Yoon Minhwa had always been a perceptive person from the very first time we met years ago.

I remember hating her guts with all my being when Minseok decided to parade as her boyfriend around campus one day out of the absolute blue, shredding my heart into tiny little pieces when he ignored me for a straight month to be her trophy boyfriend. Her and her stupid pretty face and her stupid perfect hair and her stupid clique revolving her like she’s the sun and they’re the tiny planets orbiting around her. I remember being stood up on a couple of dinner dates in a row thanks to the said girl, because Minseok chose to go hang out with her and do whatever she wanted to do instead of hanging out with me. Before Minhwa, I didn’t even know that I was in love with him. Her existence was what made me realize my feelings for him.

When I officially met her sometime after we graduated (it turned out that she and Minseok were fake dating for some public stunt I still don't see the point of), it took her two weeks to point out the fact that I’m in love with Minseok. No other person has figured that out in the years I’ve been glued to his side, and I had been too shocked to deny her assumptions. That was the start of my friendship with the heiress of Yoon Financial Group.

“Something is bothering you, right? Just tell me—that’ll make life easier for both of us,” Minhwa says, pulling me out of my walk down the memory lane of our history together. She was perceptive then, and she is perceptive now.

“It’s just—it’s nothing,” I tell her, waving a nonchalant hand at her face. We’re sitting in her living room, going over dress designs for her bridesmaids, accompanied with a glass of wine right next to us on the coffee table. Usually there would be a pair of flutes—one for each of us—but with Minhwa housing a tiny little human baby inside her stomach, it’s just me today.

“Oh, spare me the lies, Seol,” Minhwa rolls her eyes, “I’m your second best friend, I deserve better than the same old ‘I’m OK’ bull. I’m also the only living human being that knows of your little crush for Minseok. And I’m a bride-to-be. So spill.”

I laugh. I already feel better than I did a few minutes ago, and I’d be lying if I said I’m not thankful for the existence of this woman sitting right next to me wearing a judgmental glare on her face.

“First of all, what the hell is a second best friend? Second of all, what does you being a bride-to-be have to do with anything?”

“A second best friend is second best friend. It’s literally what it means. You have Minseok, and I have Somi. They’re our number one best friends. After them, we have each other. Is that so hard to understand?” Minhwa explains patiently, as if trying to explain what birds and bees meant to a toddler, before continuing with a dramatic sigh, “and me being a bride-to-be has to do with everything! I’m already stressed enough that I have to rush and arrange a wedding before my belly starts showing—thanks to my conservative parents—so I have concluded that I don’t have to deal with anyone’s . So. Tell. Me.”

I laugh again. I guess that’s Yoon Minhwa for you. She and her fiancé, Baekhyun, had gotten themselves pregnant right before Baekhyun had proposed to her. I still laugh when I remember the night Minhwa had called me, bawling her eyes out because of how scared she is for Baekhyun because her parents might just kill him.

“So, you know Ms. Jung, right—Baekhyun’s auntie that you asked for me to meet yesterday?” I start, and I don’t even get to finish my sentence before Minhwa’s expression turns impatient, looking at me with a look that screams get-to-the-point-or else. “I went to her office yesterday to get her measurements. But she told me something that kind of… ed up my whole perspective about my life.”

Minhwa doesn’t say anything but tilt her head sideways, squinting as if I’m supposed to be able to understand what she means by her silent look.

“What?” I ask, annoyed.

“For someone who never stops talking, you’re really at explaining things, you know that?” she groans. “Can you like, elaborate? What did she do or say to you to have ed your perspectives in life? Or was it something—”

“Ah,” I click my tongue, “It’s just… I don’t know. She’s like, one of my first ever professors in university. And, for some reason, she told me yesterday that she had orchestrated my meeting with Minseok.”

I wait for Minhwa to say something, anything, but she just looks at me with another one of her y judgmental looks as if I’m Baekhyun or something. Her attitude has been especially y today—ugh—maybe it’s the pregnancy.

“Mrs. Byun-to-be, I don’t read minds. Do you have something you want to say anything to me? Because you look like you do,” I say very, very slowly. Minhwa takes the pillow closest to her and hits my side with it.

“So?” she almost yells, frustrated. “What the does that story have to do anything with your life? Man, if I was a literature teacher back in the eighties I would’ve whacked your with a wooden ruler or something. You’re so goddamn vague. So she made you meet Minseok. And? The sky is blue and the grass is green, Seolhwa.”

“So that changes everything for me, Minhwa. I’ve always thought of my meeting with Minseok to be like, fate—or something along the lines of that. Now that I’ve learned that it’s just because some ditzy professor of mine thought that it would be fun to matchmake her students, it kind of put things into perspective for me, okay?”

The pregnant girl has the audacity hit me with the pillow once again, but this time, I get the chance to block her hit. I glare at her, but she’s already glaring at me, making me feel like I’ve lost before I even started.

“I know you’re like hopelessly in love with Minseok and everything, but I didn’t peg you to be a nihilist or whatever term they name people with super negative world view