“I forgot something.”

“You can’t just come up here. What if my mom walked in?” My protest was weak like a moth’s wing-beat. In fact, I couldn’t care less about my mom caught us. All that mattered was that she was here. A burst of adrenaline swept through me.

Byul walked toward me with this predatory look and a sly grin. Her gaze skated down my bare legs. Shivers left a trail of goose bumps on my skin. “I’ve never seen anything ier than those shorts on you.”

She blasted the rest of the world right out of my mind when she hooked her finger to my waistband and pulled me closer. My hands came up to rest on her shoulders. Stunned, I gaped at her, my eyes wide.

This was too close. But I couldn’t stop staring at her, at her lips... Screw Wheein and my preserved love for her.

“You forgot something?” , I sounded more like a toad than myself. “What?”

Byul took off her cap and face mask and tossed it on my bed. Her hand moved around my waist, pulling me even closer, her other palm shaped against my cheek and neck. She leaned in so slowly that I thought I was going to die of anticipation. Her gaze moved to my lips and back to my eyes. She dipped her head.

The first soft touch of her lips to mine rendered my eyes shut. I let her hold me, guide me, work my mouth open with her kiss. A little shy, I shifted my hands up and around her neck. She seemed to enjoy that because she pressed me harder against her. Our s got squeezed between us. Her tongue brushed against mine, very slightly at first. The intimacy of this move had me shaking to my core.

Byul her hand into my hair. As she deepened the kiss, I finally responded with a surprising moan. I let her engage me in a dance of lips and tongues, sometimes eager, and then softly the next moment. The wonderful smell of her perfume filled my head, and I knew the scent would be edged in my mind forever with the memory of her rocking my world tonight.

She inched away and waited for me to open my eyes. With a half-smile, she leaned her brow against mine. “By the way, I’ve known your name since the very day that you first came to watch Wheein’s practice, Yong.”

I bit down a grin about her surprising confession. “Have you, really?”

Her lips thinned to a mocking line. “Um-hm.” She nudged my nose with the tip of hers then took my mouth again in a beguiling, slow kiss. Her hands started to explore underneath my top, skimming the sensitive skin along my spine.

I surrendered to her, my knees getting weaker with the heat she ignited inside me, but she supported part of my weight with a tight embrace.

“What the ing hell!”

Byul was pulled away from me so fast I had no chance to protest other than with a grunt, struggling to keep my stance.

“Take your bloody hands off her!”

“No! Wheein!” A strangled shriek escaped me as she punched Byul hard in the jaw.

Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!

Byul staggered back a step then caught herself before she crashed into my closet. I rushed to her, but she held her hand out and stopped me with a scowl that turned my blood cold. She ran her tongue over her cut lip then wiped the blood off with the back of her hand.

The next instant she had Wheein pinned against the wall, with her forearm pressed to Wheein’s throat.

“I’ll let you get off with this because you’re my friend, Wheein,” she growled as dangerously as a rabid wolf. “But do this again and you won’t live through the night.”

“You don’t scare me!”

I had never seen Wheein so furious. She didn’t heed Byul’s warning, but head-butted her on the nose. My mind roared in panic. I couldn’t move, caught in a stranglehold of shock.

From the edge in Byul’s eyes as she clamped her teeth, I could tell Wheein had just signed her own death sentence.

Full of fear for my best friend and no less sorry for Byul’s bleeding nose, I struggled to get a grip and stepped between them, one hand braced on either of their shoulders. “No. No! You’re not going to do this. Not in my room,” I hissed. “And not over me.” Then I scowled at them both in turn with the insane fear my parents would wake up and kill me for having two girls fighting in my room in the dead of the night.

When I wouldn’t let them get at each other, both drew in a deep breath, and the rattle of my bones from holding them back eased a little. I turned to Wheein, staking her with the horror I felt. “Why did you come here?” And ruined the most beautiful moment of my life. You idiot!

“I had to make sure this keeps her hands off your body.”

Byul glared at her over my outstretched arm. Unlike Wheein, she was amazingly calm, which just freaked me out all the more. “You’ve chosen one helluva moment to show up.”

“Seems like I’m just in time. You’re not going to touch her again.”

“I’m sure she can speak for herself and doesn’t need you to babysit her.” With those words, she placed her hands on my hips and moved me to the side.

I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, but with Wheein being so furious, I somehow appreciated not to be in her way anymore. Byul took a protective stance beside me and nailed Wheein with a hard look. “This is none of your business.”

“She’s my friend and sure as hell is my business,” Wheein spat.

“What’s your problem, really?”

“You are. This ends now. I didn’t ask you to go that far with her.”

Byul stiffened. “Shut the hell up, Wheein,” she warned in a voice gone lethal. But suddenly I didn’t want Wheein to shut up. In fact I wanted to know what she meant with that.

Taking a provocative step toward Byul, she continued. “I didn’t mean for you to sleep with her when I asked you to distract her.”

At his words, my stomach churned.

This was too much information for just two seconds. Finding Byul’s shocked face, I narrowed my eyes. “Distract?” No real sound came out of my mouth. I had heard that word one too many times tonight.

Lips tight, Byul jaw hardened. “It’s not like that…”

“No?” Then what? The club, the kiss. Her letting me drive his car. It was all part of her brilliant plan to distract me. And she was sent by Wheein who just wanted to feel better, do a good deed for the old friend she’d hurt. I wanted to curl up on the floor and bawl at the unfairness of my life.

“Bull, of course it’s like that,” Wheein answered before Byul could say more. “She called me this afternoon, wanting to know why you’d quit dancing all of a sudden. I asked her to get your mind off…well…” See looked at me shamefaced, but her voice became softer.

“Off us. I knew you didn’t want to see me, but I couldn’t stand the thought of you being in your room all alone, crying.” Then her tone hardened twice as much as it had before. “But now that I think of it, it was a crap idea from the beginning. You deserve better than her. All she wants is to get into your pants. Don’t you, Byul unnie?”

Wait. “I deserve better?” I couldn’t believe she’d say something as trite as this when she’d been the one who chose Hyejin over me. “Then who, Wheein? You?” Cynicism leaked from every syllable.

“No. Someone better than me, unnie.”

Byul shoved Wheein away and stared her down, venom seeping through her glare. “You goddamned idiot!”

“I’m not. She never wanted you. I just don’t want you to play with her heart.”

“What kind of excuse it that? You’re pathetic.”

What in the world happened that I suddenly had two furious girls fighting over me in my room? This couldn’t be true. I searched Wheein’s face. “What’s going on? Why are you in my room in the middle of the night?”

She shot me a glance that said she’d rather not talk with Byul in the room. A very queasy feeling rose in my gut. Instinctively, I grabbed the edge of my desk for support.

“Not hard to guess,” Byul answered my question, but she kept her eyes pinned on Wheein.

“You knew from the beginning that she had a feeling for you didn’t you? Yet you ignore her and started dating Hyejin. You were feeling guilty.”

Wheein was silent.

She. Knew.

A scream started in my head that threatened to scatter my ears from the inside. My knees gave way, and I collapsed on the bed. Wheein reached for me, but I spider-crawled away from her, my throat hurting as I forced air into my lungs. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

She planted one knee on the mattress. “Please, unnie”

“No!” I slapped her…for the first time eve…and her head jerked sideways with the force of my palm. “Just go!”

Wheein breathed a few times, keeping me in focus, jaw hardening. I felt she wasn’t going to give up, so I narrowed my eyes, filled with all the despised and coldness I was capable of.

“Now!”

With that, she finally backed off. She puffed a frustrated grunt and climbed out through the window. We both knew that one day we would talk again, but tonight I decided that day was a long way ahead.

Byul watched her silently then turned to me, blood dripping from her nose and bottom lip. She wiped it off. A scarlet line trailed across the back of her hand. “I really didn’t…”

“Stop it! I don’t know who of you two disgusts me more tonight.” Wheein, for dating Hyejin when I knew I loved her. Or Byul, who would be just the I always suspected her to be and drag me into something as beautiful as the kiss we shared when it was only for distraction. “Leave me alone. I’m done with you.”

She wasn’t the fool Wheein had been to come for me with reassurances when I was close to losing it. But she took a damn lot longer to leave my room. I almost couldn’t hold back my tears when I looked at her pleading eyes.

“I didn’t come because Wheein asked me to. I came because I wanted to see you again.”

“Yeah, right. As if I would believe that. Distraction, huh? Tell me, did I look so miserable that you thought I depended on your mercy?” I paused to swallow that hurt which lodged like a hard ball in my throat. “Or did you really just want to get into my pants?”

Byul pinched the spot between her eyes, the muscles in her jaw ticking violently. “Cut the crap, Yong. You know that’s not true.”

The truth was, I didn’t know what to believe anymore. My head ached too much to make sense of tonight. Right now, I wanted no one near me, especially not this liar. “Leave. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Byul didn’t move for a solid minute. Then she came toward me, very slowly.

Deliberately. She bent forward, planting her hands on the mattress on either side of me. She was right in my face, the blood off her lip. I didn’t budge.

“Yong, why do you think I dragged you to the stage with me tonight at the club? Letting everyone know I was there…with you? Is it really necessary for me to go that far just for a distraction?”

I held my breath as I saw the tears in her eyes.

“For a minute there, I thought I stood a chance. But I guess I have none to begin with.” She moved closer still and bridged the inch of gap between our faces. What the heck, coming for a kiss? I in a breath. But she reached past me for her cap and face mask, and straightened, pulling the brim deep down her brow. “See you around, Yongsun-shi.”

Byul didn’t look back as she crossed to the window and disappeared into the dark.

Falling back on the mattress, I curled into a tight bundle and started sobbing into my pillow. Just where was the goddamned rewind button for today?