Almost hidden at the city, Hannah entered a small café. It was her first time there but lurking around the area for few minutes, she thought that it would be the safest place to go to with this super famous man following her. Good thing there was no customer as well. It was around 2 in the afternoon.

She went to the counter and noticed Jinki following behind not too long after. “You can take a seat. What do you want?”

“Iced Americano for me.” He said while giving her his black card. She declined. “It’s okay.”

“It’s my treat.” She insisted. “Please take a seat.” Jinki couldn’t do anything and simply nodded. He noticed that the girl at the counter was looking at him so he lowered his cap to hide his face.

“I’ll be there then.” He spoke in a low tone and left the counter to take a seat. Hannah inhaled heartily as if she couldn’t breathe a while ago. It felt like she lost air for few seconds.

While waiting for their drinks, Hannah would steal glances and find Jinki looking around and lowering his cap from time to time. He was so conscious and she understood why. At that moment, she randomly remembered that just months ago, Jinki got involved in a dating scandal with some fellow idol 7 years older. Both companies denied the scandal and insisted that they were just friends hanging out together. She shook her head at the memory. Now that she was able to meet him up close like that, she would probably believe that he indeed dated that idol – and he probably dated more than what anyone would know. This guy was a real player. He didn’t look like it, but he definitely was.

And she would never put her guards down.

“Here.” She followed at the table with drinks after a short while and sat opposite him.

“Thanks.” He said grabbing his coffee. Jinki took one quick sip, and nodded subtly as if he just tested what the coffee would taste.

“He really loves coffee.” Hannah thought while taking a sip of her caramel macchiato.

“So?” Holding her breath tenderly, Hannah opened the conversation. It made her seem like she was so confident and Jinki’s presence was not affecting her at all.

“I’m sorry for what happened last night…” Jinki spoke, his tone sincere and genuine. “…for all of it.”

“It’s okay. No harm done.” She spoke coolly. Hannah must admit she appreciated the fact that Jinki really went as far as meeting her like this just to apologize. And then she suddenly remembered what she did. “I…. should apologize as well…” She hesitated, but since she blurted it out already, there was no way but to finish her sentence. “…for hitting you.” It was quite embarrassing, but she endured.

Jinki smiled awkwardly as he caressed the side of his face where Hannah’s palm landed. “I deserved it. I was being a jerk. It’s okay.”

There was a long silence, until Jinki spoke again. “About your house…”

Hannah’s expression changed. She was curious about what he was going to say. “What about that?”

“I still can’t sell it back to you.” He clarified and cleared his throat before continuing. “But I have a proposal.”

“Which is?”

“We can share it.” He announced. Hannah was frozen and only looked at him. It was as if she was trying to figure out if he was serious or joking. “I’m serious.” Jinki said to answer Hannah’s thoughts.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Nervous, Hannah answered back. She was not sure why Jinki suddenly arrived at such suggestion.

“By the way, about what I said last night about…” Jinki remembered another thing he forgot to disclose before proposing the sharing of the house. “About you being mine…” Those words made Hannah involuntarily swallow. Jinki paused and continued after few seconds. “I was just teasing Hyungsik.”

“W-what?”

Hannah didn’t really expect that Jinki was serious when he said that she was his. However, hearing straight from him the truth at that moment hurt her a bit. The one percent of hope she had just died.

“Park Hyungsik is a good kid, but I think he went overboard when he suddenly went in and barged in your conversation. I was a bit irritated seeing that so I decided to play with him for a while.”

And he did toy with me, too…

“It’s not that I was trying to play with you, too. I just… it came out of nowhere that I had a hard time taking it a back…” He continued explaining after seeing Hannah’s questionable expression. “And I really apologize again if it seemed like I embarrassed you. I was lying. I never thought that you would like me in that way. I just really had some good amount of drink that I was out of my mind.”

“You’re trying to clarify that you know I don’t like you and you don’t like me back, right?”

“Right.” Jinki answered flatly – without any hesitation. “If that circumstance is hindering you to share the house with me, then I’m telling you there should be no problems, and, it’s not like we’re not going to live together. There are lots of rooms in that house. It’s even possible that we won’t bump into each other at all.”

“It’s prone to scandal. A girl is living in the same house as yours. What would the people think?”

“No one knows it’s my house afterall, and you know it’s in private village. The place isn’t somewhere people often pass. If no one would tip the paparazzi, no one would know.”

Hannah was speechless. Jinki had every excuse to any issues she tried to raise. “Why are you doing this?” She asked eventually to which Jinki sure had his answer as well.

“1^st, I was really apologetic to what I did last night. 2^nd, I realized you were a victim. Someone stole the house from you and sold it to me. 3^rd, I wouldn’t want to keep your parents’ memories away from you. It’s your right. I’m lucky enough to have my own parents still living well today.”

Hannah only stared at him again.

“But then again, it’s still up to you. I mean, you can still take this to the court. I’m not saying that this is my way of settling the problem. It’s just that, you know the grounds, Hannah-ssi. I think your lawyer was honest enough to tell you I am at a great advantage. Legally speaking, there was conflicting with how I bought the house. If you put it in simple terms, it will appear like I bought it from a real estate agent, in which in this case, your cousin.”

There was a short pause once again as Jinki took a sip of his coffee.

“You’ll take it to the court. The hearing will take a while, and you need to spend so much for each trial. In the end, there’s a huge huge chance the house will still be given to me. Let’s be honest, that’s going to be the real deal.”

Hannah couldn’t really answer back at that point. Jinki was right on all angles.

“So let’s say for us not to waste any effort and money, we just go and divide the house to two. What do you say?”

“Okay. But how do we divide the house?”

“Up to you.”

He let Hannah think for a while, in which she really did. After around five minutes of no talking, she spoke. “it’s yours from 7am to 7pm, it’s mine from 7pm-7am.”

“Fair enough.” Jinki agreed. “But one rule. We leave the house as the same way we had it when we arrived. That means no hint of any litter or mess.”

“We should also re-sign a contract, stating that I am a co-owner of the house.”

It had Jinki thinking for a while, and then he eventually nodded. “I’m in.” He stood up and lend his hand across the table. “So it’s a deal?”

Hannah stood up, her height falling short from Jinki in some good inches. She reached for his hand and shook it. “It’s a deal then.”