After a mostly sleepless night, Joohyun had to admit everything was not okay.  Yes, she knew Seulgi wasn’t actually going anywhere, but she felt this hollowness inside knowing that Seulgi’s heart was elsewhere.  It wasn’t like she even wanted her heart. She just liked knowing it was there if she ever did. She also really didn’t like not being in control of the situation. Even if she objected to this, there was nothing she could do about it that wouldn’t make her feel even worse.  

At times like this, there was only one person that she trusted enough to be honest with, so she picked up her phone and dialed her number, hoping she was there.  A still sleepy Jennie answered the phone. “Baechu, what’s up?” she asked curiously.  

Joohyun was mildly annoyed that Jennie knew something was up, but she wasn’t wrong.  She wasn’t much for small talk, so if she called anyone it was for a good reason. “Jennie, hi.. Uh.. not much.. I mean a lot... I mean... ”  Joohyun trailed off, getting annoyed at herself. 

“Deep breaths, Baechu, take your time.. okay, try again.” Jennie said in just the calming tone Joohyun needed to hear.  

Joohyun took a deep breath and continued: “Well.. remember the thing with Seulgi..” 

Jennie chuckled. “Of course I do, silly.. What about it?”  she asked.  

“Okay,  so this has to stay between us..” Joohyun continued. 

 “Of course.. You know you can trust me, and you know about me and Kai, so..” Jennie responded reassuringly.  

Joohyun sighed deeply and continued:  “Okay, well I found out who her mysterious girlfriend is... And it’s... it’s Sunmi...”  Joohyun heard Jennie gasp on the other end. 

“Oh I am sorry Baechu... That must be so hard for you, especially someone as charming as her...” Jennie responded empathetically.  

Joohyun tried to act indignated: “What do you mean hard for me?  This is about Seulgi!” 

“Baechu.. If this was just about Seulgi you wouldn’t sound upset, you would sound happy.  I know you better than that.” Jennie said knowingly.  

Joohyun got quiet.   Even if she hadn’t revealed anything, she had just proven she was more attached to Seulgi than she was willing to admit.  “Okay, yes.. I am worried about her… With Sunmi’s fame, this could get complicated…” she said unconvincingly.  

“And that’s all this is? “ Jennie asked suspiciously.  

Joohyun built up the courage to say more, but still felt she had to hold back. “Well, I mean I have known Seulgi for 10 years now… She’s very special to me.. We have a connection I don’t have with anyone else... “

 “Oh, what about us then?” Jennie asked accusingly. 

“Oh that’s different!” Joohyun said hastily, not wanting to offend. “I am not attract...umm affected.. I mean..” Joohyun stopped, realizing she couldn’t recover from this one. 

“Mhm.. as I suspected,” Jennie said calmly. “You do have a crush on her, don’t you…”

Joohyun pondered for a while before she answered. “Well.. I guess I do, sort of.  Not one I would ever act on, though! But it makes me happy when she is around... and when I can be there for her.. and when we can just hang out and be silly together in our free time... “ Joohyun trailed off.

 “I get it. And you are afraid you will lose that if she is in a relationship with someone like Sunmi.” Jennie stated knowingly. 

Joohyun agreed reluctantly: “Yes, I mean, I know we will still be working together, but who knows what will happen at other times...”  

“You really need to make some new friends, Baechu.  Or maybe something more than that..” Jennie added suggestively.  

 Joohyun could feel herself blush. “Jennie.. You know I don’t do.. that. “ she responded defensively.  

“Yeah, yeah,  I know you don’t date, but maybe you should,” Jennie countered. “ And sorry, but I am already late for a training session. Call me later if you are still worried.  But Seulgi isn’t going anywhere. Sure, you may have to share her sometimes, but you deserve someone you can be honest about your feelings towards. And for whatever reason, that wasn’t Seulgi even before this happened.  You need to move on emotionally. Do something to distract yourself! Okay, I gotta go. Talk later, okay? “  

Joohyun agreed and stared at the phone for a while after the call ended.  She couldn’t deny Jennie had a valid point. But how was she ever going to be able to follow her advice. She was way too shy to just randomly find a date. If only she could do it anonymously somehow.  

Annoyed at even being in this situation, she went to the App Store on her phone and angrily typed in “dating” and then closed her eyes.  Taking a deep breath and shaking her head, she hit the enter button. Slowly opening her eyes, the first thing she saw was the app Tinder   She remembered hearing about it, but had no idea how it worked. “Here goes nothing” she thought to herself unconvincingly. 

A few frustrating hours later she felt like she had at least figured out the basics.  She had come up with a fake name that sounded plausible and had been able to find a picture of herself in sunglasses that didn’t look enough like her to be recognizable, yet still capturing what she felt was her good side.  She also made sure she had set her profile preference to women, and was finally ready to start swiping. Gritting her teeth, she let the app make its first suggestion. Ten annoying minutes of left swiping later, she dismissed the 30th suggestion. 

Taking a deep breath, she realized she wasn’t actually even paying attention, and was really just dismissing the entire idea of doing this, rather than the people themselves.  She had to accept that none of these people were going to resonate with her the way the people she was emotionally connected to did, but that was okay, because those people were almost always going to be off limits anyway.  She had to let go of her old preconceptions and look for potential, which meant actually reading the bios rather than just glancing at the seemingly endless sequence of pictures of often admittedly beautiful women. It was in her nature to observe quietly, so the idea of actually choosing anyone felt quite intimidating.  But she had to remind herself that she needed something, anything, to get her mind off Seulgi right now. It wasn’t fair to have those feelings get in the way of Seulgi’s happiness when she needed someone on her side the most. Joohyun closed her eyes and squeezed her temples with her hands to clear her mind, swallowed hard, and started to actually read the bios to give these strangers a chance. 

“I would love to find someone for deep discussions on any topic, and for travel to distant places to explore culture and nature” Joohyun read from an intriguing profile. The woman looked charming too; she had a playful smirk and was wearing a cute sweater with her hair up in a messy bun.  

“Okay, this is promising,” she thought to herself with a smile.  

But the next thing she read made her blush intensely and drop her phone on her desk: “I’m a huge fan of Red Velvet; Bae Joohyun is my ideal woman!” 

Covering her face with embarrassment, she shook her head forcefully. “No no no.. that won’t do at all..” she said to herself with a mix of curiosity and disappointment.  Here was a woman who seemed like her type, and who was even predisposed to her, yet she knew that it would be impossible to actually meet her without coming across as some sort of mythological creature.

“Being well known really is both a blessing and a curse,” she thought to herself dejectedly.  If only she were better at other languages, then she could try this somewhere people didn’t know her as well, but then she would never be able to really get to know the person, so that wouldn’t really work either.  With a deep sigh she swiped left and moved on. 

A bit later she found another person who seemed to have similar interests to the one she has to let go, but that described her music taste as being primarily EDM or classic 80s synth wave.  In her picture she had a pixie cut with blue highlights, a double helix ear piercing and was wearing jeans and a black turtleneck. Feeling a bit bold, and being pretty certain someone that edgy would never pick her, she swiped right.  To her startled amazement, she immediately got a notification saying she was a match. 

“Oh my gosh, now what?!” she thought to herself with a mix of dread and anticipation.  Briefly, she thought about deleting the whole app and pretending it never happened, but then she realized she needed to commit to this.   Biting the side of her finger nervously, she tried to remember what happens next.  

Logically, it made sense for her to make the next move, but she was certainly not going to do that.  With that look, the woman was probably getting lots of matches, so Joohyun felt pretty safe to just ignore it.  And she needed a break anyway; it was draining to have to evaluate this many people based on how they appealed to her rather than help others make their decisions.   Looking at the time, she saw it was already 1 am, so the best plan now was clearly to go to bed and forget this whole thing ever happened. Then tomorrow she could go back to focusing on how to help Seulgi deal with her situation.  

Crawling into bed, she grabbed a small stuffed bunny and buried herself under her blanket with a pillow over her head. Holding the bunny tight, she recalled the fond memory of the day Seulgi had noticed her pick it up and then quickly put it down at the market on Jeju island and then surprising her with it as a birthday present later that evening. Trying to relax, she could still feel the warmth in her cheeks from the experiences earlier and was annoyed with herself for being so easily flustered.   After half an hour of tossing and turning, she her EXID ballad playlist and after a few minutes finally felt herself falling asleep.