Lee Chaeyeon’s Past-One month ago

“Chaeyeon-ah, do you want to go with me to the store?” Eunbi asked her friend, watching her immerse herself in the TV. She waited for a response but saw her friend shook her head left to right. Eunbi sighed and went toward Chaeyeon, abruptly shutting off the TV. “We going and you can’t say no,” Eunbi demanded, looking at Chaeyeon who just sighed and got up from the sofa, going to her room to change. “Aiya.....she looks just like a broken bird.”

**

Chaeyeon and Eunbi walked around the store aimlessly and awkwardly. They weren’t talking at all because Eunbi knew that the girl doesn’t want to talk. 

“Chaeyeon, what do you want to eat?” Eunbi finally asked, slowly pushing the cart throughout the store. 

Chaeyeon just glanced left and right at the aisle before looking at Eunbi. “Anything is fine. I don’t really mind,” she weakly responded, moving at a faster pace. 

Eunbi stopped and watched Chaeyeon’s back slowly disappearing in the crowded store. ‘Even though she is here. It feels like she is not even here.......Chaeyeon-ah....’

Eunbi and Chaeyeon paid for their things before exiting the store. They decided to walk home since it was close. The only sound that was heard was nature cars passing by them.  Chaeyeon was carrying most of the stuff since she offered, following Eunbi from behind. After a few moments, Chaeyeon finally broke the silence, “Eunbi-unnie. You don’t have to do this. I will be fine---”

“I want to,” Eunbi cut the girl off, stopped and turned back to look at Chaeyeon. “I want to be there for you. I can’t leave you alone like this.” Eunbi placed her hand on Chaeyeon’s shoulder and rubbed it gently. “You are not alone, Chaeyeon. Please remember that.”

Chaeyeon looked at Eunbi’s eyes and broke a soft smile that Eunbi hasn’t seen in a while. “Thank you......Thank you for everything, unnie,” Chaeyeon said, genuinely grateful for the older girl. They continued to walk home, casually talking to each other again. 

Waiting for the green light to turn, Chaeyeon noticed that her shoelace was untied so she bent down and tied it as Eunbi continue to walk forward. 

Chaeyeon tilted her head up seeing the older girl a few meters away from her and glance side to side to unconsciously. Her eyes widened when she saw a car not slowing down for the red light. She quickly glanced at Eunbi who was checking messages on her phone and bolted up, running toward Eunbi. She forcefully pushed Eunbi out of the traffic as she saw the car coming toward her. During this moment, everything felt like it was in slow motion. Eunbi was laying on the ground a few feet from the car and Chaeyeon just looked at the car, heading toward her way. She closed her eyes and bitterly smiled. ‘Sakura....This is it....I’m meeting you soon....please wait for me.’

*****

Present:

“Sakura Miyawaki. She is your fiancee.”

“W-what?” Chaeyeon asked, lips apart, eyes widened. “C-Can you tell me that---repeat that?”

Taeyeon smirked, seeing how she got the girl all shocked and excited. “I said Sakura Miyawaki is your fiancee in this world.  She will be the one you marry.”

Chaeyeon pulled out the chair and sat down, still shocked and soundless. She stayed silent, trying to think about the situation and spoke up, “Wait, then, when I visited her...Did she know that I was Lee Chaeyeon?”

“No, because she hasn’t met Lee Chaeyeon yet, which is you. Your parents and hers arranged this marriage a few years ago. That is why Sakura is here in Korea,” Taeyeon calmly explained. “That is why I told you to wait because eventually, you will see her soon.”

Chaeyeon sighed looking apologetic at Taeyeon. “I just.......I just couldn’t help myself.......I lost her so abruptly and it made me want to kill myself. You telling me that I have a chance to meet her again was my lifesaver....” Chaeyeon said, feeling teary. Before anything spilled out, she sniffed it up and wiped her eyes. 

“I know how you feel.. I've been there,” Taeyeon commented, looking down at her bowl of cereal, bitterly smiling. 

Chaeyeon looked at Taeyeon, curious about her story. Before she could for more information, Taeyeon cleared and got up the chair, walking toward the kitchen. “I know you’re curious. Next time. I’ll tell you next time.” Taeyeon washed her dishes and checked her watch. “For now, just wait until you have memories of this dimension Lee Chaeyeon. It’ll come soon enough.”

Chaeyeon nodded disappointedly and hopelessly. She looked at the file and read it through one more time. 

While reading through it, she cracked a smile. “‘Kwon Eunbi is her best friend’”, she read out loud. “Even in this world...she’s still my best friend...” 

“AH!”

Chaeyeon slightly jumped hearing Taeyeon shouted. “What’s...wrong?”

Taeyeon turned her body toward Chaeyeon, pointer finger in the air like she’s pointing at a thinking light bulb. “I forgot to say this but we are moving tomorrow.”

“..moving...? To where..?”

“You will see. All the stuff here...umm...Just donate them. We can get something new.”

“What??!” Chaeyeon looked around her supposedly house and panicked hearing Taeyeon talking like she has a lot of money. “You kidding right?”
Taeyeon grinned then laughed. “Of course I am...Not. Your net worth is like a few million dollars. Of course, I am not. HAHAHAHAHA.”

Chaeyeon stared at the girl in disbelief seeing her laugh like a maniac as she went to her room. “What the hell. How even rich and spoiled am I?”

Sakura silently focused on her computer screen until she heard a knock that cut her strand of thought. She sighed out tiredly, relaxing her body, letting her back fall against the desk chair and called the person outside to enter. 

“Miyawaki-san, here are the next candidates for the new position that we have open,” a petite girl said as she was ready to give Sakura a few files but the manager stopped her from giving it to her in mid-air by flicking her fingers at the files. 

“Disqualify all of them except Lee Chaeyeon.” Sakura got up from her seat. Putting her blazer on. 

Nako looked at Sakura confused and shocked at what the girl just said. “Lee Chaeyeon?”

“Yes, the higher up wants her so, there is no way that I will fight with that.” Sakura cleaned up her desk and walked toward Nako near the entrance of her office. 

“Isn’t she.....your fiancee?” 

Sakura paused adjacent to Nako and tilted her head toward her while uttering, “a fiancee that I don't want? Yes. I will head out. You can finish up. I will see you later.”

Nako nodded her head, watching Sakura leave the office. Nako sighed and thought, ‘Someone who marries Sakura will have such a hard time opening her up....’

Sakura walked to her car and entered it, sitting in there for a few minutes. “A random girl popped up and bothered me mentally now a fiancee who I don’t want and know is going to bother me every day of work. ARGH!” Sakura hit her palms against her car’s wheel and a heavy sigh was escaped. “Me marrying a player like that will be the death of me,” Sakura muttered remembering those pieces of information that she got about Chaeyeon throughout the years of their engagement. The older girl only saw Chaeyeon’s face once and that was through a picture a few years ago. She can hardly remember how the girl looks like and she does not really bother to remember. However, the face who she seemed to remember the most these days belongs to the girl who abruptly came to her workplace and hugged her. It was so maddening that she could not not remember her face. 

Sakura stayed in the car, lost in thoughts until she heard someone opening a car’s door. 

“Sorry, I had to make a few calls before leaving,” someone said as she entered from the passenger side. 

Sakura saw the girl put her seatbelt on and started her engine. “You’re good. You want to eat anything before we stop home?”

“No, I am good, Saku-chan.”

“Okay, let's go home then, Nako-chan.”

Sakura’s Apartment

“Saku-chan, here you go,” Nako handed Sakura a glass of juice as the two girls sat on the couch, watching some drama that was airing during the time. They released a heavy sighed after cleaning up the place. 

“Thank you unnie for letting me stay with you,” Nako said as she cutely smiled. 

Sakura smiled softly back and shuffled the girl’s hair. “Of course. I am glad that your dad told me you were coming.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Nako pouted and but then smiled seeing Sakura relaxed face. She is so strict and conserved at work. Seeing her more relaxed at home makes her more comfortable and close with the older girl. They knew each other ever since they were kids. Nako would consider being the only friend that Sakura had. 

“Saku-chan,” Nako spoke, sipping onto her juice cutely. 

“Hm?” Sakura replied, not taking her eyes off the TV drama. 

“ The person Lee Chaeyeon, have you met her before?” Nako started to ask, curious about the status of their relationship if there was one. 

Sakura heard the question and lowered the TV’s noise. “I haven’t met her officially.”

“It has been a few years though right ever since your parents told you about the engagement.”

“Yeah.”

“The two families never met?” 

“My parents have met hers before but I never met them officially nor have Lee Chaeyeon met mine. It was always bad timing. Their daughter always had something going on so we never got to meet.”

“So all those rumors that you heard about her were true? How she was playing with a lot of people?”

Sakura gulped down her juice, crisscrossing her legs. “Well, I am not sure. It does not really matter to me either way to me. Marrying her is just business. I don’t really care about her personal matters,” Sakura truthfully said running her hands through her short locks. 

Nako thought silently to herself, crisscrossing her arms as she laid back on the couch. ‘I rather have you marry someone you love then doing it for business...but....can you love someone with that closed heart of yours?’

Sakura reverted her eyes back onto the TV screen and Nako joined her. “I don’t understand love. Why did the main girl continue to love their significant other when they got lied to? Something like that boggles my mind and it feels such a hassle to deal with other people’s emotions when you haven’t dealt with your own yet,” Sakura confessed, still pondering about the main character’s action. 

“When emotions are more powerful than logic, you know that you really fell in love with that person,” Nako said and Sakura looked at her, still confused. Nako just smiled at her Unnie who has never fell in love before and giggled. “One day you will get it, Unnie.”

“That day will never---” Sakura was about to finish her sentence until she heard a loud breaking noise outside of her apartment’s entrance. She and Nako looked at each other, kinda scared and got up to see what was going on. 

She opened the door and saw people carrying in couches and fridge. She looked at her watch and noticed that the time was  9pm. ‘Who would be moving in at such a time?’

Sakura heard a calm and sweet voice saying that it was okay as she heard one of the movers dropped a vase. She also heard a somewhat familiar voice slightly laughing at the situation. The calm and sweet voice was getting louder as the person walked out of the apartment. Nako and Sakura both saw the girl and both thought that she was beautiful. Nako’s eyes sparkled while Sakura maintained her calm face. 

The girl noticed two of them were watching her and she smiled, approaching them. The girl greeted herself and apologized for all the noises that they were causing as she reached her hand out, introducing herself, “I am Kim Taeyeon. Nice to meet you. Please to be your neighbors.”

Sakura and Nako reached their hands out to shook them with Taeyeon’s. 

“I’m Nako and this is Sakura,” Nako smiled brightly.

The trio heard a voice humming and avert their eyes toward a girl who came out of her apartment, trying to help the movers with cleaning up the vase. Thegirl was wearing all black with a black hat.

Taeyeon looked back and saw who it was and smirked, looking devilishly. She turned back to face Sakura and Nako and said, “She’s my roommate. Let me introduce you to her.”

Sakura looked at Nako awkwardly while Nako looked at Sakura, smiling from ear to ear and both followed Taeyeon. 

The girl had her back against the trio as she was cleaning the broken vase. 

Taeyeon tapped the girl on her shoulder the girl turned around. Her face dropped and she gasped a bit when she saw Sakura looking at her. Her internal thoughts were screaming as she started to feel hot. 

The hat was covering most of her face so she thought that she would get away with just introducing herself and leave but Sakura was staring at her so immersively that she couldn’t just escape. She glared at Taeyeon who was internally laughing and glanced at Nako who was confused by the silence. Chaeyeon faked a few coughs and turned her body away from them as she tried to relax herself. ‘There is no way I am escaping this one...’ Chaeyeon said and took her hat off slowly. She ran her hand through her hair and sighed out, eyes now filled with determination. She turned around and looked at Taeyeon, then Nako, then Sakura, with a tight smile. “Hi, I am Lee Chaeyeon, Nice to meet you,” Chaeyeon said smoothly, hand out in mid-air right infront of Sakura. She stared intensely at the girl waiting for a reply. 

Sakura heard the girl talk and her eyes widened up. She scanned the girl’s face over and over and over again and that face was someone who she couldn’t forget. Her head tilted a little to the side and eyebrows raised, questioning what the girl infront of her had said. “What...what did you say?”

Chaeyeon tightly smiled again and introduced herself, “I am, Lee. Chae. Yeon. Nice to meet you, Sakura Miyawaki.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

TBC

Taeyeon is the ultimate love cupid.