Xiao Meng kept a stiff smile on her face. She kept it there for the others to see. She couldn’t show the cracks on her soul to people who would only pity her. She should’ve been used to be no more than plain in her husband’s eyes. Or better, she should’ve been used to be in the second place in his heart.

They’d been married for five years, and they’d also been engaged for quite a while before taking that last important step, yet he didn’t seem to realize it. At times she just wanted to yell at his face that he’d married HER, in case he’d forgotten. She wanted to yell to his face all the suffering he'd put her through with his behaviour, tell him all the mean things she thought about him, about herself and about his “friend”.

Xiao Meng stood up and collected the dirty dishes and cutlery from the table while the others kept drinking and laughing, reminiscing stories of their past. It was the perfect excuse to leave that suffocating room and have a moment for herself. Not that her absence was going to be notices anyway.

She didn’t even remember how the situations got that ugly. The worst thing was that she was definitely the only one who felt that way. Everyone was happy except for her. Namjoon was all she could see in her future. He was the last thing he thought about before falling asleep, and the first thing she thought of and saw when she woke up in the morning. Despicably, it was still like that even after all these years, and he poisoned her thoughts from the very first moments she opened her eyes in the morning.

In Xiao Meng’s dreams, he was the white knight that saved her from all her problems, from all her pain, from all the evil around her, but in reality Namjoon was all she feared. All her pain was caused by him. Albeit unconsciously, he kept hurting again and again, and now staying too close to him was toxic for her. Staying with him and their best friends on the same room felt like there was not enough space for all of them to breathe freely. She felt more like the villain of the story rather than the victim, because her jealousy was so strong she had reached the point she enjoyed the times things didn't work right for them.

There was no fairy tale in their relationship. They weren’t each other’s first love. Xiao Meng wasn’t even sure if there’d ever even been a moment in which Namjoon’s love for her overpowered his love for Herin.

When they first met, Xiao Meng was going out with a guy from her literature class, who was also her first love, but he shattered her heart after a good year and a half, telling her there was no future for them as his parents had never approved of their only son going out with a foreigner, even more when she was just a teacher in middle school, a job she had studied so hard to obtain. He’d told her more than once that his parent would’ve had a better opinion of her if she looked for another job, a better paid one, but Xiao Meng liked her job. She’d dreamed of becoming a teacher way before she had even thought about going in Korea to study. How could she even imagine that it would’ve been the cause of so much hatred?

At that time she had already met Namjoon and although they weren’t close, they saw each other quite often as they shared their circle of friends. Xiao Meng didn’t even remember how they got close. To her it didn’t feel like that kind of sudden connection you sometimes gets when you meet someone new. It was different. Everything was different when it involved Namjoon. Talking with him didn't give her anxiety, even thought Xiao Meng knew she was making mistakes, because she was sure he didn't judge her for them. He always tried hard to listen and understand every single thing she said.

One day she was tearing up because of her stupid ex-boyfriend who’d stopped replying to her texts and was even going out with another girl that his parents had introduced to him. Xiao Meng was heartbroken by his behaviour. How could he get over her so quickly? How could he give in to his parent’s pressures after having shared a year and half with her? By how fast he’d recovered and found someone else, Xiao Meng was starting to believe that maybe it wasn't because of his parents, but because he was already going out with another girls while he was with her…it wouldn’t have surprised her at all since she’d hear many stories before about men using foreigner women just for a release since they were “easier”. However, Xiao Meng didn't think she'd been “easy”. She had given him her ity a couple of months after they became official, sure that they were going to spend their life together. Did that make her easy? How much more should she have waited?

Hearing Xiao Meng say those things, Namjoon had hugged her to his chest and caressed her back until she felt her tears slowing down. That afternoon he told her a lot of encouraging words. Namjoon had always been a sweetheart like that.

“I think you should start looking for someone else now, okay? If you find yourself thinking about him for too long call me, I’ll distract you”, he’d told her before she entered in her apartment, after he had insisted on walking her home.

And she did call me. From that they on, whenever it felt like she was reminiscing too many memories of ex-boyfriend, Xiao Meng called Namjoon and they chatted for hours. The initial awkwardness had turned into a genuine interest for the each other, and they never ran out of things to say.

Xiao Meng gradually started to notice all the little things he did: how he scrunched his nose in embarrassment, how his cheeks turned rosy whenever he felt like people was staring at him, how his forehead wrinkled up when he was absorbed in a new lawsuit, and many other very endearing things. And her interest for him grew.

Soon she started liking him.

He was always there to remind her she didn’t have to let other people’s opinion influence her, nor did she have be jealous of others, she just had to be herself and someday she would find someone who appreciated her for herself. Maybe the parents of her ex-boyfriend hadn’t appreciated her nor had they understood how much she was worth, but that wasn’t her problem. It was only theirs. It didn’t mean Xiao Meng wasn’t worth their respect. It didn’t meant she couldn’t find someone better. Someone who could appreciate her for real.

However in reality, Xiao Meng was jealous, and other people’s opinion weighted her down. Even right now, standing in her kitchen she felt jealous. Sometimes Namjoon’s words echoed in her mind and she thought that maybe, if she stopped belittling herself, she wouldn’t be jealous anymore. The problem was that those were just words, and she was actually extremely jealous. She had been jealous for years. She had been swallowed in her jealousy for so long that she didn’t even know how to not be jealous anymore.

She was embarrassed by the comments people made about Namjoon’s weird relationship with his best friend. She was embarrassed when they pointed out that it showed that she was jealous. She was embarrassed even when they asked her why she didn’t put her foot down before things turned out like this, and what was even worse was that there was no real answer to that question. Why hadn’t she put her foot down? Xiao Meng didn’t really know.

She had forced herself not to be jealous of Herin and Namjoon’s relationship in the beginning. She’d forced herself to be reasonable, for there was no putting in discussion their relationship. They had been friends, best friends at that, ever since they were teenager, thus she had no right to put herself in between them. It wasn’t wrong for Namjoon's parents to think their son and Herin would end up together since they were glued to the hip, and it was okay for them to be disappointed in his final choice. Xiao Meng wanted to be the cool girl who’s not insecure. The girl that can accept that her fiancé, and then husband, was close with other girls apart from herself. She wanted to be open minded and accept the fact that her husband's best friend wasn't her and he confided his problems to another woman. She didn’t want to put any limit to his freedom.

Hearing those words constantly was poisoning though, and Xiao Meng realized that as the time passed something had changed in the way she saw Namjoon and the relationship they shared. She started wishing she had more oh his time. She started wishing more and more she was like Herin. Xiao Meng wanted Namjoon for herself. Just for once she wanted him for herself. She often day dreamed about those scenes from the movies where the husband shows off his wife, declaring her how much he loves her in front of everyone, or just those romantic scenes where the husband cooks for his wife and they eat with the right kind of music in the background.

Namjoon wanted Xiao Meng to be herself, but how could she be herself when hidden behind her mask there was that ugly jealousy?

Moreover, Herin was a mutual friend of theirs, and also the girl through which they meet in the first place. Xiao Meng had befriended her soon after having moved in Korea to attend university. Seeing the foreigner girl having a hard time, Herin had decided to help her by showing her the various facilities, shops, offices and cafes around the area. The two of them had hit it off quite well, and shortly after their first meeting the two of them were extremely close, which lead Herin to introduce Xiao Meng to her friends. That was another reason why she couldn’t put herself in between their friendship: Herin had been kind to her even thought they had just meet, and without her she would've had a harder time adapting and meeting people. Herin had been the only one who wanted to get to know her, and her friendship had been very important for Xiao Meng. Being a foreigner brought people to you, but no one was ever really interested in getting to know you for real, they just wanted someone to teach them a foreign language or an exotic friendship to show off.

In spite of the difficulties she had to face every day, being a foreigner in a different country wasn’t all that bad in Xiao Meng's opinion. Often people were curious about her country and her culture, so they often tried to strike a conversation out of nowhere. It happened that someone made a rude comment, but it wasn’t a common thing, so she was adapting to this new country without facing too many hurdles. The only real problem she had had was the fact that learning Korean took time, and she was going way too slowly since she had no one to talk in Korean to back then. Or better, all the people she could’ve been speaking in Korean with only spoke in English or Chinese to her, so they could practice their skills, which obviously meant she didn’t get to practice any Korean.

Maybe that was how she and Namjoon had gotten even closer. He helped her to practice Korean and Xiao Meng helped him to improve his English and taught him Chinese. It was easy to talk with him and when he corrected an habit of hers that was seen as a rude behaviour in Korea, it didn’t feel like he was mocking her. He explained her the details about his culture that Xiao Meng couldn’t understand, and she slowly found herself under his spell. Listening to him speaking was very intriguing. He had a way with words that could make you feel interested in things that you had never even take in consideration on a daily basis. Namjoon always had something interesting to say, and Xiao Meng found herself listening to it even too willingly.

She didn’t know at which point she fell in love with him. She just knew she was. His voice was always in her mind, his face in her dreams, his laugh brightened her days…she loved him, she had no doubt. He fixed all the holes created in her self-esteem by her previous relationship. With Namjoon Xiao Meng felt alive. She finally felt like she could breathe again.

At a certain point she was pretty sure he was interested in her too, as he kept texting her and calling her at whatever hour. He took up the habit of driving her to work and picking her up when it was time for her to go home. He went grocery shopping with her, he picked all the things he wanted Xiao Meng to cook for him, and in the end he always ate at her place and often even slept there. Xiao Meng was so used to having him in her home, that when he wasn’t there her house felt a bit empty. She felt empty.

However, the way his eyes sparkled whenever Herin was around couldn’t fool her. Xiao Meng knew she wasn’t the first in his heart, but she could live with it, for she knew they had only known each other for slightly more than a year, while Namjoon and Herin had known each other for years. Xiao Meng had this big wish: she wanted to be his number one. One day. It didn’t even matter when. She’d happily wait for the day she would be first in Namjoon's heart.

The worst was that at night, before going to sleep, the same painful thoughts had been swirling in her mind ever since she'd gotten together with Namjoon: how long had Namjoon been in love with Herin? Did she know? Was Herin just pretending she didn’t know? Did she love him too? Had they confessed to each other while she wasn’t there?

In those moments Xiao Meng wished she was there with Namjoon all the time, just so if he were to talk with Herin, she’d be able to keep an eye on them. That way they wouldn't be able to do anything behind her back. Were they even doing anything, or just Herin's presence was enough to monopolize her husband's attention?

Then those question started spinning in Xiao Meng’s head whenever she saw those two together. Every time Namjoon gave Herin his special smile. Every time Namjoon run to her the second Herin called for him. When they spent their nights talking on the phone. When he answered her calls at the first ring with a big smile on his face. Whenever he was there for her the moment she needed him. Xiao Meng felt consumed by her jealousy. The pain sometimes was so strong she felt nauseous just at the idea he might leave her.

Moreover, her knowledge of spoken Korean was good, but she still had some problems with following full-speed conversations, especially with how quickly words seemed to come out from their mouths when they were talking. Words flowed out like a river, they got entangled in her ears, where at some point they formed small concrete walls. Those walls excluded Xiao Meng for whatever conversation those two were having together, not that they ever tried to make her feel included. Those walls allowed her to analyse the smallest gestures they shared though, all of the insignificant signs that showed her there was more than a simple friendship between them. There were days in which Xiao Meng even wondered why did they bother to invite her out with them when she only had to third wheel them. They were both people she cared about, and she didn’t want to be stuck between them and be jealous, but her feelings for Namjoon were growing day by day. She didn’t need to see with her eyes how much he loved Herin.

It all had changed when Herin’s attention had gotten caught by a new face in their favourite café. He’d already stolen her attention in one of the classes they shared, and Herin had mentioned more than once that she wouldn’t have minded having the chance to get to know him. One day Herin suddenly left their table and headed towards the extremely handsome and still unknown man. She was really pretty and intelligent, self-confident in the right way, and she knew how to flirt. That day Namjoon’s mouth was tightly shut and kept in a rigid line, as if he was unsatisfied about something, however he hid it pretty well in Xiao Meng’s opinion. She was almost sure Herin hadn’t even noticed the small nervous bumps of his knee or how his fingers ticked on his tights, as her attention was on something else for once, and Xiao Meng took the chance to drag Namjoon away from that café right before the other two joined them at the table. Namjoon later told her that leaving that café felt like he could finally breath again, however he never accepted that the reason why he felt that way. He never recognized his feelings for Herin in front of Xiao Meng.

It didn’t take long for Herin and Seokjin to be a thing. They all c