Seeing Irene panic, Jaeho immediately offered, “Do you need me to leave?”

               Irene pondered for a few seconds, letting her phone ring. It was already decently late—well past when Irene normally woke up—so Joy was probably worried about her. Understandably so, but this definitely not a good time for her concern. “No, it’s OK,” Irene said, putting her phone down. She felt guilty about ignoring her members, especially when she knew Joy had good intentions, but the older woman just didn’t feel ready to start lying to her groupmates yet. “I’ll just tell her I had my phone on silent. It’s probably a reasonable thing to expect, too, because—” she paused. It felt strange to still be embarrassed about something like that—after all, the two … well, did it last night, but it still felt … weird, somehow. Maybe it was because Jaeho had no recollection of it, while the memory was still fresh in her mind.

               Luckily, Jaeho caught on, quickly turning away to hide his flush. Irene smiled despite her own flushing; Jaeho was more confident last night, mostly because Irene requested him to be so, but to see this other side of him was also extremely endearing. She concluded that thought with a succinct, “Well, yeah.”

               Seeing Irene’s troubled reaction, Jaeho piped up. “I sort of figured that your members would get defensive of you, but what exactly is the reason you don’t want to tell them about this situation? Did they know about…” Jaeho paused; never in a million years would he have imagined dating an idol, not even to mention Irene, his favorite idol, of all people. It felt too egotistical to say it out loud even though Irene herself was advocating that they were dating, or are but he forgot, or whatever the situation was.

               “About us?” Irene gently finished for him. She noted in the back of her mind that in addition to everything else, Jaeho’s mindset towards being in a relationship with her was also reset, something she would definitely have to work on. “Yeah, they know. Joy made you—or, the past you—promise to never make me cry again, and you agreed, but since you can’t do anything about losing your memories, I don’t want them to get mad at you for that.”

               Jaeho’s face contorted into a concerned expression. “I made you cry before? How come?”

               Irene hesitated, more for selfish reasons than anything else. She didn’t want to relive that day and briefly considered if such knowledge would benefit Jaeho, but subsequently quashed that train of thought when she remembered how much Jaeho valued being transparent and truthful. Which was pretty ironic given how she was still mentally preparing herself to lie to her members for Jaeho’s—or rather, her own—sake. “It was just—when my company found out about our relationship, they called me while we both were in this apartment along with all my other members, so they asked to speak to you. I’m not sure exactly what they said, but it was enough that you wanted to break—” From the events of earlier this morning, it felt like she had primed herself to cry more easily than usual. At least, that was her reasoning behind why Irene had to stop and compose herself, noticing Jaeho edging forward like he wanted to help but was too shy to do so from the corner of her eye. This put a smile on her face and gave her the confidence to continue. “—break up with me, so I cried and begged you not to, and Joy warned you that she—that all of them would get mad at you if you made me cry again.”

               Jaeho hadn’t really considered it until Irene brought it up, but now that he thought about it, he could see why Irene was so hesitant to ask him to be pretend to be her boyfriend. No doubt SM would continue to oppose their ‘relationship’, but he didn’t know what form that would take: would asking be too forward of him? If he knew what to expect he could be better prepared for what’s to come, which would also benefit Irene … but something about it felt wrong, somehow. Would he be reopening past wounds? "I see,” he responded in an attempt to stall while he considered his options, in the end deciding to risk asking, “just so I’m prepared, what kinds of things does your company do that I would have to be warry of?”

               “Oh, no, you don’t have to worry about anything,” she started before stopping herself, realizing that this ‘new’ Jaeho might not have necessarily thought over the basics, “just make sure to not tell anyone about us; usually, we videocall at around 11:00pm, so make sure you aren’t around anyone else at that time before picking up. If you are, then you don’t have to pick up or decline the call and just text me to tell me what the situation is. I don’t know if it’ll be troublesome if someone is around and notices that I’m calling—actually, I don’t actually know what you have me saved as,” Irene glanced at Jaeho’s opposite pocket, the one that was storing his phone.

               Jaeho, curious about his ‘past self’ as well, pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contacts, eventually landing on someone he didn’t recognize: ‘commercial coworker’. “Is this it?” Jaeho said, blowing up the contact.

               Seeing the nickname that was clearly referencing the water CF joke from their first meeting, Irene burst out laughing. “Yeah, it is,” she replied, “that’s really cute, I like it. So if you ever see that, just remember it’s me.”

               Seeing real-life evidence of the story Irene had been telling him was simply mind-blowing: not only because it hinted at a life he had somehow completely forgotten in just a single night, but also because of the fact that he had the number of Irene on his phone. It felt like some kind of fantasy had somehow suddenly materialized into the real world, or that he was suddenly plopped into a TV show or something. “So, uh, do you have anything for today? Like, are you busy or something?”

               One thing that grew with time was the fluidity of his words, and now that everything was reset, Irene could tell that his nervous ticks reappeared, namely the occasional self-doubting language. “No, that’s why I’m here right now. Today’s my day off, so luckily, I could spend it like this for our 100^th day anniversary yesterday.”

               Three months, Jaeho noted. That was shorter than he had initially figured but was impressed with his ‘past self’ nonetheless for maintaining a relationship with a top idol for so long. He really wanted to know how they ended up together—something so fantastical seemed downright impossible before this morning, but didn’t want to pry too much, again not wanting to reopen wounds. “Oh ok, that’s good. I don’t think I usually have much on Mondays—” Jaeho pulled out his phone again to double-check, confirming that there weren’t any pressing text messages to reply to, “—so I’m free too.”

               “Do you want to watch a movie, then?” Irene suggested, nonchalantly putting a hand on his leg, temporarily forgetting about this habit that she had already developed as she jumped along with Jaeho in reaction to the sudden physical contact.

               “Um,” Jaeho tried to search his mind for an answer but just drew blanks, the only thing occupying his mind now being how soft the small idol’s hand was. God, everything about her was so perfect: her caring expression, her unblemished milky-white skin, her soft lips, her dainty fingers … it was truly a wonder that Jaeho was able to keep his composure around her for so long. If what he was doing could be called keeping his composure. “I don’t, um, watch movies too much, but I heard there was this one called, something like ‘Along with the Gods’ that my friends recommended to me.”

               Irene smiled; of course he would’ve forgotten watching the movie together, but there was humor in noticing the patterns from the first time the two got acquainted starting to emerge. “Actually, we’ve watched that movie before, and that’s how I learned about your mother,” she noted; even though Jaeho cried (as did she, honestly), it was a memory Irene held onto fondly. Up until that movie, Irene saw Jaeho as the fun-loving guy who not only blew away her loneliness but also allowed her to feel free to be spoiled, but seeing him cry like that allowed her to see another side of her boyfriend—or rather, then-boyfriend.

               “Ah, really? I … I didn’t, uh, you know—did I end up crying or anything like that?”

               Irene paused for a second for dramatic effect, noticing Jaeho grow increasingly uncomfortable as she continued smiling at him. “You did, but it was really endearing to me,” she ultimately answered, eliciting a groan from him. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about! If anything, it made me fall in love with you more.”

               The comment did nothing only added to his embarrassment, although the thing Jaeho was embarrassed by changing, his face turning pink again. “How does—…how do you fall—do you do that if I was crying?”

               Irene’s jovial smile turned into a gentle, reminiscent smile, recalling the transition Jaeho helped Irene go through in those weeks. “I was a lonely person,” she started. Jaeho noticed the shift in tone and calmed himself down as quickly as possible. “That was the reason why I started to actively look for a boyfriend in the first place. For idols, you never really try to look for a relationship, they just sort off happen. This is for a variety of reasons, but you can probably figure out these reasons for yourself: public backlash, lack of time to commit to a significant other, among other reasons. However, at the time, I just remember feeling really lonely a lot: my members helped a bit with this, but it was starting to not be enough, somehow. How do I describe it?” Irene pursed her lips, struggling to find the correct words, not noticing Jaeho who was admiring the simple view of a pondering Irene, wondering how someone could look so beautiful while doing something so simple. “It’s like, I always felt like something was missing. I could spend as much time with my members and with my fans, but afterwards, I would just lay in my bed and feel empty somehow, like I was not doing something crucial or missing something important. That feeling followed me wherever I went, no matter what I was doing, and eventually, I came up with a theory to explain this: maybe this emptiness was something a romantic partner could fix for me.”

               Irene turned to look Jaeho in the eyes, an action that caused Jaeho to turn away in embarrassment. This was another thing Irene noticed time fixed in their relationship: Jaeho had trouble maintaining eye contact with her in the beginning. However, Irene didn’t worry about this, a smile forming on her lips without her knowledge of it as she gingerly placed a hand on his. “Sending things like ‘good night’ texts, telling each other over the phone how our days went, or even just being in each other’s presence in a video chat; these were all things I hadn’t experienced that caused this hole in my soul, and you fixed it for me in a matter of weeks. So, when I tell you ‘I love you’, that’s what I mean.”

               Evidently, Jaeho didn’t know how to respond as he ended up a stuttering mess, trying to find a proper reply. “Oh, uh, that’s good to know,” he managed to say, half in embarrassment from Irene’s forwardness and half in amazement from his former self.

               “So this time, it’ll be my chance to make it up to you, which is one good thing that came out of this,” Irene noted, getting up. “Do you want to watch ‘Along with the Gods’? I would be willing if you are.”

               After the movie—in which Jaeho cried despite the warning—Irene returned back to her dorm. Fortunately, her groupmates didn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary and just , letting on that they knew what she and Jaeho had done the previous night. Irene played along good-naturedly, thankful she was afforded a bit more time to prepare herself to lie to her groupmates. It wasn’t until later that night that she was forced to do so.

               “Joohyun, are you video-calling Jaeho?”

               Irene was sitting on her bed, phone in hand with the stated intention in mind. What gave her pause was two things: one, how was she going to hide this new, amnesiac Jaeho from them? And two, was she ready to start lying to her best friends, her sisters? Her members occasionally liked to join her whenever Irene was video-calling Jaeho, and she never refused them; so what was she going to do now that she had no choice but to either lie about her intentions, or lying about the reason why she didn’t want them in the video-call?

               The other alternative was to not video-call Jaeho, but she selfishly decided against it. In her mind, if she were to call off the video call that night, she would be conceding, admitting that the situation got the better of her; as immature as it sounded, Irene wanted to show the universe that she wasn’t going to take these punches laying down and just give up at the first sign of struggle. She was adamant about fighting for this relationship no matter what.

               “Yeah, but I want to talk to him just by myself tonight, OK?”

               “Ah, now that I think about it, we should leave the lovebirds alone; they probably want to talk about last night,” Yeri said in a singsong teasing voice from the other side of the door.

               “Yah, how many times have I told you to stop with that topic?” Irene shouted at her members, a smile playing at her lips.

               “Maybe they’re already planning how their 200^th day anniversary will go,” Joy speculated out loud, eliciting giggles from the other three.

               “Oh, we should help unnie prepare her outfit,” Yeri added. A barrage of emotions hit her at once: embarrassment at the idea of wearing something y for Jaeho, sadness that their 200^th day anniversary would technically be pushed to a later date, among others.

               “That would be so fun,” Seulgi chimed in.

               “You three, or you four, I’ll deal with you later OK? I’ll give you the chance to talk to Jaeho when he isn’t as busy,” Irene said. Thankfully, that white lie was enough for her groupmates to give her enough space to feel comfortable video-chatting her ‘boyfriend’. Jaeho picked up her video call request rather quickly, a habit of Jaeho’s Irene was happy didn’t fade with his memory.

               “Oh, hi Irene,” he greeted, much too politely for her tastes.

               “Hi Jaeho,” she replied, a smile blossoming on her face. Despite the situation, seeing him still triggered an automatic reaction in her body. “How was your day today?”

               “Wow, you’re so pretty even in pajamas.” Although Irene was no stranger to Jaeho randomly complimenting her, hearing them still never failed to fluster her. “Oh, sorry,” he cut himself off, flushing along with the idol. Irene smiled gently, hiding the squealing fangirl inside her that found the embarrassed Jaeho adorable, “um, my day was fine today. How about for you?”

               “I didn’t have much of a schedule today, so it was really restful; I just went to the dance studio to practice choreography for some stages and got back a while ago. I just took a shower, actually, before calling you.” The last sentence was spoken in anticipation for something; what she was anticipating, even she didn’t know.

               And, amazingly enough, despite having lost his memory and his comfort level with Irene, Jaeho managed to find those words. “I see, no wonder your hair looks so beautiful right now.” Irene could tell that he half-blurted it out, noticing that Jaeho caught himself from his facial expression, but decided to say the words anyway.

               “Thank you! You were actually the one who convinced me to dye my hair silver, although I’m probably removing it soon.”

               “Really? My past self has some good taste, because that color really suits you,” Jaeho said, his words more precise this time.

               “I think so too,” Irene replied, smiling widely, “but if I keep dying my hair, it’ll damage my roots. If you want to see me with silver hair all the time, you’ll just have to grow old with me~”

               That proposal caused a more visible flush on Jaeho’s cheeks, which Irene reveled in. Jaeho almost never showed his embarrassed side once the two had started dating, so seeing this side of him again was refreshing and absolutely adorable. To Irene, it wasn’t only that Jaeho was exceedingly handsome—more handsome than some actors and models, she’d say—but it was also the idea that the confident, always-knows-what-to-say, happy-go-lucky man from the past suddenly showing a bashful side being endearing. Irene teased Jaeho about ‘liking older women’ all the time, but she could, in part, sympathize with his needing of a mother figure in his life, and Irene was more than willing to do her part. And it was times like these where being that mother figure for her boyfriend—for her friend—was made much easier. “A-Ah, yeah, I guess,” he muttered a reply.

               “Are you free later this week, on Saturday night?”

               “Why?”

               “Why?” Irene repeated Jaeho’s question, giggling, “So we can have a date, why else?”

               Irene’s answer caused another wave of bashfulness to hit Jaeho. He didn’t know it was possible for Irene to look so beautiful wearing a simple nighttime outfit, but now that his eyes were opened, he didn’t want to ever shut them. Did his past self get to enjoy this often? Once again, he questioned how he managed to get close to the idol, and how he was lucky enough to be the one Irene fell in love with. In fact, if he was being frank, being into this situation felt like cheating; he felt as though he was benefitting from the hard work of someone else, even if Irene adamantly claimed that the someone else was himself. “Oh, um …” it was Irene who was proposing the idea of the date, but Jaeho still felt like it was somehow egotistical to accept it for some reason. Irene was an idol after all. Did he have the right to go on a date with her? “…I should be free, yeah.” Well, in the end, Irene was still a woman. Despite being an idol, she’s also a human being, and who’s to say which human being may or may not go on a date with another human being? Jaeho took a deep breath: this was just something he had to get used to.

               “Great! I’ll send you—oh wait, that’s right,” Irene started, promptly stopping herself upon the realization that she had to reexplain how the process of them meeting up worked. “Usually, how we meet up is I send you an address of a private location a few hours before and my manager will pick you up from there. From there, she’ll drive you to my apartment.”

               “Oh, that’s pretty smart,” Jaeho commented, “But is all that necessary?”

               “Well—” Irene paused. She never thought about it, always taking it as a given that at least this much precaution was required, especially after the fiasco with the news article. Because of this, Irene never even considered spending time with Jaeho anywhere other than the safety of their apartment—but now that she thought about it, wasn’t it possible to spend time together in her car?

               All Jaeho would have to do is stay inside the car; the windows of Irene’s car were tinted, so people wouldn’t be able to see him inside unless she was careless. Was it risky? Perhaps. But Irene was tired of not being able to spend time with Jaeho in places not inside her apartment, not that she had any problems with the place. They were so limited to things they could do inside their apartment, after all, and while this Jaeho might not have experienced them, she has. Plus, Irene didn’t want to get Jaeho used to just staying inside the apartment all the time now that she had the chance to reacquaint herself to him.

               “Actually, I’ll pick you up, and we can go somewhere. You’ll have to stay in the car, but I think we can do something outside.”

               This made Jaeho curious. Irene paused for a long time, and Jaeho was good enough at reading facial expressions to know that Irene was thinking about something in the meantime. “Do we normally just stay inside the apartment?”

               “…Yeah, but if I’m careful, then I think we can have a few car dates.”

               Jaeho didn’t think he could ever get used to it; when he agreed to ‘pretend to be Irene’s boyfriend’, what he assumed he would have to do was to act a certain way in front of certain people, answer certain questions in certain ways, basically more of the professional-facing stuff. Jaeho wasn’t expecting to be regularly meeting up with Irene, so to call them a date … the idea of a date wasn’t what got to Jaeho, it was Irene—Irene, the visual for a girl group full of idols who could, in any other group, be a visual themselves—proposing the idea like it was an everyday occurrence. How did his past self ever acquaint himself with this feeling? Did he ever?

               Jaeho questioned the validity of real life almost every waking minute, and as he went through his normal life, the situation he had found himself that morning seemed more and more far-fetched. Everything else in his life seemed normal: his memory of the past few months had no interference with the conversations he held that day, or anything else. Given, it hasn’t even been a day since he discovered that suddenly, a top idol claimed to be his girlfriend and even cried in insistence of that claim, but the normalcy he experienced during the rest of the day gave him hesitation. Now that the idol was back in front of him, acting so casually, he felt like he was back into some kind of fantasy: that Irene, who incidentally happened to be exactly Jaeho’s ideal type in every regard possible, actually was his girlfriend. How else could he explain the casualness in which she talked, the comfort in her voice, the casual, content smile on her lips?

               Jaeho wondered if this was going to be an everyday occurrence, a constant rollercoaster between finding himself being distanced from this dream and back into it. He wished he could just live the dream, but something in the back of his mind remained unconvinced; after all, this whole situation was exceedingly bizarre. How could Jaeho just suddenly forget about someone? And allegedly spending lots of time with that someone, even going so far as to sleep with her? Did he have some kind of rare disease? Or maybe there was some supernatural phenomenon?

               Jaeho didn’t believe in ghosts or the like, nor was he particularly religious, but with what happened recently, he found himself at a loss for scientific explanations. The only plausible, non-ridiculous idea he could come up with is that he did in fact have a one-night stand with Irene—which in and of itself was an extremely fantastical idea—and Irene just decided to pull some kind of extended prank on him, either for personal entertainment or for monetary reasons.

               But as he talked to her more and more, it became more and more clear that this explanation was just plainly incorrect. Jaeho was good at reading people—it was part of the reason why he was a salesman—and he could see all the signs Irene was subtly giving him. The warmth in her eyes, the way her smile never seemed to fade, the slight giddiness in her voice, the fact that they video-called for two hours, the forlorn expression on Irene’s face when she announced that she had to hang up and prepare for bed. She even bid him ‘goodnight’, something Jaeho never would have dared to imagine would be something he would personally receive from an idol of her caliber.

               That night, Jaeho had trouble falling asleep. Part of it was the exhilaration of talking to Irene for so long, but the other part was in fear: if he fell asleep, would he wake back up and realize he was just in some kind of long, drawn-out dream? Maybe he was in a coma, and all this was in his head?

               So there Jaeho laid, staring up at the dark ceiling for what felt like hours, mind racing a million miles a minute until his body gave in, his consciousness naturally fading into nothingness.

               The next morning, Jaeho’s eyes shot open, his first thought being: it wasn’t a dream. He could remember the events of the previous day. Of the tears Irene shed when he admitted to not remembering her—and facepalming himself when he remembered that he had even forgotten who Irene was, for a second—and of their video call the previous night.

               That recollection triggered a thought in his head, causing him to sit up in his bed. Wait … how did he manage to forget Irene? If his memory served him correctly—which it may very well not have—then it wasn’t the typical temporary lapse in memory that happened to everyone. He genuinely did not know the woman whom he had woken up next to was. She didn’t even seem familiar to him, and it wasn’t because she had little makeup on, he just didn’t recognize him. Which was odd because he typically had a pretty good memory, which was the thing that led to his conclusion that he was drinking the previous night and simply forgot because of it. However, it wasn’t until he looked up that Red Velvet video that his memory came back to him all at once, like a runaway truck on the freeway.

               What was with that? Why did that video cause him to remember everything about the idol Irene, but not his girlfriend Irene? Furthermore, why didn’t the picture of the two together trigger that tsunami of memories?

               He shook his head, which was hurting by now. This was beyond him; he wasn’t particularly skilled in science or the like anyway. There was value in reclaiming his memories for Irene’s sake—although Irene seemed to be enjoying seeing him being flustered and floundering about, he noticed—but figuring out such a complex puzzle was beyond the scope of his knowledge or capabilities.

               After doing his usual morning routine, he retrieved his phone to check the news and the weather as usual before seeing a notification on his screen that frankly caused his heart to skip two beats.

               ‘Good morning! :3 Just a friendly reminder that I still exist, did you forget me already? ^.^’

               While the tone of the text was happy-go-lucky, the mood in which Irene sent the text definitely was not. Truthfully, Irene was so frightened by the idea that she couldn’t sleep at all. She was thankful that she didn’t share a room with anyone, because otherwise they would have seen her staring at her phone screen almost the entire night, finger hovering over the ‘call’ button on Jaeho’s contact page for what felt like an eternity. For what felt like the first time since her idol life started, the sun could not get up faster, and after those long hours of stressful, agonizing wait, she finally sent him a good morning text with bated breath, hiding her underlying fear with a cutesy tone. It wasn’t until he replied that she finally breathed a sigh of relief, although she was only able to see the text after being shaken awake by her manager after arriving to the first location of her schedule.

               “Joohyun, did you not sleep well yesterday?” Seulgi asked, helping her out of the van.

               “Well, maybe she was catching up on sleep,” Yeri suggested, smiling slyly. “You know, from…” the youngest didn’t finish the sentence, but those words were all the other members needed to start giggling.

               “Kim Yerim,” Irene said sternly, a baffled expression on her face.

               “What?” she replied innocently, dodging a playful swipe from the eldest.

               While Irene could tell her members were being playful, in all honesty, they weren’t far from the truth. Irene made note that even behaviors like these were potentially dangerous and could give away the thing she wanted to hide from her groupmates. When they returned to the privacy of their van, she was ready when her members attacked her with one of their favorite topics to talk about: her relationship with Jaeho. “So what did you talk about last night?” Joy asked giddily.

               “Do I have to tell you every day?”

               “Well, you didn’t let us talk to him!”

               “I thought I would only lose my privacy with Jaeho when our relationship got public, but I see that it’s already gone, huh?”

               “You knew what you were signing up for when you said ‘yes’ to Jaeho,” Yeri said in a wild attempt to ‘reason’ with her leader.

               “He’s my boyfriend, not Red Velvet’s boyfriend,” Irene protested.

               “Ah, I think she’s jealous,” Seulgi chimed in.

               “Well, sometimes, I want some privacy with Jaeho, even from you four, you know?”

               For a second, Irene thought she might’ve gone too far, but that thought was summarily shut down when Yeri interjected with, “You mean, like two nights ago?”

               “You little brat—”

               It was hard. Every time Irene had to make up an excuse for why they couldn’t talk to her boyfriend Jaeho because the present Jaeho wasn’t her boyfriend, a pang of guilt struck her. Fortunately, her members didn’t seem to suspect much; they respected her privacy, although she wasn’t sure it was because she was their leader or because they truly weren’t suspicious of her.

               Simply put, Irene just didn’t feel ready to confront her members with the truth: that the ‘reset’ button has effectively been hit with her relationship with Jaeho, that she cried again indirectly due to Jaeho, … there was something about being vulnerable in front of her members that she felt uneasy about, especially when she was the eldest and the assigned leader of the group. And it wasn’t until the afternoon of their first reunion since Jaeho suddenly loss his memory that she had to deal with this.

               That day started no different than her usual day—Irene, of course, had told her groupmates about her plans to have a car date with Jaeho, and they like they usually would. Which is why she was taken by surprise when, after arriving back in their dorm, they suddenly ambushed her with this question: “Joohyun, did something happen between you and Jaeho?”

               “Hm?” was her first reaction; not because she was still trying to hide her secret, but because she was genuinely surprised by the question. After taking a split second to process the words, she quickly responded with, “What do you mean?”

               “Did you two get in a fight or something? Is that why you’re being distant with us with him, and you just don’t want to burden us?”

               Seeing the collective worry in the faces of all her members broke her down. It came sooner than expected, but they would find out eventually, she reasoned. “N-No, it’s not that,” Irene replied, unsuspectingly shedding a tear. As she reached up to rid her face of it, she continued, “We didn’t get in a fight, but something did happen.”

               “Did Jaeho make you cry again?” Joy demanded, a hint of anger in her voice.

               “Well—” the hesitation in her voice caused anger to flare up in not only her eyes, but the eyes of her members, so Irene quickly continued before a misunderstanding happened. “It’s not exactly like that. It wasn’t his fault,” when she noticed the distrust in her members’ eyes, she realized she had no choice but to fully explain the situation. Irene had initially hoped she could reveal the truth in increments so she could prepare herself and Jaeho, but now that it’s escalated to this degree, she didn’t want her groupmates to unduly direct anger towards the innocent Jaeho. “This is going to sound weird, but you all are going to have to trust me, OK?”

               When the four nodded, Irene took a deep breath and collected her thoughts before continuing. “Last time Jaeho and I met up, something strange happened. You all know that I slept over at the apartment that night, but what I didn’t tell you was that he suddenly lost his memories while asleep.” This caused some commotion within the other four, but out of respect, didn’t interrupt their leader. Irene, noticing how poor her choice of words were after the fact, was thankful that no outbursts happened. “By that I mean only memories of me—at first, it was that he didn’t remember me at all, but after watching one of our MVs, he remembered me, but only as Irene of Red Velvet, not Joohyun his girlfriend. I thought he was trying to pull a prank on me, and it was when I figured out he wasn’t lying that I cried. It wasn’t his fault though, so I hope you don’t get mad at him or anything—he’s been really cooperative and willing to help despite his situation, because if you think about it from his point of view, it was probably really jarring for him, right? So I wanted to wait until both Jaeho and I were ready to confront you all again before telling you the truth, but I’ve been feeling guilty about hiding this from you all lately … but if you were to get mad at someone, please get mad at me, Jaeho always voiced his opposition to hiding this from you all, but it’s just that—”

               “Hey, it’s ok,” Wendy interrupted her, which was the point where Irene discovered that tears were already streaming down her cheeks.

               “We aren’t mad at you, or Jaeho, or anyone.”

               “Sorry, I just—” she sniffled, feeling Seulgi’s hand grabbing her own. “I didn’t mean to hide stuff from everyone, but I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t want anyone to get mad at Jaeho for no reason. He’s working hard despite everything—I mean,” another of her own sniffles interrupted her, “it must have been so strange for him, waking up next to a stranger and suddenly being told all of this, but he’s been so nice and kind and agreed to work with me without hesitation.”

               Yeri and Joy shared a brief exchange before giggling. “Wow, you really love Jaeho, don’t you?”

               Irene’s cheeks exploded in pink at the sudden comment. “Wha—What do you mean?”

               “I think anyone would be delighted to suddenly wake up one day next to someone like you,” Wendy said, agreeing with the two youngest.

               “What? Why?”

               “What Seungwan is trying to say is that if she were a man, she’d be willing to do it with you.”

               “Yah, Kim Yerim,” Irene directed a scolding voice towards the youngest, Joy and Seulgi bursting into laughter, herself as well chuckling along. Wendy, on the other hand, didn’t interject, nor did she oppose Yeri’s words.

               “What? Am I wrong?”

               “I’m trying to be serious here and you have to bring your erted side out?” although Irene said this, she appreciated Yeri’s quick diffusing of the situation. That wasn’t to say that those words flustered her, but this was Yeri, so it was fine.

               “Those were Seungwan’s words, not mine,” she claimed, grabbing the arm of the woman she just named.

               “Hey, don’t just throw this to me!”

               “Anyway,” Irene intervened, “we agreed to restart as just friends, but it’s so cute because he’s not—” Irene stopped herself as quickly as possible, mentally facepalming herself when she realized she just gave her groupmates more fuel to .

               “Aw, you—”

               “Anyway,” Irene interrupted Joy before she could get started, “we’re not technically a couple right now, I think, but I would like it if you still pretended that nothing changed between us to our company.”

               “Of course,” Seulgi answered, the rest promptly agreeing with her. In hindsight, Irene didn’t know why she perceived this to be such a big issue: maybe because of her dishonesty, or maybe because of how ridiculous the situation sounded and how maybe they would suspect her of using this bizarre explanation to hide something from them, but fortunately, they all trusted her. However, that wasn’t to say they weren’t all curious as her. “But how did that happen, even? Did Jaeho drink something, or hit his head?”

               “Maybe their night was so wild that—” Yeri trailed off upon seeing the look Irene was giving her, the other members stifling their giggles.

               “I don’t know; I haven’t consulted a doctor or anything because I was afraid of our company being suspicious of us, so the most I’ve done is look it up online, but I didn’t find anything. We discussed about it a bit, but we didn’t end up getting any answers; Jaeho went to visit a doctor but said that the doctor told him that there didn’t seem to be any problems with his brain. Apparently, this is the first time something like this has happened to him,” Irene explained.

               “Wow, that’s…” Irene knew exactly how Wendy felt when she trailed off, unsure of how to finish that sentence. Puzzling beyond words, baffling beyond common sense, unbelievable beyond imagination, all of these terms fit the situation well, but none seemed to quite hit the mark. It’s been nearly a week and Irene was still trying to wrap her head around everything, so to expect her members to was unfair. Still, she was surprised that the four weren't accusing her of trying to prank them, or claims that she was using this far-fetched story to hide something; maybe it was because she shed a few tears, but she was thankful in their trust of her.

               “I’m sorry,” Yeri was the first one to say something after the brief silence. “I know it’s not the same as breaking up, but it must have been rough when you figured out, right? And we couldn’t even be there for you.”

               “It was because I said I would get mad at Jaeho if he ever made you cry again, right?” Joy’s voice was smaller than usual, almost fearful.

               “Sooyoung, Yerim, it’s fine,” Irene said, patting the backs of the two usually vibrant girls. “It’s just a small setback, and my relationship with him will only get stronger after this, so it isn’t all bad. Plus, I get to see him being all flustered, which is extremely adorable. We have that car date today, so I’m looking forward—” Irene, in her haste to comfort them, slowed down, realizing she had given them prime material to with again. When they didn’t intervene, she continued, more cautious this time, “—to meeting him and letting him get to know me more,” she said, adding on after a thought occurred to her, “How about this: if you feel like you have to make it up to me, help me ask him to be my boyfriend when I feel like we’re both ready.”

               “Oh, that sounds fun,” Wendy commented.

               “Yeah, we’ll help you! I guess it’ll have to be at the apartment again, but we can do something slightly different, like—” Yeri started excitedly before Irene cut her off.

               “Save your ideas for later, OK? Jaeho isn’t ready yet; after all, he’s only known me for a week, technically.”

               “Ok! Ooh, I’m so excited…”

               Irene laughed. “Why are you excited? Shouldn’t I be the excited one here?” While it was true Irene was excited about the idea—about what she’ll do when she asks Jaeho to be her boyfriend—she was also terrified. So far, the Jaeho that woke up next to her that morning didn’t seem any different than the Jaeho that she fell in love with initially, but there was nothing that guaranteed Jaeho would fall in love with her again. What if he met another girl that he falls for? What if he already met someone else? What if he got back with one of his exes and the spark reignited? Irene was sure all of Jaeho’s exes were beautiful with the additional benefit that they didn’t have the same baggage she did.

               Was she being too clingy? Should she give him more space? Should she stop being as flirty as she was with him? What if this behavior drove him away? What would she do if he fell in love with someone else? What if he rejected her on the day she asked Jaeho to be her boyfriend? These were the kinds of thoughts that kept her up at night, but if she dwelled on it too long and showed him her weak side by accident, surely it would become exponentially more difficult to achieve her goal.

               Irene sighed, leaning her head against the headrest of her car. She had to put a brave face on and just try her hardest. In love, that was all one could do; effort only increased the chances of falling in love, but ultimately, it was the other party that decided if one’s effort was worth it in the end.

               These types of thoughts had plagued Irene’s mind the whole week, but strangely almost instantly disappeared every time they video chatted. There was something calming, reassuring about his presence, and sure enough, when Irene saw him in the parking lot, her face lit up and her heart started pounding inside her ribcage, but in excitement instead of anxiety. “Hi Jaeho,” she greeted him, unable to mask her excitement, as he climbed into the passenger seat of her car. “I missed you.”

               Irene blurted that last sentence out before she even realized what she was saying but seeing the flush on Jaeho’s face made it worth the embarrassment. “Um, hi Irene,” Jaeho replied, trying to infuse his voice with as much confidence as possible.

               Jaeho was also extremely anxious. The whole week felt like a dream to him—or rather, it was a dream for him. So, when Irene proposed they spend some time together in her car, just the two of them, he didn’t know what to feel: crushing fear or overwhelming joy? Mind-numbing excitement or soul-crushing anxiety? Jaeho didn’t trust himself to act normally around a goddess-on-earth, but he had no other choice. Jaeho agreed to Irene’s proposal without another thought, but as the date drew nearer, he started regretting that: not because he didn’t want to see Irene, but because he was afraid he’d just embarrass himself in front of her.

               Just in case, Jaeho had arrived at the location Irene specified well in advance to give himself time to prepare but was barely granted any as Irene had also arrived much earlier than she had said. “You’re early.”

               “So are you,” she replied. “Were you that excited to see me?” The question was extremely hypocritical and Irene knew it, but she couldn’t help but tease the taller, handsome man anyway.

               “Um … yeah,” he answered, deciding to be truthful.

               “Aw, I would hug you if we weren’t inside a car right now,” Irene said, performing a fist-pump in her head in triumph, putting the car in drive. “Did you eat yet?”

               Jaeho panicked a little when he heard that question. “Oh, yeah, I did. I thought—since we can’t do restaurants or anything, since, you know, I already ate—”

               Irene saved him from his floundering by cutting him off, “No, it’s fine, I was just wondering,” she said, smiling at that. He was just so adorable and precious, how could she not? “Hopefully there’s still some room in your stomach though because I was planning on getting some ice cream.”

               “Oh! OK, that sounds nice,” he said, cursing himself at how awkward he was.

               “How was your day today?”

               “It was—” Jaeho stopped himself, suddenly cautious. Irene, curious at this, turned to look at him briefly while stopping at the exit of the parking lot.

               “What’s wrong?” Her tone was so fully of almost maternal concern and worry that Jaeho could start to see why he fell for her.

               However, the reason why he stopped himself wasn’t because he was afraid of burdening Irene with something; rather, it was regarding his exes. They weren’t dating, but still, it felt like a bad idea to mention them around Irene: however, now that he had already started, being untruthful would only make things worse. “It was fine, but I met one of my exes today while at lunch and it was sort of awkward.”

               Irene tensed up, her ears turning off after the word ‘today’. She knew it was bad to do so but she couldn’t help herself, that fear of Jaeho returning to his exes reigniting. However, she didn’t say anything.

               “We talked a little and found out that she has a boyfriend already, and when she asked me about if I had a girlfriend, I hesitated a bit before saying no. She found it a little suspicious and pressed me a bit on the issue, asking if I was in ‘some’ relationship with a woman, and I almost admitted to talking with you to her but stopped myself.” For some reason, that was all Irene needed to return to being happy. The fact that Jaeho immediately thought of her when that question was asked of him pleased her, something like the equivalent of saying ‘take that!’ to someone she had just attained victory over. “So I just realized it was pretty hard, and wanted to apologize to you for that.”

               Irene giggled. “What is there to apologize for?”

               “I don’t know … I’m more apologizing for the future than for now.”

               Irene briefly turned her gaze to him as she pulled to a stop at a red light. “Why? Do you plan on telling anyone?”

               “No! Of course not!” he quickly answered, “It’s just—I feel like … I don’t know, like this whole situation is so fantastical that I’ll have trouble separating fantasy from reality, but then when I think about if someone will actually believe me, I think I might be safe, but then again, what if they do? I know technology is scary these days and people can easily hack into my phone, but also, how many people will falsely claim the same thing?”

               Irene, who was waiting for him to stop, giggled at his mini rant. “It’s OK, I trust you,” she said. A brief moment of silence elapsed before she brought up another topic, “You know, I’ve yet to meet your dad.”

               “Oh, really?”

               She nodded. “I never really brought it up, but I don’t think you’ve told your dad about us too. The only thing you said so far is that your dad is bad with secrets, so I took your word for it, but found that really cute.” If nothing else confirmed that Irene was telling the truth the whole time about everything, this was it: Jaeho didn’t talk about his dad around most people, and definitely not the fact that he liked to gossip.

               “Ah, yeah, that’s true,” he said, chuckling. “Explaining all of this would be really awkward, wouldn’t it?”

               Irene nodded solemnly. “I wonder how I’m going to tell my parents…”

               Jaeho, shocked, turned to look at Irene, briefly caught off guard by her beauty before quickly regaining his composure. “You told your parents?”

               Irene nodded. “I was thinking we could go greet them after last week, but…”

               The atmosphere in the car quickly got somber. “Sorry,” Jaeho quietly apologized, feeling responsible for the downturn in the conversation.

               “There’s no need to apologize.” A brief silence. Then, “It was my fault, really.”

               “How about your day?” Jaeho offered, “I saw your post earlier today.”

               “Oh, I saw that you liked it.”

               This baffled Jaeho. “What? How? Out of the tens of thousands that liked the post?”

               Irene grinned, keeping her eye on the road. “I’m very perceptive, you know.”

               “Wow, scary,” Jaeho said, laughing along, glad that the positive atmosphere returned, “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be one of your groupmates trying to hide something from you.”

               “Speaking of which,” Jaeho, realizing what he said after he said it, was initially expecting the worst when he instead heard the optimistic tone in Irene’s voice, “Good news: my groupmates found out that you had sudden amnesia but they were empathetic, so we don’t have to hide it from them anymore.”

               “Oh, really?”

               Irene nodded, smiling. “You’ll have to prepare yourself though, because they’ll start appearing in our video calls, and if you thought I was a bit much, wait until you meet them.”

               Jaeho full-out laughed. “Really?”

               Irene nodded, herself thankful that Jaeho managed to recover the atmosphere. “They’re worse than me; I swear, from an outsider’s perspective, it would’ve seemed like they were all your sisters instead of mine,” she stated as she pulled up to the ice cream shop.

               “Oh really? You know, someone at my workplace has four younger sisters,” Jaeho said, “I found this out recently, actually. Oh, are we here?”

               Irene nodded. “Taro?”

               Jaeho, confused for a second, almost asked what Irene was mentioning before realizing that she was referring to the ice cream flavor he wanted. “Oh! Yeah,” he replied, finding it bizarre how the idol just knew his favorite ice cream flavor despite having no recollection of telling her even despite having been given a few days to become accustomed to these kinds of occurrences.

               “I’ll be back quickly,” she said, winking at him quickly before flying out the car door.

               Jaeho sat there for a few seconds, completely dazed. A peculiar sense of déjà vu washed over him, the scene replaying in his mind over and over. He could just about hear his own heartbeat; he never knew a wink could be so powerful until that very moment. However, the more that sense of déjà vu lingered, the more curious he got: has he experienced this before? While watching a fancam of Irene? No, he doubted a wink from behind the video screen would cause this kind of reaction. Was it a memory from before last week?

               He tried to hold onto that mysterious feeling, but as usual, it faded within a matter of seconds, leaving Jaeho with nothing but the heart-wrenching memory of the simple wink—the simple wink­—from Irene that nearly gave him a heart attack. Was this something he endured every day as Irene’s boyfriend? If it was, he found a newfound respect for himself of the past; anyone who could survive that surely routinely must be have the world’s strongest heart.

               As promised, Irene returned quickly, carefully balancing the two cups of ice cream while opening the door. “Here’s yours,” she announced as she sat down in the driver’s seat, handing Jaeho one cup, “And here’s your spoon,” she handed him a plastic spoon next before settling down in her seat with her own cup. “Did you miss me?”

               “You were only gone for a few seconds,” Jaeho pointed out.

               Irene pouted. “The old you would’ve said ‘I missed you to death’ or something right there,” she said, taking a bite out of what looked to be the same ice cream she had gotten for him.

               Jaeho’s eyebrows rose at that. “Really? Was I that cheesy?”

               Irene nodded fervently. “Yeah! You were even cheesier than I was.” As Jaeho took a bite out of his, Irene prompted Jaeho to continue his story before he noticed that they arrived at their destination.

               “Someone at my workplace has four younger sisters, and not only that, but their ages line up pretty well with Red Velvet’s ages: one two years younger, one three years younger, another one six years younger, and another one eight years younger. It really left an impact on me, so when I saw this coworker at one of my company’s get-togethers, we talked a bit more. I told her that I was a model for jeans and she mentioned that she was interested in modeling, so I put a good word in for her in the company I do modeling for and apparently, one of her sisters was already working for that company. It was supposed to be a secret though, a surprise I think, so I haven’t told my coworker about her sister, but I just thought it was really funny.”

               Irene had effectively stopped listening already, feeling her fears starting to reemerge. All the elements were there: an interesting female he encountered, a reason to spend time with her, chemistry already built by talking … was it only a time before he left her?

               “She’s pretty too—I mean, I’ve seen pictures of her and her sisters and they’re all pretty, so it’s probably a genetic thing—so I was surprised she didn’t get scouted sooner. But apparently, when I asked her, she said that she was too busy taking care of her other sisters to have time for something like modeling, so now that all her sisters finally all turned into adults, she had time, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be desirable because of her age. When she said that, I thought of you and how you’d probably not like that line of thinking.”

               When Jaeho concluded his story, Irene was in full panic mode. There was another element: a maternal instinct that Jaeho craved, not to mention that Jaeho was calling her pretty. If it was a competition between the two, there was no doubt in Irene’s mind that she could win given the enormous head start she had, being his co-worker.

               “Irene?” Jaeho was now worried, seeing Irene’s vacant expression after noticing that she was taking abnormally long to respond.

               “Hey, Jaeho,” Irene’s voice was meek and unstable, something that immediately triggered Jaeho’s protective instincts. He recognized that voice all too well: it was the voice that started the pair in this crazy situation. “You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t date anyone else, would you?”

               Admittedly, Jaeho figured it was a poor choice to talk about another woman with Irene. However, after thinking about it, he realized how narcissistic it was to think like this: assuming it was a poor choice to talk about a positive experience he had with another woman in front of Irene meant that he assumed Irene was obsessed with him, and while he understood that Irene was in love with him—or the past him—he didn’t dare imagine it was this deep. Now that he was witnessing Irene, tears threatening to spill onto her ice cream, his heart squeezed inside his chest. He felt bad for making the beautiful idol sad again, but on the other hand, it somehow felt … nice that she was reacting this way, and that she cared about him to this extent.

               “No, of course not! She has a boyfriend, she’s just a coworker that I got along with—I thought it was a funny story, so I was practicing it all week to share it with you, but—” he stopped himself when he realized he nonchalantly admitted to practicing the telling of this story for Irene’s sake, but pushed forward despite his embarrassment, “I mean, she’s just a coworker, nothing more, I swear.”

               When Irene turned to look at him, her bright eyes shining against the white streetlights, tears streaming down her face, Jaeho swear he could feel his heart shatter into a million pieces inside his chest. “You promise?”

               He nodded. “I promise.”

               Irene sniffled, grabbing a tissue from the backseat of her car and clearing her face. “Then prove it.”

               Jaeho, confused, asked, “What? How?”

               “Feed me,” she said, leaning forward, closing her eyes and opening .

               Jaeho nearly dropped his cup. “Wha-What?”

               “If you feed me, then I’ll take it as your word that you promise to not date anyone else,” she repeated.

               Jaeho pinched himself. He was never going to get used to this, Jaeho decided. This all had to be in his head, and he would wake up from the deep coma he was in, and then turn out to be an obsessed stalker or something. But who would be able to help themselves after Irene asked someone to feed her? And not only that, but the request coming as a sign of possessiveness? Jaeho understood that she was humble, but how was there still doubt inside her that he would fall for anyone else? Didn’t his previous self prove that already?

               Although, if Jaeho was frank, he wasn’t sure if this feeling was truly love. He felt something for sure, but was cautious about it: after all, to him at least, he’s only known Irene personally for less than a week. Could he truly fall in love with someone in five days? He was skeptical, but what he felt for Irene definitely felt like what he felt for his exes, if not more intense, and was definitely different than what he felt for her as a fan.

               “Here,” he said, trying to steady his hand as much as possible while directing his spoon into Irene’s mouth. After Irene wrapped her lips around it and cleaned the spoon off, she opened her eyes with glee and swallowed the sweet treat.

               “That wasn’t so hard, was it,” she said, smiling.

               “Is it OK to be here?” Jaeho said nervously looking around to see quite a few people milling around. “Didn’t anyone see you get in this car?”

               “It’s fine, I do this all the time with my members,” she said dismissively, taking another bite of her own ice cream. “Let’s finish—” as Irene was speaking, her phone rang. One glance at the caller ID and her attitude soured; it was her company, calling yet again to ruin her relationship.

               Jaeho couldn’t help but look at her phone as well, which was placed in the small armrest between the driver and passenger seat, noticing the caller ID and correctly guessing that it was her company. He didn’t say anything, looking at the frowning Irene. “I’m going to ignore it,” she said.

               “Is that OK?” Jaeho cautiously asked. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

               “No, it’s not that, I just don’t want to speak to them right now,” she replied. “I’ll call them back later; I’ll say I wasn’t with my phone at the time or it was on silent or something. Anyway, as I was saying, let’s finish off, then we can go to Han River for a bit,” she said, motioning for Jaeho to eat.

               Jaeho still was nervous about being caught and being the source of a misunderstanding by the media, but he trusted Irene enough to not say anything. When it came time for them to depart, Irene dropped Jaeho off at the same private parking lot before begrudgingly making the return call still seated in her car.

               As she suspected, it was nothing important; just a check-in that they started doing more regularly, and at random times in her free time to keep her on her toes. When she hung up, she nearly jumped at the sound of a knock on her window. When she turned her head towards the source of the noise, her heart nearly leapt out of her chest when she found Jaeho outside, still in the parking lot, with a concerned look on his face.

               “Sorry,” he said when Irene rolled the window down, “But are you OK? You seemed a little frustrated before I left the car, so I wanted to make sure…” he trailed off, unsure if what he was doing was correct or just seen as overprotective or creepy.

               Irene, on the other hand, was smiling widely, a slight flush on her cheeks. She loved how caring he was, even towards someone he has only known personally for five days. How fortunate was she to have found Jaeho before anyone else? Or rather, how fortunate was she that Jaeho came up to her to talk at that bar all those months ago? “Thank you,” she replied, Jaeho redirecting his gaze to the celebrity, “I’m fine now. You should hurry home and text me when you get there. Good night,” she said, the next bit coming out without a second thought, as if by instinct, “I love you.”

               For Jaeho, however, that last sentence came as a sudden attack on his heart, his face exploding in pink. “G-Good night,” he replied, trying his best not to stumble over his own words. Irene, noticing Jaeho’s flustered expression, giggled before blowing him a kiss before rolling her window back up and driving off.

               Jaeho just stood there in that parking lot for a few minutes, trying to calm his heart down, quite unsuccessfully. These kinds of actions were fanservice akin to what she did at events all the time, but it felt really different knowing that it was a personal one, specifically towards him. It wasn’t until he returned back to his apartment, not forgetting to text Irene about it, that he managed to calm himself down, if only slightly. What helped was the nervousness he felt about being caught by the media, but as it turned out, there was no need to worry as, even a week later, no news article came out about it.

               This emboldened Irene to take Jaeho out on more ‘car dates’, although Jaeho wasn’t aware Irene considered them as such until their third. They did a variety of things: eating other sweets, driving somewhere scenic to simply enjoy the view, even enjoying Han River from just outside their car (but jumping back in upon hearing the first sign of someone else).

               Even though something like that didn’t result in a news article, or even a scolding from her company, Irene decided to go back to the apartment: after all, there were some things that this Jaeho didn’t get to experience that she wanted to let him experience, namely, meeting her members again.

               There were two reasons for the arrangement: one, so that Jaeho could get reacquainted with her members, who were an important part of her life. The second reason was to get their input on how ready Jaeho was for her confession, and the next day, when they unanimously agreed that he was ready, they started planning. Just two months after Jaeho had suddenly woken up with amnesia, Irene was ready.

This chapter was long, wasn't it? Hope it wasn't overwhelming Dx

Anyway, question of the chapter: how do you think Irene is going to confess to Jaeho? How do you think Jaeho, Irene, and the rest of Red Velvet is going to react?

Let me know about your thoughts, both about the questions and the chapter! As always, if you like what you're reading so far, a subscription/upvote would be most appreciated! :D

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed!