out the car and saw that annoying foreigner, Jasonwhatshisname, walked Ha In out of the cafe where she was to wait for him.

Dong Wook really did hate this guy. He was too clingy.

But oh well, let’s face it. When it’s Ha In we’re talking about, those kinda guys were easily the friendzoned type, so he didn’t bother doing anything about it. Plus, he didn’t actually have any particular right to tell a person to stop being friendly to a girl he secretly liked because after all, there was an extremely high chance that he himself was also in the zone.

“Hey”

“Hey. Sorry I’m late.”

“Nah. It’s ok. Jason kept me company. We had lots of fun talking about interesting places he’s visited so far.”

Dong Wook resisted the urge to roll his eyes and started the car.

It was a Friday evening, they both had planned to binge watch The Originals for the whole weekend at Dong Wook’s place.

As always, Ha In babbled on and on about different stuffs during the drive. And as always, Dong Wook would listen, nodded as he agreed, or retorted as he disagreed. But most of the time, he just quietly listened, and every now and then, Ha In noticed his frowns.

“What?” After a while she decided to say something about it.

Dong Wook gave her a quick glance before looking back at the road.

“So how’s Yeong Ji-shi doing?”

“Huh? er…” For the first time ever, Ha In became flustered at the mention of her cousin’s name.

“You haven’t talked much about her lately, which is unusual.”

Ha In couldn’t deny that. It was true that she loved talking about her favorite people. Like how they’ve been doing, or what she had done together with them lately, or how she’d missed them. There was always something to talk about them. Dong Wook even felt that he knew about those people more than he should because apparently he hadn’t met most of them yet.

“Umm, well…she hasn’t been around much lately.” Ha In looked down, suddenly found her fingers very interesting.

Clearly, she was upset, Dong Wook could tell that much.

“Is…everything ok between you two?”

“Shouldn’t it? I don’t know. Let’s talk about something else.”

It was not like she hated mentioning her cousin now. She just had nothing to talk about. There had been no conversations, no interactions. Hell, she could hardly see Yeong Ji lately. And if she had nothing good to talk about someone, she'd rather not say anything at all.

It was upsetting to think that Yeong Ji had been casting her aside, doing things she had no idea about. Her cousin had suddenly become so mysterious. They had never been like that before, no matter how different they were.

“Alright. Let’s talk about something else.” And as Ha In sighed briefly and tried to move to a new topic, Dong Wook reached out to ruffle her head. “It’ll be alright.”

Ha In slowly turned to look at him in the eyes and saw that he meant what he said. He believed that it’d be alright between her and Yeong Ji. It made her feel the same way. And so she smiled. A genuine smile that Dong Wook hadn’t seen in a while.

Now he truly understood the gravity of her relationships with those she held dear. A mere friction could burden her heart so much that little miss vibrant had to pretend to be happy.

It was a given that one would miss those who were far away because it couldn’t be helped. But how heart breaking would it be to have to miss someone close by, who suddenly became so out of reach.

But Go Ha In was Go Ha In for a reason because if you weren’t observant enough you wouldn’t be able to tell a trouble-minded Go Ha In from a happy-go-lucky Go Ha In. And just like that, that sad face that appeared for just 50 seconds was thrown out the window, and she was now cheerfully rambling on about a bunch of different topics again.

“Did you stock up the fridge and cabinets.” Ha In asked as she punched in the key code to Dong Wook’s house.

“Yes, ma’am. I won’t let you starve.” He air-quoted the word starve, and Ha In smirked at that as if it was something to be proud of.

“Glutton.” Dong Wook mumbled as he followed Ha In into the house, but bumped into her back when she suddenly stopped short in her track. That was when he noticed another presence in the house. His stomach dropped.

“Hello, Dong Wook, honey. Long time no see. I’ve missed you.”

Dong Wook face palmed as he finally remembered who that woman was – someone he’d acquainted once and hoped to never see again.

She got up and ran to hug him. He tried his best get out of her embrace while in the meantime avoided looking Ha In in the eye, whose stare for some reason seemed to pierce right through his flesh.

“Lucy. What are you doing here?”

Dong Wook normally didn’t care to remember his one-night stands. But this one had some distinct traits to be remembered.

Her outstanding beauty was obvious. But there’s also this annoying way of talking of hers. That unpleasant attitude. And the fact that she had a foreign name. Whether or not it was a real name, he didn’t care, but it was easy to remember.

“How mean!! Did you forget? We had a great time together before. What, just cuz you found a new girl, I’m no good anymore?” She turned to looked at Ha In up and down and then pulled her lips into a smirk as if to showed that Dong Wook’s new fling was average compared to herself.

“You stole my watch and money.” Dong Wook said in an indifferent tone, finally managed to peel her off of his body.

Also, it’s not too hard to remember someone who stole from you. That was when he swore off bringing someone home while being so wasted.

“I didn’t – ”

“Really?” Dong Wook cut her off before she could even start denying it.

“Well…”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but…who is she?” Ha In, who had been quiet all this while, finally said something. She had this unimpressed look on when she looked at the other woman, then turned to Dong Wook, expecting an answer.

“She’s…er…well.” Dong Wook never imagined there would come a day he would regret his careless behaviors. He really didn’t want Ha In to know what kind of guy he used to be. But well, considering how smart she was, he bet she’d already figured it out.

“Oh. I’m his ex-girl friend.” Lucy took the chance to say seeing as Dong Wook hesitated to explain.

Dong Wook scrunched his face when he heard the blatant lie, but before he could say anything to clear it up, Ha In beat him to it.

“Yeah. Right.” Ha In said, again looking unimpressed. Obviously not believing a word Lucy said. The girl looked offended by that. “How did you get in here?”

“Through the door, of course.”

Ha In frowned.

“Lee Dong Wook-shi, a word please.” She said as she headed to the kitchen.

Ok. Full name. With honorific. This couldn’t be good.

Dong Wook took a deep breath before following her to the kitchen.

“Umm, just to be clear, she’s not – ”

“Look. I don’t care about your little endeavor.” Ha In cut him off with a dry tone. Dong Wook had a vague feeling that she seemed rather irked by this situation. “But I don’t understand why you let a person like that know the key code to your house?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then what?”

“I was careless.”

Ha In rolled her eyes as if to say of course, you were.

It was super extremely rare to see Go Ha In so irritated by anything. Dong Wook couldn’t decided whether he should be happy that she cared so much – he actually wanted to see more of that – or be afraid of what an angry Go Ha In was capable of doing – that thought alone gave him chills up the spine.

“Look. I’m sorry. I’ll tell her to go.”

Again Ha In gave him the look as if to say he was an idiot.

“Even if she goes now, she’ll come back later. For someone like her, you’re like a big fish. She’s gonna keep coming back as long as she knows you’re free to catch.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?”<