Chapter 10: It's All Lies.

Youngjae breathed the coffee in, it smelled sweet and bitter, and set out to take a sip, but he was interrupted by a blow to the head.

    “Ouch!!!” Youngjae screamed and threw the coffee on himself “It's hot, it's hot!!!” Youngjae turned around and faced Himchan “What's wrong with you?! Why did you hit me?!”

    “Because you didn't invite me to your wedding!”

    “What wedding? It's too early for you to be drunk, you know”

    Himchan showed Youngjae a magazine (the same one he used to hit him)

    Youngjae looked at the magazine with a blank stare. On the cover was a picture of himself with a Dasom in a wedding dress and the headline read:

Ego Editor-in-Chief shotgun marries Ego Latest Model

    “What the is this?!!!” Youngjae’s jaw dropped and widened his eyes.

    “You tell me, I know you got a thing for Dasom, but getting married without me it's a no, no, I’m your bffuwdatnlt”

    “What’s bffuwdatnlt?”

    “Best friends forever until we die and the next life too”

    “I can barely stand you in this life, no way there's next”

    “Say what you want, I know I'm your bffaencrmbylm”

    “And that means?”

    “Best friend forever and ever, nobody can replace me because you love me”

    “If you say so”

    “You should see page 36” Himchan said, trying not to giggle.

    Youngjae turned to page 36 and found a photo of himself and Dasom, holding hands, and the article said:

Yoo Youngjae, 24, current editor of the fashion magazine, Ego, was seen in the Four Seasons, together with a young woman in a big puffy wedding dress.

Later that day, we found out that she’s Ego’s new model, Park Dasom.

By all the evidence, we can give first news to our readers that Youngjae and Dasom got married.

    The so called evidence were photos of Dasom and Youngjae, holding hands and escaping from the paparazzi and fans.

Rumor has it, Dasom, 26, is three months pregnant, and since the Yoo family is a traditional family, the heir had to get marry in secret.

    “It’s all lies!!! Everything is a lie!!!” Youngjae yelled like a madman “You know, right?” Youngjae grabbed Himchan by the collar.

    “I know, but it’s funny!!!” Himchan couldn’t take it anymore and died of laughter.

    “It’s not!!! My mom will have a heart attack if she reads this, she thinks she’s too young to have a grandchild” Youngjae said “I have to call her”

    “You have to call Nahyun too”

    “Who?”

    “Your girlfriend” Himchan frowned “She won’t be happy with your marriage” the stylist cried from laughing so hard.

On the other side of the town, with no clue, Daehyun was in his uncle’s house, picking up his things, some clothes and his camera and a bag full of expired roll films. Daehyun looked at his room one last time, it was small and most of the time he hated it, but it didn’t mean he didn’t feel nostalgic. He sighed and was about to leave when someone hit him in the face with a pan.

    “What the?!” Daehyun cried out in pain while stepping back.

    “Daehyun?” a girl said, concerned.

    “Natalie!”

    “What are you doing here?” both said at the same time.

    “I think my nose is bleeding!” Daehyun touched his nose carefully as the pain flowed through him.

    “It is not” she patted his nose gently “Look” she showed him the shining side of the pan.

    Daehyun looked at his reflection, his nose wasn’t bleeding, but it was red like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

    “Sorry, but you scared the hell out of me” Natalie said “I was supposed to do the dishes alone. Your aunt is out doing some last minute grocery shopping for tonight’s dinner. She asked me to help her”

    “She doesn’t know how bad a cook you are”

    “Don’t tempt me to hit you again” she shook the pan threateningly.

    “I surrender” Daehyun laughed as he put his hands up.

    “I’m glad to see you” Natalie hugged him with all her might and laughed “I thought you’d moved out!”

    “I did… I just came by to get my stuff, it’s not much though” Daehyun showed her the backpack with the camera and clothes and then the plastic bag with the films.

    “Where are you living now?”

    “I'm living... with a coworker...” Daehyun lied.

    “You're always at work, aren't you?”

    “I've been busy, but I haven’t stopped waiting for your call” Daehyun said “You never called again after the last time you did”

    “I've been busy too” she said “You’ve a phone too, so why don’t you call?”

    “I’ve been busy…” Daehyun bit his lower lip. Truth be told he was very scared of calling her and being rejected, plus, he didn’t want to appear stalker.

    “You know what? Your aunt won’t be back until late, so why don’t we go for the coffee you own me?” Natalie left the pan and took off her apron.

    “Let’s go, there’s a nice cafe nearby” Daehyun said, excitedly.

Natalie and Daehyun walked down the street, broad daylight. Many couples passed them by, they themselves looked like a couple, they exchanged laughs and glances with complicity. And all of a sudden, she stood looking at him and said:

    “You’ve changed!”

    “Mmm, what?”

    “You used to be smaller, now you're taller” she said before looking at her feet.

    She blushed… Daehyun thought, overwhelmed. No way, I’m making things up.

    “What’s in the bag?” Natalie asked, smiling bright.

    “Old films, I mean expired films”

    “They’re useless, aren’t they? Why do you keep them?”

    “It’s quite the opposite, you can get great photos with expired films, you can get color shifts or unevenness, that give the photos a sepia feeling or all the photos can be blue or gray or full of spots, it’s like photoshop but…”

    “Au nature, without forcing it”

    “Something like that” Daehyun said “I’m eager to start taking pics, you don’t know how lucky I felt when I found this treasure in the storage I was cleaning”

    “Why wait? Let’s start taking pictures!” she said.

    “But…”

    “Come on, show me what you got”

    Daehyun took the camera out of the backpack and put a film into and pointed the camera at Natalie.

    “Oh no, put that away, I’m not wearing makeup” she covered her face with one hand “I’m hideous”

    You are beautiful, Daehyun thought.

    “Look, there’s a bunch of birds” she pointed at the sky.

    Daehyun looked up, the birds were dark blue as the sky was a softer blue, it was a beautiful imagery and he caught it in the camera.

    “Let me see” Natalie said, excitedly.

    “It's not a digital camera; I’ll have to develop the pictures first, but I promise the photos will be amazing”

    “I believe you” she said and looked around “Hey, isn’t cute that little dog chasing that butterfly?”

    Daehyun nodded and took some shoots. They didn’t continue their way to the coffeehouse until Daehyun finished the whole cartridge.

Almost to the coffeehouse, there was a stand selling magazines and newspapers, Daehyun stopped abruptly when he saw himself as Dasom in a wedding dress on a magazine’s cover. But Dasom wasn’t alone, Youngjae was by her side and held her hand sweetly, at least, the magazine made it seem so. But the thing that really got his attention was the damn headline!

Ego Editor-in-Chief shotgun marries Ego Latest Model

    “WHAT THE I’M WATCHING?!!! MY EYES!!!”

    Daehyun grabbed the magazine and started reading like a man possessed.

Rumor has it, Dasom, 26, is three months pregnant, and since the Yoo family is…

    “I’m not 26!!!” Daehyun cried out “and certainly I’m not… How can I…? What the?!!! This is Youngjae’s doing? I’ll ing kill him!!!”

    Daehyun examined the proof, they were photos of him and Youngjae running away from the paparazzi, but the magazine called it ROMANTIC GETAWAY. Daehyun stared at the photo of him and Youngjae, holding hands under the rain, and a shiver ran through his back as he remembered the sensation of cold raindrops and Youngjae’s warm hand. Even though everything was freezing, Youngjae’s hand remained warm and never released his hand.

    Suddenly, flashbacks of them together came to life, sharing cheesecake and talking… and Daehyun felt homesick and missed Youngjae.

    “This is the earth calling Jung Daehyun” Natalie pulled him out his thoughts “Are you ok? Since when you’re interested in fashion magazines?”

    “This is a fashion magazine? It’s bull, it’s all lies!!!”

    “Wow, you seem very passionate about… The Star Weekly (That’s the magazine’s name)”

    “Hey, this isn’t a library, you have to buy first” an ajumma showed up.

    “I’ll buy it” Daehyun wasn’t going to leave that magazine for all to see “Actually, I’ll buy all these!” he removed dozens of magazines with Dasom and Youngjae from the stand.

    “Ok” the woman took the money and put more magazines in the stand.

    “What? How many of these magazines you got?!” Daehyun asked.

    “Four boxes, they’re like 200 magazines”

    “I want them all!”

    “That’s 300 dollars”

    “I got five bucks” Daehyun said “But you can send the boxes to my place and I’ll pay you there”

    “Daehyun!” Natalie didn’t say a thing so far, but she couldn’t let his friend spend so much money on tabloids, they weren’t even different magazines, they were the same with the same cover of a guy and a girl in wedding dress over and over.

    “Don’t worry, I’m ok, I just need to have all the magazines”

    Natalie shook his head as the old lady gave a paper to Daehyun which he wrote his address on and then made her swear on her life that she’d send all the magazines to him.