Professor Hani was a certifiable . As Byul climbed the stairs to her second floor apartment, she ran through a number of other less than flattering descriptions for the man who didn’t give a damn that Byul’s project partner had a ruptured appendix, thus blowing their chances of finishing the midterm project on time. At least if they expected to finish it together.

 

“You should’ve planned for this,” Hani had said when Byul met with him to plead for leniency since Hyejin was still in the hospital. Right, because a ruptured organ was so easy to predict. Hyejin felt awful about leaving her in the lurch, but she was so doped up on medication, she could barely stay awake, let alone string a coherent sentence together. During Byul brief conversation with Hyejin about it, Hyejin had fallen asleep twice and woken up with a lurch, shouting “Save the crazy cat lady!” Totally not the frame of mind they needed for a project on macroeconomics. Because Byul wasn’t an herself, she’d said she’d take care of the project and that Hyejin should focus on getting well.

 

God, she missed undergrad when she could still live from class to nap to party.

The thump of machine gun fire greeted Byul before she even got the door open.

Half crouched on the futon, half standing, and her roommate Wheein clutched the Xbox controller with all the intensity of a drone pilot on a mission as war raged on the flat screen TV.

 

“Come on, Unnie! You’ve gotta close in on the flank, I’m getting slaughtered here!”

Battlefield? Titan fall? Hell if Byul had a damn time. She hadn’t had time for video games since she started her MBA at the Seoul National University. She was at least two editions of Assassin’s Creed behind.

 

Wheein grunted as Byul shut the door. “Hey Unnie. How’d it go?”

 

“Lousy.” Byul dumped her keys in the Cool Whip bowl that served as a catch all by the door. “No extension.”

 

“That bites. No, no not you,” she spoke into the headset perched in her brown dark hair.

 

“Well, yeah, getting ambushed at the spawning point bites, too. I’m comin’ to you. Hang on.”

 

“Are you gonna be at this a while? Because I’ve got a crapton of work to do on this project if I’m going to make the deadline.”

 

“Huh? Oh, well we’re in the early stage of this campaign. I can’t walk away right now.”

 

Of course, she couldn’t.

 

Heaving a put upon sigh that was completely lost on her roommate, Byul made a beeline for her room. No way could she work here with all this noise. Loading up her laptop and all the books she’d need for this project, she retrieved her keys and headed downtown to hole up at her favorite coffee shop.

 

There was, predictably, no parking on the Square. Not a shock. The weather was gorgeous and sunny, and everybody in Seoul was out enjoying it. Couples and groups teemed like ants along the sidewalks. None of them had an epic midterm deadline hanging over their head. As she drove past Uptown Coffee, she saw patrons spilling out the doors, effectively squashing that plan. Hooking a left back toward campus, Byul considered camping out at the library, but she needed caffeine to get through this. Gallons of it. She didn’t want to have to pack up and relocate once she got set up.

 

This called for drastic measures.

 

Twenty-five minutes later, Byul rolled into the town of Gangseo-gu. She’d stumbled upon this little jewel on one of her rambles in undergrad. Friendly, quirky, and, most importantly, a little quiet, it made Seoul look positively metropolitan in contrast.

 

As she pulled into a parking space in front of ety Split Ice Cream, a family of five wandered by, talking and laughing as they did their best to catch drips from their ice cream cones. Byul gave fleeting thought to ice cream.

 

A reward when I finish, she decided. That presupposed it would be open when she finished. If that wasn’t optimism, she didn’t know what was.

 

Gathering her gear, Byul walked the short distance to her actual destination. The Daily Grind was cool and dark and blessedly empty but for a pair of old guys playing checkers in the corner. Somebody was moving around in the kitchen at the end of the counter, so Byul took the time to peruse the menu tacked up to the pallet board wall.

 

“Welcome to The Daily Grind. What can I get you?” The barista, a college-age guy with blond hair, offered a flirty smile. The name tag pinned to his purple apron read Sunmi.

 

“Whatever you’ve got that will get me through an epic midterm deadline.”

 

Sunmi nodded soberly. “You want the zombie killer. Would you like anything to go with that? A muffin? Scone? Blueberry crumble bar?”

 

“Am I going to have any stomach lining left after drinking it if I don’t?”

 

“Iffy. I’d soak some up with carbs.”

 

“Then I’ll have a slice of that friendship bread.”

“Heated?”

 

“Sure.”

 

The barista rang up her order. “Did you drive over from the university?”

 

“Yeah. Needed to get out of town to get some quiet so I could finish a project,” said

Byul.

 

“You’ll certainly get that here. I suggest you set up upstairs. You’ll miss the afternoon rush that way.”

 

“Is there much of a rush here?” Byul couldn’t imagine that in this town.

 

“Honey, you do not want to get between some of these soccer moms and their afternoon caffeine fix.”

 

“Noted,” Byul chuckled.

 

“You go on up. I’ll bring this when it’s ready.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

The second floor of the coffee shop was empty. Byul picked a booth by a window and spread out her stuff and put on her glasses. By the time Sunmi brought her order, Byul was already up to her eyeballs in Hyejin’s notes on her portion of the presentation. It was gonna be a long day.

 

 

***

 

 

Yongsun parked her faithful Toyota beside the town green and resisted the urge to wipe her damp palms on the legs of her capris. Stupid to be nervous, she thought. It was just coffee. And a more or less blind date with a girl she’d been matched up with on Perfect Chemistry. A girl with no profile picture.

 

She’d said she was camera shy which could mean…anything. Actually shy. Physically deformed. Homely. Axe murderer. Her friends hadn’t even though she should talk to a girl not willing to put her picture up, but she’d seemed nice in their admittedly non-personal conversations. Respectful, which was something in astoundingly short supply in online dating.

 

The things some girls thought they could get away with insults, asking directly for booty calls, texting pictures of themselves it had almost made her give up on online dating entirely.

 

But Chorong had done none of those things. She’d been friendly and made no assumptions. They’d talked movies and TV, steering clear of pretty much all things personal and identifying owing to that whole could-be-an-axe-murderer thing. She was an architecture grad student at Seoul National University, after all. It was worth a try, anyway. It wasn’t as if the post-college dating scene in Gangseo-gu was exactly jumping. So when she’d said she was coming to town for the afternoon and suggested they meet for coffee, she’d said yes. Public place. Daytime. She’d get a better feel for her in person than from online texting anyway.

 

It wasn’t a big deal.

 

So she’d changed her outfit. Twice. And gnawed off her lipstick and had to reapply.

Yongsun had known that if she stayed home and thought about it anymore, she’d end up over thinking and canceling on her. Or worse, standing her up because she’d already left her house and didn’t get the message. So, Yongsun arrived early and decided to walk to The Daily Grind so there’d be time to get her nerves under control.

 

Sunlight filtered through the enormous oak trees that peppered the green, dappling the spotty grass. Summer had baked the ground in places, and the green hadn’t quite recovered. In another month or two, the leaves would turn brown and fall, Seoul rarely saw much in the way of autumn color but for now, the green was as she liked it best. Bright and breezy.

 

Out of long ingrained habit, Yongsun stopped by the huge central fountain that dated back to the town’s founding. She was pretty sure it hadn’t run since she was little bitty, but her granddaddy had trained her to make a wish every time she walked by, and today was no exception. Clutching a coin in her hand, she thought, I wish for this date to be something special. Then she tossed it into the basin, where it plunked into the few inches of rainwater that hadn’t evaporated over the summer. It was both tradition and comfort, and Yongsun felt some of the nerves smooth out.

 

Thus fortified by local ritual, Yongsun strode purposefully to The Grind. The date might be a disaster, but at least if the whole thing tanked, she’d have an entertaining story to tell around the water cooler at Blue House when she got to work on Monday.

 

“Well hey there, Sugarplum!”

 

The tension in Yongsun’s shoulders immediately bled out at Sunmi’s cheery greeting.

 

“You’re dressed up awful cute for an afternoon read-a-thon,” she remarked, already turning to put together Yongsun’s current favorite Black Irish mocha.

 

“What?” She glanced down at the novel sticking out of her purse. “Oh…no. Actually,

I’m here to meet somebody.” She pulled out the book and the Gerbera daisy, clutching both to her chest.

 

Sunmi arched both perfectly manicured brows. “Oh!” She drew the exclamation out to three syllables. “You’re pulling a You’ve Got Mail. That’s just adorable. Anybody I know?”

 

“Nobody I know. We got matched up on Perfect Chemistry. A grad student at Seoul National University.”

 

Sunmi brightened. “Already here! Upstairs.” She dropped her voice and leaned across the counter, offering her Black Irish. “A real hottie, too.”

 

“Thank goodness,” Yongsun sighed. “Since there is no profile picture, Irene was positive that person had a third ear or weird mole or something. And Wendy was convinced that person was a creeper.”

 

“No strange growths or creepy vibes. Barista’s honor,” Sunmi swore. “She’s been working on a midterm project of some kind for a while now. Could probably do with a refill on her coffee. You want to take one up?”

 

“Sure.” It would be a nice ice breaker.

 

Sunmi made it up and handed over the second cup. “Good luck, cupcake. If she turns out to be a stinker, just text me an SOS and I’ll create a diversion to get you loose.”

 

“You’re an angel.”

 

Yongsun took the stairs slowly. With her luck, she’d step wrong in her wedge sandals and slosh coffee on her pale khaki Capri pants in a highly embarrassing location. But she made it to the top with her outfit unmarred.

 

She was the only patron up here. She was wearing a white cap, light green oversized wool sweater with white ripped jeans just as promised before the meet so Yongsun could recognize her. Hunched over a laptop, with a stack of books and notes scattered on the table around her, she could just make out the strong edge of her jaw, her pointy nose and the serious set to . Maybe she’d come early planning to get some homework out of the way before their date? Yongsun considered turning around and going back downstairs until the appointed time, just to give her a chance to finish what she was working on. Then she looked up and she almost bobbled the coffee.

 

Sunmi hadn’t exaggerated. This girl was a certifiable hottie with all that dark hair mussed by frustrated or nervous hands and those clear brown eyes that seemed to pierce her from across the room. Her brows winged up in question.

 

Aware she was staring, Yongsun mustered a smile and crossed over, setting the cup of coffee in the few inches of free space beside the empty cup already there.

 

“Sunmi said you could do with a refill.” She slid into the booth across from her and laid her book and flower next to her own coffee. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

 

 

***

 

 

As the brunette slid into the seat across the table, Byul removed her glasses and put it down on the table, realized three things. One, she wasn’t a waitress getting her flirt on. Two, it was really hard to be annoyed at being interrupted by a beautiful girl. Three, she completely thought Byul was somebody else.

 

“I’m so glad I’m not the only one who believes in showing up early.” Freed of the coffees, her hands darted briefly, like hummingbirds unsure where to land, before settling in her lap.

 

Byul recognized nerves when she saw them. She opened to tell her she’d made a mistake, then her eyes lit on the book she’d set between them. The latest in The Iron Druid Chronicles.

 

“You’re a Kevin Hearne fan?” she asked.

 

Her eyes crinkled when she smiled, giving her a faintly feline look as she said “Yes!

Have you read this one?”

 

Byul quickly held up a hand. “No. Don’t say a word. I’m three books behind in the series and have been rabidly avoiding spoilers. I didn’t discover them until after I started grad school, so there’s not a lot of free time for reading.”

 

“No, I imagine not. I confess, I’ve been a reading machine since I graduated two years ago. I haven’t been able to get enough of all things commercial fiction. I’m sure my English professors would have a heart attack that I’m reading something other than Faulkner.”

 

“And yet, you were an English major?” Byul asked.

 

“Honestly, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I like reading. They don’t tell you when you sign up to major in English that what they do isn’t reading. It’s analyzing texts, often by a bunch of dead white guys that haven’t been relevant in at least a century to within an inch of their lives.” Yongsun shuddered theatrically and sipped at her coffee. “I’m pretty sure they make up at least half of all the hidden meanings. I really don’t give a damn what the author supposedly meant by the curtains being blue. Sometimes, the curtains are just blue.”

 

Byul grinned. “Or the light at the end of the pier in Gatsby was just a green light.”

 

“Yes!” Yongsun lifted her coffee in a gesture of agreement so enthusiastic, she expected it to slosh.

 

“Why didn’t you switch majors?”

 

“Eh, I was already most of the way through. The alternatives would’ve involved adding a bunch of stuff and graduating later. I was ready to get out. Though I do miss having time for a daily nap.”

 

“Naps are one of the greatest benefits of undergrad,” Byul agreed. “I’m pretty sure half the violence in the world would disappear if everybody had a daily nap. I know I’d be much less inclined to murder my roommate if I got one.”

 

“I guess you don’t much have time for that between juggling classes and your assistantship.”

 

“Not so much, no.” So whoever she was supposed to meet was also a grad student.

 

She really ought to say something. But she looked as sweet as she absently played with the stem of the daisy, her attention focused on Byul. Byul could at least keep her company while she waited for her real date to show up. “So, what is it you do now with your English degree that doesn’t offer a chance for a daily siesta?”

 

“I’m the personal assistant to the President.”

 

“Personal assistant to the President. That sounds all official.”

 

“I’m pretty sure I got the job because I can type accurately at over a hundred words per minute. Writing all those papers in college had that side benefit. Mostly I’m a gopher for whatever our President needs me to do.”

 

“Do you like it?”

 

Yongsun shrugged. “It keeps me busy. And I’m usually in on whatever drama results from politics, which can be very entertaining.”

 

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

 

“Like…” She tipped her head in consideration and the sunlight from the window hit her hair, bringing out all the rich, warm undertones and making Byul itch to touch it to see if it was as silky as it looked. “Last month Lee Seung Gi, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategy and Finance, went to war with Kim Jong Kook over his choice of paint color for the new building behind the Blue House.”

 

“What was wrong with the paint color?”

 

“Well, hot pink was definitely not formally accurate”

 

“So what happened?”

 

“It turns out that Kim Jong Kook is actually color blind. He thought the color he’d picked out a kind of gray green. Never crossed his mind that ‘razzle dazzle’ didn’t make much sense for a green. They’ve been warned down at the hardware store not to let him pick out paint without assistance.”

 

“You like the small town life,” Byul said. There was no question about it. Yongsun expression was one of comfort and satisfaction with her place in tiny world.

 

“I do. So many people grow up and they’re hell bound and determined to get away from where they grew up. I was really happy to come back here. I like the fact that I run into my third grade teacher at the grocery store or my best friend’s parents at grocery. Roots are important.”

 

“I miss them.” The words slipped out before Byul realized. But hell, it was true.

 

“Where are you from? Originally, I mean.”

 

“Hurm…Somewhere in the south, most populous province, Gyeonggi.”

 

Her eyes crinkled again. “Like Bucheon?”

 

“Exactly like.”

 

“What would you be doing if you were there now instead of here?”

 

“Working at my dad workshop probably. We run a car workshop since my granddad’s grandpa.”

 

“That’s a big jump from architecture.”

 

Ah ha, so her mysterious competition, and when had she started thinking of this girl’s real date as competition? Was from Seoul National too.

 

“Yeah, it is,” Byul agreed. It was the truth, in a general sense.

 

“Would you still be at the workshop if you are ever back to your hometown?” As her bottle brown eyes sparkled, Byul could see she was imagining a Hollywood version of a car mechanic.

 

“Last year during my semester break I did went back home. Dad was having a slight fever so I was there as his substituted.” Byul continued.

 

“I’ve learn all the skills from my granddad, same as his daddy and granddaddy before him. It’s something we were born to do so, yeah even though I’m hardly come home but when I’ve stepped my foot in the workshop, my body would automatically move on its own.” Byul paused to sip.

 

“So will you go home once you finish with grad school?”

 

Byul shrugged. “I don’t know. Depends on how things unfold, I guess. Where I wind up getting a job. Whether it’s just me to think about or if I’m in a relationship when I finish.”

 

And where had that come from? “Lots of unknown variables. What about you? Are you settled here for good?”

 

Yongsun smiled into her coffee and glanced back up at Byul through sooty lashes. “I am until somebody worth leaving for catches my eye.”

 

 

***

 

 

What on earth possessed her to say that?

 

As she looked down into her mug again, Yongsun caught a flash of Byul’s smile. Oh, yeah.

 

That was why. She had a great smile, an inviting curve of lips that made you feel like you were sharing some kind of juicy secret.

 

She made so much better an impression in person than she did online.

 

“Why didn’t you have a picture up on your Perfect Chemistry profile?” Yongsun couldn’t resist asking and hoped it wasn’t a sensitive subject.

 

The oddest expression crossed Byul features. “It wouldn’t have been me.”

 

Huh. Byul hadn’t struck her as much of a philosopher in their previous conversations.

 

“Well, I guess we do tend to place too much importance on physical appearance.”

 

“Why are you on one of those sites? You can’t tell me you have trouble finding dates.”

 

“In here, in case you haven’t noticed. Of the girls here in my relative age bracket, I already dated half of them in high school. The other half are either married, dated friends of mine long enough that it would be weird, or they just don’t ring my bell. We don’t get a whole lot of new blood, as it were. I’m sure your hometown didn’t have the same problem.”

 

“True,” Byul agreed. “In a town this size, we had to revoke the whole no dating your friends’ exes rule, otherwise nobody would’ve had anybody to date. Most folks either married their high school sweetheart or hoped to meet somebody in college.”

 

“Exactly. And since I didn’t do that while I was here, online dating helps…cast a slightly wider net. And it’s nice to theoretically have a system to match you up on some kind of criteria that suggests compatibility.”

 

“You think an algorithm or whatever can actually do that?”

 

“Don’t you?” Yongsun asked. She was on the same dating site, after all.

 

“I don’t think it’s a substitute for real, in person conversation. It might be able to match you with somebody based on, I don’t know, similar values or movie tastes or political views. And, sure, maybe you end up hitting it off. But I don’t think there’s any true substitute for a chance meeting where you feel that indefinable spark with a complete stranger, and you know they won’t stay a stranger for long.”

 

The moment stretched between them, pulling taut with awareness and unspoken things.

 

Yongsun felt her skin prickle and thought if she reached over to touch Byul’s hand right now, she’d feel a snap of electricity.

 

The thump of footsteps on the stairs broke the spell. Byul glanced over to see an unfamiliar girl step into the room. Pretty face and exceptionally slim, she had a mug in one hand and what appeared to be a sketchpad in the other. Yongsun gave her a polite smile as she paused to survey the room, then moved to take a seat in a booth by the other window.

 

“Well, there’s definitely something to be said for serendipity,” Yongsun admitted.

 

“Whether it’s facilitated by outside sources or not.” She thought about the wish she’d made in the fountain and smiled. Maybe the old fountain still worked after all.

 

Byul lifted her mug in a toast. “To serendipity.”

 

Yongsun clinked her mug to Byul’s.

 

Conversation shifted back to books. They both had diverse tastes, Yongsun liked urban fantasy and romance, Byul liked sci-fi and more traditional fantasy, but there was sufficient crossover that they had plenty to discuss. Yongsun had to appreciate someone who could as readily debate George R. R. Martin’s no character is safe policy as whether The Hunger Games was a reasonably accurate political forecast for the distant future. But Yongsun really knew she’d found someone special when Byul confessed to being one of the original backers of The Veronica Mars Movie and said she owned the entire series on DVD.

 

“Season one is as close to a perfect series of television as I’ve ever seen,” Byul declared.

 

New girl checked her watch and fidgeted, tapping a pencil lightly against her sketchpad.

 

The sound wasn’t quite loud enough to be truly annoying. She looked nervous. Waiting for somebody, Yongsun guessed. Knowing very well how that felt, Yongsun silently wished her as much luck on her date as she was having on hers.

 

“Hey,” said Byul, “I saw an ice cream parlor a bit down the street. How do you feel about banana splits?”

 

“They are one of the singular joys in life,” said Yongsun. “Extra peanut butter?”

 

“Naturally.”

 

“Then why don’t we relocate,” Byul said.

 

“I support this plan,” Yongsun said. Ice cream was always a good idea.

 

Byul shut the laptop she’d shoved aside sometime during their conversation and began to gather up the notes scattered across the table. As she started to stuff her bag, Yongsun’s attention strayed to the books she’d brought. A compulsive reader, she angled her head to get a better view of the titles. Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations. The Return of Depression Economics.

 

How odd, thought Yongsun. “Economics?” she asked. “Are you taking business classes on top of the requirements for your architecture degree? Doesn’t that make you a glutton for punishment?

 

Byul stopped stuffing her bag and gave her a sheepish look. “Ah, about that.”

 

“Excuse me.” The newcomer stood by their table. “But are you Yongsun?”

 

Yongsun had a very bad feeling as she cautiously answered, “Yes.”

 

“I’m Chorong,” she said, with a look that clearly said Party Foul to her companion.

 

“Your actual date.”

 

***

 

Yongsun’s face cycled through a number of different emotions, distress, embarrassment, maybe even disappointment, before she finally pinned Byul with a horrified glare. “You’re not Chorong?”

 

Byul gave a what-can-you-do? Shrug. “Guilty.”

 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Yongsun demanded.

 

“You didn’t ask,” Byul said. Wrong answer.

 

She shot to her feet, hands fumbling for her book and coffee as she looked to her real date. “I’m so sorry for the confusion! I got here early and we simply don’t get that many new faces in town. Sunmi said, well it doesn’t matter. We made assumptions. I thought she was you.” Yongsun noticed that the new girl were also wearing a grey blazer with a green shirt underneath with white pants too.

 

“No harm, no foul,” said Chorong, though the glance she shot back at Byul suggested otherwise. “Shall we?” She gestured for her to precede her.

 

“Thanks for the coffee and conversation,” said Byul.

 

Yongsun made a little hrmph by way of reply. She left her daisy behind as she followed Chorong.

 

Byul expected they’d head downstairs, but instead, they settled at a table on the far side of the room.

 

Well hell, thought Byul. She’d certainly blown that. As soon as the other girl had come up the stairs, Byul had suspected it was probably her real date. She’d had crazy idea that if she could just get her out of there…

 

What, she thought, that she wouldn’t be pissed when you told her the truth later? That she felt that spark, too?

 

Cursing herself as an idiot, she began laying her notes back out. Break time was over, and she had plenty of work to keep her busy.

 

Yongsun looked over at Byul as she opened her laptop again, her eyes narrowed.

 

At what?

 

Her effrontery at actually staying put while she had her date? She was here first. Yongsun was the one who’d interrupted her, with her smiles and enthusiasm and chatter about books and small town living. She had work to do. She could’ve been a complete jerk and sent her packing when she sat down, but no, she’d been polite.

 

Conversational.

 

And interested, damn it.

 

Byul’s gaze strayed back to Yongsun. She couldn’t hear their quiet conversation over the music that piped through the speakers, but Yongsun certainly wasn’t as animated with Chorong as she had been talking to her. Yongsun was nervous again. Beneath the edge of the table, her hands twisted in her lap. Her smile seemed a little strained around the edges.

 

Was that Byul’s fault? Had she made her feel even more awkward over that blind date than she already did? Byul felt a prick of guilt at that. She hadn’t intended to make things more difficult for her, just wanted to enjoy the chance circumstance that had brought her to Byul’s table.

 

It didn’t matter. What was done was done and couldn’t be taken back.

 

She had work to do. Determined to finish what she’d come here for, Byul whipped her books back out, opened her files and did her best to focus on the task at hand.

 

Her grade and Hyejin’s were counting on it.

 

She lasted all of fifteen minutes. The damned flower sat there in her periphery, its bright orange petals taunting her, indirectly dragging her focus back to Yongsun.

 

She wasn’t even laughing. What kind of a date couldn’t at least make her chuckle to put her at ease?

 

Catching Yongsun glancing her way again, Byul made a goofy face. One corner of twitched before she quickly shifted her attention back to Chorong. The girl seemed to be recounting some incredibly detailed…something…with visual aids. She was drawing on the pad she’d brought, and Yongsun was struggling to look appropriately serious, nodding and interjecting the occasional question. Those cute, little fingers tapped against her mug.

 

Byul tucked the daisy behind her ear, laced both fingers under her chin, and batted her eyes at Yongsun in a wholly exaggerated fashion. Though she didn’t look directly at her, Byul knew Yongsun could see her from the corner of her eye when she let loose one short bark of laughter that she quickly covered with a coughing fit.

 

“You okay?” asked Chorong.

 

“Yeah, yeah. I just swallowed wrong. Please, go on.” Eyes on her date, Yongsun made a shooing motion at Byul from beneath the table.

 

Byul smothered a grin behind one of the books.

 

You are a bad bad girl, Byul thought.

 

Vowing to behave, Byul turned her attention back to the computer screen and pretended to work for a few minutes, weaving Hyejin’s notes in with her own and making notations about where she needed to expand points with support from the class texts.

 

This whole situation needed musical accompaniment. Something other than the low key jazz favored by the coffee shop. Byul dug through her eclectic and extensive music collection until she found what she was looking for. Yes, this will do very nicely. She hit play and Celine Dion belted out the chorus to “All By Myself” loud enough to echo off the high raftered ceiling.

 

Yongsun and her date both turned toward her with WTF? Expressions.

 

“Sorry! Sorry.” Byul plugged her headphones into the correct port on her laptop and managed not to laugh. The devil made me do it.

 

Yongsun laid a hand over Chorong’s and gave her the first genuine smile Byul had seen her muster since she left her table. “You wanna get out of here?”

 

Chorong looked over her shoulder at Byul again. “Sounds like a great idea.”

 

Jealousy was an ugly shade of green.

 

They rose and headed for the stairs.

 

Look back, thought Byul. C’mon, look back at me.

 

But Yongsun never turned as she descended from view. The last thing Byul heard her say was something about an example of antebellum architecture she thought Chorong might like to see.

 

Then they were gone and her window of opportunity slammed closed for good.

 

 

***

 

 

“—and then she walks up and says she’s my date. I’ve been sitting there for forty-five minutes talking to this girl and she never said a word to correct my assumption. It was mortifying.” Yongsun’s footsteps thudded against the stairs for emphasis as she climbed toward the third floor of the Blue House.

 

Irene slurped her to go cup of sweet tea. “What did your actual date say?”

 

“She was remarkably cool about the whole thing. Really polite. Which is more than I can say for Miss. Fake Date. We’re sitting across the room, trying to get through all that initial blind date awkwardness, which was completely made worse by my gaffe, and the girl is making faces behind Chorong’s back. Chorong was giving this completely earnest explanation of some architectural history thing, and it was all I could do not to fall over laughing.”

 

“There are worse things than a person who can make you laugh,” observed Irene.

 

“Not when you’re on a date with somebody else,” insisted Yongsun. “I tried my best to cover, but I’m sure Chorong thought I was the rudest thing ever. I finally just suggested that we go somewhere else, just to get away from her.”

 

“And did that actually make the date with Chorong the architect go better?”

 

Yongsun grimaced. “No. If only we had a of chemistry or mutual interests, but bless her heart, once we blew past all the mutual pop culture references, we had absolutely nothing in common. She didn’t even try to kiss me. I doubt I’ll be hearing from her again.” And that was a relief. This way she didn’t have to find a way to turn her down gently.

 

“Probably just as well,” said Irene. “Lack of creeper vibe aside, I still don’t trust a girl who wouldn’t put her profile picture up. At least the day wasn’t a total loss. It sounds like your fake date went better. You must’ve had something in common to chat for almost an hour without things getting weird.”

 

We had tons in common, thought Yongsun with no little bite of regret. “Like that matters. I don’t know her name or where she’s a student or even what the heck she was doing here.” And if she’d wondered for half a minute whether the yearbook photos from her high school somewhere online, she’d quickly put the thought out of her mind. She was not going to embarrass herself further by trying to track her down.

 

Yongsun and Irene stepped into the reception area of the President’s office to find a courier juggling a vase full of flowers.

 

“Can I help you?” asked Yongsun.

 

“Oh good. I’m not supposed to leave these without a signature,” he said. Setting the flowers on her desk, the courier offered her a clipboard. “Just sign at the bottom.”

 

Yongsun scribbled her signature. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long. We tend to get kind of scarce around lunch.”

 

“Enjoy,” he said, and disappeared down the hall.

 

The mix of cream tulips and bright Gerbera daisies was unusual and happy. “Umji must’ve sent her dad flowers,” said Yongsun. “She’s such a sweetheart. Always doing stuff like that.”

 

Insatiably curious, Irene peered at the name on the card envelope. “These aren’t for the President. They’re for you.”

 

“What? Who’d be sending me flowers?” She crossed over to pluck the card from the holder and eased it out.

 

Let me make it up to you. Tosca. Tuesday at 7 PM.

 

Yongsun’s mouth dropped open.

 

Irene looked over her shoulder. “It isn’t signed.”

 

Yongsun flipped the card over to verify, but no, it wasn’t signed.

“You’ve got a secret admirer,” Irene sang. “Kind of a strange combination of flowers.”

 

“Cream tulips are for apology,” murmured Yongsun.

 

The flowers had to be from her fake date. She’d never told Chorong where she worked and she’d never seen the Gerbera daisy she’d brought. She’d forgotten it at Miss. Fake Date’s table. A flutter of excitement trembled in her chest.

 

“They’re from her aren’t they?”

 

She didn’t have to ask which her Irene meant. “I think they must be.”

 

“And she’s asking you out! Properly. With style, I might add. Flowers that must’ve cost a pretty penny to deliver this here. A dinner invite to the nicest restaurant in Seoul. Are you going to go?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Oh come on,” said Irene. “This is, like, the ultimate form of flattery. She liked you.”

 

Yongsun didn’t deny she was flattered. She’d remembered details, made an effort because she actually wanted to see her again. And there had been that moment, that serendipitous spark before Chorong had showed up.

 

Yet…she hadn’t gotten past the annoyance and embarrassment over what had happened at The Grind. How long would she have gone on lying to her if they hadn’t been interrupted?

 

“How can I trust someone who had multiple opportunities to come clean about not being my date and chose not to say anything?”

 

“She owns her bad behavior on the card and apologized with the flowers,” insisted

Irene. “That’s gotta earn some brownie points toward paying off the deficit.”

 

“Are brownie points even a thing when you’re not in a relationship?”

 

“You’re avoiding the issue,” said Irene. “Worst case scenario, you get a nice dinner and a chance to ream her out for her behavior on Saturday. Best case scenario, you find out who it is you really made a connection with. Isn’t it worth going to find out which one?”

 

 

***

 

 

By ten after seven, Byul was certain Yongsun wasn’t going to show. She couldn’t really blame her if she didn’t. From her perspective, she’d lied. And then she’d deliberately gone about distracting her from her real date like some adolescent nut job.

 

Classy, Byul.

 

Why had that seemed like a good idea? Class clown wasn’t exactly a selling point for a mature relationship. Not that she’d given a lot of thought to looking for a mature relationship before now.

 

Once she’d turned in her project on Monday, after two almost all nighters, she still hadn’t been able to get Yongsun out of her head. She knew she’d behaved badly, and her mom had raised her to apologize for bad behavior, so before she crashed, she went in search of a florist who was willing to deliver all the way to the Blue House. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to accomplish by talking Yongsun into dinner. She just…wanted another shot at making a better first impression.

 

Too bad life didn’t give you do overs on those.

 

She’d already unwrapped her silverware and drained her water glass, which did absolutely nothing to whet her parched mouth, when Yongsun appeared at the hostess station, looking gorgeous and…not entirely pleased to be there. Nerves and something like hope bumped up beneath her bone.

 

On her feet in an instant, Byul rounded the table to pull out a chair as Yongsun crossed to her in a light blue dress and a pair of tall, strappy shoes that drew her eye unerringly to her well-toned legs.

 

Behave, Byul ordered herself.

 

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Byul said.

 

Yongsun gave Byul a long look with those catlike brown eyes. “I almost didn’t.”

 

“Then I thank you for changing your mind.” Byul gestured to the chair, and after a moment’s hesitation, Yongsun sat.

 

Byul’s hand brushed Yongsun’s bare shoulder as she pushed in the chair, and she felt the zing of it up the whole length of her arm.

 

Don’t screw this up.

 

The waiter appeared for Yongsun’s drink order. Byul took the fact that she ordered a glass of chardonnay as a sign that maybe she meant to stay. Or maybe she just wanted something with a little bite to toss in her face.

 

When they were alone again, Yongsun noticed Byul was well dressed this time. She was in slim fit jeans, boots, a button-up shirt with long sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Her long hair was braided into a thick braid down her back. She look masculine and yet feminine at the same time.

 

She cleared her voice said, “Was anything you told me actually true?”

 

Byul didn’t hesitate. “All of it.”

 

She lifted one dark brow in askance.

 

“I never lied to you, Yongsun. You just showed up and sat down and started talking.”

 

“And you managed to talk back for almost an hour without mentioning that I’d made a mistake.”

 

“I’ll own that. But you’re interesting and beautiful and I didn’t want you to leave. So I might have sidestepped the truth to avoid lying.”

 

Yongsun didn’t soften at Byul’s feeble attempt at charm. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

 

“Just telling it like it is. You started the whole thing when you brought me coffee.”

 

“That was all Sunmi’s doing.”

 

If this worked out, Byul totally owed the barista a beer or something.

 

“Nevertheless, a wise girl doesn’t turn away a beautiful woman with delicious stimulants. Even if a girl did have a behemoth group project a girl had to finish by herself on a deadline.”

 

“Is that why you were there that day?”

 

“My roommate was surgically attached to the Xbox. I needed some quiet, so I came down here to work. Or try to work. Then you showed up.”

 

“You could’ve said so.”

 

“I thought about it for about thirty seconds. But you were way more appealing than theories of macroeconomics. You didn’t ask who I was, and by the time I realized you thought I was somebody else, I was enjoying our conversation. Something I hope we’ll be able to do tonight. Unless,” Byul added, “things went awesome with your real date over the weekend and you’re just here out of pity.”

 

Her lip began to tremble, and for a long, horrible moment, Byul was afraid Yongsun might cry. Both arms wrapped around her middle, she bent double, her shoulders beginning to shake.

 

Oh God, what did I say wrong?

 

A burst of sound escaped. She slapped a hand over , eyes going wide. Then she was laughing, wincing, unable to stop as she said, “Oh my God, it was awful. And you were just sitting over there deliberately provoking me. What was I supposed to do?”

 

Byul gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry about that. I couldn’t help myself. We’d been having such a good conversation and then you looked so…awkward with her.”

 

“That’s kind of a rule with blind dates.”

 

“It wasn’t with us,” Byul pointed out. “There wasn’t a single lull in our conversation.”

 

“We didn’t have a date,” Yongsun clarified, pokering up. “We had an…encounter.”

 

Warming to the debate, Byul argued, “We had beverages and conversation. I say that qualifies as a date.”

 

“It was a pseudo date,” Yongsun allowed.

 

“Well then,” Byul said, “let’s see if we can do better on the real thing.”

 

“On one condition.”

 

Byul resisted the urge to pump her fist in victory. “Name it, milady.”

 

“We start with the important things. Like your actual name.”

 

Byul grinned and offered her hand. “Moon Byul Yi. Moonbyul. Byul whatever suit you. Good for me.”

 

Yongsun finally smiled as she reached across the table to take it. “Kim Yongsun. It’s nice to meet you, Byul.”