"Okay," Seojoon said, holding up his hand. "DESPERATION."

As Hyungsik thought for a second, then wrote on his napkin. I tried to catch Gayeon's gaze, but she was studying her water, or pretending to. "Got one!" he announced.

"No way," Seojoon said.

"Yup!" Hyungsik cleared his throat, loudly. "A ROPE ENDS IT."

"Nice!" Seojoon said, reaching across the table for a high-five. The tenth, since I'd started counting soon after we sat down. Each one sounded a louder slap than the rest, but again, that might've been just me.

"My turn." Hyungsik looked at me. "You want to get in on this yet? Run with the big kids?"

When we'd first arrived at the table and found them deep in an anagram competition, I'd actually thought it was kind of cute. After it became clear they played this game with intense focus and pride riding on every exchange, I started to see it differently. Never before had I seen such smack talk over wordplay. And that wasn't even mentioning the fact they'd basically ignored us.

"I'm good," I said, taking another sip of the drink I'd ordered to help me awake.

"Suit yourself. Are you ready?" he asked Seojoon, who was over his napkin, pen in hand. 

He nods.

"Okay," Hyungsik smiled at me. "ELEVEN PLUS TWO. Go!"

As Seojoon began scribbling, Hyungsik cackled, draining the last of the drink form his own glass with a slurp. When our waiter, a muscular type, walked by, I watched Gayeon's eyes follow him. This time, she saw me watching her and mouthed an apology.

I just shrugged. Sure, the guys were kind of duds, but it wasn't like anyone was groping me. And I'd gotten a decent dinner out of it, plus got to hang out with Gayeon, something I was realizing I needed to do as much as I could before we both headed off to school in August. Not focusing on the dating aspect of, well, dating was actually a good approach. Who knew?

"Got it!" Seojoon yelled, hitting the table and making my chopsticks jump. "TWELVE PLUS ONE."

"Nice," Hyungsik said. Another high-five. "You girls have to join in! Unless you're scared . . ."

"You don't scare me," Gayeon said flatly. She pushed out her chair. "We're going to the bathroom."

"All right," said Hyungsik, then signaled to Seojoon to pick up his pen again. We were almost to the restroom when I heard one of them yell, "CASH LOST IN ME!"

"Keep going," she said from behind me, as palms slapped again. "Do not turn around."

Once inside the bathroom, I went into a stall, while she leaned against the sinks, contemplating her reflection. After a moment she said, "I can't believe I picked these guys. Normally my judgement in these things is aces."

"It was the varsity jackets," I told her. "They blinded you."

"Probably." I heard the water running. "I'm just sorry for you. I finally convince you to go on a real date with me and this happens. Now you'll never agree to anything again."

I flushed, then came out to join her, pumping soap into my hands. "No, I will. My pride is at stakes now, remember? Or at least for the next seven weeks."

"Oh, right." She fluffed her bangs. "I guess I have Sehun to thank for that, huh? I finally got my wingman. Or woman. Or whatever."

"And it only took our lives so far," I told her.

"True. Watch, though: while you specifically aren't looking for someone great, you'll find them. I'm out here digging for years and you will just stumble over a gold nugget by accident."

"Is that what you're thinking tonight?" I asked. "Because Hyungsik is no gold nugget."

"I'm just saying there are types," she replied. "Those of us who are always looking, like me, and those who get found, like you. That's why I think, no offense, that Sehun might win this bet. He's a seeker, too."

"Who has commit to someone," I reminded her.

"For seven weeks," she said, fliping her hand. "My point is that to win, all he has to do is be himself with one person. You have to be someone else with many. The math doesn't work for me."

"If he's himself, he won't last with the same person for seven weeks," I reminded her. "In his default setting, he'd flirt with a parking meter.

"This is true." She opened her bag, taking out a lipstick. "But I just worry about you suddenly plunging into the dating pool. I don't think I taught you enough."

I looked at her through the mirror. "Then why have you been encouraging me to do just that for all these months? Are you forgetting that you said I should do this earlier today?"

"It's just not the same thing," she said. "What I was suggesting was just getting back out there and seeing what happens, with the knowledge that it might not be Jongsuk all over again. This is aiming for that. It's totally different."

"But it's something," I pointed out. "Which is more than I have been doing."

She sighed. "Look, you know I'll support you no matter what. But is it so bad that I do want another big, perfect love for you? I feel like it's the least the universe can do, after what you lost."

"I'm only seventeen, Gayeon. This is seven weeks. The universe has plenty of time."

With this, she bit her lip, a rare response, then squeezed my arm. "Well, if you need a lot of dates that will probably not be great, you came to the right person. I have sort of a talent in that department. And I would like to see Sehun go down, if only for the sport of it."

"I'll let you help pick whom he has to date when I win," I promised her. "I'm thinking maybe a Hyungsik or Seojoon type girl. Lots of high fives."

"Too bad for now that's what we're stuck with." She dropped her lipstick into her bag. "You know, that waiter's kind of cute and he's super friendly with me. Wonder what he's up to."

"You're going to ditch the varsity jackets right here at dinner?"

"Oh, please. I doubt they'd even notice if we didn't go back to the table."

I pushed open the door, looking back into the restaurant. Hyungsik and Seojoon were now building structures with the utensils and leftover plates, both of them clear focused. "We can't just leave," I said.

"Spoken like a true person who gets found," she told me. "Us seekers have no patience for lost causes."

Maybe this was true. But in the end, she would give them another thirty minutes - during which time we as a group exchanged about a few words - before begging a headache and early morning the next day and getting us out of there. When Hyungsik asked me for my number, I was surprised, and almost told him I didn't see the point. We had zero chemistry and the last thing I wanted was a repeat of this dinner or some variation. But Gayeon was more right than I'd known: when you've only been found, you can't become a ruthless seeker just like that. So in the end, I gave it to him anyway.