6 Moonlight

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Hyunjin was standing by Jiwoo's door.

She observed the colorful tag with cute letters made of piper that formed the girl's name and many little flowers attached to it, and recalled the day they all made their own in second year of elementary school. If Hyunjin remembered correctly, the teacher praised Jiwoo the most for the work. She said the little child had a very creative mind and everyone in class errupted with cheers and clapped their hands for their classmate. That could have been the first time ever that Hyunjin felt...jealous of Jiwoo. She put a lot of effort in her name tag too, yet nobody said anything to her. The two of them were really good friends already, but Hyunjin was a child as well so she couldn't fully understand her feelings at the time.

The silence in the empty, narrow hall was broken by her friends' voices from the other side. It sounded like they were having fun.

After taking a deep breath she calmly entered the room, trying her best to hide her puffy eyes and smile too as she joined them. The girls were too busy anyway laughing at Heejin doing some cheap imitation of their english teacher, which Hyunjin would have found really funny as well if only she wasn't feeling so sad. The last thing she wanted was to ruin this special day for Jiwoo or for the girls. She would have to calm down and settle for the night without letting anyone know that she cried or had something that was bothering her.

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That evening Jiwoo's father came back home right after the women finished having their dinner. He looked slightly tired, and apologetic, but nonetheless greeted his daughter's friends and welcomed them in their house the best he could. After taking off his jacket the man went outside again and headed towards his car that was parked in front of the garage.

Everyone froze when Mr. Kim was back at the doorstep with his arms full of flowers. He couldn't help but laugh wholeheartedly at their surprised faces when he handed to each one of the girls a small bouquet of beautiful, white roses. His wife let out a loud 'oooooh!' and covered as her roses were of a vivid red. “Dear...where do these come from?” She said in shock, and that made the girls look at the man with sparkling eyes. Jiwoo was already smiling as she walked closer to hug her father.

“Well as you may already know, we're organizing a party to celebrate our ten years in business and I preordered plenty of roses. Like...lots of them. And so let's just say that...that when they arrived today some of them kind of disappeared–”

“Dad! You stole them!” Jiwoo shouted and everyone in the room laughed out loud.

Mrs. Kim looked at her husband unimpressed. Her previous moved expression turned into one of disbelief. The man knew to be really dorky at times. No wonder Jiwoo took that from him.

“Sweetie I would never do such a thing! You know that stealing is bad!” The man said trying to defend himself from his daughter's accusations as Mrs. Kim took the flowers from the girls and quickly went to the kitchen to put them in a vase.

“I know that perfectly! But what about you!”

“I'm the boss anyway. Pretty sure nobody will notice.” The man said as if it was nothing and took pouting Jiwoo in his arms, patting her back with a hand and ruffling her hair with the other. He smiled warmly at the girls who just stood beside them to admire the lovely family scene. “Besides I know Haseul, Hyunjin, Heejin and Yeojin are always by your side and I never got the chance to thank them properly for being such good friends of my little baby girl–”

“Daaaaaad!”

“Sorry. But you have to admit that you look quite tiny and cute–”

“Dad! Seriously why are you always like this!”

“Alright alright I'm gonna stop.”

Haseul stepped up toweards Jiwoo's father, bowing courteously at both him and his wife, who in the meantime came back to thank her husband for the gift with a kiss on the cheek. “I would like to thank you for this beautiful gift Mr. Kim. And also thank you for welcoming us so well. We're really happy to spend time together like this.”

“Yes, thank you so much!” Heejin said smiling brightly, followed by Hyunjin who timidly bowed her head and thanked them as well.

“You're more than welcome girls, but...” Mr. Kim looked around confused. “where is Yeojin?”

“Yeojin is on a family trip. She and her parents went to the mountains for the weekned.” R