By the time Jaeho’s eyes fluttered open, Irene had already lost track of how long she had been staring at his serene, sleeping face. A smile tugged the corners of up as she watched him acquire his surroundings and stretch.

               “Good morning, honey.”

               He jumped at the sound of her voice, a similar shock running through her spine in a split second, a short, shrill, surprised scream surging from her sound box.

               “What’s wrong?” she asked in a panic, reaching over, tenderly placing her hand on the man.

               Jaeho, however, jerked away, almost as if by instinct.

               “Wh-What…—who—…oh god, I’m so sorry…” A terrible feeling creeped into Irene’s heart, her lungs, her stomach, every crevice of her body; she looked into Jaeho’s panicked eyes as the man sharing the bed with her, her lover, created as much distance as possible between them. What happened? Why was he acting like this? Was this some sort of prank? If it was, it wasn’t funny in the slightest. To pull something like this after the intimate night they shared just seemed tasteless.

               “Honey—”

               “I’m sorry—honey?” The word caught Jaeho’s attention, his panic temporarily fading, replaced with confusion. Irene knew she only started calling him this pet name recently, but did he already forget? He couldn’t have, his memory was always so good.

               “Jaeho, stop this right now,” Irene demanded, frowning pointedly. There was no other explanation: he had to be teasing her. “It’s not funny. I’m seriously going to kill you if you keep acting like this.”

               What Irene expected to happen was for Jaeho to regain his playful composure, laughing and making fun of her over-the-top reaction, or maybe he would a bit more before apologizing while laughing.

               But that wasn’t what happened at all. Instead, Jaeho panicked again, a hint of worry in his expression this time. “I’m really sorry, I don’t remember last night at all. It’s really a shame because you’re gorgeous, but I … I must have had too much to drink last night or something.”

               Oh, so this is how he wanted to play this. Irene pursed her lips defiantly, the previous sense of foreboding gone, replaced with a winning determination. “OK, you got me Jaeho. I really did get scared, but I’m not going to keep falling for it. I mean, how did you not even notice me until I greeted you?”

               Jaeho, still panicked, hesitantly replied, “I-I don’t know, you must have been too light to notice.”

               Irene pressed on, smiling to herself at Jaeho’s seemingly throwaway compliment. “And you find yourself in these kinds of situations a lot? Waking up next to a lady after a one-night stand?” Irene had trapped him in a dilemma: keep the façade and lie to her or admit that he was teasing her and stop. She knew Jaeho knew better than to admit that he did in fact have one-night stands before, which Irene figured to be true, and she also knew that Jaeho hated lying.

               Or so she had thought.

               When Jaeho reached back to rub the back of his neck, sheepishly looking at the blanket, Irene felt that terrible sinking feeling return. “Well, not often, but I’m single right now, so yeah.”

               Irene didn’t buy it. She couldn’t. Jaeho had to be teasing her, or trying to pull some elaborate, drawn-out prank … what would it take to get him to admit it? What was his goal with this? Why did he look so genuine? Was Jaeho always this good of an actor?

               Or what if this wasn’t all an act?

               To the idol, that thought—that nightmare of a situation—was so terrifying that she immediately discarded it, not only because she felt it was impossible for someone to just experience such sudden amnesia, but because it was something she didn’t even want to consider. But the effect of the thought had already settled in, and the thought that this might all be a prank was pushed further back in her brain as the fear of her boyfriend suddenly forgetting about her rose to the top.

               “Look—I’m sorry I don’t remember last night, but—…”

               “You really don’t remember your girlfriend?”

               Irene’s meek voice interrupted him, uttered so quietly that Jaeho had to take a second to realize what she had said something.

               “My girlfriend?”

               Irene was now properly, utterly terrified. At this point in their relationship, she had gotten quite proficient at determining when Jaeho was teasing her, and from looking into his eyes and studying his facial expression, she saw that there wasn’t a single hint of deceit. Maybe she just wasn’t catching something, or maybe she had more to learn about Jaeho, or maybe Jaeho was just really determined to see this prank through. That’s what it had to be.

               She didn’t want to believe it, she couldn’t bring herself to believe it, she couldn’t even bring herself to imagine it, but here it was in front of her: her normally jovial, loving boyfriend sitting in front of her, after what they had shared last night, saying all these things with not a hint of deception in his eyes, his body language, anywhere.

               “Bae … Bae Joohyun?”

               She was never so scared to utter her own name—not when her parents were scolding her for breaking curfew, not during her trainee days when her dance instructor yelled at her for missing the mark for her part in the choreography for the fifth time in a row, not even when she was suddenly called to the CEO’s office a few months after her debut.

               “Bae Joohyun?” he repeated, still confused, still not showing a single sign of smoke-and-mirrors. Irene’s hands inadvertently clasped to muffle an incoming sob, tears welling up in her eyes, her chest hurting—hurting, like someone reached inside her body to squeeze and twist her organs. When he shook his head, still as straight-laced as ever, Irene let out a sob.

               Jaeho panicked again at the noise, utterly confused. Was this woman’s name Bae Joohyun? Why did she claim that she—that ‘Bae Joohyun’—was his girlfriend? How was it possible that someone with such ethereal, mystical, bordering goddess-like beauty was claiming to be his girlfriend? It couldn’t be … was she one of those types? The beautiful but slightly insane types? But looking at her told Jaeho otherwise. Whatever the case was, he cast aside his doubts and neared the sobbing woman before remembering that he was , and that the woman was probably also .

               Irene looked up with foggy vision when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. After last night, there was no reason for him to be shy around her bare-backed figure, or at least to be as shy as he was acting … so this was all true? No, she couldn’t believe it. How could she? It’s not as if Jaeho had hit his head last night or anything.

               But while logic told Irene one thing, Jaeho’s actions told another. It was apparent that Jaeho considered Irene nothing more than a stranger, and the fact that he was making sure to keep his distance but still trying to comfort her, trying to respect her personal space while still finding it necessary to comfort the crying lady in front of him, and being reminded of his gentle, caring nature as one of the reasons she fell in love with him only made her cry harder. “Th-There,” she said after calming down a bit. “You just s-saw your girlfriend cry like that. I hope you’re h-happy.”

               Maybe this was his goal, Irene desperately thought in a last-ditch attempt to rationalize the situation; after all, Irene hadn’t really ever cried like this in front of him, and his logic might be that it was better now than when it actually mattered, like if they got in a fight.

               It was a thin thread of logic to cling onto, but whatever thread existed—as fragile, frail of a thread it was—Irene found herself clutching onto it nonetheless. She wouldn’t let go—she couldn’t. It was her lifeline, the only thread that connected the Jaeho she knew and loved to the seemingly oblivious, clueless Jaeho in front of her now. Why was Jaeho extending this act for so long? Surely, if there was a time to stop, it was now that his girlfriend had just broken down in front of him like that.

               “I-I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to make you cry like that.” Irene looked up with hope that he would admit to acting all this time. “Joo-Joohyun? That’s your name, right?” That hope immediately vanished when he said those words, in the manner that he said them. “It’s a beautiful name. Actually, do you know SNSD’s Seohyun? She’s a top idol with the same name, although honestly, I would say that you’re more beautiful.”

               Irene couldn’t accept it. She wasn’t ready, she wasn’t willing, she was perhaps being selfish or clingy, but she didn’t care—she wanted her Jaeho back. She needed him back. After everything they’ve experienced together, because of each other … how could his memory of her have vanished? How was it even possible? Why did it have to be him? Why did the world decide to be so cruel to her? Did she simply not deserve happiness? Was that it?

               She moved the blanket aside and crawled towards the man on the other side of the bed, her heart sinking even further when he innocently averted his gaze the moment the fabric ceased to act as a visual barrier between his eyes and her bare body. “J-Jaeho? Pl-Please stop now, I w-want my boyfriend back,” she whimpered, voice broken, tears welling inside her eyes, Jaeho escaping the bed when she reached him, quickly finding his boxers and putting them on.

               “I-I don’t know what you mean by that. Are you sure you mean me?” Irene, stifling her sob with both hands, nodded. “No way … how could I have gotten you as my girlfriend? You don’t even compare to my last girlfriend … are you a celebrity?”

               “Please look at me, Jaeho,” Irene begged, her eyes stinging with the pain of newly formed tears in the face of the compliment from her supposedly amnesiac boyfriend.

               He eventually acquiesced, and when he did, not even her hands could muffle the sound of the resulting sobs. Jaeho couldn’t bring himself to look at her fully: his face flushing fiercely at the sight, and this was the last straw for her. He could fake the diverting eyes as much as he wanted, but to see him flush that quickly, that easily, on top of the guilt in his eyes and the hesitation in voice gave Irene the understanding that this was no act.

               Irene collapsed onto her knees, her shins pressed against the soft mattress under the weight of her entire body, her arms hanging limply at her sides. Their first meeting, the first movie they watched, the first time he met her members, their first kiss after Jaeho asked her to be his girlfriend, and now their first time together … the loss of all of those precious memories with the man she loved so much sometimes it hurt, now hurt in an all new way.

               The bedroom echoed with the sound of her wailing, tears freely streaming down her porcelain cheeks and over the back of her fingers, dripping all the way down to the bedsheets. For the first time since meeting him, Irene didn’t care one bit about how she looked in front of the man she had given her heart to—a man who now had no memory of her. “Jaeho … Jaeho…” her unsteady voice hiccupped in between words, chanting his name as if doing so would miraculously return his memories. Her whole world had come crashing down onto her, pushing, shoving her down a pit of despair. “Don’t leave me, please, you promised me…” the words tumbled out of , broken to the point of near indistinguishability, her Daegu accent inadvertently spilling out. “I’m not ready—I’m not ready to let you go yet, I—” she hiccupped again, her salty tears finding their way through her fingers and onto her lips. “—I don’t want you to leave, Jaeho—” tears streamed down her face relentlessly, the small woman shaking from the uneven breaths she was taking in. Her words came out as a jumbled mess; no matter how unattractive she must have looked right then, Irene didn’t care. Her appearance, her voice—nothing but the amnesiac man in front of her mattered to her. “—please, don’t leave me…”

               This time, Jaeho let Irene approach him, who subsequently embraced him, the conflicted man slowly, awkwardly, hesitatingly wrapping his arms around Irene as well. The idol uncontrollably sobbed against Jaeho’s nape, drenching his upper body with her tears, the sound of her wailing ringing about the room and in Jaeho’s ears. There was a familiarity with the sensation of the warmth of his embrace, and eventually, Irene’s sobbing slowed down to hiccups. When Irene was confident enough in her demeanor, she released him, carefully wiping off her tears with the bed sheets and covering herself with the blanket again. “I’m s-sorry, thank you for letting me do that,” she said apologetically, diverting her eyes to the blanket. Whether her action was taken in shame, embarrassment, frustration, sorrow, or a mix of all the above, the idol herself didn’t know.

               He shook his head, the empathetic, gentle smile on his face kindling that familiar feeling of comfort and love inside Irene. “Don’t worry about it. I’m—” a guilty look now overtook his face, “—I’m sorry I made you cry.” The brief exchange was all Irene needed for her love of the man in front of her to reignite. His warmth, his compassion … it was a pleasant reminder that she had made the right choice.

               Irene pouted, looking away defiantly. “You better be,” she replied as cutely as she could given her current state, taking the lead as the older one in attempting to diffuse the situation with humor, “I can’t believe you forgot not only me as your girlfriend, but me as an idol.”

               “Oh, you are an idol?” Irene nodded, prompting him to say, “I knew it,” he stated triumphantly.

               “You don’t know which group, though?” He shook his head. “I’m surprised, since you remember SNSD, who are in the same company as us.”

               A look of confusion befell Jaeho’s face. “Really? SM?” Irene nodded, and as Jaeho wracked his brain, she didn’t know whether to be anxious or sad at the sight of him trying to remember a group he didn’t remember existing.

               “Well, there’s SES, SNSD, f(x), Red Velvet—”

               “Wait,” Irene cut him off, her being the confused one now. “You remember Red Velvet?”

               He nodded slowly. “Are you a new addition to the group?”

               Irene shook her head, frowning. “Can you name all their members?”

               He answered quickly. “Seulgi, Wendy, Joy, and Yeri.”

               So it was only memories of her that were missing, not anything relating to her? “That’s it? A four-member group?” A relief and hope that she might still reside somewhere inside Jaeho’s memory sparked. For the first time in this disaster of a morning Irene has been having, she started to feel something positive, a swelling sensation that overtook her body: a feeling, however faint, of hope.

               Jaeho, now understanding the situation a bit more, reached for his phone. Irene took the time to clothe herself, and by the time she was done, she found Jaeho watching one of their MVs with a bewildered expression on his face. She silently watched with him, and when it finished, something seemed to click within him.

               “Oh, oh my god, how could I—” he did a double take when he turned and found that Irene’s face was centimeters away from his, nearly jumping straight off the bed in shock. A small smile broke out on her face at his shocked reaction, which somehow felt out of place given how hard she was sobbing just a few minutes. Still, how could she not smile at such an adorable reaction?

               “Do you finally remember me?” Irene asked, a budding feeling of hope building up inside her like a swelling crescendo of a song that was building up to the .

               He nodded, the bursting feeling of hope and relief being abruptly smothered by the blanket of reality, the crescendo being cut short by the ‘power off’ button, saying, “Yeah, how could I have forgotten Irene, the leader of Red Velvet?”

               “Irene?” Fear to speak once again seized her motor functions, her words barely coming out as whispers. “Not Joohyun?” She didn’t want to ask, but she had to—it had only happened once, but she was already sick of this terrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

               When Jaeho showed visible discomfort with the question, Irene’s hopes were once again squashed, smothered flat by whatever invisible force that was determined to make Irene’s life miserable. “Isn’t that too informal?” However, upon seeing the disappointed expression on Irene’s face, he quickly added, “Do you want me to call you that?”

               She nodded eagerly, a brightness returning to her eyes. The idol was desperately clawing back at any, any semblance of the life she lived just one day ago, at a chance to pretend that this Jaeho was her Jaeho, memories intact. “Without the honorifics, too,” she appended.

               Irene could see Jaeho crumbling under the weight of her expectations, her real name seemingly lodged in his throat. “Joo—Joohyun…—noona,” he quickly attached at the end. While it wasn’t much, it was better than nothing and Irene took it as a victory, however small.

               It was just then, as Irene was trying not to let the pit in her stomach overtake her emotions, that she was suddenly reminded of something: their picture together. Now that she thought about it, the sequence of events that had transpired really seemed like the forces of the universe were trying to keep Jaeho and Irene separate: if Irene hadn’t insisted that one day, there would be absolutely no digital evidence of them having dated in the past. “Wait,” Irene said, her heart once again swelling with hope yet again, “I have proof.”

               “Of what?”

               “That we dated,” she answered. If a music video was enough to jog Jaeho’s memories about Irene as an idol, maybe a picture of Irene as his girlfriend will reignite the memories he had as her boyfriend.

               Jaeho patiently waited as Irene reached to grab her phone and scrolled through her pictures, eventually finding the selfie the two took 101 days ago. “Here,” she presented her screen to the shirtless man in front of her, something Irene briefly forgot about and found herself staring a bit too long. Thankfully, this went by unnoticed as Jaeho had diverted his attention to the picture Irene provided him.

               “This is us?” he said in clear disbelief. “Did someone photoshop—no, because it’s saved on your phone. This is—wow, did Irene of Red Velvet photoshop me into a picture?” There was an edge of playfulness in Jaeho’s voice; unsure of how to take the question, Irene chuckled a bit in response.

               “No, it’s real,” she insisted, “It’s from when you confessed to me.”

               The hope she felt that the picture might bring Jaeho’s memories back slowly faded yet again as he continued staring at her phone’s screen, the same confused expression on his face. “Really? This is strange, because—”

               “You don’t like taking pictures, right?”

               Jaeho was caught off guard by Irene’s sudden interjection, a reply that had a hint of sadness and longing; the slight doubt that Jaeho was feeling was caught by Irene in his movements and voice, but Irene knowing this seemed to change things.

               “Yeah, that’s right. Do you know why, too?”

               Irene couldn’t help it. As little of a gesture this was, she couldn’t help but start feeling hope that Jaeho’s memories would return. “Because you think pictures remove us from the moment, right? Because your late mother taught you to always be present in the moment and not to linger on the past.”

               However impressed Jaeho was that Irene knew that, there still seemed to be no hint that his memories were returning, and that fact was hard to digest. In taking these small victories, of Jaeho remembering her as an idol as well as him believing that they were once acquainted, she failed to fully realize how desperate the situation was making her, grasping onto anything to fill the void in her heart Jaeho—her Jaeho—had previously occupied. And, truth to be told, it felt nigh impossible to disassociate this amnesiac Jaeho from the one she held such a fierce love for, and whom she had experienced so many things thanks to: how elated she was when Jaeho confessed to her, and further how she felt when they celebrated their 100^th day anniversary the previous day—

               Irene stifled another sob with both hands, newly formed tears stinging her eyes. She didn’t want to think about these memories, as they inevitably brought her to the same question: what now? Was Jaeho going to leave her? It was Jaeho who pushed their relationship forward, after all; what would she do if Jaeho just decided to walk away? Did that responsibility fall on her now? What would she have to do to keep him?

               “Irene?” she felt a hesitant, warm, yet firm hand land on the back of hers.

               “Pl-Please don’t leave me,” Irene begged again, her voice meek at best, unable to meet Jaeho’s eyes, the memories of Jaeho almost breaking up with her the day they were forced to confess their relationship to SM resurfacing.

               “I’m not going anywhere,” he gently reassured her, rubbing the back of her hand comfortingly.

               Irene shook her head. “No, I mean—I mean, stay with me.” With how jumbled her brain felt, speaking in a coherent manner suddenly felt like a Herculean task. “Promise you won’t leave me and forget me.” Irene turned to meet Jaeho’s gaze as she finished speaking, her vision still clouded with tears.

               Jaeho slowly nodded. “I’ll make it up to you,” he stated firmly, the relief from the words feeling as if she had finally taken a deep lungful of air after holding her breath underwater for too long. “Let’s start with an introduction—” he suddenly stopped as his eyes wandered a bit further down, noticing Irene’s distinct lack of shorts. “—actually, let’s start by getting properly dressed,” he finished, averting his eyes again.

               Irene found another smile forming on her lips in reaction to Jaeho’s modesty, complying by donning the shorts that were strewn along the nearby nightstand. “I’m going to wash and touch up my makeup first,” Irene stated, climbing off the bed. Almost as soon as she stood up, Irene found herself collapsing back onto the bed, finding her legs lacking the strength to support the rest of her body.

               Jaeho was at her side in an instant, his shirt only half on. “Are you OK?” he asked, his eyes full of worry. Another smile found its way on Irene’s face despite herself at the speed of Jaeho’s reaction, which apparently confused Jaeho. “What?”

               Irene shook her head. “Nothing,” she replied, picking herself back up, then remembering her determination to pick up the role of the one pushing their relationship forward, added with as much confidence as she could muster, “It’s just, I think I just fell in love with you again.”

               She carefully stood up and walked to the bathroom with a grin that spoke in part satisfaction in Jaeho’s bewildered response and in part due to her own embarrassment, leaving the flustered Jaeho behind on the bed. When Irene returned, she found Jaeho watching a video on his phone—from the audio, she surmised that it was a variety show Red Velvet were guest stars on. “What are you watching?”

               “A ‘Weekly Idol’ episode starring you and your members,” Jaeho verified for Irene, pausing the video and putting his phone down. “I thought something might somehow come back to me if I watched it.”

               “You should just learn directly from me,” she pouted, pretending to be hurt by his actions, when in reality her heart melted a little at how earnestly Jaeho was in his attempts to ‘make it up to her’.

               “Ah, should I?” he complied, a smile forming on his lips in response to her cute response. “Let’s start with an introduction first,” he said, standing up. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Song Jaeho,” he said with a polite, ninety-degree bow.

               “What kind of boyfriend bows to his girlfriend?” Irene laughed, smacking him playfully. His hesitant reaction and guilty look wiped the smile off her face in an instant.

               “I’m really honored that you think so highly of me, but can we start off as—I mean, restart as friends?”

               While Irene was fixing her makeup, there were several things she thought about, the first thing being Joy’s warning to Jaeho about not making her cry again. Even though Irene had no idea what was going on, she found it really hard to find blame in Jaeho for this scenario. How would she even explain this to them though? Should she just … not explain it? It felt terrible to keep such a secret from her members, but the last thing she wanted was for her members to hate Jaeho through no fault of his own, especially when he was already going through all that Irene was putting him through.

               This led her to consider her company, SM; they were already trying to separate the two, but Irene wasn’t ready to let Jaeho go without a fight. It was easier to keep this whole thing a secret from them, Irene figured, but that would make it all the worse if they found out about Jaeho’s amnesia. It was a good thing that they sorted things out already, she thought, or else keeping the secret from SM when they were paying as much attention to them as they were previously would’ve been much harder. If she could somehow find a way to tell her groupmates about Jaeho without having them hate him, then their help would be invaluable. Still, no matter what, Irene was determined to fight tooth and nail to keep Jaeho.

               The very last thing she considered was that realizing she should push aside her heartbreak and become the active one in the relationship, since passing this test could only strengthen their relationship.

               “Sure, we can do that,” Irene replied, trying to sound as nonchalant about it as possible. “Do you want breakfast?” Irene asked, naturally reaching out to place a hand on his, saddened when she saw Jaeho withdrawing his hand quickly in response. “I’ll go prepare something, you can wash up in the bathroom,” she told him, trying to play off her hand movement by placing her hand on her knees as she stood up, masking her sadness with a smile.

               “Thank you, sorry to trouble you,” he said, bowing again. He had the best intentions, Irene could tell, but she still couldn’t help but feel a little more heartbroken at how polite, how unfamiliar he had become. Could she bear this? For how long? Would her boyfriend’s memories ever return?

               Now wasn’t the time for this, Irene reminded herself. What happened, happened; for now, what she needed to work on was paying Jaeho back for his kindness.

               By the time Jaeho emerged from the bathroom, Irene was waiting at the kitchen for him. “Do you mind if we talk while we eat?”

               He nodded, joining her at the table.

               “My company was initially opposed to our relationship, and if they find out about this, they’ll no doubt force us to break up. Do you mind pretending to them that you’re still my boyfriend?”

               “Um—”

               “I’ll make it up to you, I promise; I’ll become the type of girlfriend that you would want. Please, I—” Irene paused to hold back her tears, reaching out to hold his hands but stopping herself short. “—I don’t want to lose you. I can’t—I don’t want you to leave me, even if that’s really selfish of me. I’m sorry to ask so much, but…” Irene couldn’t bear to finish her sentence. She was aware of how unreasonable her request was: who would want to go through the trouble of pretending to be the boyfriend of an idol, lying to powerful people, for the sake of someone he barely knew, for an ambiguous amount of time, the only compensation being a vague promise that Irene would make him fall in love with her? She understood this but was too desperate to care at this point.

               “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

               “I can provide monetary—” she cut herself off upon realizing what Jaeho said. “Really? You will?”

               He nodded. “I trust you, even though this is all really strange to me. Still, I don’t think there exists a single fan of yours not in a relationship that wouldn’t accept your request.”

               “Jaeho, I—thank you, thank you so much!” Tears were freely falling out of Irene’s eyes, but this time in joy and relief. “Can I hug you?”

               This time, seeing Jaeho getting flustered put a smile on her face. Now that she didn’t have to worry about Jaeho leaving her, she came to a realization thanks to that interaction: it was her turn to see Jaeho embarrassed, and that excited her much more than it should have. “U-um, yeah.”

               Irene jumped out of her chair and ran over to the man seated opposite her, covering him in her embrace before he could fully get out of his seat. “Thank you, I love you so much!” The words tumbled out of without a second thought, almost like it was an instinct built by hugging him. A few seconds later, Irene realized what she said and quickly released him. “Oh, I’m sorry, it just came out,” she said, bowing in apology.

               Irene kept her head down, silence engulfing the room for a brief second. Did she mess up already? Was the overly affectionate action going to drive him away?

               “It’s OK,” Jaeho ended up saying, “You didn’t have to apologize.”

               A deep sigh escaped her as he said those words. “Then,” she followed up, “do you mind if I say that to you every time we meet?” Irene’s smile widened when Jaeho turned even more red.

               “U-Uh, maybe not every time, but … but, um, if it slips out, you don’t have to apologize or any-anything…”

               Irene, satisfied with Jaeho’s response, returned to her chair and motioned for him to start eating. “It must be weird for you, to suddenly wake up and find out an idol is claiming to be your girlfriend.” Irene was more composed now, although she would be lying if she said she had completely recovered from the incident earlier this morning. There was a small voice in the back of her mind telling her to keep an eye out for Jaeho’s memories to suddenly return, although by now she knew not to count on it happening. What would she do if they did? How would she react? These questions remained unanswered, Irene taking Jaeho’s philosophy about living in the moment and enjoying her time with this man whom she knew about but who knew nothing about her.

               He confirmed Irene’s statement with a nod. “Especially since it’s Irene, my ultimate bias,” he added.

               Irene smiled. “You know, you’ve told me that the first night we met, but I still like hearing it.”

               He smiled shyly into his bowl. “Oh, really?” he mused for a second before continuing, “now that I think about it, that would probably be one of the first things I said to you.”

               “Actually, the first thing you said was ‘Are you OK?’” Irene recalled that memory fondly—of when Jaeho singlehandedly fixed Irene’s feeling of loneliness in a few hours of exchange at the bar that one day. As embarrassing as that memory was to her—namely, how embarrassing her actions were—it was still a precious one, one she held close and dear to her heart. Which made it even sadder, to Irene, that Jaeho now had no recollection of the night.

               “Really? That’s … a strange thing to say,” Jaeho said, the way he hesitated hinting that he was holding back harsher words.

               “It was really endearing,” Irene responded, amused at Jaeho’s confused reaction, “I was really lonely at that time, so I started visiting the idol-safe bars, which also happened to be the ones that only let in other celebrities. Still, even then, I was alone; no one really approached me, and when they did, they would leave shortly after.” Irene paused briefly, sighing. There were multiple reasons she was thankful for Jaeho and so willing to fight for him, but the biggest one was because the amount of loneliness she felt prior to meeting him. Irene was very much aware of her ever-increasing age, and that on top of the relatively lonely life of an idol compounded by some kind of invisible forcefield that seemed to keep the other at bay gave her borderline depression. Irene was someone that loved fiercely, but when she started realizing she strongly desired a romantic partner to fiercely love but didn’t have one … it made her feel empty, lonely, sad, like she might never find someone, like she was never meant to love another as a boyfriend, like maybe she should just wait until her career as an idol ended before pursuing romantic love, which only made her sadder as Irene loved being a singer and didn’t want to stop anytime soon.

               “So how did I meet you? At one of these bars?”

               Irene nodded. “The bouncer working there was new, I’m pretty sure, so he mistook you for—”

               “Song Jaeha,” he interjected, nodding.

               “Yeah, Song Jaeha. I’m thankful that it happened though, because when you approached me and started talking to me, it was like I suddenly started living again.”

               Out of nowhere, a cold liquid tickled her cheek. Irene quickly dabbed the spot with her finger to find that she was shedding tears again.

               “Sorry, I—”

               Jaeho reached over the table, napkin in hand, and removed the tears from Irene’s face. She looked up in surprise; she only just had grown accustomed to the new, less-familiar Jaeho, but this was certainly a welcome surprise. “Sorry, was I overreaching my boundaries?” Jaeho sheepishly apologized when he noticed Irene’s reaction.

               She shook her head, smiling. “No; in fact, I would be happy if you did that more often.” Irene had already prepared herself to face the reality that it would take time before they got as comfortable with each other as before, as Irene had already began longing for Jaeho’s touch, but this came as a pleasant surprise. Maybe she didn’t have to wait long before Jaeho started to take care of her as he did before.

               “I’ll, um, try my best,” Jaeho responded, smiling good-naturedly. Irene could tell his intentions matched his words, but his behavior strongly reminded her of how he was during their first few encounters: treading upon every word, overly polite, and with less confidence and composure. Given, Irene was worse, but now was different; maybe now, she could right the wrongs of that past, as her actions back then were something she sincerely regretted.

               “Let’s do a test then,” Irene suggested, picking up her drink and intentionally wetting the corner of her lips. “Here.”

               When Jaeho’s eyes locked onto the spot Irene intended him to clean up, his face erupted in pink. Irene felt herself flush a little, not used to being as bold as she was acting, hiding her embarrassment with as confident a smile as she could muster. “What’s wrong?” she egged him on, leaning over the table for him.

               He opened his mouth to speak but promptly closed it, nodding obediently and using his tissue to carefully wipe the corner of . “Wow, you really are so much more beautiful in person.”

               The compliment flowed out of Jaeho’s mouth naturally, as if he was just making a passing comment. At first, Irene really appreciated them, but as she started to get more defensive of Jaeho, she started to become more and more insecure; what if he said this kind of thing to any girl? Was it how he got girls in the past? Was it like second nature to him, and would other girls start pursuing him? If that happened, there wasn’t really much Irene could do, either, given that she was working most of the time.

               This wasn’t something Irene ever discussed with Jaeho but was something she constantly worried about. It was actually one among many insecurities she had about Jaeho that she didn’t bother sharing with anyone, largely because she either felt too embarrassed to share them or felt that if she did, she would be labeled as a clingy girlfriend.

               “Is that how you get all your girls?”

               Irene didn’t mean to say it, but still, the words managed to come out of . As soon as she realized what she had just said, she cursed at herself, reminding herself that this Jaeho wasn’t her boyfriend yet and there wasn’t a reason to be jealous of this kind of thing. The idol had thought that all it would take was the realization that this was the case to stop subconsciously associating the man sitting across from her to her boyfriend, but in reality, it was much harder than it seemed; how many more habits did she have that were built from being together with him?

               “Wha—um, I—…” Jaeho stammered, unsure of how to respond, in the end deciding to answer honestly, “In a way, but none of them lasted long anyway.”

               Irene’s initial flare of jealousy was instantly quelled when Jaeho’s tone took a sad turn at the end, her motherly instincts taking over as she stopped eating and looked across the table. “What do you mean?”

               The last part of what Jaeho said had sort of just tumbled out of his mouth; he didn’t want to burden anyone else with the knowledge of his past failed relationships, but this woman—this idol—that he woke up next to this morning claiming to be his girlfriend activated his protective instincts. While he was mulling those memories over, the words had come out of his mouth before he was even aware; however, now that Irene was aware of them, he wasn’t about to lie about it, especially after all he had already put the poor woman through. “It’s just—just, all my past relationships ended poorly, and I haven’t spoken to a single one of my exes after breaking up.”

               Hearing this gave Irene a terrible premonition, so terrible that she was almost afraid to ask the question that was burning in her mind despite how crucial it was, especially right now. “Was it … was it because of this? Because this happened before, where you lost your memory of them suddenly?”

               Jaeho didn’t respond for a second, confused at Irene’s question, before saying, “No, this is the first time something like this occurred.” Irene breathed a sigh of relief. Seriously, how much more of this would she have to take in just a span of a few hours? “They all broke up with me after cheating on me.”

               Irene had always wondered how his past relationships ended; in her opinion, Jaeho had all the determination, all the good looks, and all the skills needed to be a suitable boyfriend for anyone, so how was it that he was still single at his age? Learning the truth both made her feel like a terrible human being for causing bad memories to resurface as well as confirming her suspicions: that it was the girl that broke up with him. “I’m sorry.”

               Her sorrow must have been detected by Jaeho, as he immediately responded with a hasty, “No, don’t be! It was in the past, and I’m sure you were a wonderful girlfriend—” he abruptly stopped, realizing bringing up those memories probably wasn’t the best idea.

               “I hope so,” was Irene’s reply, smiling and returning to her breakfast.

               Silence brewed in the following minutes, in which Jaeho detected a curiosity emanating from Irene. He managed to predict correctly as to what the curiosity was about when he said, “Did you want to hear more about why my exes broke up with me?”

               Irene, not realizing that her curiosity was noticeable, suddenly floundered. “Um, no—I mean, only if you’re willing,” she replied. Irene couldn’t quite place a finger as to the reason she was so curious; maybe she was curious as to why anyone would cheat on Jaeho, or maybe she wanted to get to know Jaeho better, or maybe she wanted to gain a greater understanding of him. Whatever the reason, Irene was ultimately thankful that Jaeho had picked up on her curiosity and allowed her to learn about his exes without having to directly ask.

               “Yeah, no problem,” he replied, pausing a bit to gather his surroundings and collect his thoughts before starting.

               “I made my first girlfriend in middle school—I guess you can’t really call this ‘cheating’, but that’s what it felt like at the time. I didn’t really know what ‘having a girlfriend’, ‘being a couple’, or any of that meant—at the time, I wanted a girlfriend just because it seemed like the trendy thing to do, but I didn’t know how to get one nor did I really like anyone, so when a girl confessed to me, I immediately accepted it. For my first relationship, I think it was mostly my fault; I didn’t know what to do as a boyfriend, so we ended up not doing much outside of eating lunch together, but even so, my girlfriend didn’t dump me. I felt really thankful for her patience until I realized she wasn’t being patient at all, and she was hanging out with other guys in the meantime, and when I caught her … flirting, I guess? With another guy, she dumped me right there and then.

               “My next girlfriend wasn’t until freshmen year of college. I avoided relationships throughout the remainder of middle school and the entirety of high school because of that experience, but I figured I was mature enough by the time I entered college and entered the dating scene. I met my girlfriend in one of my general education classes: a speech class. We hit it off well from the start—” Unbeknownst to Irene herself, a jealous expression appeared on her face, which she only noticed when she found Jaeho trying to hide a smile. She wiped the expression on her face as Jaeho continued, “—and on the second month of classes, I asked her out. She accepted, and this time, I was more active and spent more time with her outside of classes.”

               This time, Irene let out a forlorn sigh. Visiting a café, eating at a restaurant, going out shopping with him… there were many things Irene wanted to experience with Jaeho in public and not fear a scandal, but given that they were photographed together the first time they went outside, that was a hard ask.

               “I tried my best for this relationship, but there were many times where she would decline because of various reasons: because she needed to meet with her group for a project, because she already had plans with a friend, because she was invited to a party but wasn’t allowed to bring me along, among others. I’m not sure how many of those excuses ended up being true because on the first week of my second semester of college, I was trying to get out of going to a party my friends were pressuring me to go to by asking my girlfriend to visit a newly opened café with me, but she told me that she had already made plans to go to a party that was female-only. Not thinking too much of it, I ended up going to the party my friends invited me to and saw her at that party. I left before she could see me.

               “After that, I started to get suspicious of her and started investigating with the help of a few of my friends, and it turned out, she liked going to parties and sometimes, when she got drunk, ended up sleeping with other guys. When I discovered this, I confronted her first about her going to parties behind my back, saying that I was willing to forgive her if she stopped going to them. She then got mad at me, saying that the reason why she didn’t tell me about these parties was because she had suspected that I was too conservative and wouldn’t let her go out and have fun with her friends. When I then told her the reason why I was against her going to the parties was because I had heard that she would sleep with other guys after getting drunk, she blew up at me, asking me why I was believing what other people said over her own word. I asked her to refute it but she refused to do so directly, so I then told her that I saw her at the party at the beginning of the second semester. She kept up the act, claiming that I didn’t trust her enough and broke up with me, saying that a relationship with no trust was doomed to fail.”

               Jaeho paused a bit after that to catch her breath and wet his drying throat. “Honestly, I’m still a bit conflicted about that, since I’ve never seen her in the act of cheating on me, but the way she acted when I told her everything and the fact that so many of my friends told me the same thing, to me, meant that the information I had was correct in some way.

               “However, even with that in mind, that experience made me feel like I was unready for relationships. Whenever I would get close to someone I was interested in,” again, Jaeho noted that Irene was displaying hints of jealousy in her facial expression: namely, the way her eyebrows scrunched together and the way she pursed her lips, noted how adorable it was, but continued on nonetheless, “the thought would pop into my mind: am I too clingy? What if I, without thinking, act in a way that implied I didn’t trust her? Am I ready for a relationship?

               “In the end, I ended up pushing them all away. It wasn’t until after I finished college that I met my next girlfriend, my most recent one.

               “I met her in a dual photoshoot. She was younger than me but also very outgoing; we had great chemistry straight off the bat, and she asked for my number after we finished. I tried to apply what I learned from my last girlfriend to her after I asked her to be my girlfriend, but it turned out to be too much; I told myself that I would implicitly trust her with everything, so I never pried too much when she said she would go somewhere. This girl wasn’t as big about parties as the previous girl, but her friends were; she admitted to me that one of the reasons she wanted a boyfriend was for an excuse to not go to all the parties and nights out that her friends pressured her into going, but when she discovered my attitude about it—my outward-facing attitude, that is, because I still worried about her inwardly but never voiced it, for fear of seemingly clingy—I think that annoyed her a bit. She started going out with her friends more and the most I would ever say is, ‘have fun’ or ‘be safe’, which I don’t think she liked either. I think she took this next step to test me, but she started having dinner with some male friends from college, and even though this put me on edge, I tried not to show it and allowed her to do as she pleased. One day, she didn’t return home at night—we were living together at this time—and when she came home the next day, I made it a point to not throw suspicion onto her.

               “This definitely annoyed her because she became mad at me, asking me why I wasn’t curious as to where she was last night, why wasn’t I defensive of her, if I just didn’t care enough about her. It was at this moment I figured that I was being too implicitly trustful and that I, as a boyfriend, should still be clingy to some extent, but it seemed like it was too late already. She was suspecting that I was cheating on her because I didn’t seem to care about her enough, admitting that she cheated on me that night with another guy, said she was fed up with my careless attitude and that she didn’t see a future with such a man, and broke up with me.

               “I have my suspicions about whether or not she actually cheated on me to this day because to me, she seemed like the type of girl who would never do that—but I never pried about it, since the past is the past. And that leads me to you, I guess, a relationship that I seemed not to have messed up until last night.” Jaeho was trying for a joke but quickly realized it was perhaps a tasteless joke to make.

               Fortunately, Irene chuckled along, finishing her breakfast after Jaeho. “It wasn’t your fault,” was the idol’s reply. “I like how protective you are of me, but you also are really understanding of—” Irene paused, again reminding herself that this Jaeho wasn’t her boyfriend yet. “I mean, you were protective of me, and I found that endearing. I think most women like their boyfriends being clingy to an extent so I can sort of see where that woman was coming from; if I wasn’t an idol, maybe I would’ve liked for you to be really clingy, that might’ve been fun.”

               Jaeho, unsure how to reply, tried for a chuckle. “Ah, is that so?”

               Sensing that she was making Jaeho uncomfortable again, she switched topics. “Let’s wash the dishes, then I want to show you something,” she said, standing up.

               “I’ll do them,” Jaeho offered, standing up as well. “You can take the time to set up whatever you wanted to show me.”

               “Let’s do them together,” Irene counter-offered, bringing her dishes to the sink, “It’s more fun that way, isn’t it?”

               When Irene took her place next to Jaeho, she could tell that he was getting squeamish, something that Irene delighted in. The silver-haired beauty couldn’t quite place her finger on it, but there was just something so endearing, so adorable, about seeing her beloved acting as shy as this. Although Jaeho was shy in the past, so was Irene, so she couldn’t enjoy those moments as much; now that Irene was more confident in her demeanor around her man, she could revel in the sight that was the now bashful Jaeho.

               As happy-go-lucky Irene was, Jaeho was basically a mess. Irene was wearing a perfume that was very subtle but very pleasant on the nose; he figured Irene chose that particular perfume after going perfume shopping together—or maybe not, since Irene was an idol and being seen in public with her boyfriend was tantamount to career suicide for an idol—but it was the exact type of perfume he liked and worked very well to make him even more nervous. Jaeho, no matter how hard he tried, could not wrap his head around how Irene, the talented, beautiful goddess she was, became his girlfriend, and the loving way she’s been acting so far hinted to him that they were pretty close before he suddenly lost his memories, allegedly.

               If it was just someone extremely attractive he suddenly had woken up next to, then Jaeho could probably buy it; but this was Irene, probably—no, definitely one of the most famous people in all of South Korea, who wasn’t only beautiful beyond belief, even more so in person might he add, but also widely known and therefore widely desired. Of all the people she could have chosen, the idol ended up choosing him … it was baffling, to say the least.

               Seeing her break down like that in the morning nearly gave him a heart attack, but now that she was this happy-go-lucky, Jaeho wondered if she was always like this or if she was putting a front for him. He wasn’t exaggerating when he noted that every time he stole a glance at Irene, she had a smile on her lips. He knew he shouldn’t do this—steal sideways glances at her—because it was sort of creepy, but he couldn’t help it. Irene was like a magnet and his eyes were like iron, they just naturally landed back on her every once in a while, Jaeho diverting his gaze every time he caught himself doing this. However, when Irene finally caught him stealing a glance at her, she just smiled even more widely and bumped her hips with his playfully, asking, “What?”

               “Sorry,” he quickly replied, shaking his head. What was he doing? He must be crazy. This must be a dream. Jaeho’s heart was beating so fast at the moment that he was genuinely afraid Irene would be able to hear it. Maybe he should actually be fearing for his health since there was no way this kind of reaction was natural, but his mind was too preoccupied with the situation to even consider that. That playful bump of the hips, too—it wasn’t direct contact, but that simple, playful motion was enough to set ablaze his heart.

               “You know, you were sort of like this the second time we met too,” Irene noted as they finished up with the dishes. “I was driving us here and you kept on glancing at me quickly and then turning away. Honestly, I sort of found that strange—” Jaeho’s heart dropped, “—but now I just find that cute.” Hearing that made Jaeho feel better, if only slightly. “Still, you don’t have to pretend you aren’t looking at me, I don’t mind.”

               Jaeho didn’t know whether to be relieved or embarrassed, and seeing this dilemma play out on Jaeho’s face put another smile on Irene’s face. “OK, now that we’re done, come over to the living room,” she said, carefully putting the last dish back in its place before leading the flustered man onto the couch. “I wanted to see if a recollection of our first meeting could help you remember again.”

               Irene sat down and pulled out her Instagram, Jaeho following suit but with considerable distance. “Why are you so far away? I don’t bite,” she said, beckoning the shy man to come closer, “How are you going to see my phone if you’re that far away?”

               Jaeho acquiesced, inching closer. Irene took this opportunity to close the rest of the distance, intentionally letting her bare leg touch his, another wide smile blossoming onto her face when Jaeho jumped in surprise, a slight red hue appearing on his cheeks. While Irene was having fun, a thought suddenly occurred to her: what if Jaeho was actually uncomfortable with her being this intimate? Maybe he was just not voicing his discomfort out of respect or fear? “Are you, um, comfortable?”

               Jaeho, a bit puzzled by the sudden question, responded with a, “Yeah, why?”

               “Never mind,” Irene said, seeing the genuine response from Jaeho, shaking her head and smiling, that fear fizzling away. After scrolling down to the relevant posts, she moved her phone in front of Jaeho to show him the hidden messages she had posted to Jaeho after the first night they met. “See these five posts?” she said, motioning at her phone, “These were all hidden messages to you because you didn’t even leave me with your phone number the first night we met.”

               Irene intentionally spoke those words in such a way that was accusatory, that it was Jaeho being dense, just to see what his reaction was. “Oh really? That was dumb of me, who wouldn’t give you his number when you are the one asking?”

               Irene pouted, not expecting him to instantly poke a hole in her words. “Well, I didn’t ask directly, but I told you that you passed my test before semi-passing out, so it was implied that you should have,” she insisted. In the back of her mind, she knew that if Jaeho was going to ‘drop the act’, this was the time; he absolutely loved to whenever her ‘test’ could be brought up in any manner.

               She didn’t have any expectations regarding this, and she was right to not do so as Jaeho responded with a simple question. “Test?”

               “Never mind,” Irene said, quickly moving on by enlarging the first of the hidden messages. “This first one was when you noticed that I was drinking water at the bar and you said that I could probably film a CF for water because how good I was making the water look, apparently.”

               Jaeho made a face. “Really? That’s a strange thing to say.”

               Irene giggled. “I think you were sort of tipsy at that point, so that might explain things. It was funny though, and evidently had an impact on me. This next one,” Irene scrolled up to her next video, “is when I voiced my disbelief in your words regarding the water commercial, and you countered by saying that a video of me just smiling at the camera would get lots of views. The next video, of me posting my reaction to alcohol, is alluding to when I got the same drink as you and reacted that way after taking a sip, you claiming that my reaction was a bit extreme.”

               Jaeho seemed like he had something to say, so Irene paused. “I usually drink some pretty strong stuff, so I’d be surprised if you could handle what I usually drink.”

               “You’re challenging me again? OK, next time you come, you can bring the alcohol of your choice and I’ll bring my own, we’ll see then.” Jaeho agreed to Irene’s proposition, so she continued. “This next one was because I asked you what you liked about me, and you listed that I was older than you, so now my theory is that you like older women.” Jaeho made a face in reaction to that but didn’t follow up with anything, so Irene continued, “Well? Do you?”

               “I haven’t ever dated anyone older than me before, but it is true that one of the reasons why you’re my ultimate bias is because you make me feel like I’m not too old to enjoy K-pop,” he answered, something Irene of course expected. The next part, however, was a bit more unexpected. “You probably know by now that my mother passed away when I was young, so my romantic partner being a motherly figure of sorts is something I look for.”

               Irene nodded, recalling this factoid about Jaeho, who revealed this about himself after watching a movie together and crying. Not wanting to drag the mood too far down, she followed up with an attempt at humor, “So what you’re saying is that yes, you do like older women.”

               Jaeho chuckled again, this time more casually than before. “Why are you so insistent on that?”

               Irene shrugged in response. “I just wanted to hear it from you. Anyway, this last post is pretty self-explanatory; I used female pronouns because I didn’t want people to get suspicious, but this was pretty much a direct message to you. I think you got the message because we ended up meeting later that week.”

               When Irene finished speaking, she looked expectantly at Jaeho, hoping that these posts triggered something deep inside him. Jaeho, noticing this expression on Irene’s face, just shook his head. “I don’t remember any of these, but no one got suspicious of these posts?”

               “Well, my close friends—” Irene was cut off when her phone rang.

               Now that everything was cleared up, there were two things Irene was most scared of, the first and foremost of which being SM figuring out the truth and using this as leverage to force them apart. However, the second item involved one of her own members, namely the member of the group that directly expressed to Jaeho that they wouldn’t forgive him for making her cry again, whose name incidentally belonged to the very name appearing on her cell phone at that moment: Park Sooyoung.

Woops, posted this a little late ... hope you guys don't mind too much ^_^

How do you think the rest of Red Velvet will react? Will they be able to find out that something is wrong with Jaeho right away, and how will they react if they do? Also, Jaeho and Irene's dynamic already seems like it's changed; do you all think that this is the case, and which do you prefer?

Thanks for reading as always, and if you enjoyed, make sure to leave a comment, subscribe, or give this story an upvote! :D