Bae Joohyun sits cross-legged, clad in dark, skinny pants and off-shoulders - like a black hole - in the middle of folks having brunch at a brightly decorated café. 

Definitely not her speed.

She almost forgets why she’s there in the first place until the empty mahogany chair across her scratches the floor and her roommate Son Seungwan plops down, biting her lip nervously. 

Today is her first date.

"Well, you're here early." Seungwan remarks, hanging her tote bag on the hook of their scratched table. 

"I take my job very seriously." Joohyun jests, arms still crossed. 

It makes the younger girl chuckle. 

The joke was half-meant though. A part of Joohyun really wanted to be the trusty buffer her friend needs. Otherwise, she would have just pretended to be busy with her own flavor of the week. 

"Hey, I have a great deal of dating experiences..." The older girl smiles smugly. "...and I also happen to be a fun and good-looking person. I'm arguably the best third wheeler you can ask for. Your man better be on his toes."

At this, Seungwan’s mouth splits open like she just realized something important.

"What? You forgot something?" 

Seungwan nods tentatively. She leans her elbow on the center space as if to share a secret. 

“I forgot to tell you. She’s a girl."

"She's a girl!?" Joohyun claps delightfully, attracting unfriendly gazes towards their spot. She hunches forward as if it would make her voice any smaller. "That's it! That's what I'm talking about! I knew that choker-high ponytail-button up look was bound to sweep a girl off her feet!"

The younger one, embarrassed by Joohyun’s incessant pestering, could only chew on her lip.

"Yaaah, I really don’t get why you’re this worried.” The older girl asks, eyeing Seungwan’s unusually tense mannerism. “You told me this isn't a blind date, so I'm assuming you met this person at least once?"

Seungwan answers with a curt nod. “She’s Kang Seulgi - a Dance major of the same year who constantly gets invited to our college parties to perform. She keeps me company when my classmates get too drunk sometimes.”

“Aw that's cute, she's hired herself as your guardian…” Joohyun teases. “See? Like I said, nothing to worry about! Looks like she’s already head over heels for you.”

At the moment, the older girl is already unsure if she's really needed. Usually, her job is to give the date a cold shoulder if they were jerks or give them a little push if they nice enough. However, Seungwan’s future girlfriend’s idea of fun is a quiet eat-out at a cute café and being sober at a wild college night out. A person like that probably won’t even hurt a fly. Joohyun thinks to herself as she rhythmically drums her fingers at their table. She stares at her precious, gentle and awfully timid roommate and decides to be a little kind to her date today.

As if on cue, the bell on the door rings and a tall girl in a haphazardly tied bun and warm brown sweater emerges from it. The way Seungwan’s hand shot up, waving to catch the former’s attention makes Joohyun think that this is Kang Seulgi. And boy, does Kang Seulgi look like she’s lost in another dimension, squinting with such a plaintive expression across the room. Thankfully, her monolidded eyes catch Seungwan’s and her face rearranges to offer a charming smile. The latter casually waltzes across the aisles, politely saying ‘excuse me’ to everyone she passes by as if she was invading their personal space if she got close to them in a 5 inch radius. It takes only a millisecond for Joohyun to figure out that Seulgi is an actual fluffball who is kind of cute in a clumsy way (to the point that Joohyun is actually surprised when the other girl doesn’t bang her knee on the table when she – at last – takes her seat in between the two roommates).

“Hi, sorry! I hope you didn’t wait too long, Seungwan.” Seulgi apologetically says, putting her palms together.

Seungwan shakes her head and graciously tells Seulgi she didn’t wait that much anyway. The latter grins and turns to acknowledge the other person lounged at the seat next to her - Joohyun - who was suddenly pretending to stare at the menu like it was the most interesting thing in the world. At this, Seungwan lightly kicks the older girl’s toes under the table as if to signal, “It’s introduction time.”

“Ah!” The shy girl pipes up as rehearsed. “This is my roommate, Joohyun-unnie. I hope you don’t mind I brought her along too. We haven’t had lunch at the dorm you see…”

“It’s fine! I don’t mind at all!” Seulgi exclaims, interrupting Seungwan’s alibi. Kang Seulgi shakes her head and hands so vigorously that Joohyun is kind of convinced she meant it when she said she was okay with having a date-crasher.

“I’m Kang Seulgi, by the way.” The girl offers her hand for Joohyun to shake and she takes it. The handshake was as Joohyun expected – firm.

“I haven’t met you before so…that must mean you come from another department, right?” Seulgi curiously asks when the two of them release their hands from each other’s grip. “On what program are you at, unnie?”

“Ah yes – you’re a dance major, right? Uhmm…well, I study Film.” Joohyun replies with a small smile.

Seulgi gasps. “Daebak! What kind of films do you like making?”

“Well, I love filming Seungwan when she’s about to sleep looking disheveled and when she’s pulling her sleeves up to mix bread batter.” Joohyun jokes, earning a meaningful glare from her roommate. Yet, the older girl doesn’t retreat and even pulls out her phone from her back pocket.

“Want to see them?” She directs the question at Seulgi.

“Can I really?” Kang Seulgi enthusiastically blurts out, leaning towards Joohyun.

A cough across the table intrudes on the exciting exchange.

“I mean –", Seulgi withdraws to her seat. “I’d love to see them, but I don’t think I should…”

Seungwan bobs her head in approval at her date, but sends an icy stare at Joohyun.

The latter simply laughs at this and pockets her phone away. “Alright, Seungwan. I get it. I’m behaving.”

Yes please do. Seungwan‘s scowl at the older girl seems to say. The former clears and in an obvious attempt to change the topic, she says: “Great. Now that we’re all settled, we can call on somebody to take our orders.”

Seulgi takes a hint and calls on the waiter first by waving her arm a little. Joohyun sees Seungwan shoot her a thankful smile because knowing her, she’d probably be too soft spoken to call out the waiter on her own. Kang Seulgi is leading the meet up pretty well - almost as if she had a solid plan of what she wanted to do during the date (which was refreshing because some guys usually just go ‘whatever you like’). She masterfully recites the café’s bestsellers and recommends it to both of her companions but she isn’t imposing – especially to Seungwan who she always courteously asks if she was okay with everything. If anything, aside for her lanky bear appearance, Joohyun notices that Seulgi is caring.

Also, she deduces that Seulgi’s cheek muscles are made of steel as they haven’t stopped grinning since the 94 liner locked eyes with Seungwan, gaping at her as if she was the only thing her monolidded eyes could see.

The moment the waiter disappears into the kitchen, Joohyun spies Seulgi reaching out inside her ripped jeans’ pockets. She whips out a sunshine yellow earphone and an iPod, consequently beaming up at her real date. “Say, Seungwan...I was listening to random music last night and this really good jazz song came up. It reminded me of you.”

Joohyun averts her eyes from the couple and directs her sneer from Seulgi’s comment at the window. She affirms that Kang Seulgi has done her homework, using soulful, bluesy music – Seungwan’s undisputed first love – as a weapon of seduction. She almost applauds at Seulgi when she plugs in only one earphone bud in her own ear instead of just blatantly playing the thing out on the speakers, implying that she wanted to share the earphones with Seungwan and listen to it together. She side-eyes Seulgi asking “Can I?” before tucking a strand of Seungwan’s hair away to secure the earphone bud in her ear.

This is like watching a cheesy teenage romance film. Joohyun cringes internally, but she likewise gives credit to the awkward bear who surprisingly had smooth moves up her sleeves.

As Joohyun catches them nodding and closing their eyes at the same parts of the song they were listening to, she sees how Seungwan and Seulgi actually make a good match. They were so enclosed in their personal bubble of music - so doused in a lovey-dovey atmosphere that Bae Joohyun is rendered speechless and is forced to stay true to her expected role –

A docile third wheel.

Luckily, being a real chaperone isn’t so bad if Kang Seulgi’s on the other side of the date.

“Want me to cut this for you?” The taller girl offers, her knife already perched on top of Joohyun’s rather enormous garlic loaf that the older girl doesn’t see how she could refuse.

Even when their orders came, Seulgi was consistent - sustaining the same caliber of attentiveness and gentleness towards both Joohyun and Seungwan. She cuts food for them, pours them water whenever she checks that their glasses are emptying, offers Seungwan to try her food and blows on it in an adorable, meticulous way before passing the fork... all the while cheerfully responding to the friendly banters Joohyun initiated while eating.

Kang Seulgi is a good person. Joohyun concludes as she’s munching on her last piece of bread on one of the most satisfying 'dates' she's ever been into.  ​​​​​​If she had met Seulgi first, she would have introduced her to Seungwan too. 

“Hmm!” A voice suddenly pops out and it catches Joohyun by surprise, making her close her eyes and clutch at the fabric close to her heart as if she’s about to have a full blown .

Bae Joohyun thinks she hears the café bells at door chime again (or maybe the gates of heaven welcoming her premature death) but later on, she realizes it was simply Seulgi’s giggling, after peeking with one eye and seeing the young girl throw her head back in laughter.

“I was about to tell you that the chic way you eat makes the bread look expensive, but your surprised reaction made me laugh. I guess you have a cute side too, unnie.” Seulgi says in between chuckles. "It shows up when you're scared~"

Joohyun turns towards the window again, feeling a lazy blush coming to her cheeks.

She ponders how anybody could be that straightforward at complimenting and contemplates about punching the crinkly-cute-eye expression Kang Seulgi was giving her across the table but she drops the idea since she doesn’t want to spoil the perfectly good-natured mood among them. Instead, she just lets the scene play in her head over and over again like a broken film tape. I guess you have a cute side too, unnie. It shows up when you're scared~ Seulgi's voice echoed. Joohyun can’t recall the last time someone used the word “cute” to describe her and never had she imagined she’d hear it first from a bear-looking girl 3 full years younger than her.

Bae Joohyun doesn’t even notice her heartbeat picking up pace until Seungwan taps her hand in a slow rhythm. Once again, she almost forgets why she’s there in the first place until she catches a glimpse of Kang Seulgi paying the bill and she remembers:

Ah, I’m not the date. Only Friend A.

The three of them stand up. Seulgi and Seungwan are still conversing with each other and Joohyun’s eyes don’t leave them. She looks at the two of them expectantly even when they all strode out of the café. As Seulgi sends them off with an eye smile and a weak wave, Joohyun secretly has her fingers crossed that Seungwan truly enjoyed the date as much as she said she did.

After all, although Seulgi was nice and she preferred her men or women ‘not-so-nice’, Bae Joohyun admits 13/10 would want to have a second date with Kang Seulgi.