A wonderful scent and the sound of something frying in the kitchen woke me up the next morning.

“Dad?” I opened my eyes and stretched while trying to wake my body up. I went to the kitchen and saw Kai standing there with his back facing me. He was so immersed in his cooking I decided not to bother him but then he turned around and smiled at me. That smile made me feel so much more than I wanted to feel in that early in the morning. I desperately tried to hide the feeling I felt by clearing my voice and calming down.

“I made breakfast”, he said. I walked up to him and looked while he was moving about. Kai grabbed two plates and put it down on the little dining table my father bought not long ago. He then took me by the hands and led me there, seating me down.

“Take a bite”, he said. I looked at the omelet he had made and took a bite. The egg tasted like heaven but I didn’t act like it did.

“It’s okay”, I said. Kai didn’t say anything back and we ate in silence until I broke it. “So, when are you going home?” 

"Don’t you mean when are we going home?” He asked back.

“I want you to go”, I said. Once Kai left, I could be more free to find Chen and apologize about last night and also to tell him what I had decided. If Kai stayed that wouldn’t happen.

Kai put down his fork harshly and got up. He took his plate and mine and threw the food out. Then he started doing the dishes but stopped soon after.

“I know that you’re angry that I intruded on your date Ji Eun”, he said, “but kicking me out won’t change anything.” Kai continued what he was doing. While he was doing the dishes, I walked to the window just to see the weather. If Kai didn’t want to leave then I had no choice but leave him and go to Chen’s. As I looked outside my eyes caught something else. It was Chen. I immediately ran out of the house and gave him a hug. Chen almost lost his balance.

“I called you so many times yesterday!” I let him go.

“I know”, his voice was husky and he looked tired. 

“Are you sick?” I asked. “You don’t look good.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night”, he answered. “I just came here on my way to rehearsals to see if you were fine. Wasn't sure if I should knock or not.”

“You could have just answered my calls”, I said. “Instead of coming here.” I could see on Chen’s face he didn’t want to hear what I was saying and it hurt. I couldn’t imagine being in his position last night. “Chen... I know saying sorry isn’t enough after all you’ve endured because of me but I’m so sorry about last night. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen, really. If I kne-“

“Did he yell at you?” Chen interrupted me. “Did you cry again? Cause if he hurt you I’m g-” I stopped him by forcing him to look at me and shook my head.

“He’s still here”, I said. Chen looked towards the house and I saw anger in his face.

“He slept over?” He asked. “On the couch?” When I didn’t answer, Chen let out a pained laugh. “You’re kidding right?” He asked. “After everything he made you go through, you just let him h-?” Chen couldn’t finish his sentence but he took hold of my nape and bent down. “Ji Eun ah, I know y-“

“Get your hands off of her”, Kai’s voice came from behind. I turned around to look at him. “I tried not to in, but I can’t stand him next to you.”  When Chen didn’t budge, Kai removed his hands from me by force and before I knew it, they where both fighting each other. I heard a punch and a second punch and the both of them fell on the ground.

I was standing there looking at the two of them, not knowing how to pull them apart. It was as if I had some kind of brain freeze and couldn’t do anything until I heard someone coming and turned around wanting to ask for help. It was Tao.

“Oppa!” I called. “Please help!” Tao frowned when he saw Chen and Kai on each other but rushed in and managed to push them apart in a matter of seconds.

“What the hell is going on here?” He asked Kai and Chen who were glaring at each other.

5 minutes later

I put medicine on Chen’s cheek as carefully as I could. Chen closed his eyes and I knew he was in a lot of pain when wrinkles appeared in between both his eyebrows. When I was done, I went to Kai and slightly cleansed his wounds.

“Ah”, Kai pulled a face when I put medicine on the cut he had above is left eye. “It hurts.”

“Quiet”, I sneered at him. He sneered back at me but stopped whining. I once again turned to Chen, who was sitting a few inches from Kai there we were in the kitchen and put medicine on his bruised lips.

“Look at your poor face”, I said. “You are going to be shooting a lot this week and now your face is all wrecked.” I looked at Kai. “You better apologize to him.”

“I’m not”, Kai answered. “I’m not sorry for what I did. He was touching you and I got mad. He hit me back.”

“Kai”, I argued. “You started it.”

“Leave him be”, Chen shrugged. “I don’t care if he apologizes or not. If it wasn’t for Tao, I would have beaten the crap out of him.”

“Beat the crap out of me?” Kai laughed. “I’d love to see you do that.”

“Do you want a rematch?” Chen stood up and Kai followed his lead. They both looked furious making me scared for the both of them. I put myself in between them as Tao slowly came closer to stop them in case they jumped on each other again.

“Yeah”, Kai said. “How about we do t-”

“Stop it!” I yelled. “Both of you just stop it! Your silliness is not only affecting you but it’s actually hurting me to see two people I care about fight like this.” I looked at the two and they stepped away from each other and sat back down.

”I’m just happy Ji Eun is moving back in with me so I can make sure you’re not around her all the time”, Kai spat out. I felt Chen’s reaction without having to even look at him.

”You’re going to live with him again?” Chen asked.

”Mrs Kim convinced my dad after Christmas dinner”, I explained. I didn’t even know what to say. ”I forgot to tell you.”

”You didn’t know?” Kai smirked. Chen got up again and so did Kai but they didn’t attack each other. This time.

This entire situation was stressing me out. On one hand, Kai was acting like a jerk and I wanted to just yell at him but I knew he did it out of jealousy. And on the other hand Chen was hurt due to my actions and just reacting to being provoked and I wanted to apologise to him over and over. 

“Wow”, Tao commented. “I never thought I’d see the day Kai would fight over a girl. Or the day Ji Eun would be in a love triangle. And I absolutely never thought you Chen would be caught up in such a thing ever. This is beyond awes-”

Kai, Chen and I glared at Tao so he’d shut up. His sarcastic comments were not making the situation any better.

“I’ll zip it”, Tao said. I turned to Kai and Chen and looked at the work I had done.

“I’ll follow you home”, I said to Chen. “Oppa, you’ll have to wait for me or go back home. I’m sorry if you came here for nothing.”

“I’ll just come over another time”, Tao smiled.

I called for a cab and started dressing. Once I was done Chen and I began leaving.

“What about me?” Kai asked.

“Do whatever you want since you’re so good at that”, I opened the front door. “As long as you don’t go hitting on people.” 

Of course that was a lie. Well not the part about hitting people but the part about not caring, because I cared what he did. I felt sorry towards him although I was angry at him for starting a fight with Chen who’d done nothing wrong then just be caught up with me and my issues.

Chen and I said our goodbyes to Tao once outside and waited for the cab.

“Are you really okay with leaving Kai like that?” Chen asked.

“Yeah”, I sincerely answered. But Chen was giving me this look. “Why? What’s going on?”

“Go to him”, he said. I frowned not understanding why he wanted me to go to Kai. “I know you feel guilty for what happened earlier and I also know you think that what he did is wrong. I agree it’s wrong hitting people but I wanted to punch him in the face too, he just beat me to it.”

“Chen”, I was lost for words to say. He smiled, showing me his adorable dimples.

“Go to him and talk things through”, he said.

“I’m not going to him”, I refused. “I will take you home and you and I will have a talk. You’re just as important to me.” Chen sighed and I knew he had given in. “And you deserve a talk.” When the cab came, I opened the door and wooshed him in.

We were sitting in his room a while later having tea to warm us up from the outside cold. Only 20 minutes had gone since we’d entered his house. The silence had been killing me and I felt the need to break it but he beat me to it.

“So I’m assuming it’s not the first time you and him”, Chen cleared his throat, “Spend the night.” I looked down in my tea cup. Earlier Chen had caught on to the fact that Kai and I knew each other in many more ways than one.

“It’s not”, I shyly admitted. 

“Did you…”, he took a break, ”when we were dating?”

“I would never do that to you”, I shook my head. “Kai and I never did anything when we were dating, Chen.”

“So it happened before we knew each other?” He asked. “I thought you told me everything but I guess not.”

“It happened before I moved out”, I revealed. “Once. That was it.” Chen closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. 

“When we were fighting?” He asked. I didn’t answer. I mean yeah Chen and I weren’t really on speaking terms since he was ignoring me but that’s not why that night between Kai and I happened. I slept with Kai because I was and still am in love with him. I did that because I wanted Kai.

“Chen”, I began. “It wasn’t because we were fighting. Look, Kai and I… there’s always been something, we just never.. because he w…“

“You don’t... have to explain.” He said. “I get it, you love him and so you chose him.” He took a sip of his drink. “Deep down I knew you were always going to pick him over me, I mean your actions always pointed to that. At the basketball game, at the Christmas dinner. Even yesterday when you didn’t call me until hours later. Your heart was never 100% into what we had going on.” He looked at me. 

”But I was so infatuated with you I convinced myself that if we just got together you’d eventually forget about him and overlooked all the signs. I fell for you, Ji Eun and I went in so deep I couldn’t get out. And that, I assume is where you’re at in regards of Kai.” While he’d been talking, I had begun crying. My tears were now dripping in my cup and although I dried them down but they continued.

“I’m sorry, Chen.” My chin was trembling as I tried to calm down. “I really am. You are an amazing guy and you will find that girl who deserves you and truly loves you the way you deserve to be loved. I’m sorry that girl wasn’t me.” 

“Let’s just try and move pass it”, he smiled while intertwining his fingers together. “I’m going to be fine.”

“But you’re not fine right now”, I argued. “If you are angry at me for choosing Kai over you, be angry! Tell me that you’re angry! Do not sit here and say you’re going to be fine. Don’t hold it in because that misleads me into thinking everything with you is ok when it’s not.” He averted his eyes from mine. “Kim Jong Dae!” Hearing his full name, he looked at me. “Stop being the nice guy and be the bad guy for once. Just for once. Say what you truly feel.”

“Fine!” He said. “You want honesty?” He took a deep breath. “At first I doubted that you liked me. I thought you were only using me to make Kai jealous, that’s why I didn’t let you end your I like you sentence in the park. I was heartbroken the minute you went to Kai’s side during the basketball game when I was the one out there fighting for you. Me, not him. When we were dating, I always felt like I didn’t really have you entirely to myself. Your mind was always elsewhere and I always suspected it was on him.” Chen stopped for a moment. ”I hate the fact that you’re going to live at Kai’s again and that your room is going to be just a few feet away from his while it’s going to be further away from mine.” 

Devastated and emotionally drained about all the pain I caused Chen, I hid my face behind the palms of my hands.

“Did you say everything you wanted to say?” I asked after a lot of effort.

“No”, he said. “I have one last thing to say and I want you to look at me when I say it.”

“What is it?” I nervously looked at Chen and waited for him to speak.

“I…”, he began, “I hate the fact that you like me but love him.”

Speechless. Yes, I was left speechless by what he said. I mean what in the world could I say to make things better? Chen had spoken his mind about his feelings. These feelings had made my life an emotional wreck for the past few months and the worst thing about them was that I couldn’t control them at all. I couldn’t control the fact that Kai meant more to me than Chen romantically at all. Knowing all of this made me scared that I was going to lose Chen, not only as a potential partner but as a friend.

“Chen”, I said. My eyes were glued on his hands. “I don’t want this… breakup to make me lose you as a friend.”

“Neither do I”, he said.

“I think…”, I said. “I think the best thing to do here is for us to only see each other as friends.” Our eyes met and I saw how he fought back the tears. He wasn’t the only one trying to fight back the tears; I was doing the very same thing. “What I’m saying is that yo…”

“I know what you’re saying”, Chen wiped his tears away. “I agree. I think I should let you go to for the sake of our friendship. Before things go out of hand.”

”Come here”, he waved me to him. I gave him the warmest hug I could and we just stood there hugging each other for the longest. That simple interaction let me know that Chen and I were going to be fine. At least, I hoped. ”We’re still going to the new years party, right?” One of Chen’s classmate was holding a party to celebrate new years and us being months away from graduation. Chen and I had planned to go as dates but now that we were broken up, I understood it put us in a weird position. ”As friends?”

”Of course”, I smiled. ”We’ll go and have a blast.”

”Thank you.”